Fiction

Nola says nothing even though she dislikes the way the letters run over each other like a herd of sheep on the name tag they had given her the first day at the art museum. Eleanor (Yuxin) Xia. She dislikes the way the brackets confine her middle name, her Chinese name, creating an unnecessary pause. A crowd of tourists parts, revealing behind them a miniature sculpture of a contorted woman with little black holes for eyes. Nola overhears a middle-aged woman say to her friend about how the sculpture brings about the fragility of womanhood and a bored amusement fills her, the kind that tickles the back of her throat. She would’ve liked to stop the woman, to ask her politely to attend the presentation that’s about to start in ten minutes, but resists. It is not her job to pick and choose.

Ever since Nola graduated from college two months ago, she has been working as an intern at Alte Nationalgalerie, tucked away in a cubicle sorting through strange-looking porcelain pillows until a week ago when her manager arranged for her to guide tourist and, at the end of the week, to interpret a particular piece of art for an audience. Not feeling an immediate urge to tell her parents about this accomplishment, Nola stared at her phone for a few minutes, and then thinking her hesitation pointless had called home.

Nola leans against the white wall as tourists amble by, watching them with a mix of amusement and pity. Just an hour ago, she had spent more than twenty minutes explaining the cultural implications of The Abbey in the Oakwood to an elderly couple while watching their rippling foreheads smooth themselves and their heads bob up and down. Nola thought it rather comical that all the tourists, all of her fellow art history grads, and all the other interns, took themselves and their fine art so damn seriously. Fine art, Nola thought, fine art indeed. They sought meaning in their art and in others, believing paintings to be bigger than life. That is their motto. Bigger than life.

At the end of her sophomore year, when Nola called her father to tell him that she had chosen her major to be art history, the mathematician nearly cried with what Nola could only hope was pity. She didn’t tell him that she too hated art, but joyed in his dismay. It wasn’t what he had dreamed of when he held her in his arms for the first time, Nola was sure, but in her mind, the mathematician told himself that nothing ever turns out the way one expects.

A few minutes before her presentation Nola slips into the tiny white room. She doesn’t have the PowerPoint she had promised, doesn’t have a speech prepared, doesn’t want to give the audience the satisfaction of getting something they would’ve expected. Nola seats herself in the front row and waits for the room to fill up. Indistinguishable chatter surrounds her like a flock of migrating geese. The subject of her presentation, Monk by the Sea, feeds off the viewer’s desire to understand it, and Nola has been chosen to guide them. As the lights dim and the curator walks to the podium, Nola glances back at the woman behind her and sees it is the same one who earlier commented on the sculpture of the woman. They exchange smiles.

The curator gives a brief introduction to the painting (created in the early nineteenth century by Caspar David Friedrich) and to Nola (a brilliant intern and recent college grad) and the crowd applauds. Nola smiles at the curator as she walks behind the podium. The crowd watches her and breathes as one. As her eyes wander to the back of the crowd she sees a shadowy face ripple in the darkness, and then recognizes that it belongs to her father. She glimpses a small nod and a smile, perhaps out of pity, perhaps pride. When Nola starts she doesn’t talk about Theophile Gautier as she has planned. She doesn’t say that the idea that morals can be extracted from art is ridiculous, doesn’t talk about nothingness and how artists create meaning because of a deprecating sense of self-pity. Instead she gives them the classical interpretation of Monk by the Sea, one that art history professors would give in a normal college course. She explains how the vastness of the sky and the smallness of the monk encourage a sense of terrifying beauty. She talks about the historical background of the work and how it all ties together into one beautiful mess of meaning. Nola talks until her tongue twists into cursive letters and the crowd bends under her words. When she finishes, the lights turn back on and the crowd stands up and applauds, taking pride in their ability to understand what Nola has told them. Nola smiles. Looking over to where her father was mere minutes ago, she sees that he has gone, presumably to the bathroom.

 

Emma Wang is a seventeen-year-old writer born in Xi’an, China and currently attending Indian Springs School in Alabama. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, The Harpoon Review, The Mire, K’in Literary Journal, and more. She founded and co-runs the Goya Writer’s Workshop, an international online workshop for young writers. On days when she remembers it, she likes to blog at www.lifes-lemons.com. She is usually tired.

Solar Seth Smith stays true to his name.

