37. Charlie

CHAPTER 37

Charlie

T he mountains were on fire.

It wasn't the first time, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. But things weren't looking good this time around. Of course, I wasn't paying much attention to it though. Wildfires had been coming close to Creekside for my entire life. More than once the fire reached the furthest edge of town and still didn't burn down any of the businesses or houses. Fire never moved into the valley. And as far as I was concerned, Creekside was immune to flames.

Besides, there was something else occupying my mind. I sat on the couch, my phone held in my hand as I read Phoenix's texts from the previous week for the ten thousandth time.

Phoenix: Because I love you.

Just reading it made my heart do a somersault in my chest. It wasn't the first time he'd said those words to me, but we also weren't eighteen anymore and spending every waking moment together. I'd told Nix I loved him a million times. Because I did. He was my best friend in the entire world. However, those words were usually tinged with a much deeper truth, one that I'd been trying to hide for a long time.

And this text. This was different . Nix wasn't saying he loved me as a friend. He was saying he loved me as a partner, a lover, and more. The very thought terrified and excited me all at the same time. Not to mention, it made me feel incredibly guilty.

The last time I'd seen Nix, I'd shouted at him to go away and told him I didn't want to see him. In a moment of anxiety-induced fury, I blamed him for every bad thing that had happened in my life. Usually, I needed time to calm down before I realized my mistakes. But that night, standing there on the dimly lit street with police cars and an ambulance flashing away behind us, I knew exactly what I'd done. And part of me still wanted to hold to that.

If I was a less broken person, I might've texted Nix that night. Or sometime in the past three weeks to let him know that I was sorry. However, I felt like I was doing him a disservice by even attempting to apologize.

An apology was a promise to do better in the future. And I wasn't sure I could promise him that. If things went haywire again or got really bad, I couldn't promise that I wouldn't fly off the handle, that my anxiety wouldn't get the better of me, that I wouldn't lash out and be cruel. I didn't want to do any of those things, but when my brain was chock full of an insanity-inducing mixture of adrenaline and cortisol, I didn't have a lot of control over what I did or said.

But even as that thought crossed my mind, I knew it wasn't completely true. Sure, the disorder was bad and sometimes even crippling. However, if I would just take the time to let him in and explain everything to him, maybe it could be better. Pills could only do so much. The real work was something I had to do on my own. My therapist had told me that and so had every internet search I'd done when I didn't want to believe her.

Each time I thought of letting Nix in, of letting him get close to me, I felt a shudder throughout my entire body. Allowing him inside the icy walls I'd built for myself was a dangerous act. From inside he could start to melt my defenses. Next time something bad happened, it could hurt worse than before. And if something ever happened to him… well, I'd never recover from such a thing.

That only left me one option. I had to keep to myself. And Nix… Well, he needed to live his own life without me. He deserved someone better than me anyway. He'd find them too. He was too handsome and successful not to.

The more I went around and around in my head, trying to figure out what to do, the more I worked myself into an anxious frenzy. When the texts came through, I holed myself up in the house. But in the past couple of days, I couldn't even bring myself to leave my room. Everything outside was so noisy and bright. Only the blackout curtains in my room seemed to keep out enough light to allow me to think. And even then, I found myself binging shows just to distract myself. I'd already worked through my entire stock of obsidian stones as well, with at least a dozen fresh arrowheads sitting on my shelf now.

I was running out of things to do to keep myself occupied and the fridge was getting dangerously low. However, the grocery app wasn't accepting orders anymore due to the wildfires. And going to the store in my state was out of the question. I'd just have to ride things out as best I could.

When the sirens outside started to go off, my heart rate spiked and as much as I stuffed my hands over my ears, I couldn't block it out. It reminded me of the beeping, incessant and all-consuming. Those memories came flooding back again and I felt trapped, like I' d never be rid of the noise ever again. I wasn't sure if I was going to pass out or literally rip my hair out. But when it wouldn't stop, something had to be done.

Getting up from my bed, I went to the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet, taking down a small pill bottle that had sat untouched for some time. Inside it were my oh shit pills, the ones I only took in an emergency. With my brain full of thoughts of Nix, my own self-loathing for my condition, and the blaring of the sirens, I could take it no longer.

I took out a single pill, swallowed it dry, and went back to my bed.

The effect was almost instantaneous. My thoughts went fuzzy first and my heart slowed down. The tension in my body began to ebb and suddenly those sirens didn't seem so close anymore. I felt as if I were suddenly in a bubble that didn't allow bad feelings or thoughts to invade it. The world was finally kept at bay and I remembered, once again, why these pills were so addictive.

Feeling this amount of calm was a powerful drug.

