Page 11 of Fire Fight

It’s more like a catalogue photo than a room lived in by an actual human boy with an actual human personality. The onlysign of occupancy is the faint odour of marijuana smoke coming from the wardrobe.

I shouldn’t open it. It’s a gross invasion of privacy.

But it’s like the doorwantsme to slide it across and reveal its secrets. Along with the weed, there’s another softer scent. Salt from the ocean but with a musky undercoat that feels familiar. I take another long sniff, ringing my memory bells.

An ex of my mother’s, most likely. A bad one given how the scent makes my pulse race.

Any hope of finding any further clues to Blaine’s personality are dashed by the neat hangers and shiny shoes.

I close the door, moving to his bedside cabinet, hooking open the top drawer.

A zippo lighter sits atop a pocket pack of tissues.

Like flicking a switch, I’m back in the schoolyard. Cold liquid soaks my shirt. Mud blinds me. Panic shreds my senses.

The moment Drake tossed the lighter is lost to blackout.

I remember Mr Montgomery cursing as he tried to undo the knots, the school tie pulling tighter around my wrists the harder I fought to get free. He fetched a pair of scissors in the end.

The liquid Drake squirted on me was water.

I don’t know if they told me or if I pieced it together. What I remember most is waiting for the wave of relief to wash over me.

Relief that never came.

In the year since, I frequently wake with a scream building behind my lips, part of me trapped forever in the moment, helpless, waiting for the scorching heat of the flame.

The smallest sounds cause a jump-scare. My senses are hyper-vigilant, exhausting me with their constant attention.

I slam the drawer shut, face burning, fleeing to the comparative safety of my room. Under my pillow is a stash of pills and I snap a tab in half, dry swallowing, perching on the edge of the bed while I wait for it to take effect.

Twenty minutes later, I walk into the bathroom, filling a small water glass. After a brief internal battle, I swallow the other half of the tab just to have a chance at sleeping tonight.

I hate that my fear followed me here to this wonderful place.

As I curl up in bed, growing woozy faster than I grow sleepy, my anger that I’m still dealing with fallout from the incident grows, along with the worry it will never go away, but I’ve been here often enough to know that’s my panic talking.

The reality is, the longer we can stay in this house, the better our mental health will be. Mum can stabilise, maybe even find a therapist who she won’t have to stop seeing the moment her government assisted sessions expire.

We can both heal. It will be glorious.

And I refuse to let one terrible night—one terriblereaction—infect my hope.

CHAPTER FOUR

DRAKE

After smoking,my mind floats in dreamy circles. That’s often a feature not a bug, but tonight the image of Cadence smothering her chest in sunscreen breaks into my head despite my best attempts to force it away. I picture again her nipples reacting to the air, stiffening into peaks that make her tits tighter, perkier, the perfect shape for my hand.

I reach for myself, then roll over in the back seat, cursing.

You don’t fuck a siren. You block your ears to their sweet call or end up smashed to pieces on the jagged rocks they’ve made their home.

The resentment at denying myself goes straight on top of all the others, a tower of Babel stretching into the sky.

I sit upright, shaking my head then immediately regretting it. The weed took the worst edge off my migraine, but the pain still bites deep even if the nausea is tamed. The headaches often come in the ebb after an emotional firestorm.

Cadence’s fault again.

---