The alliteration rolls off the tongue and I hear it everywhere despite being new at this school. The S’s of his name bounce from one pair of lips to another, creating this sibilance, not unlike that of a snake. I hate snakes. I hate overachievers too and Solar Seth Smith is nothing if not an overachiever.

He’s the president of the student council and the captain of the senior debate team. He has a royal flush of other titles, ready to be picked out and brandished as weapons.

I think that I will hate Solar because people like him, they sit atop a throne built with their trophies, 4.0 GPA’s and all of their parents’ love. Meanwhile we stand at the bottom looking up at them, modern gods, apotheoses, reminding us of our inferiority.It’s true. There’s him,then there’s me, repeating grade nine again, a bewildered sheep in the flock.

It astounds me that everyone else would just sit there and accept that their lives revolve around another sun. Accept that their lives are adjectives to another narrative. Accept that their lives will never be good enough to have their own narratives.

I don’t accept it. I struggle against the chains of gravity reeling me in, and I try my best to drift from that radiance until I can’t see it anymore. That throne. That shrine. That sun.

That is, until I can’t.

• • •

At tutoring club, he smiles at me from across the table.
“I assume you are Ida?”
“I am only here because it is mandatory.” My words are thin and bruised. He pays no mind.
“Which unit are you working on?” I don’t reply, because he is already grabbing my opened notebook. His answer is proclaimed atop the page black in irate biro.
“Space Goddamn Space.”
“Did you know there is an asteroid named Ida? 243 Ida, in fact.”
“Did you know you are named after the sun? Did you know everything revolves around the sun?”
Solar laughs.  The cacophony of it is jarring in our little space where there is nothing except the sun and if you squint, an asteroid.
The people neighbouring us turn their heads. I get the impression that he doesn’t laugh.
“You are not the first to make that metaphor.”
He makes a little smile again, this time sandpaper-rough with too many teeth.
“Did you know that it is lonely to be the sun? Everything revolves around y-, around it, but they are locked into orbit, and never close enough.”
A startled snort weasels its way out in spite of myself.
“Did you know it is pretty lonely for 2-something-4 Ida too? Out there pushing against all the other little asteroids, scraped raw.”
He blinks the vulnerability in his eyes away, and this time his laugh is one befitting of the sun.
“You do know something about space.”
• • •
I come in at the end of the week and he is already there, head bowed as he listens to music. His eyes dart up as my backpack thumps against the floor.
“Trembling Blue Stars,” he declares.
“What?”
“That’s the band I’m listening to.”
“Stars are not blue. The sun isn’t blue.”
“The brightest ones burn blue. Sirius, Canopus, Vega…”
“And Solar?”
His left eye twitches. “Solar isn’t a star.”
“No. It’s a metaphor.”
The silence stretches between us until he smiles like it’s an offering. Offerings, in my experience, are never something given willingly, but given in a false belief that things will be better.

“I guess I am,” ––– a laugh that is too loud ––– “Solar Seth Smith, bright and blue.”
As I study he points out different concepts to me, and I can tell how much he loves space by the way his eyes dance and crinkle at the corners. I can tell how much he hates the sun by the way he sighs, like the hiss of a deflating balloon.
I can’t blame him.

• • •

The next time when I come in he quizzes me on vocabulary.
“Universe.”
“Everything that exists including all matter and energy.”
“Asteroid.”
“A small rocky body orbiting the sun.” Maybe I am a metaphor as well. I think of 243 Ida somewhere out there.
“Solar eclipse.”
“A phenomenon where the accomplishments of Solar Seth Smith overshadow everyone else’s.”
To my surprise, and perhaps disappointment, he’s calm. “Haha, very funny. Try again.”
“An eclipse in which the sun is obscured by the moon.”
“Good. Supernova.”
“When the bright stars die.”
“Indeed.” His next smile is a classic smile of avoidance. “This is an important concept, care to elaborate?”
“The star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity.” The metaphor hangs heavy between us, and it is a race of “Who will change the topic first?” He doesn’t. “Precisely. Stars much more massive than our sun go through nucleosynthesis, fusing hydrogen, then helium, fusing way up until iron. Then, boom.”
I don’t remind him that there is no sound in space.

• • •

“What happens to the smaller, dimmer stars then? The sun, for example?” “They turn into white dwarfs. Quite depressing, really.”

• • •

The stars that burn blue, do they ‘die’ quicker?”
“I think you know the answer.”

