I didn’t just fail to save my family.
I’m the reason it all went up in flames.
I stand up from my chair fast with the same sound from years ago ringing in my ears as if it’s happening right now. Pacing my living room and wiping the tears from my eyes with rage. The fucking memory of that night haunts me when I’m alone with my thoughts like this. I hate that it haunts me this way.
It’s been so long since I’ve allowed it to come to the surface like that.
So long since I’ve allowed those feelings to consume me.
I tell myself I’m safe here.
I tell myself I’m older and stronger now.
I tell myselfI was just a kid. I didn’t fucking know what opening that window would do.
But my body doesn’t listen. It never does.
I was only a teenage boy when I last heard my mom and dad’s voices shouting at me to get out. The last memory I have of them is hearing their screams as the house fell on top of them with my baby brother inside.
“FUCK!” I scream in my empty room, rage flowing through my body, ready to punch a hole in the wall. “It’s not fucking fair,” I grit out, falling to my knees in the middle of my living room.
As if anyone can hear me.
As if I’d let anyone hear this.
Thisright here, is the part of me that no one will ever see. Not Griffin, Lily, Poppy, or any other members of my extended family.
I remember so vividly sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, staring at the flooring below me and my clothes covered in black—staining me with darkness. I didn’t register them telling me I was okay. Them telling me I didn’t have any major injuries. And most of all, them telling me everyone in the house…but me…died.
The only thing I kept thinking was…why am I still breathing?
My chest aches now in the present, like there’s still smoke trapped in my lungs. I look down at my hands and they shake. They don’t look like the hands of someone who has carried a house fire behind corny jokes and a light mood for years.
But I have.
I carry it in a way the bell above Seven Stools tells me how many people are in the place and how many people I’d need to make sure areoutin the event of a fire.
I carry it in a way that I check every home I work on for safety.
I carry it in a way that I’ve spent so long trying to be someone worth sparing.
Because it’s nights like tonight, when the memories creep in so vividly, and when the world finally stops demanding things from me, the thought comes in soft as a lullaby:you should’ve been with them.
It’s not that I want to die.
It’s that I’m so tired of being the one left behind and dealing with the aftermath alone. I’m tired of carrying names in my mouth like broken glass, tasting them every time I try to laugh to cover up the pain.
How long is a person is supposed to pay for surviving something they never asked for?
I press my palm to my chest to calm my racing heart. I stand up, letting my body fall back on the chair. I stare down at my shaking leg as I try to calm myself, but it doesn’t work. It never works when the memory hits this hard.
A car door slamming outside cuts through the anger.
My body stills completely as I look at the wall between me and the outside world.
Scottie’s home.
Please don’t come here. Don’t see me like this.
