Obscura Burning (6 page)

“Why are they even having a memorial? Is one funeral not enough?”

“The funeral was a private ceremony. Catholic. The memorial is for the whole town.”

“Yeah, because everyone just loved the artistic wetback.”

Shira sucks in breath and glares at me. “Don’t call him that.”

“That’s what the town thinks, isn’t it?”

“I don’t care what they think. I care about Daniel and his family. Maybe they need this.”

Well, I certainly don’t. Danny’s only dead in this reality. How am I supposed to mourn someone who isn’t dead, at least not to me? But there’s no way Shira’d be able to understand.

“You need to let go.” She reaches for my hand.

“What I need is for everyone to stop telling me what I fucking need.” I’m headed out of the trailer when I realize I’m only wearing socks.

* * *

After four hours of trying to sleep, I need to do something else. Just lying in bed thinking isn’t helping one iota. I lather on sunscreen, covering every inch of exposed scar tissue, grab a cap and water bottle. I shove the near-empty jar of crickets in my pack as well before padding downstairs. Dad’s asleep on the sofa, snow crackles on the TV, and Mom’s not home yet.

Backpack secured to shoulders, I set off in the opposite direction from Shira’s, aiming for the snaking trails that follow the arroyo and wind up the hogback west of town. Running doesn’t clear my head—it just prevents any thoughts from entering uninvited. Maintaining a steady rhythm between breaths and footfalls is enough to concentrate on.

Blue sky stretching all the way to Arizona, black dot buzzards circling out over the scrub searching for dead things to eat. The lizards are already enjoying the sun, basking on flat rocks, ignoring me as I jog past. I pause in the little shade a gnarled ash provides and retrieve the water bottle, squirting water down the back of my neck. The trail starts its ascent toward the ridge. From this slight elevation, I’ve got a pretty good view of the arroyo. There’s a figure cutting a trail through the dust. I wave, but Mya’s watching her feet. I’m content to wait, kicking aside rocks in search of dinner for my arachnids.

She smiles as the trail leads her right past my patch of shade.

“I’ll race you to the top,” she yells over her shoulder, without slowing. I run after her, determined to catch up, but she’s faster than a jackrabbit darting up the path.

“You had a head start,” I manage to wheeze between breaths, exhausted, hands resting on my knees and head down. Smoke inhalation damaged my lungs and makes exercise far more exerting than I remember. She pours water over the back of my head, laughing.

“You’re just slow, Scarface. And your legs didn’t get fried, so really, you’ve got no excuse.”

“You’re gloating.”

“A little.” Her face is shiny red with sweat. She’s staring toward Arizona. “I can almost see Flagstaff from here.”

My hands on her shoulders, I turn her forty-five degrees. “Flagstaff’s that way.” On a clear day like today and from a higher elevation, you just might see all the way across the state.

“I said
almost
.”

Laughter comes easily when I’m around her. They’re different people, the Mya from Danny’s world and this girl. Or maybe they’re the same and I’m the one who’s different.

“It’s a good day to be alive, isn’t it?” she says, shielding her eyes with her hand, still staring out over the plains.

Sudden tears prickle at the back of my eyes.

“You know it’s OK to be alive, right?” Mya glances at me, but I can’t say anything for fear of my voice breaking. I nod instead.

“Everyone’s lost someone they loved.” A knowing look. “And we feel crappy about being the one who survived, but that’s life and since you’re still alive, you just gotta live.” She shrugs and takes a sip of water. I want to ask how she knows, and who she lost, but my tongue is a swollen lump of sodden paper in my mouth.

“I’m done. Lecture over.”

I still can’t talk. She must think me an idiot for just standing there, scrawling the tip of my sneaker through the sand.

“Let’s run. Keep up if you can.” She takes off down the trail, and I’m chewing dust as I race after her.

She’s already sitting on a rock in the desiccated creek, stretching her legs and sipping water, when I eventually catch up.

“You’re fast.” My shirt’s soaked. The air would feel so good on bare skin, but I’m not going to strip in front of her. I’m not supposed to expose the scars to direct sunlight anyway. A snatch of juniper on the bank provides anorexic slivers of shade.

She has no problem taking her shirt off. Just in a black sports bra and shorts, she spills water down her cleavage and onto a stomach that’s flat as a skateboard. Muscular too, with those furrows girls have running parallel from ribs to hips.