• • •

Within a few weeks, I notice his attachment to this particular brand of blue energy drink. He drinks two cans during our session and takes out one more as he exits. In the library’s trashcan,  more blue aluminum corpses. I ask him about it the next time.
“I thought we already covered that bright stars burn blue.” His bony fingers shake like an addict’s as he dumps the vile stuff into his throat, knuckles white with tension.
With more and more certainty I know that is true. I look at the heartbreaking blue in his eyes, the slate blue that bleeds into deep circles under them, the electric blue tainting his lips, and the protruding blue veins on his china-white wrists. He takes another swig. I stare.
“What? It keeps me awake. Alert. It’s my fuel. These days I barely sleep.”
“You should sleep.”
“I try, but I startle awake all the time. Besides, my house is too big, too empty. I’m a ghost haunting my own house.” A drop of blue catches on his collar.
“You should talk to your parents about it.”
“It’s too trivial for me to talk to them about it. Besides, they’ll be glad that I have more time to study.”
It saddens me that he is reduced to a machine. This boy, he’s so young, yet the weight of a solar system is upon his shoulders, and I don’t know how much longer he can hold it. He is the most hardworking, earnest, persevering person in the world, but I don’t think he knows that. He is the most hardworking, earnest, persevering person in the world, but I don’t think he will ever believe it.
To the sun, its light is never bright enough.

• • •

“Are you lonely?”
“There is a difference between being lonely and being alone.”
“I know.”

…

At the school talent show I watch him play the violin. He cuts an elegant figure, with his crisp white shirt, polished oxfords, and a tie ironed so straight it might as well be a sword.The Flight of the Bumblebee trills in the air, feverish. It’s like the bees have tarantism.
The last note is washed over by applause. They clap because he is the sun. I clap because I think I’m the only one to notice that God, his fingers are bleeding.
“I missed three notes.” He tells me as he wipes chapped fingertips on his shirt, smearing it with rouge.
“That was amazing, regardless.”
A tired smile blooms on his face.
His phone rings, Fur Elise slicing the space between us. He flashes a smile and hurries away. His words find their way back to me in the auditorium, airy, unnatural.
“Mum! How are you?”
“I’m sorry.” An angry silence. “Mother, how are you?”
“Of course I understand. You’re too busy.” To see your own son, I think.
“Not bad. I missed a couple of notes.”
“Yes, mother. I will do better next time.”
As he walks away, his gait is measured, deliberate, every echo of his footsteps proud and lonely

• • •

When a star supernovas, it does so without warning, in absolute silence.
When the news reaches me, it has already stunned the whole school into choked shock.
He fell asleep in a math class, and when they tried to wake him up at the end, he didn’t.
The clique of doctor wannabes is calling it “sleep apnea.”
It is a wonder he did not burn out quicker. The websites say sleep apnea sufferers have poor sleep and weak hearts.
The graveyard of blue cans was a testament to that.

• • •

At the assembly, his parents walk onstage, with the heavy tread of  the guilty. They killed him.
Look at them! They remind me of old leather couches at garage sales that no one ever buys. They are hunched over, worn with age, their skin shriveled and cracked.
I remember what Solar told me seemingly eons ago, and I snort, making a thousand pairs of eyes glare daggers at me.
“What happens to the smaller, dimmer stars then?”
They are white dwarves: once stars in their own right, but never bright enough. No one remembers them,  those burnt out bodies tucked away in black pockets of the universe, bitter and small.
So, they force-fed their dreams of stars and legacies to their son, a son who was stupid, who never disappointed them. I wonder what they saw in him, did they see a boy, or like everyone else except me, a star? Did they see a reflection of themselves?
They walk downstage, the mother minuscule against the monstrous bouquet of white roses the principal gives her.
I desperately want to scream at them, ask them if they are happy now, but I gather they haven’t been happy for a long time.
A girl makes a speech, her words graceful, sympathetic yet absolutely worthless. She talks about his perfect GPA, his perfect smile and his perfect manners.
Solar’s existence was pathetic, really. No one will remember him. They will remember the sun. He is the person everyone will lament about politely at the high school reunion. He’s the cautionary tale they will tell their friends and their children. He’s the picture they will stumble across in their faded yearbooks decades later, stare at, then cover with a turn of a page.
His parents will cry.
I will grieve.

• • •

I go online and search for Trembling Blue Stars’ concerts. If they are playing near me, I will buy two tickets, one for me and one for Solar.
They disbanded years ago.

