And I can only pray that she didn’t have time to put two and two together.I should have been prepared for this.It was obviously going to happen at some point.And now I have no explanation.I just wanted to...light a candle.OK, but where’s the fucking candle?Why don’t I smoke?If I did, Olive Garden would presumably not ask questions.But it looks like she’d still freak out that I wanted to light up in my bedroom.
Her eyes are wide with shock.For God’s sake, she’s totally overreacting again.Nothing even happened.It isn’t the first time I’ve done it here.
Her eyes dart restlessly around the room, like she’s scanning it for potential fires, and suddenly, her whole body is trembling.
“Hey.”I slip the lighter unobtrusively in my pants pocket and walk toward her, arms outstretched.Olive flinches back in such panic that she crashes loudly into the wardrobe.Pain twinges through her face, as does fear.
“No, Colin.No, no, no.I get it!You’ll do anything to get expelled.Cool, go ahead, break every rule in this place for all I care, every single one, whatever, but for God’s sake, not this one!”
“Chill,” I snap at her.“It was only a lighter.I didn’t do anything.”
“Aye, right, and those fuckers in the Dungeon last summer only had a lighter, Colin!It was only a lighter and a cigarette end that was still alight when they dropped it on one of the sofas, or wherever the fuck it was, nobody knows.Nobody knows, there’s no answer, no fucking answer.”Her voice is shaking, she’s breathing fast.Too fast.What’s she talking about?She’s well on her way to a full-on panic attack.
I go over to her without a word and take her shoulders.Olive tries to pull away but I won’t let her.“You’re overthinking this,” I say slowly.
She won’t stop shaking her head.“Oh, am I, Colin?You know what?Yeah.Yeah, maybe I am.I’m overthinking this, OK?Would you still say that if you were the one who woke up in the middle of the night because you could smell something burning and youlooked out and you saw the flames and your knees gave way even though you should run down the stairs, and when you finally did, there wasn’t enough fucking oxygen and then you’re lying there and you can’t move and a fucking burning beam hits the floor right next to your head, and if the fire brigade hadn’t got to your floor at that exact moment you’d have fucking died?Would you say that then?”
I feel how tense her shoulders are beneath my hands, and I go slowly numb.
“What are you talking about?”I ask gruffly.I’ve let her go.
Tears shine in Olive’s eyes as she grabs the hem of her sweater and pulls it over her head.I can’t think about the fact that she’s facing me in a black lace bra; all I can do is stare at her upper arm, which is covered with red, scarred skin from her shoulder to her collarbone.
“Will you say that now?”she repeats.The tears are muffling her voice.
Rushing in my head.
Emptiness.
“Wait, you mean...there was a fire?That’s what the repair work is all about?There was a fire here?”With every question, it’s like part of me dies.
Darkness, cold.
My racing heart, the nausea creeping up my throat.
Tears run down Olive’s cheeks.She’s standing in front of me, half undressed, and suddenly everything clicks.Her panic as we walked past that closed-off building and I wanted to go inside.Her rage as she stood by that trophy cabinet, her despairbecause the accident took everything from her.The accident was a fire.A fire that wasn’t my fault, but I was to blame for a different one.A fire where somebody lost her life.
I stumble back slightly as dizziness washes over me.Olive wraps both arms around her upper body, I stare at her scars.The pain she must be in.
And then everything goes wrong.
I know that I should stay and calm her down, hold her.But I can’t.I just can’t.
“I’m sorry,” I croak.I don’t look at her once as I push past her and leave the room.
I don’t take in anything around me.Don’t look to see whether there’s anyone in the corridor who might have overheard us; doesn’t matter anymore.There’s only a whirlpool of panic and desperation, which is sucking me in, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Would you still say that if you woke up and saw the flames...
I catch sight of the west wing as the stairway spits me out at the bottom.The tarps hiding the fire-blackened facade.
That can’t be true.
I can hardly look, but I find myself walking toward it.It’s Friday evening, and the workmen went home hours ago.The entrance to the west wing is no longer barricaded off these days.
I can’t think straight as I duck under the flimsy tape with its “Building Site No Entry” sign.
It’s presumably all in my imagination, but I can smell it.The stink of burned wood.The moment I leave the ground-floor arcades behind me, everything is dark.There are no motionsensors to make the lights come on.The electricity is shut off.And it must have been just this dark when Olive tried to walk down the stairs.Until the flames cut her off.
