Because of the fire.

chapter five

Later that evening, we were sitting at the Thorntons' dinner table since Maggie had extended an invitation. Mom had automatically accepted since we didn't have any groceries yet and takeaways were probably not as good as home cooked meals. I actually couldn't wait to get done with dinner so I'd check my phone which was charging in Earl's room. I discovered that the Thorntons had moved here because of Mr Thornton's job.

"So where does Earl go to school?" my mom asked then I realized I also wanted to know.

"He's starting on Monday at Fairwood," Maggie replied.

What?!

"isn't that just great. Tracy goes to Fairwood and she's a senior, so is Earl right," mom could barely keep the excitement out of her voice.

I immediately knew what she was thinking; I had a shot at making friends. I had also surprised myself considering how I talked to Earl with ease. Usually I didn't go past greetings with new people. The smoke from the fire must've fogged my mind.

Maggie and mom kept chattering while they ate but we as kids didn't join in on their conversation. Just then I heard Mr Thornton ask dad, "how did the fire start?"

"No one really knows but it started in the kitchen. Now there's a lot of electrical appliances in the kitchen and it's really hard to tell," dad replied.

I also wondered how the fire started. I  volunteered to help Earl with the dishes and mom shot me a grateful look. The twins had already bounded off with Luke to Cody's room. The parents were chatting away in the lounge. It was funny how we'd all got along in such a short time but I was grateful, however.

"is this all?" I asked Earl as I looked at the pile of dirty plates in the sink.

"there must be a dirty bowl in the microwave," he replied.

The uneasy feeling I'd had since dad said that the fire had started in the kitchen stopped the moment I opened the microwave. Memories flooded in my head as I took the bowl. I had warmed some food for Luke in the microwave but there wasn't any memory of me turning off the microwave, Luke hadn't even ate the food.
I burned down our house.

"Tracy are you ok," Earl's voice brought me back to reality.

"yeah, yeah I'm fine."

"you sure? You could just do the rinsing and drying," he said in a concerned voice.

"I'm really fine," I assured him.

I asked him about his previous school as we did the dishes then I told him about Fairwood. My mind wasn't fully on the conversation though, it was straying to a lot of things.
I am responsible for the fire.
Why didn't Kyle reply to my text. Does he think I'm dead, does everyone at school think I'm dead?
What about all the homework...
After we'd finished doing the dishes Earl said, "let's go."

"where?" I asked.

"to my room.. To get your phone, the battery must be full."

"right," I said following him.

His room was surprisingly neat, maybe because they'd just moved in.

"are you always this neat?" I asked him.

He laughed, "oh no, not really. Here you go."

As I took the phone, our fingers brushed and my heart did a somersault. I sat down on the rug avoiding eye contact with him. There was an awkward silence as I switched on my phone. There were still no messages other than group messages from teachers. I checked my social media accounts. There were no "R.I.P"  messages so I figured people knew that I was alive. Either that or they didn't know about the fire at all. The latter didn't make sense, however, since there were a number of Fairwood students who lived in our street.
"Do you have a notepad and a pen?I need to write down a shopping list. Everything I had was destroyed," I asked Earl.