“You’re staring,” Mya says with a grin.

“Sorry,” I mumble. My warm face is made hotter by a rush of blood.

“You can look all you want. I know you’re not interested in girls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My hands ball into fists of their own volition. Out here no one would hear her scream—I shake the ugly thought from my head. This is my friend Mya, not the bitch who deserves a steak knife through her heart.

“I know you and Daniel were
close
,” she says, using her fingers to form quotation marks in the air. “I think everyone does. They just ignore it, you know.”

Everyone? The whole town probably did know. Danny didn’t try to hide what most people called artistic tendencies. I tug my hair over my face, wishing for the umpteenth time that I had died in the fire.

“Is it a problem?” I ask her.

“Is what a problem? That you’re gay? Can you even admit it?”

“Jesus, Mya, you’re not shy.”

“Should I be?” Her lips quirk up into a grin that on the other Mya would’ve been a sneer. “So, have you ever admitted it? Said it out loud?”

I shred the petals of a yucca flower. Destroying the pretty bloom makes me feel better. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, are you gay?” She leans forward, her breasts plumped up together. I stare a while at the canyon between the flesh. Mya’s stunning, athletic and curvy with a pretty face of evenly spaced features. She’s a walking wet dream. Not like Shira. Shira’s straight up and down like a boy, her short hair only accentuating her lack of femininity. Maybe I’m leaning toward being bi, but I reckon given a choice between sex with a stunning girl or an average guy, I’d rather do the guy. Guess that makes me gay.

“Yes,” I say.

Mya leans back and smiles.

“Feel better?”

“Feel the same.”

She scratches her head and narrows her eyes. “OK, try this. Repeat after me: I, Kyle Scarface Wolfe, am gay.”

“How’d you know my name?”

“Small town.” She winks.

“You didn’t go to my school.”

“Nope, went to school in Farmington. Just in Coyote’s Luck for summers with my dad. He works on the mines.”

“How come we’ve never met?”

“Yeah, that fire cooked your brain. We’ve met. I was working in Santa Fe last summer though. I’ve also filled out some.” She looks down at her breasts.

An awkward silence settles between us as I rack my brain, trying to remember her face. Nothing. Guess I don’t pay much attention to girls.

But Mya isn’t the only blank in my mind. My memories all seem a little confused, like I’m trying to view them through murky water. Post-traumatic stress according to my mom that, given time, will pass. I reckon it’s just more weirdness I can chalk up to Obscura.

“So…” I start, struggling around the sudden lump in my throat.

“Go on.” Mya flips her hair over her shoulder and starts braiding it. I’m so hot under my own sweat-laden locks, but tying it up reveals my deformed ears.

“I…” A deep, shuddering breath. “I, Kyle Scarface Wolfe, am gay. Mostly, I think.”

She kicks sand at me. “Cheat. That’s not much of an admission.”

“It’s a start.” I’m smiling; I actually feel better having said it. I’ve never admitted it, not even to Danny. Thinking of Danny just brings a tide of black emotion crushing down on me. It was precisely because I couldn’t admit it that we’d been fighting that week before the party, and why I’d been so keen on chugging back tequila.

“Now it’s my turn.” She pulls her shirt back on. “I’ll tell you a secret.”

“I’m listening.”

Sitting up straighter, she meets my gaze, “When I was eleven, my brother died. He was only thirteen at the time. Cool kid, ran with older guys that were always teasing me. So one day we’re out at this swim hole; you know the pond out by Briar’s?”

I nod; been used by kids for generations, till the drought dehydrated it.

“They want me to jump in, off the embankment. And they’re teasing me, I mean being pricks, real
cabróns
about it. We all know we’re not supposed to jump in, the rocks and all, but they’re going on at me. I got pissed and shoved Benny, my brother. Shoved him off the bank into the water.” She takes a deep breath. “It would’ve been fine except his foot got snarled in a root or pond muck, something, and he tripped, fell back onto the rocks. They reckon he died instantly, head cracked open like a watermelon.” She pauses, battling to maintain composure.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I say, echoing ten dozen people who’ve said the same thing to me.

After a moment of awkward silence, we both laugh. It’s laughter infused with bitterness, but it’s a bitterness shared, which lessens the taint.

“There’s this memorial for Daniel,” I say as we pick our way along the thirsty creek, watching out for rattlers.

