07-18-04

A burnt child loves the fire, I reminded myself as I crept closer to the writhing blue flames. I felt the heat on my chilled pale skin and exhaled. 

I never wanted to leave the city this weekend, but when Clarke called me, I knew I had to oblige. I’ve always thought of myself as a good friend, but just like any other human, I have my intrinsic selfish nature. I would’ve much preferred sleeping inside my apartment with the TV lulling me to sleep and a Diet Coke on my bedside table rather than camping in the middle of nowhere. But it's been five years since the anniversary of it and I would’ve looked like a cold-hearted wretch if I didn’t accept Clarke’s offer. 

I pulled my blanket up my shoulders and coughed into the crook of my elbow. Sleepily, I watched the smoke waltz above the fire. It was as if it were inviting me for a dance. 

Everybody was here tonight. Clarke, Francis, Sammie, and I. Except, of course, for him. But I don’t want to think about that right now. I tried counting stars to keep my mind off things, but I could only count four in the sea of black above my head. I wanted a cigarette so badly. But I quit five years ago. 

Clarke and Sammie have been dating for about three years now. An unlikely couple in my opinion, and not just for their height difference. Clarke looms over Sammie in his 6’6 frame and looms over her in every other way possible. Clarke’s been climbing the ladder at his father’s law firm, while Sammie is still a struggling artist. I can spot her acoustic guitar in the corner of my eye, propped up against a tree (she was singing Wonderwall ad nauseam about an hour ago). And Francis…well, he’s been doing okay. I heard from Sammie that he’s recently gotten clean, which makes me happy. I’m happy for him. Of course I am. I haven’t seen him since he was acquitted. I remember seeing the headlines everywhere. It was inescapable. 

I heard giggling from behind me and saw Sammie and Clarke stumbling over towards me in the dark. 

“Shh…she might be asleep…” was Sammie’s voice. She hiccupped. They were probably drunk. 

“All good guys,” I half-heartedly waved at them as they sat across from me, on the other side of the flames. “I can’t sleep.”

“No matter,” Clarke grinned. He had Sammie’s lipstick smeared over one cheek. “We’ll just tell some spooky ghost stories.”

“I know a good one.” I mumbled, and they went quiet for a moment. 

“Has anyone seen Francis?” Sammie asked, turning her head from side to side, but you could barely notice anything in the dark. The flames were all we had to see. 

“He went for a leak about an hour ago, and I haven’t seen him since.” Clarke frowned. 

I crept closer to the fire. The ashes were somehow as white and pure as snow, and I watched them float around me, as graceful as fairies. 

A twig cracked behind me, and there he was. He had pulled his baseball cap over his eyes, so I couldn’t see his expression. He sat next to me, rubbing his large hands together. He was still wearing the ring I bought for him all those years ago, on the middle finger of his left hand. 

“Sorry guys, I wandered off for a bit too long.” Francis had the deepest voice in any male I’d ever heard. I remembered when I used to find it attractive. Over the years, it’s morphed to me finding it intimidating. 

“All good,” Clarke responded, putting an arm over Sammie’s shoulders. “None of us here can sleep, apparently.”

We used to be amazing friends, all of us. I got accepted into North Chester University in 2003. I had big dreams of becoming a lawyer, just like my grandfather. I met Clarke and Francis and him in one of my first year classes. Clarke was studying to be a lawyer like me, and Francis was studying biology. He wanted to be a doctor. And he, oh man. Big dreams as well that were doomed to never come true, big dreams that died just as tragically as him. He was studying biology with Francis. He wanted to be a medical scientist. He wanted to help people, to cure them. And after his mother died of breast cancer, he studied all the harder. Maybe one day I can help find a cure, I remember him saying to me after her funeral. He was so angry that a disease had taken his mother’s life. A disease of all things, he had said, something that has the potential to be cured, but for some damn reason, can’t be. His funeral was seven months and eight and a half days after his mother’s. 

I suddenly felt cold. I wished I could leap into the flames, and bathe my body in their deep orange light. I wanted to roll around in the ashes, I wanted them to stick to me, to make me a new skin. 

I introduced Sammie to Clarke, Francis and him one night at some frat party I can barely remember. Sammie is my oldest friend - we went to junior high together. She was always prettier than I, with her curly strawberry blonde hair and bright smile. Sammie’s always been a free spirit, someone who rarely ever worried. She took his death better than any of us did. He’s in a better place now guys, she had said after the funeral. God had a plan for him, and he’s taken care of now. 