• • •

We stand at his funeral. It is a gloomy, sunless day as if the universe mourns for him.
His parents sob, ugly in their oversized black suit and bloated dress.
They place white and pink flowers on his casket. I follow suit and gently lower a few strung together hydrangeas. They are blue, a last commemoration.
The last shovelfuls of dirt cover the dark isolated little world where he, the sun sleeps. I close my eyes. Something in me shudders, whimpers. With my exhale, the water streaming down my face dissipates into the dust and joins him.

 

Marie You is a ninth grader in a small Canadian town. She enjoys writing, drawing, eating an unseemly amount of chocolate, and listening to “It’s not a phase, Mom,” music. You can find her nesting in a library with Arthurian lore in hand, or plopped on a sofa typing up her newest ideas.

 

Sabrina liked that she was the only teen librarian and usually the only teen in the library. With very few exceptions, all high schoolers were idiots.

The boy who had just come into the library, face buried in his phone, one grimy earbud hanging over his punk rock shirt, was no exception. He was in Sabrina’s class, always wore black, never spoke, and smelled like stale cigarettes. He rarely took off his earbuds, whether he was in class or sitting at Sabrina’s otherwise-deserted lunch table. Still, he wasn’t the worst person to share a table with. At least he let her read and eat in silence.

“What’s the wifi password?” he asked. Sabrina had to resist rolling her eyes. Nobody ever visits the library to read anymore. She pointed to the sign with the wifi password, expecting him to stick in his other earbud and walk away, but he didn’t. “I forgot my PIN number to log into my digital library account, and it locked me out. Could you look it up for me?”

Maybe he used the digital library to provide his round-the-clock emo music. Sabrina gave him his PIN and watched him enter it into his phone. For a moment, she glimpsed the materials he’d checked out. He had ten audiobooks, ranging from YA dystopian to children’s classics to adult biographies. Could it be possible that he read as much as Sabrina? Did he read during lunch, too?

With a few taps, he downloaded the audiobook of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Sabrina found herself smiling. This boy might be an exception to the idiot rule. “That’s my favorite book,” she said. “I hope you like it.”

The boy smiled back. “See you at lunch.” He pushed in his other earbud and walked out the door.

 

Gabriella Clingman is seventeen and lives in Ohio with her parents and parakeets. She began writing stories when she could hold a pencil and often devours creative nonfiction, classics, and graphic novels in one sitting. Gabriella will transfer to Kent State University and double major in Spanish Literature and Translation and Professional Writing. She plans to work as a translator and teach English as a foreign language to adults abroad. Using her experience as an EFL teacher, Gabriella will start a literary magazine to provide a creative space for immigrants and people whose first language is not English to share their stories.

The feather-haired boy is about to be seven and has just learned to recite the alphabet backwards. He sits perched on his grandmother’s lap, playing with a loose thread of her sweater, twisting it around and around his finger, the tip of his pinkie turning whiter and whiter. His grandmother shakes him gently.

“Look up there. That one’s Hercules. Are you paying attention querido? What do you see?”

“Hercules.” But the air is too heavy, and the stars are too bright and he’s too awake to really see Hercules. Instead, he sees his sister’s plastic earrings shining in the night sky and the flash of pearls against his mother’s frail chest. He sees the squares of light their church’s stained-glass windows left on his hand. Soon his grandmother’s fingers grasp his arm, and they walk back into the house where he crosses another day off the calendar hanging on the refrigerator door. His father kisses his forehead as he tucks him into bed, and he dreams of Hercules.

 

He’s almost ten and has just gotten the bike he’s been asking for for years. The kids in his neighborhood don’t play with him because they say he’s too small and his father’s too quiet and his mother’s too dead and therefore he must be cursed, so he rides by himself. He likes it outside. He likes the colors of autumn and how sometimes the wind is so cold it’s hard to breathe. Somehow, he’s not careful enough and skids into a tree. The rough bark scrapes his forehead. A bird’s nest tumbles from one of the high branches and he wills himself not to hear the shatter of the eggs. He bikes back quickly, and his father curses when he sees his tears and his cut but then quickly brings a warm cloth to his forehead.

“Tell me what happened hijo. What did you see?”

