Page 13 of Burning For You

“I am home. Though not to move back in. I’m sure you and Dad enjoy the peace and quiet here.”

“Nonsense,” her father said, coming in. She’d had a harder time calling Jim Lancaster Dad than she had calling Carrie Mom. “Come give me a hug too. It might be the only one I get this year.”

Skye laughed and went into his embrace, felt the big beefy arms from years of construction work hold her tight and let her know that even at close to sixty, he was still going to have her back.

She didn’t need to be his blood for him to give that support. It’d taken her years after moving out to realize that.

“That’s not true,” she said, laughing.

But it probably was.

“I hope you’re hungry. Dad has been smoking ribs for hours, then we’re going to throw burgers and sausage on the grill when everyone else gets here. I’m glad you came first.”

Which she’d done on purpose. She wanted to talk to them with no one around.

“There was a reason for it,” she said.

Her mother’s smile dropped. “Is everything okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d tell you if I was. I just wanted to talk to you both about something.”

“Come into the living room then. Let’s get comfortable.”

It was times like this when she learned that not all households consisted of nonstop yelling as their form of communication.

What a shock that had been to her moving in.

She’d kept to her room, worried that she’d be in the way. That there’d be anger that Corbin had to move in with Tate, because, as a girl, she needed her own space.

There were other foster kids in the house sharing a room. But Tate and Corbin, they were able to keep their own space.

Until her.

But no one seemed to mind.

And when Brenna moved in the following year, she shared her room too, and by then, it didn’t bother her to not have her own calm space anymore like she’d always dreamed of living in her old house.

“What’s going on, Skye?” her mother asked.

“I don’t want you to read into this any more than it is. First, I’m going to start writing my book. I think I’ve let it spin in my head for years. Doesn’t mean it’s going to come out good or anything.”

“It will be wonderful,” her father said. “You write so well.”

A soft smile filled her face. They were the first two to read all her short stories in high school and in college. They always asked, she never offered.

Something her own parents had never been interested in.

“Thanks. I want to write about the fire.”

There was silence as her parents looked at each other. “What about it?” her mother asked.

“Is this like some kind of therapy to help you through?” her father asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking along those lines. It’s going to be fiction, but it will be based on what I went through. Can you guys tell me what you remember from that time? Most is a bit foggy for me.”

Though she’d found and read every article she could on it. And it wasn’t much.

As if no one cared about the family where the parents were most likely passed out in bed and had caused the fire that resulted in their death and her jumping out of a window and breaking her leg.