Beautiful Burn (20 page)

“
This
feels like hell,” she weeped.

Tears pulled
behind my eyelids as my heart slowed. “I know.” I choked as I
held her in the chilled night, rocking to a soft tune in my head,
soaking up my light before she was gone again.

December rioted in
with snowfall that broke records, and freezing temperatures that
chilled to the bone. Auburn and I spoke less as the weeks passed,
only intensifying the chill in my heart. We no longer tried to mimic
what we’d once had. The easy laughs and heartfelt conversations
we’d shared through the summer now replaced with long silences and
awkward one-word answers.

We made vague
plans on two different occasions, the first she was to come home
early one Friday after class, but instead she was called for a job at
a coffee shop she'd been hoping for. While we’d been looking
forward to Auburn being home over the holidays between semesters, her
new job shot that plan to shit.

And so we
continued.

I
began to wonder how I would ever give her her Christmas present, the
book shelf. I’d lovingly repaired it, and it now sat empty in my
bedroom. I refused to use it, so I waited until I could give it to
her. Show her the love I had poured into this bookshelf, piece by
piece.

Christmas week
approached and Auburn texted that she wouldn’t be home until
Christmas Eve, and had to be back to work the day after Christmas.
Again, we were left with so little time. It was hopeless.

I resolved to
speak to the superintendent after Christmas, but before winter
classes resumed. I didn’t know what I would say, which meant I had
only one choice, to be honest. I would explain to him that I’d
fallen in love with a former student. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I'd
thought. Maybe he’d smile and pat me on the back and send me on my
way, without disapproving looks or lectures.

I flipped over in
bed and hovered over Auburn's name on my phone. I wanted to text her,
every cell in my body itched for my fingers to tap out those three
words that had been floating in my mind for so long now.

I
love you.
I
typed, hovering over send. I considered taking the coward's way out
and replacing the word 'love' with a heart emoticon. Instead I
deleted the entire message and typed:

I
have
something for you.

I lay awake for an
hour, phone on my chest, waiting for the familiar vibration of her
reply. It never came.

I
drove the hour home from my sister's house late Christmas night,
anxious to change, pull the bookshelf out, and call Auburn. I had
told her no promises, but that I would call her if I got back into
town early enough. And for once, everything seemed to fall into place
for us. My parents were staying with my sister and I'd managed to
duck out at a decent time to get home.

Powdery
sugar breezed across the icy road, swirling tornadoes of white across
my low beams. I frowned and hoped Auburn wouldn’t have trouble
driving in it when she came over. When I reached my apartment, I
hustled up the back steps and kicked off my shoes. I stripped and
tossed my clothes on the closet floor and pulled on jeans and a
long-sleeved shirt. I pulled the bookcase into the living room, right
in the center so she couldn’t miss it, and placed first editions of
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Whitman on their sides on the center
shelf. I pushed a hand through my wayward dirty blond strands, not
used to having to style my hair after the shorter cut I'd usually
worn, and sucked in a deep breath.

Come
to my place.
I
typed.

Her
reply was almost instant.
I’m on my way.

I
wanted us back. I was ready to tell her everything. Open up, tell her
all the secrets I’d kept, even
from
myself. I wanted her. I wanted a life with her and her alone, and I
was ready to take the next steps. I was so ready to finally unload
everything.

I finally had a
plan, and it included us.

She knocked
fifteen minutes later. I set down the opened bottle of wine I’d
bought, her favorite, and hurried to the door. I opened it, ready to
feast my eyes on the girl I loved, the girl I’d laughed and smiled
and held all summer. Instead I saw a shell.

Her eyes were
hollow, dark circles where creamy skin once was. Her already high
cheekbones more prominent than they'd ever been. She smiled softly,
stepped in, and shrugged off her coat.

“
Jesus.”
I breathed as I took it from her. “Auburn, what happened?” My
hands slipped to her waist, fisting at her now protruding hipbones.

“
I've
been so busy with classes and that job, another girl quit and they
asked me to pick up her shifts. I haven’t been sleeping...” She
wiped at her eyes.

“
Why
haven’t you been sleeping?”

She crossed her
arms, lips pulled taut, before water filled her eyes and flowed down
her cheeks in uncontrollable rivers.

“
Fuck,
Auburn, tell me what’s going on.” I held her sobbing face in my
palms as my heart fell on the floor at my feet.

“
You!
It’s you! I can’t stop thinking about you! I can’t sleep, I
can’t eat, I just work and study! I haven't even been reading!
This?” She pressed her palms to her face, fresh tears coming. “This
isn't me! I won't be the girl that sneaks into her boyfriend's house
in the middle of the night sobbing!” She crumbled in on herself. “I
don't know who I am anymore,” she whimpered. I tried to hold her,
killing myself inside for what’d I’d done. I’d neglected my
love for her, and she’d become a shell of the bright and vibrant
girl she was.

“
Auburn,
please give me a chance.”

“
I
can’t do this anymore, Reed. I'm sorry.” She choked on the words.