“I hit a tree. I think a nest fell.” He sees flashes of red and gold, the tips of bird feathers out of the corner of his eye. He thinks about how wonderful it would feel to be able to fly. His father shushes him soothingly, and his grandmother makes him those potato tapas he loves and tells him more stories of Hercules. At night, he remembers to cross another day off the calendar hanging from the refrigerator, and his father kisses him goodnight. As he drifts off to sleep, he thinks of how those baby birds died by the side of the road and how no one ever said anything about it and no one ever did anything about it.

 

The boy is older now, and his grandmother has just baked him his very own birthday cake, with fresh strawberries and coils of white frosting. He’s too excited about the cake to notice the way her hands shake, the furrows on his father’s brow. His grandmother reminds him to think of his wish, to envision it sharply in his head. He blows out the candles, their smoke curling into the cracks of the ceiling. The cake melts into his mouth, and he giggles when his sister accidentally gets frosting stuck in her hair.

“So, what did you wish for? What did you see?” she asks him later.

“I don’t remember.” He does remember, but he can’t tell her that he wished she would stop strewing her Barbie dolls all over the floor only to shove them under her bed whenever her friends come over, because he keeps tripping over them. He can’t tell her he wished the kids at school would stop asking about his accent because he doesn’t know either. He can’t tell her he wished the cake would’ve been chocolate because chocolate is too expensive. He can’t tell her he wished their father would look more alive because he’s not supposed to wish for these kinds of things. He can’t tell her he wished he could see their mother again. So he just tells her buenas noches and crosses another day off the calendar hanging from the refrigerator. His father doesn’t kiss him goodnight until he asks.

 

He’s in high school and everything’s changing. The kids are getting taller and meaner; the adults are getting shorter and sadder. A week ago, he listened to his sister crying in the bathroom when she was supposed to be asleep. His grandmother keeps coughing. He can’t remember what his mother looks like anymore; he thinks she only appears in his dreams but he’s not sure. One day he kisses a girl on a rooftop. Her laugh is the shape of wildflowers and her lips taste like plum drops and ash. They stand close together and breathe in the dandelion wine of morning.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing.” Another lie. He sees everything.

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“I know.”

“I’ve never wanted to die.”

“Is that the truth?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

The young man walks home alone and does his chores silently because his grandmother’s asleep on the couch, and his father looks like his collar is choking him. He crosses another day off the calendar hanging from the refrigerator and doesn’t bother telling his father goodnight. He thinks about what he said to his rooftop girl and hopes to God that it’s at least part of the truth.

He’s too young yet too old now. He has enough memories, seen enough of the depths of this universe, to last him a thousand lifetimes. Sensing the end of the world, he goes into the bathroom and watches his life pass by in the smudges of the mirror.

“What do you see?” He thinks of his poor, tragic, beautiful family. He thinks of how hard he has tried and cried and laughed and loved and lived. He thinks of robin’s nests and vanilla cakes. He thinks of Hercules. He thinks about crossing another day off the calendar hanging from the refrigerator because it’s almost midnight. But he stays in the bathroom. Because he isn’t really sure he can make it to tomorrow anyway.

 

Amelia Ao lives in Wayland, Massachusetts with her parents and sister. Art and writing have been a fundamental part of her identity, and she’s excited to be sharing her work.

Women disappeared every couple of years in Cathy’s town. Spread out and swallowed by the endless rolling green hills, or so the townspeople said. They were never interested enough to find out. Cathy refused to be the next vanishing act. Unlike the others, Cathy was willful. Always kept herself busy, her husband would say. But just like the others, Cathy was confined to her house. Something about the trouble that bored housewives stirred up made the town wary of women like her. So Cathy did what she does best–kept herself on her toes. She color-coded all the pillows on her polyester couch, then rearranged them in order of what color looked the best where, vacuumed both her vintage rugs and the beige minivan, and reapplied her makeup for no one but the mirror to see.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and Cathy was spread out against the afternoon lull. Time was poured into the ravine of the day, and for the first time in her life, Cathy could not mop it up. She had checked her makeup in the corridor mirror three times, but only the third time did the woman in the mirror speak up.

Hello, my life, the woman in the mirror said. Cathy started at the sound of her name, glancing down the corridor. She peered at her reflection in the mirror, suspicious of the drooping corner of her lips and the brown eyes staring back at her.