“Does anybody want marshmallows?” Sammie said in an attempt to get rid of the awkward silence. “Clarke and I bought a bunch.”

“I’m good.” I said. I already felt sick to my stomach. 

I looked over at Francis, who nodded. Sammie grabbed her backpack and passed Francis a plastic bag of marshmallows. Francis placed one over a fork and held it over the flames. My left eye started to twitch the way it did when I was quitting smoking - the cravings would get so bad. 

It’s crazy to consider how deeply I was in love with Francis before it happened. He was my first boyfriend, my first love. I spent my first few months of university imagining what it would be like to run my fingers through his dark curls, to lay my head on his chest and feel his heartbeat. To look into his deep blue eyes and see the reflection of my own. When he asked me out after that party, (the one where I introduced Sammie to everyone), I was shocked. He was way out of my league and he came from a fabulously wealthy family, whereas I came from pretty much nothing. But he saw something in me. 

Sammie yawned, stretching out her legs. She smiled at me across the fire. There once was a time when Sammie could look at me and know exactly what I was thinking. Now I look at her and see a stranger. She looked so different - she had a pixie cut to her long strawberry-blonde hair that used to graze her waist. Her arms had tattoos I had never seen before, one with the date 07-18-04 on her wrist next to a heart. I haven’t spoken to her, really spoken to her, in years. She hasn’t even seen the inside of my apartment - none of them have. Did they even know where I lived? That I moved to the big city last year? Doubtful. 

“Guys, I’m getting tired,” she said, getting up from her seat on the ground. “Me and Clarke gotta hit the road early tomorrow morning, so I’m gonna try and get some shut-eye.”

I watched her turn her back on the flames, and walk towards her tent. 

“Wait.” I blurted out. 

Sammie paused in her tracks, and turned around to face me. “Huh?”

“I…just…” I couldn’t figure out what to say. Right next to me, Francis was staring at me intently. 

His death had made big news. North Chester Student Mysterious Death. His extended family flew from across the country. I remember being surrounded by a labyrinth of people who all looked just like him. Faces and faces that all had the same mouths, same noses, same laugh, same twinkle in their eyes. Clarke was the most devastated out of all of us. They were distant cousins but grew up together. They were like brothers. 

He had died in a fire. That night, we were all having a sleepover at one of Francis’ family lake houses. It was a log cabin. A fire started mysteriously in the house. All of us were able to get out save for a few burns here and there and some lung damage from the smoke. But he somehow didn’t. I barely remember anything from that night. I had been questioned by a policeman who uncannily resembled my father, and crying because I couldn’t remember a damn thing. I kept thinking about how it felt to breathe in there. It felt like there was an animal in my chest, and every time I inhaled, it clawed at me viciously from the inside out. I had looked down at my arms, at the burns that looked as delicate and as beautiful as frost on a winter’s window on my skin. I had to ask the policeman how they got there. He had laughed at me.

There was a big investigation. His family was kind of a big deal, with his dad being the retired mayor of the city and all that. I remember sitting with everyone in the apartment Sammie was renting at the time, her stoner roommate listening in from the next room as if it was all some hot gossip. Why are they investigating this? It was obviously an accident. One of us could go to jail for this! What, jail? No way. None of us did this. It was an accident. An accident. An accident. 

“I still see the paramedics pulling his charred body out of the house on a gurney when I close my eyes. It’s been five years, and I still see it.” I said to everyone. The only sound there was besides my voice was the crackling and popping of the campfire. 

I was never religious, but I was always adamant that it looked as if his body had been yanked up from Hell. His face, his torso, his arms, his legs had all been chewed and spat out by the fire. I couldn’t recognize his face, it looked sunken in and charred black. His feathery blond hair had all been burnt away, it was so odd to see his body bald. He had always taken such great care of his hair - I used to tease him that he cared more about his hair than any girl I’d ever met. And then it was gone. 

“We all agreed not to talk about this,” Clarke said, his voice shaking. “We agreed.”

“How can I not?” I said, exasperated. “I-”

“No,” Clarke cut me off. “No. We’re not doing this. Not now.” 

“Then when?” I wanted to scream. “It’s been five years and we’ve never talked about it - about any of it!”

