This horrible smoke leaves no room for overthinking. I wrap my arms around my shaking son and manage to splutter out, “It’s okay.”
But is it?
The old couple next door leap over the fence, spritely like they suddenly have their youth back, and charge toward Sonny and me. “Emergency services are on their way,” Betty consoles me, rubbing her hand up and down my back like the mother I never had. “What the hell happened in there?”
What happened is that I almost murdered my own fucking son for extra cash.
What kind of a parent does that?
As if on cue, I see my father’s old beehive at the back of the yard, and seize up entirely.
What if I’m exactly like my father? Breaking laws to earn extra cash, and damaging those closest to me as a result?
I catch one look at Betty’s terrified face and turn back around to look at the house. Flames have broken through the kitchen window now. They’re at least six feet high.
“My Boring!” cries Sonny, fighting in my grasp, wearing holey clothes that feel so irrelevant now.
My heart feels as though it’s been ripped out of my chest.
Fuck. What have I done?
My coughing transitions into choked cries. Tears steam down my face and blur my vision as I take in what’s left of my house. All of Sonny’s precious things are gone. All of mine. Fine-bone china cups from the kind grandmother I vaguely remember as a child. Gone. Clothes. Jewelry. That damned strawberry milkshake cup that for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to throw away…
Sirens wail in the near distance. Depleted from all of the coughing, I slip in and out of consciousness. Murky figures in uniform charge toward us through the smoke.
Behind them are two medics, one carrying what looks to be an oxygen tank, the other equipped with devices I have never before seen in my life.
Not much happens around here, other than people leaving.
Flames roar inside my home, the atmosphere turned dark as the firefighters unwind giant hoses and aim them at the house I know is already too far gone.
Some mother I am, listening to a random guy on the internet over my own intuition. I never should’ve started the fire. Financial freedom and new clothes are all well and good when you have a roof over your head.
I think it’s safe to say Sonny and I don’t have one of those now…
Unless the insurance payout can buy me a whole new home.
“How did the fire start, Piper?”
“Oh, you know, the usual—I was trying to trick my stove company out of compensation, and commit insurance fraud.”
I clutch Sonny’s shaking body and let him know once again that this will all be okay, but his eyes are still teary.
As are mine, as we watch the flames engulf our home.
Two firefighters abandon their efforts and walk through the smoke to let us down gently. One of them looks as tall as the fucking seven-foot flames tearing apart my house. He boulders our way with a steady grip on the hose. Like this is just another job. Another day at the office.
The smoke clears and their faces come into view.
“Fuck. Hart?” the one on the right bursts out, his hand now clenched even tighter around the hose.
And that’s when I burn, in the same unsalvageable way as my home.
His face is coated in a thick layer of soot, but even that can’t hide the sharp dimensions of his features. The long-paneled cheekbones. The deeply set eyes. He stares at me with that same onyx gaze from all those years ago.
Like no time has passed.
Caleb fucking Rourke is back in town.