Cathy said, What? What life? No life of yours.
Don’t be so surprised, Cathy. You knew I was coming.
I did?
It happens to everyone. You know, when the hills start to roll and the afternoons start to stretch out on your lawn…You get it.
I don’t think I do, Cathy muttered to herself. She could feel her limbs spreading out against the afternoon lull, painfully aware of time’s slow crawl around her throat. How had she become unstuck from the mirror?

But no matter how much Cathy refused to be the next disappearing woman, she was drawn toward the woman in the mirror. Her reassuring, drooping smile and familiar brown eyes captivated Cathy, and talking to the mirror was refreshing, like she had found new pillows to rearrange and take her mind off of her husband’s tired, concerned eyes.

So the women talked. They talked about her husband’s receding hairline and his little whiskers that he called a mustache. They imitated his stubby hands brushing through and through his thin hair and the way he raised his left eyebrow whenever he said something condescending. Cathy felt her body piecing itself back together, and light flashed off the mirror’s glass, and the woman in the mirror flickered, and all worries were swept aside like dust. The woman in the mirror vanished, reflecting nothing but walls and light. The woman-less house yawned, the way a cat does after devouring its owner. It was nine o’clock in the evening, and the husband finally returned home to an empty house and a still mirror.

 

April Wang is a student from Southern California, Shanghai, and Chicago. She has been influenced by the quiet rain of Irvine, the chatter of Shanghai pollution, and the rolling cornfields of Illinois. Her work has previously been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers and the Word of Mouth Literary Arts Journal. She edits for HerCulture and the Beckman Chronicle.

Bella slips into my bed reeking of smoke. She lays her palm against my cheek, and the oily residue it leaves behind makes me think of gasoline.

“What time is it?” I mumble into my pillow.

I try to roll over and face her, but she nudges me back and slings an arm around my waist.

This isn’t the first time Bella has swung by after hours. Usually, her visits are accompanied by a fifth of vodka swiped from her family’s liquor cabinet and a batch of kisses, delivered silently and breathlessly so as not to alert my mother sleeping down the hall.

She nuzzles my neck. “Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.”

I blame my next words on my dazed, surreal state of neither dream nor waking. “Did you miss me?”

Bella’s laughter rolls like thunder and lightning through my body. “Very much.”

When I wake up again Bella has gone, the sooty outline on my white sheets the sole proof she was ever here.

The next morning, my entire class is abuzz, an aberration from the expected lethargy of early-morning homeroom. My friend Markus leans against my desk.

“Hey, Laura. Did you hear about the fire in the old warehouse down Starfall Lane?”

“What?” I sputter, suddenly parched.

Markus nods. His crooked bangs swish back and forth with the force of his enthusiasm. “The entire west wing burned to a crisp last night. We used to play Spin the Bottle there. Crazy, right?”

“Crazy…” I bring the end of my braid to my nose. My hair still carries a faint fireside whiff. I remember with a jolt that it’s Bella’s and my one-month anniversary tomorrow.

Although we have different class schedules, Bella always manages to steal a pocket of time for me. My feet propel me through the hordes of students toward her locker. Faraway flames hiss in my ears.

“Where were you last night?” I blurt the moment I reach her, forgetting to be casual.

“In your room, being your own personal dream catcher,” Bella replies.

Her warm chestnut eyes glimmer as her red-painted lips stretch into an easy smile; the picture of innocence. She leans in to kiss me, but I place a finger on her mouth to stop her approach. Her lip piercing brushes against my skin and sends a sizzling current coursing through me.

“Anyway,” I say, trying to mask my labored breathing behind faux-indignation. “Don’t you have a class to get to? I’m not tutoring you if you fail.”

Bella’s unapologetic laughter rises above the bustle of the hallway. She opens her locker to retrieve her textbooks, and I peek inside. A picture of us, taken on an amusement park date a week after she asked me out. The strawberry-colored teddy bear I won for her that same day. And pressed up against the bear, books of matches stacked in haphazard rows and a set of ash-stained clothes. I look away.

This is all so new, so fragile. I don’t want Bella’s secret to complicate things between us.

I don’t wait for her after school. Instead, I trek past the gentrified part of town, to the old dirt roads running along the waterfront. I pause when I reach the abandoned warehouse, a pigeon-gray smear against the blue of the sky. Tilting my head back, I take in the entire dilapidated glory of it.