The police had found evidence that the fire had been a homicide. They were convinced that one of us had intentionally started a fire intended to kill each of us. Francis had an arson charge from when he was fifteen. He had set his stepfather’s Ferrari on fire out of anger. There was evidence he started another fire too. 

Clarke and his family went after Francis with a searing vengeance. They hired the best lawyers. They wanted Francis in jail for fourteen years. They were convinced Francis killed him. 

Francis and I were dating at that time. I stopped touching him. He and I felt so cold. I couldn’t bear to be around him. We broke up around a week before the trial. 

“Just calm down,” Sammie said calmly, holding out her palms to me like stop signs. “After the trial we agreed to not bring it up again, remember? We all wanted to put it past us.”

“Well, I can’t anymore,” I felt hot tears boiling in my eyes. “I can’t. We need to talk about it.”

Ultimately, after months of court, Francis was acquitted. But our once tight-knit friend group fell apart. We went from seeing each other every day, to none at all. He was the glue for our friend group, he was always the one who made the plans, who called us, who made the effort. After he was gone, it was as if we all had nothing in common anymore. 

“I didn't kill him.” Francis said quietly. Clarke moaned and put his head in his hands. 

“We never said-” Sammie started. 

“Right!” Francis laughed coldly. “You never said I did. But you all treated me like a murderer. None of you could look me in the eyes ever again! You never said I killed him - but damn it, you never needed to say anything!”

“We were so young and so scared,” Sammie had twin tears running down her flushed cheeks. “We didn’t know who to believe. We had you telling us one thing, and the police and our parents telling us another.”

“You were scared?” Francis said. “You were scared? Imagine how I felt! My life was falling apart. Benjamin died that day and so did I. Everything in me died - my happiness, my life, my future. Nothing is left in me!”

“Don’t compare yourself to him, don’t you dare,” Clarke lifted his face from his hands. “He died that night, at just nineteen. You’re still here.”

“I’m barely here!” Francis finally shouted. “After he died and you all left me - I turned to drugs. You all knew that I was hooked on heroin at nineteen. And none of you bastards even checked on me! I never even got a call from any of you!”

I knew he was directing that statement at me specifically. I turned my head away from Francis in shame. 

“He’s been dead for five years,” Clarke said, his voice barely heard above the flames. “He’s been dead for that long and I miss him every day. I…I feel like I see him sometimes. He visits me in my dreams. I can barely sleep.”

“I see him too,” Sammie sniffled. “It’s horrible. I still can smell it…oh God…the burnt skin…”

The flames began to rise higher. My vision began to blur. 

That night, I had been smoking. We were all drunk. I had taken a puff of my cigarette and flicked it on the sofa. Why couldn’t I remember that? Why am I remembering it now?

I tried to rise to my feet, but I was so dizzy that I felt like vomiting. 

I had walked away from the sofa to sleep next to Francis in one of the only two bedrooms. Sammie and Clarke shared a bed too - yes, I remember us teasing them about that before they fell asleep. Ben fell asleep on the floor in a sleeping bag because the sofa had dog fur on it from last summer and Ben is highly allergic. He was right next to the sofa. 

But it couldn’t have been me. 

The flames were so high. I remember Francis yanking open the bedroom window, I remember gasping and coughing for air. I remember feeling the heat on my skin, like somebody was grabbing me, and pulling me in towards the flames, so that I could never escape. Francis had shoved me through the window, and yes, he jumped in after me. I remember falling and hitting the ground on my back. I had tried to scream as I was falling but I had no voice. 

Sitting in front of the campfire, I began to cough again. A howling, deep cough, just like that night. I began gasping for air. 

“Whoa, are you okay?” Sammie said, walking towards me. “Just calm down, take some deep breaths. It’s okay.”

We had taken the batteries out of the smoke alarm because it kept going off unnecessarily any time any of us lit a cigarette. I was a chain-smoker back then, so the alarm was going off every minute. It annoyed all of us, so we all agreed to take the batteries out. 

Who knew a fire could be so quiet? Was it tip-toeing around the house? Like a monster holding its breath? 

There is no way the fire was my fault. A single cigarette couldn’t cause the destruction that happened that night. There is no way. It’s impossible. 

I looked at the campfire again. The flames were swaying back and forth, they seemed so tempting. So warm. 

I rubbed my eyes and stopped coughing. Ben was taken by the flames, but I won’t be. 

I smiled at my friends. “Sorry guys, I must’ve inhaled some smoke. What were we talking about again?”