Growing Up in Flames by Zach Jones

Author:Zach Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2022-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

James

Twenty Years Earlier

I hold Ava as she sobs into my shoulder. Her skin is wet from the rain. Her hands cling to me, pulling at my hair. I don’t mind much. I pull the story from her between her gasped breaths.

I honestly didn’t expect this when I went to see Alex. I couldn’t have dreamed that he’d react like this. I went to get a good look at him—to see who Ava was abandoning me for. Guess he couldn’t stand how happy I make her.

He carved SLUT into the tree out the front of her house. Big letters, all capitals. He thinks he got away with it too, but she saw him from the upstairs window. I can just picture him sweating over the knife, adjusting his glasses as he cuts chunks from the wood. I can almost hear his broken heart pounding.

I’m angry for her, but I also feel a shiver run through me. She’s mine now. Even if some nights she won’t let me touch her, and she wakes up feeling sick because the fire burnt out halfway through the night and she froze until morning. She won’t ever leave me for him.

‘He’s right,’ she cries between stolen breaths.

I hold her face between my hands and shake it. ‘Don’t say that.’ I wonder where I put my knife—the little red one I use for birds. ‘I’ll kill him if you want.’ I mean it.

Ava grips me even tighter. ‘No. Don’t hurt him. I don’t want you to hurt him.’

‘Why? Because you care about him?’

‘You!’ she yells at me. ‘I care about you! I don’t want you to hurt him.’

She’s like a child, clinging to me for comfort after a skinned knee. I relax my fist and stroke her back as she wipes snot onto my sleeve. I rock her back and forth and make shushing sounds that I vaguely remember Mum making for me. This is love.

‘What do you want me to do?’

I wait until her sobs slow. Her tears dry on her skin, streaks of salt. She goes still in my arms and when she speaks her voice is soft.

‘Scare him.’ It settles in the air like a mist.

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