A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,51

just wanted to be free. With you.

Your eyes were wet. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

“I’m not. Not anymore.”

I took off your shirt and then you took off mine and then we were nothing but two bodies holding each other in the dark.

Two bodies feeling and knowing each other for the first time.

Two bodies who weren’t afraid.

I felt you and all I could think about was how you once named all the constellations on my face. I felt like I was a bright and wondrous and wild thing, just like the stars and the paint on your canvas.

51

Momma,

Everything felt more vivid, more real, more alive and awake and buzzing. August was holding my hand and pulling me closer, stealing kisses. We knew all of each other. He had been soft and gentle and for a sliver of time, I felt like we were the subjects in one of his paintings. In a world painted new.

It was still dark, but in a few hours dawn would break. I kissed him goodbye despite his protests to stay by his side. I wanted our time together to be unblemished by reality, or the reality I had always known. He watched me go and then turned toward his house, but every few strides, he looked back at me, a smile on his face.

I didn’t hear the shouting until I got to the lattice ladder outside of the house. I peered in the window. The lights were on in the kitchen and living room. Father had your arms braced against the doorway in a vise-like grip. You looked like you were praying for the world to stutter to a stop so that you could walk off it. “Where is she?”

She. He knew I’d left. How could he have known? They had been sleeping when I snuck out with August. I was huddled in the shadows watching as you shook your head. “She’s spending the night at a friend’s house, she’s…”

He SLAPPED you hard across your face so that it whipped to one side. You held your cheek.

“Her door was locked, Regina,” he said in that quiet and terrible way. “From the inside.” He pulled a chair out and sat in front of you so that he was looking up into your eyes. “And her window is open.” He pinched your chin between his thumb and forefinger. He made you look at him. “Do you think”—he brought his face closer to yours—“that I am a fucking fool?”

“No,” you whispered, breathless. “No, of course not. I thought…”

“You thought wrong.” He grabbed your hair and dragged your face even closer to his lips and they brushed your cheek. I didn’t hear what he said. The words were too quiet.

I stared in through the window. If someone were to watch you and Father in slices, if they zoomed in, if they cut out all the noise or edited out the things they didn’t want to see, they could almost look in the window and see passion and not pain, they could almost think that my father was just pulling his wife in closer, because he wanted to feel her closer, not because he wanted to use her up.

I blinked away tears. That’s when I noticed that you were dripping wet. Your hair and your shirt were soaked. Like you’d stepped into the shower stream with all of your clothes on. You were shaking. And behind you, I saw the gas can.

The lighter was in Father’s hand.

I ran to the door and flung it open. “Momma!” The house smelled like gasoline.

Father’s gaze shifted to me slowly and he tilted his head. “I told you, Ellie. I told you what would happen if you didn’t stay.”

You started to pull away, but I could see his grip on you. I could see how you were shaking. I thought you would shake to pieces. “Ellie,” you said, and I saw you mouth the word as father’s eyes stayed locked on mine. Run.

Father clicked open the lighter. And let the flame blaze to life.

I wasn’t going to run away. I charged forward and grabbed the lighter out of his hand before the flame hit the gasoline. It burned my palm. He tried to grip my arm, but I was already running back toward the door and I flung the lighter as far as I could into the dark. His lighter was the only flame in the house. There were no matches.

I thought he would run outside to look for the lighter, and I readied myself