When it gets dark, please come to the fire pit. What I want to say is too complicated for paper, and I hope you’ll let me explain.
Yours,
Gabe
The sun hadn’t quite set, so it wasn’t dark yet, and even when the sun went down, the angle of the mountains would create a deep purple twilight that would go on for quite some time. That much, at least, Blaze had learned by coming to the valley.
In prison, the lights went out, and that was it, you were surrounded by half-pitch darkness. Doing your best to sleep, except you couldn’t on account of the light the corridor never went out, a permanent reminder that you’d fucked up and nobody liked you and you were trapped inside forever.
He wasn’t in prison any longer and was free to make up his own mind about what to do, in spite of the fact that there was no demarcation between night and day, only a shifting, shadowy space between them.
Folding the letter quite carefully, hissing when he accidentally tore the ragged upper left corner, he put it in his pocket. And then walked, without looking right or left, to the fire pit. Knowing his heart wasn’t quite prepared to get broken all over again.
He came upon Gabe next to the fire pit, one knee buried in the dirt, building what looked like it would turn out to be a giant bonfire, like he wanted to light up the night with it. On one of the Adirondack chairs was a paper bag with sticks poking out of the top, and Blaze didn’t need to look to know that the bag contained everything they needed to make s’mores.
Only s’mores weren’t going to cut it. Not when after the marshmallow and chocolate were washed off, graham cracker crumbs fed to the squirrels, Blaze would still be who he was, and Gabe would still look like he was staring down a whole host of ramifications about who his heart wanted him to care about. To love.
Blaze opened his mouth to make cheerful patter to break through the silence as Gabe, hearing Blaze behind him, stood up and brushed his palms on his bejeaned thighs.
Blaze wanted to sayYou’re going to burn down the forest with that,but then Gabe might take that as a signal to explain how the fire pit was lined with stone, and that there was at least a two-foot diameter of gravel all around the fire pit to keep that from happening.
Blaze didn’t want that. He wanted Gabe to have his say, and then Blaze could say no to whatever, get his stuff from Gabe’s tent so he could pretend to be brave as he spent his last night in his own tent before leaving in the morning. That was the plan, anyway.
“I was going to wait till full dark,” said Gabe, gesturing at the fire he’d built, ready to be lit.
There was dust on his cowboy boots, his head was bare, and he looked like he’d crawled through the woodpile looking for the most perfect logs and kindling because there was a small gathering of wood chips on his shoulders.
“Say what you got to say,” said Blaze, stuffing his fists into his pockets, not coming any closer than the Adirondack chair farthest from the fire pit. “And maybe you won’t need to light it.”
Blaze regretted the words the instant he said them, because they made Gabe’s eyes bloom with sadness, made him look away, toward the mountains.
“Or maybe just light it now,” said Blaze, thinking of the when Gabe had lit his Coleman lantern just for Blaze, just because Blaze wanted it lit. “Just light it. Then tell me.”
He was pretty bossy for an ex-con with absolutely no rights whatsoever. Except Gabe had taught him that he did have rights, and that his feelings mattered, only not all the time. Only when Gabe was up to the task of not being dubious about what had happened between them.
“Okay,” said Gabe. He took a single match from his pocket and lit the kindling, which, of course, smartly started the logs to pop and glow orange along their ax-sharpened edges. “Here goes.”
Gabe paused before turning his attention away from the fire and toward Blaze. He rubbed his mouth with one hand, and tucked his other hand in his pocket, an echo of Blaze’s hands.
“I know it must have seemed like I sometimes changed my mind about you, about us. And I did. But you have to know I was trying to figure out what was best. For the valley, for myself. And in the end, I realized that the most important thing—the only thing that mattered—was what was best for you. For you and me together.”
Blaze could only blink. He had no idea where Gabe was going with any of this, except for the part that made some part of him snarl, where Gabe had figured it was up to him to decide what was best for Blaze. When Blaze was fully capable of figuring out what was best for himself.
“Your family is shit,” said Gabe, almost spitting the words. “And if they could make you think that you were just there to save your brother this time around, then, yeah, I can see that’s what they did before and what got you arrested. I believed you when you said you were innocent, but maybe not all the way. I do now. Not that it matters to me that you were in prison.”
“Oh, it sure as hell does.” Blaze snapped his mouth shut before he could say any more.
“It only matters because you suffered for it.” Gabe shook his head slowly, as if he wanted Blaze to echo the motion and agree with him. “I could tell by the way you talked about it all, about the driveway scam, that it didn’t sit right with you, even if when you were a kid, it just seemed natural to steal from folks. To trick them. But that’s not you now, even if it ever really was. And all I want—”
Gabe moved a step closer, and the twilight, grown purple around them, made it dark enough that the growing bonfire outlined him in gold lights.
“All I want is just to be with you. Even after summer ends. Especially after summer ends.”
The end of summer seemed miles away. Between now and then was a distance filled with rocks and ruts and things that would trip Blaze up and make Gabe doubt all over again. The end of summer felt too long away and yet not long enough for him to figure out how he felt about all of this.
“I’ve always felt like a second-class citizen,” said Blaze, never able to keep his mouth shut for long. “With my family. In prison. Even here, in the valley.”
Watching the sparks fly up from the tops of the logs, shots of orange and gold in the growing darkness, distracted him while he willed the thumping of his heart not to hurt so much. His feet moved him closer to Gabe in spite of his own good intentions.
