“Dad!” He squeezed into the corner of his bed. “Dad! I’m in here!”
“Gunner! I’m coming!”
A crash sounded from somewhere outside the darkness. Sparks flew. The flames growled and hissed like a ferocious lion. He threw the covers over his head.
Go away. Go away!
He curled into a ball, made himself as small as he could. If he could make himself small enough, maybe he would disappear.
“Daddy!” he croaked out.
His body trembled. His chest was wracked with coughs.Daddy! Help! Somebody help me. Please!
In a flash he was waking up in a foreign bed. He lay under a crisp white sheet. Beeping noises assaulted his ears and the smell of medicine filled his nose. His throat burned and his eyes stung. Fear raised the hairs on his arms.
His grandpa appeared at his side. “Hey, buddy boy. You’re awake.”
“What—what happened?” he croaked.
Grandpa’s eyes turned down at the corners, filled with tears. He put his hand over Gunner’s. “You don’t remember the fire?”
Gunner’s thoughts flashed back to the roaring and hissing and the paralyzing fear.
“There was a fire at your house, son. I know you’re hurting, but you’re going to be okay.”
Gunner recalled his dad’s voice, calling through the fire. “Where’s Mom and Dad?”
Grandpa opened his mouth. Shut it again. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
A terrible dread bloomed inside. Gunner had the urge to put his hands over his ears.
But a quiet beeping rose from the hospital clamor. Grew louder.
Gunner’s eyes flew open. Dawn’s early light filled the room. It was silent except for that incessant beeping. His alarm clock. The bed quaked with the force of his heartbeats. His lungs struggled to keep pace, and sweat beaded his forehead.
A dream. It was only a dream.
He shut off the alarm and fell back in bed. He closed his eyes against the light, trying to shake the remnants of the nightmare. But it hadn’t just been a dream, had it? The fire had been real. He had lost everything that night. Some people said they’d lost everything, but they hadn’t. Not really. Gunner, at the tender age of nine, learned what it was like to lose even the pajamas on his own back.
They said he’d passed out in his bed. His dad died trying to save Gunner. A beam fell on him in the hallway. The firefighters found his mom collapsed on top of him. They carried the couple from the burning house, but it was too late.
They were gone. His parents were gone.
Inside he flailed and kicked and fought for breath. He was drowning in a pool of despair, and no one would save him this time.
He’d lain in that hospital bed for over a week. Learned his parents had been killed by faulty wiring and flammables in the garage. And when the hospital released Gunner, when he moved miles away to live with his grandpa in Kentucky, the rest of the losses piled up like a stack of dirty dishes.
His baseball card collection—gone.
The stubs from every movie he’d attended with his parents—gone.
His new Adidas tennis shoes—gone.
His blue Huffy bike—gone.
The pajamas Mom got him for Christmas—gone.
Even his friends and his school and his favorite park were gone because they were four hundred miles away, and he would never see them again. Each loss was a weight to his sinking body. But the loss of his parents sat like a boulder on his chest, their absence pressing him to the pool floor.
