Page 85 of Sinful
It's quiet here. Private.
The kind of place where you could scream and nobody would hear.
The kind of place Helle probably came to break down earlier.
She sits on a fallen log, pats the space beside her.
I sit.
"Tell me about the fire," she says. "The real story. Not the summary version."
I don't want to.
I haven't talked about it—really talked about it—in years, but I find myself talking anyway.
"I was fifteen. It was a Friday night in October. My parents let me go out with friends—first time I'd been allowed to stay out past midnight." The memories are so clear they hurt. "We were being stupid teenagers. Hanging out behind a convenience store, smoking cigarettes we stole, thinking we were so cool."
Helle's quiet beside me, just listening.
"Got home around two AM. Saw the flames from three blocks away." I can still smell it. Still see it. "Thewhole house was burning. Fire trucks were already there, neighbors in the street, everyone just—watching."
"Your family?—"
"My mom and dad slept upstairs. My sisters shared a room on the second floor too—Emma was nine, Claire was seven." My throat tightens. "Firefighters said the blaze started in the kitchen. Electrical fire, maybe. Spread fast because our house was old, lots of wood, everything just—went up."
"Bravos—"
"I could hear them screaming. That's the worst part—I could hear them inside, and the firefighters wouldn't let me go in. Held me back. Said I'd just die too." I close my eyes. "My dad tried to get my mom and the girls out. They found all of them in the upstairs hallway. He'd gotten them that far before the smoke?—"
I can't finish.
Helle's hand finds mine. Squeezes.
"They died trying to save each other," I say finally. "And I survived because I wasn't there. Because I was out being a stupid kid when I should've been home."
"It wasn't your fault."
"I know that. Up here." I tap my head. "But knowing it and feeling it are different things."
"Yeah. They are."
We sit in silence for a long moment.
"Is that why you're a Nomad?" she asks. "Because staying somewhere feels like?—"
"Like building something that can burn. Yeah." Ilook at her. "I learned that night that caring about people just gives you more to lose. So, I stopped staying. Stopped caring. It worked for eighteen years."
"Until?"
"Until you."
The words hang in the air between us.
"I scare myself," she says quietly. "The things I'm capable of. The things I've done. Sometimes I look in the mirror and don't recognize who's looking back."
"I know that feeling."
"Do you? You seem so—controlled. Like you've got it all figured out."
