Page 123 of Dark, Forbidden, & Taboo

Cedar was never very good at feeling anything unless it came from the flames he had become so enamored with.

Maybe it’s his way of still feeling the same as he did when we were younger.

I never could figure it out, but I also hadn’t spoken to him in years.

Not since his family kicked him out after that last fire and he left the state.

No one could ever prove it was him because he’s always been too smart at simple things like getting caught.

I found myself missing him more often than not, and as the years dragged by without being able to see or speak to him, the more of a recluse I became.

Things had changed, though.

Once upon a time, the boy with fire in his hand and embers in his eyes was the hero of a little girl that wanted to be just like him when she grew up.

Her best friend in the entire world.

I chuckled as I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail, then reached for my jacket. Shrugging it on, I stopped to mull over how things had changed.

As the story went now, the little girl that feared the fire but loved the boy knew that the only way she’d ever get his attention again would be to do the one thing he could never resist.

To call the hero out from hiding, she’d have to start some fires of her own.

And that’s how our new story would begin.

Chapter

Two

Ismiled at the young man behind the register. He didn’t ask me any questions, but who would?

Cedar once said to me,“Dottie, the world would fall over on its knees if you ever did anything as bad as me”and I always made sure to keep that in the back of my mind.

He never did find out that I had done worse than him by then. I never did get a chance to tell him because by the time Iwas twelve and he was fourteen, he had been sent off to some kiddie boot camp.

I always waited for him to come back, but not like this. He wasn’t supposed to be the good guy, he was supposed to be my favorite villain dressed up in a hero’s cape while doing all of the beautiful and ugly things that no one else would dare to.

I sighed as I took the plastic bag of items I purchased from the store. I forced a smile onto my face for the young man’s sake because it wasn’t his fault that I thought myself into such a shitty mood.

When he blushed slightly before turning away to look at the lady behind me, it made me wonder what Cedar would think of me now.

I’d changed a lot in the ten years since I had last seen him in person. I was about half a foot taller, my hair was longer, and I dyed it white because that was his favorite color. Not the aftermath of a burned down building, not the color of leaves after he set them alight—Cedar always loved white.

“Because it’s pure and beautiful like you, Dottie.”

Childish words spoken by a foolish boy that had been falling in love with his best friend before we were torn apart.

A lot of the things that Cedar said to me stuck with me, but nothing ever made sense.

“Excuse me.”

I raised my eyes up from the floor and rolled them at the stuck up old bitch that had damn near run into me. Most people her age don’t like me because apparently, I looked too “wild” for them.

No one ever really cared for me, not even my own damn family.

No one except for Cedar.

But I knew that I couldn’t be the timid girl that he doesn’t know. He wouldn’t recognize me then—if he even remembered me at all.

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