Page 79 of Memories with Fire

“I can’t get it,” she cries, and I can feel her frustration through the way she claws at the tape. “My nails aren’t good with things like this.”

“Okay, take a breath, it’s okay. We’re relatively safe in here with the door closed,” I tell her, silently blowing out my own breath, needing to listen to my own advice before I lose it. I can do this. We can survive. “I mean, we need to get out as quickly as possible, but it’s going to be okay.”

“Hailey,” she responds, and I can hear the tears in my name.

I glance over my shoulder to where she’s kneeling, her hands still at my wrists, and see a tear slip down her cheek. Craning my hand around, I grab hold of her fingers and give them a reassuring squeeze.

“Deep breath, mom,” I tell her, and nod when she takes one. “Okay, good. That’s good. Now use your teeth.”

“What?” She looks perplexed.

“On the tape. Use your teeth—my scissors are in the bathroom, and we aren’t opening that door to go get them. You need to use your teeth if your nails aren’t working.”

Her eyes widen, and she nods quickly, leaning towards me. It means I can relax my head for a moment, something I’m damn glad of with the way my world is spinning. The drumbeat is still going strong, but if I dwell on it, it makes me feel worse.

It only takes her a second before I’m pulling my hands apart, free at last. I could cry from the relief my shoulders feel at not being in the position any longer, and I roll onto my stomach to give my body a break from being stuck on my back for so long.

“Hold still,” my mom says, and I realize she’s moved to my ankles.

A second later she has my legs free too, and this time I do let out a soft cry. I allow myself three deep breaths before I push up into a kneel, turning towards my mom to throw my arms around her. I’m still pissed, and I’m not even close to being over what she did, but right now it doesn’t matter. She hugs me back fiercely, squeezing me tightly, but we don’t linger. Time isn’t on our side.

“We need to go out the window,” I tell her as we release each other.

“Hailey! No!” she says, vehemently shaking her head.

Grabbing her hand, I get to my feet, pulling her with me. I fight against the wave of nausea that threatens to steal my breath, twisting to face the window—and keep her from seeing any indication I’m not okay.

“Mom, listen to me,” I say, and turn back to her. “Here are your options: we open the door and try to go down the stairs—god only knows what Priscylla did after she threw that bottle. We can stay here and hope that the fire department shows up before the fire takes the house. Or option three, we save ourselves.”

“Can’t—can’t we wait for the fire department? They’ll show up, right?” She glances towards the window that looks out the back at a forested area, wrapping her free hand around her waist as if trying to keep herself together.

Even though I said the words a second ago, it isn’t until my mom says that, that I realize we need to call the fire department. God, my head isn’t right. I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’ve got a concussion, leaving the one percent open since I’m not a doctor, but I’m not about to tell my mom that.

“Where’s your phone?” I ask her.

“In my purse,” she responds immediately, then gasps, covering her mouth. “Which is downstairs. Oh Hailey, they’re not going to come, are they?”

Exactly where my phone is too. In my purse, hanging on the coat rack at the front door.

Grabbing her face in my hand, I hold her firmly, willing her to listen to me. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this, okay? I’ve got you. But you need to trust me. Do you trust me?”

Tears are in her light green eyes, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders as she nods. In a voice just barely louder than a whisper, she says, “Yes. Of course.”

“Good,” I nod at her. “We’re going to go out the window. It drops us right onto the roof. The fire is on this side—” I point towards the doorway and the south side of my home, “—and the neighbors are on this side—” I point towards the north where I share a wall with my neighbors in the next townhouse, “—which means we’re going to use the roof and we’re going to see if someone hears us at the window next door. If not, we go to the next neighbor. Okay?”

Her throat bobs as she swallows, then slowly nods her head. I can only imagine what must be going through her mind right now, and what ghosts might be surfacing. My dad died falling from a roof, and here I am, making my mom get on one.

Opening the window, I pull the screen out, and then she helps me pull my bedside table over so we can stand on it to get out. Getting up on it first so I can show her what to do, I take a deep breath as I look out at the roof below the window, and then the ground below it. Terror has my heart galloping in my chest, and I grit my teeth, fighting against nausea. From my head or the fear, I’m not sure.

“Don’t look down. You can do this. One step at a time.”

Luke’s words ring in my head from the day at Tree Toppers. I did that, I can do this. There’s no difference. Just one step at a time, slow and steady.

A window shatters somewhere, and I yelp in surprise, curling in on myself. Slow and steady might not be in our best interest if that was because of the fire. At least five minutes has passed, and if Priscylla lit any more fires in the house, the place will go up quicker than if it was just the one at my bedroom door.

“Okay, we need to go,” I tell my mom as I get both feet out of the window, then twist around so I’m hanging out of it and can lower my feet to the roof. It’s not far from the window to the roof, but I want to be sure with my footing. It takes me a moment to feel secure, and then I’m waving for my mom to follow me out, making room for her. “Come on, let’s go.”

She gets up on the nightstand, and looks out the window, whimpering. “Hailey, I can’t.”

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