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Her soft mouth molds against mine, but when she pushes her tongue against the seam of my lips, I stop her, afraid that if we take it any further, I’ll chicken out.
“Can we talk first?”
“As long as you haven’t changed your mind or come up with an excuse for why this won’t work.”
I hate the uncertainty in her voice. “I haven’t, but you might after you hear what I have to say.”
“Okay,” she says cautiously. “I’m listening.”
Every worst-case scenario runs through my head. I take a deep breath and motion for the couch. “You might want to sit down for this.”
She swallows hard. “I’m good.”
“Please, Claire, sit.”
“You’re scaring me, Trevor,” she says, lowering herself to the couch.
“I, uh…wow.” I rub my hands together. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be—”
“Listen, if this is some weird it’s-not-you-it’s-me thing you’re trying to figure out
how to say, then just forget about it.” Claire pushes up from the couch, but I catch her before she makes it far.
“No. I swear it’s not like that. Please, sit back down.”
She eyes me warily but returns to her seat. “Come on, Trevor, just tell me already.”
“I’m the reason your dad is dead,” I blurt. My entire body trembles as adrenaline pumps through my veins, and my arms and legs go numb as I wait for her to say something.
Claire’s mouth opens, and a cold knot forms in my stomach.
“What?” she asks, shaking her head. “I…I don’t understand.”
I take a step toward her, but she doesn’t move. She’s staring at me like I just spoke in a foreign language.
“The fire your dad responded to the day he was killed? It broke out around twelve o’clock that afternoon, during my lunch period.” I say, lowering myself to the couch beside her, making sure I keep enough distance between us.
I’ve relived that day more times than I can count, but I’ve never talked about it out loud to another person. “I was twelve and in a bad place—rebellious, crazy hormones, and mad at the world. I snuck out to the bleachers during lunch to smoke. It was freezing outside, and I kept lighting cigarettes, one right after the other, and the next thing I knew, the fire alarms at the school were going off. At first, I thought it was the bell, so I snuffed out my cigarette. By the time I made it across the football field, kids were spilling out of the school, tripping over each other, crying and screaming, and that’s when I knew it was something more. And then the fire department showed up, and all hell broke loose. Your dad was the first one on the scene.”
Claire’s eyes are swimming in tears. She was in high school at the time, so she wasn’t there during the fire, but I’m sure she’s heard how horrific it was that day.
“He didn’t waver, Claire. He ran into that building without abandon, dragging kids out. They eventually contained the fire, but there was one kid unaccounted for, and that kid was me.”
My fingers are numb, my palms growing increasingly sweaty with each word, and I wipe them down the front of my jeans. “Your dad went in after me, but I was already outside.”
Claire starts shaking her head, but I keep talking, needing to get it all about before she says anything else.
“God, Claire, I was already outside. I knew they sent him in to find me, and I could’ve spoken up, but I was scared. I was a coward. And I’ll never forgive myself, because your dad went into that building one last time because of me, and he never came back out.” The words get clogged in my throat, and I cover my face with my hands.
Claire inches closer, resting her hand on my back. “Trevor,” she whispers, repeating my name a second time when I don’t look up. “Trevor, that’s not how it happened.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, pushing up from the couch to pace. “I saw it all play out from the bleachers. I heard them tell your dad to go back in. I should’ve hollered and jumped, run up to the chief—anything—but all I could think was that I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t want my parents to find out I was smoking, so I stayed hidden. At some point during the chaos, I snuck into a crowd of kids and pretended I’d been there the whole time.”
Stopping in front of Claire, I watch her, waiting for her to lash out and tear into me. I think I need it. I need her to tell me I’m a coward and she’ll never forgive me for what I did. What I don’t need is for her to stare at me like she is now: speechless, with more love and heartache in her eyes than I’ve ever seen reflected back at me.
“Say something,” I whisper, falling to my knees in front of her. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m a coward, something.”
She doesn’t. Claire shakes her head as tears fall down her face, and I don’t bother wiping them away because I don’t deserve that privilege. I don’t deserve to touch her. And now that my feelings have bubbled to the surface, I can’t seem to keep them from boiling over.
