Last Night at the Bonfire

TW: Death, burning

Do you remember when we’d lay down by the ocean, sun beating on our backs until we were lobster red and hobbling back inside? When we would drink as many piña coladas as possible, not caring that we were one sip away from the bartender cutting us off? We must’ve been in our twenties. Twenty-three? No, twenty-four. That’s right. It was twenty-four. 

There was that Friday night when we went down to the bonfire and Steven Long was there. Oh man, did you have a thing for Steven Long. He was that kind of tall, dark, and handsome man everyone was pining after, but he only had eyes for you. And you him. I remember being green with envy seeing that man stand beside my favorite person. Watching from afar, I would think, He does not deserve someone like her. Because it was true. Steven Long was held back for two years and you were a prodigy in all things academics. It was not yin and yang because you and I were yin-yangs. It was wrong, that’s what it was.

Before the bonfire, though, Steven Long was just a stranger in our eyes. During those humid nights, our necks craned toward the sky to watch shooting stars while waves splashed the shore. I liked those nights. I liked when it was just us two and no boys. We would crack open a few cans and sing until our throats went dry and our lungs hurt from twirling around. The sand would scrape at our calves and knees, but how could we care? Do you remember that? When we would go inside and our lower halves were covered in the beach, but we were both too tired and too lazy to rinse them off. Your mom got all mad and her face would turn as red as our burnt ones. “Stop tracking sand into my house!” she’d shout, startling us both awake at 6 a.m. Remember how scared we were that she’d never let us back to the beach? We were too old for a scolding, but still young enough to have everything taken away by our parents. 

“Let’s watch the sunset together,” you’d tell me every single day. And, if I wasn’t responsive, you’d pull me so close that I felt your lips at the shell of my ear. The tickle of your whispers would vibrate through me every time, and I embraced the shivers that rolled down my spine when you’d whisper the exact same phrase again. Observing the sunsets on your mom’s porch was the only time we had where we could be fully alone, where we could be ourselves. Before your mom came home and scolded us and after we were surrounded by other beachgoers. I cherished those moments when it was just us.

Could we ever go back to that?

Right. We can’t.

It was that Friday that changed everything. There was no early Saturday morning after with your mom shouting at us for dirtying her house. There was no dancing or singing or sandy limbs. Because that Friday, I wasn’t the one on your mind anymore. Stranger Steven Long had your attention. He didn’t even know you and still, he called you to sit on his lap. I remember feeling the ghost of your fingertips on mine when you brushed against them as you left me behind. That wasn’t the moment when I knew it was over for me; it was when you looked up at him. I had never seen you look at me the way you looked at that stranger. Wide, curious eyes and full lips slightly open—my fingers inched to close your jaw for you. And then the two of you stood up.

That was right before. 

It was my heart beating too fast that alerted me something was wrong. Not the frantic shouts from the people around, but an organ. My shaky knees and the goosebumps that pimpled my arms were the telltale signs that something bad was about to happen. My body reacted before my brain. Isn’t that weird? And I kept telling myself, She’ll come back for me. She always does. You always did. But that was the first time you weren’t by my side. Everything changed in just under an hour. 

Do you regret it? Choosing Steven Long, that is. Do you? 

You do.

I know you do.

I can see it in your eyes, in the years of wear shown on your face. Just like the leather pants you wore that night. Yes, I even remember the pants. Tight enough to show off your curves, yet you claimed they were breathable. I guess they were considering how fast you ran off. 

I’m still not sure what he whispered in your ear during the bonfire that had you leaping out of your seat before any of us. There are tons of unanswered questions I still think about so many years later. Like why my name never crossed your lips or why you never came to visit me. There were no more drinks at the bar by the beach or roasting in the sun. Did those moments matter to you as they did for me? 

Sometimes I wonder if you even remember me being a part of your life. 

Sometimes I wonder if you remember a life without Steven Long.

Every day I wish we never sat around that bonfire.

But now you’re here. Now you’re standing right before me years later. Shriveled skin and dark spots that show off the times we spent outside together. Unlike you, I look just like I did when we were twenty-three. 

No. 

Twenty-four. 

That’s right. We were twenty-four when the bonfire got out of control. We were twenty-four when I felt my hair go up in flames, singeing my face and my eyebrows and my lashes. Tearing through my clothes like they didn’t exist and scarring my body, ridding the touches you left there. 

Twenty-four when you walked away with Steven Long while sirens wailed in the distance.

How does it feel being eighty-eight when I’m still twenty-four?