“His funeral was boring. I think he deserves something a bit more creative.”

“You were at his funeral?” Not sure why I’m surprised.

“I lurked around the back.”

“Shira reckons it’ll give us closure.”

“If closure’s what you want.” Mya kicks a rock ahead of her, and I return it in an ambling game of soccer.

The words are simmering, sure to spill from my lips, but I just can’t tell her about my double life. Not yet.

“Did you want closure after your brother?”

“Yeah, but it took years to find it. No memorial service is gonna magically make things all better. It might help though.”

“Would you come to the memorial?”

She stops kicking the rock and looks at me. “I’ll make a deal with you, Scarface.”

“OK, what deal?”

“I’ll come to this memorial, but in return, you have to come to the Fourth of July dance with me.”

“Whoa, that was fast. Don’t you have a boyfriend to con into going with you?”

“If I did, you think I’d be asking you?” She raises a thin eyebrow at me.

That stings a little and I guess it shows.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. God, put foot in mouth and shove down throat. I meant…no, there’s no way to fix that. Sorry.” She seems genuine.

“It’s OK. I’m not exactly Prince Charming.”

“You’re perfectly charming. Smelly though.” She wrinkles her nose, scrunching up the rash of freckles across her cheeks into a single dark band.

“As long as I don’t have to wear a Stetson and cowboy boots, I’ll go to the stupid dance.”

“Fine, you can wear a sombrero.” She sticks out her hand and we shake. “So when’s this memorial happening?”

Chapter Six

Shira’s dead

“Hey,
cielo.
Wake up,” Danny whispers in my ear before nibbling on the cartilage.

“What time is it?” I sit up, rubbing my eyes. Danny’s loft. We’re both naked. Danny puts a hand on my chest and presses me back against the bed. My hair brushes the headboard, sending the tangle of rosary beads fixed to the wood into a jangling chorus of crucifixes. Seems impossible to escape the piercing eyes of dying Jesus.

I’m so dizzy the world is spinning, the ceiling undulating in violent waves. I close my eyes and it only makes the nausea worse.

“Shh, if we’re quiet, we can have another go before school.” He’s kissing me before I have time to process what he just said. The nausea subsides and I drag my fingers across his spine. No ridge of keloid tissue, just knobbly vertebrae.

“What day is it?” I manage between kisses, hooking my fingers through the leather thong around his neck. The St. Anthony medal is cool against my skin.

“Friday.”

I strain over his shoulder to see my watch, but I’m not wearing it. A moment of panic laces my veins with ice. Weeks ago. Before the fire. Before the whole world went to shit. If I could just hold on to this moment then maybe I can change things.

Then I can’t think anymore as Danny’s lips move lower, his teeth on my collarbone and chest. Tears trickle out of my eyes. Maybe I’m dreaming, or maybe the rest was all a nightmare and the fire never happened.

“Run away with me,” he says, lips on my hips.

“Where?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Friday morning, April 6.

“To New York. We could elope.” He pauses and looks up at me, eyes expectant.

“Danny…” My voice catches in my throat.

“I know it’s kinda soon, but I love you,
cielo.
Let’s get outta this shithole of a town.”

“And live the bohemian life in the Big Apple?” I hear the words, but can’t feel myself saying them. It’s a fragment of memory; it’s not real.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Not to me. I’m going to Rice. I don’t want to be some flamboyant faggot in the Village. No one even knows that I’m…about us, I mean.” I stammer, unable to admit that I’m gay to Danny’s face.

“You embarrassed to be with me?” Such hurt in his eyes, his cherub mouth turned down at the corners.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, pulling him into an embrace.

His hands on my ribs, squeezing, crushing until I can’t breathe. Pain flares between my shoulders, down the backs of my legs. When I open my eyes, I’m looking up at leering faces. A moment of recognition. I think it might be Mya’s admirer Nicholas as he raises his fist…

The scenery shivers and I’m falling again, plummeting from the tree. Obscura winks blue between the gaunt branches of the oak tree.

Dad’s still crashing around upstairs, banging on my bedroom door, so I couldn’t have been out for long. Gingerly, I peel myself off the ground and test each limb. Nothing broken, I think, but my whole left side is throbbing, jaw included. Must’ve landed lopsided. Gently, I probe my bruised side. I think I might’ve cracked a rib. Every breath is a knife through the chest.