The first thing I notice when I squeeze through the gap in the chain-locked gate is the blanket of ash underfoot. It must have rained down from the cracks in the ceiling. It sticks in a thin film on my white sneakers and stains each fingerprint when I try to wipe it away. The big stairway leading to the upper floors is intact, and so are most of the rooms.

Markus might have been exaggerating, but it still looks bad. The west wing is torched, every wall kissed by the flames. The fire’s memory lingers in the blackened charcoal spots and the scorched detritus accumulated on the floor. A smell of burnt hair permeates the air like a faulty hairdryer.

I imagine Bella standing in the doorway just as I am, the flames casting shadow and light across her face, her silver lip-ring glittering like a fire-forged gem. Goosebumps bloom across my skin, and I don’t know if it’s due to unease or awe.

—

“So,” Bella says, “how should we celebrate? I’m told one month is a milestone. Most high school relationships don’t last past it. I don’t know what the statistics for same-sex romance are, but you get the gist.”

Her voice is nonchalant, but her eyes dart around the hallway without landing on anything and the toe of her shoe scuffs against the scarred linoleum floor.

All week, I had giddily filled page after page of my planner, trying to come up with the perfect anniversary date. Something classic, like dinner and an indie movie, or maybe something daring, like a romantic picnic where the entire town could see us. Instead, I find myself saying, “I’ve got too much homework. Plus, Mr. Ramirez hinted at a pop quiz tomorrow.”

I tell myself that I’m putting the date off because of smoke and suspicions. But a little panicking part of me has wanted to pull the fire alarm on our relationship even before I visited the warehouse on Starfall Lane.

“Oh.” Bella frowns for a moment before she paints a bright expression back across her face. “I could help you study. I know you’re a nervous wreck right before a quiz.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I really need to ace this test.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bella says, her smile reassuring. “I’ll find some other way to entertain myself.”

I let her walk me to my next class with a searing certainty that I will be following her tonight.

—

Groggy, jittery, exhausted, I look for Bella first thing in the morning.

“I know what you did last night. I followed you.” I want it to sound like an accusation, but my words are tired, losing steam.

Bella shoots me a smile, gone before I can decode it. “You think I didn’t know? You’re not as sneaky as you think.”

I think of last night, the dumpster fires Bella left like trail of breadcrumbs across town.

“Why are you doing this? Don’t you know it’s dangerous? Not to mention illegal.”

“I love watching the flames. They’re beautiful, and they make my heart quiet.”

I stare at her, unable to process her words. I expected her to deny it, or at least weave some lie. Not this crippling honesty. Her smile contains the duality of a child making mischief and of a girl being humbled by a force of nature. It makes my throat tight with anger. With longing.

“I only burn things people don’t need, and I’m always careful not to lose control of the fire. There are no witnesses. It’s only me and…”

“Your messed-up hobby?” I snap. I can feel the cracks forming between us, a hairline fissure growing bigger, and I’m not sure if it’s her doing or mine.

Bella’s smile turns small and hurt before fading altogether. “Laura, come on. Talk to me. What is this really about?”

I take a step back when she reaches out to link our fingers together. For the first time since I met her, I evade her touch.

My breath rasps in and out of my throat; my tongue tastes like ash and charred meat. I don’t even know why I’m so angry. It’s because of the fires and the secrecy, sure. But as I stand there staring at her open expression, I realize something else. Maybe I’m looking for a reason to fight because I don’t know if our relationship can withstand it.

The truth is, I’ve been having doubts about us. They creep up when Bella is away and I start wondering why she would ever go out with me when she could have any boy or girl she wanted. They spike when boys I’ve known all my life ask if they can get a ticket to the ‘lesbian show.’ They cut deep when I watch the news, read the statistics, or when I hear the whispers in the hallways. And now, all of those worries are threatening to engulf us and the anniversary date I keep postponing.

“I… I have to go,” I say, moving farther down the hallway, away from Bella and all the confusion caused by her presence.

She doesn’t try to stop me but instead calls after me, “I’ll be at the shipyard tonight. Please come.”

Her dark eyes follow my retreat. I can feel their concern, their tenderness. The sensation of her gaze lingers even after I’ve burst out into the parking lot.

The truth is, I’m scared of the connection between us, those tight wires that quiver and pulse with electricity. I’ve never felt anything close to this before, and I don’t know if I should embrace it or run away.

I’m afraid of getting burned, and it has nothing to do with matches or tinder.

