She nods once. “ A bonfire?”
Aunt Susan is already dragging a metal fire pit into the backyard. The November sun is thin and cold, but the air smells like woodsmoke from someone else’s chimney down the street.
They pull the ruined homecoming dress from a garbage bag, like it’s biohazard.
Maybe it is.
Aunt Susan hands me the lighter.
My throat closes.
“I can do it,” she says gently.
“No,” I whisper. “It has to be me.”
I flick the lighter once, twice, on the third try it kicks to life. The flame licks up the hem of the dress, catching fast. The green satin curls inward, blackens, shrivels.
I watch it burn.
Part of me expects to feel better, lighter, free.
I don’t.
The flame catches the sash next. Then the glitter. Then the silk.
Shani comes to stand beside me. Her breath fogs in the cold.
“You want to burn this too?” she asks.
I turn.
She’s holding Leo’s hoodie.
My chest caves.
Maybe I kept it buried at the bottom of my closet because some part of me wanted something of his to hold onto.
She holds it out carefully. Like it might explode.
“You sure?” she asks. “You might regret it.”
I take the hoodie.
It smells like smoke and boy and winter air.
My hand shakes around the fabric.
One piece of me whispers don’t.
Another whispers do it.
And underneath both, something hollow whispers nothing matters.
I swallow hard.
Then I throw it in.
The fire grabs it quickly.