“
What?
No. We just…let me say some things first. There’s so much I want
to say.” I pulled away, my mind raging that it was too late. I’d
missed her. I'd lost her. Fuck. I backed into the bookcase and it
slid across the shiny hardwood with a groan.

Her eyes darted up
and caught mine, then assessed the shelf behind me.

“
It’s
for you.” I stepped out of the way so she could see it in full. Her
eyes trailed up and down, then caught mine, before her head dropped
and she sobbed. With palms to her face, she shook her head, hair
curtaining around her, hiding her beautiful but sad soul from me.

I rushed to her,
sliding my palms along her cheekbones and holding her gaze to my own.
“I'm sorry.” My world shattered as those watery, chocolate eyes
peered back at me.

“
I’m
sorry too,” she murmured as she pulled away. Before I knew what she
was doing she'd grabbed her coat and was rushing out the door.

“
Auburn!”
I followed, rushed back in to shove on my shoes, then scrambled
through the front door and sprinted down the steps. Her form was
hardly visible in the blowing snow and wind that pummeled through the
buildings of main street.

“
Auburn!”
I yelled, willing her to stop.

She did.

I wish now she
wouldn’t have.

“
I'm
leaving, Reed,” she cried across the dancing, dashing snowflakes
that fell in the hollow space that now existed between us. I yearned
for her. I wanted to stretch, to touch, to run, to leave.

Instead
I stood, dumb. “No.” Was the only word running through my head.

“
I’m
sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. I never should have gotten involved
with you, I knew it was wrong, I knew it. But something in me
screamed that it couldn't be wrong because it felt so right!” she
shrieked as tears frosted on her cheeks, others running in torrents
to escape into the scarf at her throat.

“
Auburn,
no.” I shook my head, my brain refusing to put together more than
those two words. My eyes glazed as the mesmerizing snow seemed to
transport me to a place where Auburn would never, ever utter those
two words.
I'm
leaving.
“I’ll
do it! I’m doing it! I just needed to do it on my time!” I
finally found my voice and yelled.

“
What
about my time?” She breathed, tears finally slowing.

I
watched her, waited, processing. I turned my head and glanced down
the main street of our tiny town, the town we’d walked parades in
since we were kids, albeit different decades. Snowflakes fell
peacefully, swirling in the softly-lit lamplight of colorful historic
homes as my world tilted and shuddered to a halt before my eyes.

“
You’re
right,” I finally replied. This was the right thing. This was the
better thing. This was for her. So why did it hurt so fucking much?

She
licked her lips, waiting a moment longer, before shoving her hands in
her pockets and hunching over, walked the few blocks to her car. I
watched her lonely form get further and further away as she left me
here, without her.

The silence of the
winter night suddenly felt oppressive. I wanted to scream, punch
something, run for her. God, how I wanted to run for her. Instead I
stood, imprinting this moment on my soul because I'd found myself
with her, and then I'd lost her, and I deserved to feel every broken
moment of it.

Three
months passed in her absence. I
t
took her leaving to get my life together. I filed for divorce from
Mel, and because we didn't have children, the lawyer anticipated it
being final before this coming summer. I felt better than ever, minus
the missing dark-haired girl in my life, but I had plans to rectify
that. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.

And
then I went to one appointment that changed my life forever. Again.

It
wasn't the first one, I'd been to too many to count over the course
of the last year. The five short weeks of painful memories I'd
blocked out from this past summer rushed my brain and had defeat
settling deep in my bones.

I
was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on my twenty-eighth birthday.

Skin cancer.

Two
days after I found out, I left Mel. A week later the mutated cells
born from a small freckle on my shoulder were removed by a skilled
surgeon. “Just to be sure,” my oncologist had reassured, he'd
sent me to radiation three days a week for five weeks
.

The
treatments had zapped me physically and psychologically, but I'd had
Auburn. Those moments of laughter and love had helped me forget. Had
helped me push on and live. Finding her had saved me when nothing
else could. I chose not to tell her, chose not to tell my parents or
Mel, I didn't want sympathy, I certainty didn't want tears, I just
wanted to treat it and forget it. The success rate for basal cell
carcinoma is high if caught early, he'd said. We'd assumed we had,
we'd thought we had. He'd reassured we had. And so I kept my secret
and I lived.

I
didn't expect my life to be short, I didn't expect to divorce my wife
and fall in love with my former student, and I didn’t expect to get
so little time on earth that I couldn't accomplish all the goals I'd
dreamed of, but the time I did have, I would spend living.

And
so I'd pushed on and went to radiation, and the rest of the time I
pretended it didn't exist. I pretended that my body wasn't waging a
war against it's own cells as I lost myself in Auburn -- her smile,
her love, her laugh. But I hadn't been able to silence the nagging
fact that I didn't know if I could give her forever. I'd forced
myself to get to that six-month check-up. I had to know what my
future held before I could give myself to her. Coming out of that
appointment the week before Christmas with a confirmation that the
treatment had worked had me anxious to sign the divorce papers and
more excited than ever to tell Auburn my plans for our future,
together.