—

Deep into the night, I lie in bed, thinking. I bury my nose in my pillow, but I only catch the scent of lavender detergent and my everyday shampoo. There’s no trace of smoke. No proof that Bella was ever here. I get up and pace around the small space. My room is catalogue-perfect, everything in order—just as I like it. The only thing out of place is inside my drawer, tucked beneath my diaries and old school notebooks. I take out the box of matches I swiped from Bella’s locker and twirl it between my fingers for a few minutes. A package so small. So harmless. So full of chaos and possibility.

I take the matches with me back to bed. At times I feel like my whole life is scripted, but this is new and unfamiliar. I want it to fill me with excitement, but my brain knows all too well how to be scared. So I bring Bella’s face to mind. I imagine the way my pulse gets out of sync whenever she’s near, another diversion from its steady, boring routine. Holding the matchbox makes me feel closer to her, somehow, and I don’t shy away from the feeling.

Somewhere from within, I draw the courage to light the first match. I watch the tiny dancing flame, transfixed by the way it consumes the match’s stick body. I don’t notice when the flame reaches my thumb and forefinger. My fingers get singed, and I drop the dead match on my bed sheets. I imagine Bella beside me, taking my hand in hers ever so gently, teasing me a bit before she kisses it all better.

Lurching to my feet, I put on my coat in one swift motion. I don’t feel scared walking the empty streets alone at night. I know Bella will be waiting for me, and that certainty is enough to light up the world.

The old shipyard has been out of use for decades. These days, it’s an ancient, corroded husk whole generations of kids have been utilizing to ride their bikes and smoke their weed in secret. I’ve never done either of those things, but the thought of breaking the rules makes me feel like liquid fire is flowing through my bloodstream. Even before I’ve woven my way through the labyrinth of metal and decay, I catch the telltale gleam of flames.

Bella stands before a small open fire. Her hair is draped over one shoulder, a red scarf coiled twice around her neck.

“You came.”

She doesn’t disguise the relief in her voice. She keeps surprising me, this girl. We’ve been friends for almost a year and girlfriends for longer than a month, but I still don’t know her all that well.

I want to know her, pyromania and all.

“This wasn’t exactly the anniversary date I had in mind,” I say.

I join her at the fire. For a few moments, we stand side by side, watching the flames flicker and tremble in their pit.

“Help me find more kindling?” Bella asks.

The fire illuminates her profile. Her eyelashes cast elongated shadows against the honey-tint of the flames against her skin. It’s beautiful. The fire. Her smile. Everything.

My breath catches in my throat.

I say, “Will you show me how to make the fire stronger?”

Her smile turns brilliant. I follow her around the shipyard. Together we gather dry branches and bunched-up newspapers to bring back to the cinderblock pit.

Bit by bit, I feed the fire, making it bigger, stronger. I watch the flames climb up to the night sky, blazing orange against pure black. I close my eyes, and the flames paint the back of my lids strawberry-red. The crackling sounds combine with the smoky smell to touch a place inside me, somewhere close to my heart. I don’t know what it is that makes Bella’s heart so loud and unruly that only starting fires can soothe it, but her presence has always quieted the maddening whir of my brain.

I reach out blindly and grasp Bella’s hand in mine. Our fingers interlace, and I feel more right than I’ve felt in a long time.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so afraid,” I say, trusting that Bella will know I’m not referring to the fires.

“It’s not your fault,” she says gently. “I know you came out of the closet because of me. Maybe you weren’t ready. But you should know I’m here for you, even if you don’t want us to be together anymore.”

My eyes fly open. “No. I want you.”

I didn’t come out to the world because of Bella; I did it for her. For us. I wanted to be the kind of girlfriend she deserved, not someone trapped, ashamed, and afraid of her own shadow. And maybe I failed at that last part, but not anymore.

Bella smiles, fire and stars and determination in her brown eyes. “And I want you, too.”

I’m the one who initiates the kiss. It’s sweet like a sugared fruit at first. Slow, maybe a bit tentative. I pour all the love and frustration of this last month into it, all the uncharted hope I discovered within myself tonight. Then her piercing rubs against the inside of my lips and sends sizzling sparks of electricity from my tingling mouth all the way to my toes.

When our mouths part, Bella laughs and pulls me into a hug. Entwined, we stand before the fire. I close my eyes again and allow the warmth to envelop me.

 

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, The Forge Literary, The Colored Lens, Argot Magazine, The Arcanist, and other venues.