I only managed to flip through videos on my phone for a few minutes before it slipped out of my hand onto the bed. Instead of passing out, I slipped easily into dreams that I didn't remember. Even though the peace was temporary, I was happy to have some for the first time in quite a while.

When I awoke, my brain was still fuzzy and my mouth was dry. The sirens, to my great relief, were quiet. For a long time, I just laid there in bed, staring up at the ceiling. How much time passed, I wasn't sure. But there came a moment where I started to realize there was a scent of smoke in the air. It was probably just a shift of the wind, bringing the wildfire smoke into town. It had happened before, and it was nothing to worry about.

However, the longer I laid there, the thicker the stench seemed to get. At first it was pleasant, almost like the campfires I used to have as a kid. Then it grew to the point where it was starting to make my eyes water. When I finally got out of bed and headed for the window, the smell of burnt plastic was mixed in with it, spurring me into action. Burning trees shouldn't smell like that.

It wasn't until I threw the curtains open that I realized the truth. The north side of Creekside was on fire. Homes burned in the distance, black smoke rising high into the air as they were consumed. The sun was nearly blocked out by the plume, ashes still glowing red drifting down all around my house.

And this time, the drugs I'd taken had no effect. How could they in the face of such an unstoppable monster? Nobody could do anything once a wildfire decided to consume something. And with the houses packed so close together in the valley, it wouldn't be long before the fire found its way to my street.

I had to get out.

Pulling on my shoes, I rushed out the front door and down the street. I knew the McKeans would have room for me in their van. I didn't like the idea of getting into a car again, but it barely mattered in the face of imminent death. But when I reached their house, I found it abandoned. Their garage door was still standing open, all traces of them and their van gone. I even went up to the front door, pounding my fist against the wooden frame. There was no answer.

A quick glance back toward the north of town solidified my worst fears. The fire was moving quickly in my direction. Thanks to the wind that carried the smoke and embers my way, it was moving faster than I thought possible .

I ran back to my house, searching for anybody that might be left on my street. But the entire place was abandoned. Not a single car was in sight. While I'd been freaking out about the sound of the sirens and drugging myself into a stupor to escape my anxiety, the rest of town had been steadily evacuating. And now I was left there, all alone, with no quick way out. The SUV in my driveway hadn't been turned on in six years. The tires were flat and rotted anyway, so it wasn't gonna move much even if it did start.

My only choice was to try to make it out of town on foot. By the time I reached my house and looked back, I felt a sinking sense of dread in my stomach.

Getting out on foot wasn't going to be possible.

The fire was spreading fast. Far too fast for me to outrun. Not only that, it had spread across the mountain on either side. I was so busy looking at the burning houses in the distance that I didn't realize Creekside was completely surrounded by flames on all sides. It wasn't until I stopped in the middle of the street and looked to the south that I realized it was too late. In a matter of minutes, the one road leading out of town to the south would be cut off. I'd never make it there in time.

Cold fear filled my chest, trying to choke the life out of me just like the smoke I was wading through. My stomach twisted so hard that I knew I was going to puke. I rushed back to the house, leaning against the side as everything I'd eaten in the past day rushed out of me. When there was nothing left for my fear to purge, I straightened back up, wiping my mouth on my sleeve.

Memories from a childhood summer camp came rushing back to me. If I was going to have any hope of surviving this wildfire, there were a couple things I needed to do. The first thing I did was go to the control panel for the underground sprinklers and turned them all on full blast. The power wouldn't stay on forever, I knew that. So I wanted to soak both the yard and the house as much as I could before it was gone.

Once those were on, I went back into the house and shut everything up, sealing the entire thing top to bottom. I didn't want any more smoke getting in and I especially didn't want to encourage embers to take root inside the house. The last thing I did was get a handful of t-shirts and handkerchiefs, and soaked them through with water. I knew it wasn't very effective for filtering smoke, but considering I didn't keep gas masks on hand, it was the best I could do. I wrung one out and wrapped it around my nose and mouth, hoping it would help a little bit.

Then I went to my room and drew the curtains. With no way out of town without getting burned, I knew I had to stay where I was. But being able to see outside was only going to make things worse. If I was going to die here, I didn't want to see it coming.

And that thought, more than anything, was what tipped me over the edge. I walked to the corner of the room and pressed my back against the wall, sliding down until I was sitting on my butt. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I buried my face between them, rocking back and forth.

Outside the fire roared, getting closer and closer. For six years I'd been terrified of going outside, convinced that some terrible accident would befall me just like it had my mother. And now it was a sobering realization to know that it had all been in vain. The only thing I succeeded in doing was avoiding life. I had no happy memories to look back on. Well, except for the week I spent with Phoenix. I wished, more than anything, that I'd let him take me back to Boston. That I'd given in to my feelings and allowed myself to tell him that I loved him.

And now, I'd never get the chance.