Ignite

Chapter 36

That night, after dinner, I knock on Jake's door.

It's the first time in weeks I've gone to visit his room, that I've wanted to have a conversation Sylvia and Peter won't be able to overhear.

As I stand outside, my heart pounding, I hear a draw close and soft footsteps approach, and then Jake opens the door.

"Hey, can we chat for a sec?" I ask.

Jake eyes me, his face unreadable, and then he shrugs and walks over to his bed, leaving the door open.

The moment he turns his back, I scan the room. The window is open, his desk and bookshelf suspiciously clean, but nothing else looks out of place, the room filled with clean air and innocent surfaces.

I step inside and flop down beside him on the bed and stare up at the ceiling.

"How are you?"

Jake turns towards me, his eyes trailing my profile. "You came here to ask how I am?"

"Yeah."

"I'm fine."

I nod, frowning at the roof as if it will give me courage.

"Okay, well here's the thing. You don't seem it. And I don't know if it's my fault or this place's fault, but it's worrying me."

"How so?"

"I donno. We never talk anymore. You never seem happy."

He's quiet for a long time and I find my eyes tracing the old spider webs that run around the corners of his ceiling, waiting.

"I'm not unhappy."

"Yeah, but that's not the same thing, is it?"

Jake sits up, and I watch from my peripherals as he looks down at his hands, toying with the bed sheets.

"I just think about home a lot," he says eventually, "about what we'd be doing if the fire hadn't happened and we were there right now."

"And what would we be doing?"

Jake scoffs, but a smile kinks up the corner of his mouth.

"I donno. Right now we'd probably be bored out of brains, waiting for Mum to drink enough that we could sneak out the back door and meet up with Matt D'Cruz. Today's Thursday right? He always nicked a bottle of whiskey from his uncle on Thursdays."

"And then we'd go to the train tracks and you guys would have a 'who's more macho' contest."

"Yeah, exactly."

We fall silent and I glance up at him.

"Do you really want that, though?"

Jake sighs. "I donno. I just wish I could contact some of them, find out what happened, find out who..."

He trails off and I know the words that lingering on his lips.

Who had we known? Who, of the 112 people Mum killed, had been our friends? Who was still alive and might want to come after us to hurt her back?

"You can't think like that, Jake," I say softly. "If anyone found out where we are, we're not the only ones in danger now. It's Sylvia and Peter as well. If the wrong people realise they helped hide us, they could get hurt."

"I know. But surely we can trust some people."

I try to keep my expression blank, but the memories surface before I can stop them.

Matt D'Cruz playing along the highway with Jake and I, running between the cars and grinning wickedly. Emma Carter sitting beside me on the fence, swinging her legs out and popping bubble gum in her mouth. Mr. Tracey with an arm-full of books, turning as I entered his store, the bell clanging above me.

"We can't," I say. "You know that."

Jake sighs and I sit up and put my arms around him, laying my head on his shoulder, but even as I hold him, I can feel that he's not with me — like I'm clinging to a ghost.

"I miss you, you know," I say quietly and Jake turns to me. "Things haven't been the same between us since we talked about Mum."

An expression slides on and off Jake's face like water, too quick to read.

"I guess I hadn't realised how much you hate her until then."

"I don't hate her."

Jake smiles, but there's no happiness in it.

"No, you do. You feel guilty about it. But you do anyway."

I want to tell him he's wrong. I want to say I'm a forgiving person and the accusation in his voice is misplaced. But I can't.

"I'm sorry," I say instead.

"It's alright."

His words are brief and they make me want to cling to him more fiercely, ensure he can't ever leave. Not after so many others already have.

"Aleisha asked me out today."

His words distract me, just how I imagine he'd planned them to, and I look up at him.

"What?"

I blink, a bubble of hope rising in my stomach, bursting forth in high-pitched words.

"Jake, that's great! I thought you two were—"

"I said no."

My elation comes to a screeching halt.

"What? Why? I thought you liked her?"

He closes his eyes, squeezing hard.

"I do."

I stare at him and then lie back, my head reeling.

"I just fuck things up, Claude," he says, sensing my need for an explanation. "I'll do it with her too. I know I will."

"Jake, that's not true at all."

The idea that Jake could think he was someone destructive, someone Aleisha needed to be distanced from, was astounding to me. Before we'd moved here, he'd always been the stable one, the one who had the answers, the one who breezed through every social situation.

I feel a fresh surge of rage against Mum then, a complete fury that in amongst everything else, she'd taken away this part of Jake as well.

"Jake," I say, my voice firmer. "You're not some chaotic force ruining everything in its path."

Jake looks at me and gives me a small smile, one that I can tell is more for me than himself, and it only makes the lump in my throat grow bigger.

"Thanks, Claude."

I stare at him, suddenly certain that this was the last straw, the final chance. The next red flag I saw, the next fist-fight, or strange comment, or worrying information from Lewis, would be the last.

Jake had one more chance to fix things himself.

After that, I'd do it for him. 

...

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Until next week,

- Skylar xx