Page 247 of Heartache Duet

I replay his words, let every single one of them sink into me. “Yeah,” I say with a nod. “I won’t.”

He pushes off his truck and offers his hand for a shake. I take it, then grunt when he gets me in a bear hug so tight, I find it hard to breathe. “Don’t go near the house tonight,” he whispers, his mouth right to my ear.

I pull back just so I can look in his eyes—eyes full of clarity.

It’s not a threat or even a suggestion…

It’s a warning.

It’s just after 1 a.m. when I hear the first pop, like a single spark in a bonfire. And then a whoosh. Seconds later, I smell it. The burn, the smoke.

I throw the covers off me and shrug on a T-shirt before going out to the sidewalk. I get there just in time to watch the curtains ignite and then get set ablaze. Leaning against my truck, I feel the heat across my face while my vision fills with shades of ambers and reds. Soon enough, the neighbors file out of their houses, joining me on the street as whispered gossip overpowers the shock of what’s happening.

In the distance, sirens sound.

And this is the part when I wake up for the second time.

To reality.

And that reality is my life.

It hurts more now than it ever did before, because I think, deep down, there was a part of me that believed she would come back. She’d change her mind, realize that leaving was a mistake, and she’d come back to me. But now… now she has nothing to come back to. And I… I wasn’t enough to come back for.

“Jesus Christ, Connor,” Dad says, rushing toward me, his face switching from blue to red caused by the lights of his ambulance. “Is Trevor in there?”

“No, he’s already gone.”

My eyes are glued to the house again, and I take in the fire in all its glory, watch as the roof starts to cave in, and then I remember…

I remember what she said the night we sat on her porch and a car drove by and fucking shot up the place with a paintball gun. I remember Ava’s screams, Ava’s tear-filled eyes when she looked up at me. And I remember what she said…

“Sometimes I wish I could just set this whole fucking place on fire and leave and never look back.”

“Jesus,” Dad says, “this is terrible for them.”

“No,” I murmur. “It’s kind of beautiful.”

FORTY-ONE

connor

For weeks, the remnants of Ava’s house are taped off while the fire marshal investigates the cause of the fire. According to Dad, who shares a station with the fire department, they’re leaning toward an electrical fault. Apparently, multiple fires were started at around the same time in different areas of the house, which is how, even though the fire department got there fast, the fire was able to spread quickly, not leaving much of the house behind.

The whispers and the gossip have died down over the weeks. First, it was that Miss D came back in the middle of the night and threw a grenade through the window. Then it was how the ex-neighbor came back and torched the place assuming everyone was still living there. And then the ones about me—the pissed off ex-boyfriend who found out Ava was cheating on me with Peter, and then Trevor, and then Peter and Trevor.

This town, man… no wonder they wanted the fuck out of here.

* * *

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” asks Dad, flattening a map across the coffee table. He and Michael are here planning a cross-country road trip. They had initially planned to leave once I was all set up at Duke. I tried to convince them to leave as soon as they could, but they worried about me—both of them—and so we met in the middle. The day after I graduate, they’re taking an RV and seeing the country until they make it back to Florida and start a new life, where they plan to live freely and openly in each other’s love.

So.

Do I want to go with them? Hell no.

Do I appreciate them asking? Definitely.

“I think I’m good,” I tell them. “I’ll just hang here until the lease is over, throw a few ragers, experiment with some heavy drugs, and get arrested.”

---