Oh.
Oh no.
I know what he’s about to do.
He holds the twig in front of his face, then blows hard, spraying fine particles of liquor.
They catch on the twig and ignite into a roaring blaze. It seriously looks like he’s breathing fire in a plume that lights up the night in dancing orange.
The other kids gasp, letting out excited shouts, and the purple-haired girl looks up at him with total adoration, her eyes shining.
To a starry-eyed teenager, it’s pretty cool.
But kids their age shouldn’t be messing with stuff like that surrounded by trees.
I’m torn.
I’ve done my fair share of stupid stuff. It’s part of growing up. Part of finding myself. I don’t want to ruin it for someone else.
I also don’t want to be the moron who looked the other way while a bunch of kids started a wildfire that takes down half the town.
So I rock back on my heels, thinking how to approach them. Only for my boot to catch on a thick branch and snap it in half.
Even with the crackle of Senor Firespout over there, the noise zips through the night.
The kids tense, bolting upright, scattering like alley cats in police headlights.
Including the firestarter kid, gasping and choking as his plume sputters out...and the rapid whip of his head sends sparks flying freaking everywhere.
They drift up, catching on the last few tattered dry leaves clinging to the twigs overhead.
There’s maybe half a second where I hope the sparks will smolder and die.
Only for a breeze to make them flare to light, and suddenly, the entire branch goes up in a sudden fiery burst.
Crap!
I’m moving before I even realize what I’m doing, my heart tripping over itself while I whip off my hat, exposing my face to the blistering cold, dashing across the clearing. I try to beat the flames out.
Next thing I know, there’s someone right next to me and a quiet voice saying, “Not like that! You’ll burn your hands, lady.”
Before I can stop her, Purple Girl nudges me aside.
She’s calmer than me, taking her coat off—one of those big clunky military surplus things punk girls her age love so much—and wrapping it around the branches, smothering the fire into nothing in half a second, before it even has a chance to singe her coat.
She holds it a minute longer, then pulls the coat free from the now-smoking but no longer burning branch, shaking the cloth free before sliding it on.
The look she gives me is wary, suspicious, like she’s wondering if I’m friend or foe, because let’s face it, she did the right thing. She turned back to put out the fire.
Which means she basically just turned herself into an adult.
“You’re new,” she says carefully, then flicks her gaze to my hair. “Nice hair job.”
“The red’s natural,” I answer. Easy icebreaker again. “But looks like we’ve both got a thing for purple.”
“Yeah.” She takes a step back, and I can tell she’s ready to bolt, but I offer my hand.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s cold out here, and you’ve been drinking. Come on inside and sober up with me. I’ll make you some tea, so you don’t go home to your parents smelling like...” I glance at the bottle. “Whatever that cheap crap is.”
She actually flinches.
I’m not sure what I said, but her expression crumples.
She looks away from me sharply, her lips working, her mouth trembling. She glares at the bottle. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I was the kind of kid who’d do the same dumb shit you just did. Only, I’d probably have set my hair on fire trying to put the tree out.”
That gets a laugh from her. “...yeah, uh, yarn is really flammable. That was kind of silly.”
“Guilty as charged.” I grin, my hand still outstretched. “What’s your name?”
For several seconds, she looks at my hand like she’s trying to make up her mind, before stepping forward and slipping her fingers into mine. Even as cold as it is, without gloves, snow falling around us in soft little poofs, her fingers are warm.
Like she’s just bursting with brightness and life.
“Andrea,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Andrea Silverton. How ’bout you?”
“Peace,” I say, and the weirdest look passes over her face.
Horror, amusement, dread, disgust, resignation.
Every spectrum of emotion I’ve seen before when I lay my name on strangers.
“Wait. Oh my God, that was you on the radio tonight!” she says.
I let out a groan, squeezing her hand back before letting go.
“My infamy precedes me,” I say dryly. “Including my misfortune with fire.” I toss my head. “C’mon. Let’s go get warmed up.”
I’m starting to think Andrea’s a little repressed.
I make us both cups of blueberry hibiscus tea. It gives off a nice smell to cover up the liquor on her breath—moonshine, I think. I caught a whiff as we walked back. Oof.
With the hibiscus to calm her down, hopefully it’ll help her sleep a little easier with less of a hangover in the morning.
Over her cup of tea, she watches me, settled on the couch nearby.
“How’d you know we were out there?” she asks.
“Smoke and fire show up easy at night. Especially with the snow reflecting everything.” I smile and shrug, pressing my mouth against the rim of my mug, leaning against the arm of the couch. “You were pretty visible from the kitchen window.”
“Fuck.” She closes her eyes, cradling her mug but not drinking much. “I told my idiot friends we were too close.”
“If you’d been any deeper, where the trees grow thicker, you could’ve caught a lot more than a few branches on fire.”
“That was Clark,” she spits out with the kind of annoyed vehemence that can only be a girl in love with a boy who’s only dumb because he hasn’t told her he’s in love with her, too. “I just wanted to forget everything, I guess. Bad night. My dad’s a dumbass, my mom’s dead, my uncle’s weird, and I have no clue why he’s even here. Then Clark had to go and show off, and now everything’s just...just...”
She’s lost me.
I have no idea what’s going on, really.
But I don’t need to in order to listen.
Sometimes, we just need people to hear us. It sounds like Andrea’s wanted someone to hear her for a long time.
And maybe I’m not the right one, the best one, the person who really needs to hear all of this.
Still, I can stand in, let her relieve some of the pressure until she’s ready to talk to the folks she truly needs.
“Hey,” I say softly. “Sometimes our friends are dumb when they’re trying to distract us. And our parents do even dumber stuff when they’re trying to figure out how to help us after...” I make a helpless gesture. “After all that.”
Andrea gives me a miserable look. I think she’s hiding behind her mug so I don’t see how her lips tremble to match her voice.
“What do you know?” she whispers.
Her hostility doesn’t bother me. She’s young, drunk, miserable.
I’ve been there.
So I just smile, taking a bracing sip of tea. “My dad died when I was a few years younger than you,” I say. “And my mom didn’t know how to handle it. She kinda turned into an asshole.”