Page 1 of Breaking Blaze

Ten-year-old Blaze Harris stared down at the empty box in disbelief, his heart racing, his throat working to hold back the tears. His small hands shook making the box shake.

The empty box.

The box that once held his prized Matchbox Cars collection.

A collection he’d spent all of last summer working to pay for. He’d mowed lawns, cleaned windows, crawled under Mrs. West’s porch to retrieve her very angry pet cat, Darwin. She’d paid him a dollar. It was a hard-earned dollar. He remembered standing on her porch, holding her screaming cat and counting the number of scratches on his arms. When she’d handed him that dollar he saw the 67’ Impala, black, he’d been eyeing in the store two weeks before. Now he could get it.

That had been three months ago. Back before dad had lost his job and started finding the bottle.

The box that used to hold his precious collection now only held a scrap of paper scrawled in his dad’s jagged handwriting.

You eat my food

I take your shit

His chest squeezed as he slumped to his bedroom floor. Those were his cars, he’d earned them, he’d been so proud of them and how they were his because he paid for them with his own money. But his own father had stolen them, and for what?

Wasn’t his father supposed to feed him? What was he supposed to eat if his dad didn’t buy it and his mom didn’t make it? He was only ten, where else was he supposed to eat?

Anger wrapped in hopelessness stole his breath, then the next, until he was shaking and breathless on the floor, an empty box the only thing he could hold on to.

Thirteen-year-old Blaze stared down at the ground where his girlfriend once stood, just before she’d slapped him and called him a “cheater”. But he hadn’t cheated. Karen had been his first and only girlfriend. It had taken him months to gather up the courage to ask her out in the first place, and when she’d said yes, he’d been over the freaking moon. The first time he’d seen her, it was like looking at pure beauty, and his teenaged heart—and dick—had taken notice.

They’d been dating for three months, and he couldn’t have been happier.

Then his father had seen them together. The drunk had come home early from the bar and caught them kissing on the couch. He’d called them all sorts of nasty names and Karen had left, crying. The next day, though, he’d begged for her forgiveness, promising her that she’d never have to deal with his dad again—and he meant it. Thankfully, she forgave his sorry butt and gave him a big kiss…a kiss that lead to losing his virginity out behind Karen’s house.

To a thirteen-year-old, it felt like love.

And then his father happened.

He cornered Karen on the street and lied to her, telling her that she was one of four other girls Blaze was seeing behind her back. That Blaze had said she wasn’t even the prettiest one, either. That Blaze only asked her out because he wanted to “fuck her”. Lies! They were all lies! But Karen believed the booze-soaked liar and she’d bolted, leaving him standing there on the sidewalk, his young heart in his hands.

Once again, his father had seen a weakness, something in Blaze he could take. So, he did.

Numb, Blaze determined to never let a girl be his weakness again. Never again would he show how soft and vulnerable he truly was, how much he truly yearned for that connection…for something that was just his. Something he’d earned and could keep just for himself.

If his own father could steal that from him, he couldn’t imagine who else might see…might take…might break.

Never again.

“Never again.”

Sixteen-year-old Blaze stared down at the oil stain on the concrete driveway as the car carrying his mother disappeared, the sound of the rattling exhaust pipe drifting away to silence.

His mother, the one who’d given him life, who’d tried her hardest to shield him against his father’s anger and hatred, had finally given up. Given him up.

Not that he’d given her any choice.

“I can’t take it anymore, Blaze. I can’t. That man is my greatest mistake…but he gave me you, baby.” She sobbed, dragging his numb frame into her arms. “I don’t want to leave, but I can’t stay.”

“Take me with you,” he said, his voice flat. He’d said the words but he knew from the look in her eyes and the agony on her face that his request would be denied.

She shook her head, her frail body trembling.

“He won’t let me,” she cried, holding him tighter. “He knows how much I love you. He knows that if, given the choice, you’d leave him. He can’t stand that idea of us being happy without him. He told me that if I took you with me he would hunt us down, making our lives miserable, and he’d do whatever he could to take you from me forever.”

But he was anyway, wasn’t he?

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