Vacation

Fires and Sad Stories

I shove Bridgett back into the living room we came from, and I run around the island, grabbing the fire extinguisher from under the pantry.

Brandon was fumbling with water, and I simply knocked the large cup from his hands. I heard him protest while I shoved Derrick, who was laying on the ground in the fetal position, away from the stove with my foot. It took a lot of strength to shove the 6'2 man away. Then, I shove Lucas away with my hip while simultaneously extinguishing the fire on the stove.

Finally, the fire is gone, and I lean back onto the island. I think of something and turn to Brandon with a menacing look on my face.

"You dumbass! You never put water on a damn grease fire!  What the fuck is wrong with you." I whip around and point at Derrick. "You! Why the fuck would you just curl up onto the floor?! You could've helped the others." Finally, I turn to Lucas. He looked like he was kind of scared of me yelling at him. "What happened? Why was there a fire that three grown men couldn't stop. And why were you just standing there watching it happen." I stop yelling, and slide down the counter, pulling my knees to my chest. I lay my head on my knees as a sob wracks my body. "Fuck!" I yell.

I feel a set of arms encircle me, and without knowing who it was, I lean into them. "How did you know where the fire extinguisher was? Even I didn't know." The person hugging me says. I now know it was Brandon. "I also didn't know you weren't supposed to put water on that kind of fire. I'm sorry." He lays his head on mine, and I just cry harder. Not the loud, yelling cry. But the kind where you just can't stop. I've never been a loud crier, but then again, I've never been much of a crier. The fire brought back painful memories of my biological parents.

"When I was 6," I start, kind of scared to tell this story since I've never told them, "my biological dad was at the stove one night, and whatever he was cooking caught fire and burnt out house down. My mom was sleeping in the living room, but the fire was so hot, it burnt everything before we knew it. My mom woke up and tried to get my dad from the kitchen, but there was no saving him. He was already dead. She then came back for me, but her burns were so bad she couldn't move." More hot tears slip down my face. "I was caught in a corner of the living room. I couldn't get to the door, and I was too young to know how to open the window. I was crying so hard, and I thought I would die right there. The flames were so close, I had minor burns all over me, but I had a pretty bad one on my hip. It scarred and I still have the battle scar.

"The fireman found me there, crying and bloody. He scooped me up just as I lost consciousness. That's all I really remember before waking up in the hospital with Hera holding my hand. She had stayed with a friend so she wasn't there." I finally look up from the ground to see the boys all looking at me with bewilderment and apologies, while Bridgett cries from the doorway.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?!??" She comes and hugs me, basically shoving Brandon away.

"I- I dont know- I just couldn't." I wipe under my eyes with one hand. "It's a hard story to tell." Bridgett nods in understanding.

"I get it. But you said you had a scar? I've never even noticed it." Bridgett says. "Can I- can I see it?" She asks tentatively. I sigh, nodding.

I slowly pull the left side of my sweats. The boys look away and I chuckle. "I'm not showing you my ass, you're fine." I say, and they look back, all of them slightly red.

The scar sits on my hip, and wraps around a little, it's kind of oval shaped, about six inches across, and three inches tall. It's a light, pink fleshy color, and the skin is raised and textured.

"Well no wonder I never saw it. Anytime I see you, either your shirt covered it, or your underwear strap was thick enough to cover it. Not that I'm looking, but I mean, your always half naked at the dorm." Bridgett says, and I glare at her, pulling my sweats to where they belong.

"You didn't have to call me out like that. And yeah, I'm pretty good at keeping it covered." I move my knees so I'm sitting cross legged in the floor. The others follow suit, so we're sitting in a circle.

"So when I took your blanket that one day, you weren't freaking out simply because you weren't wearing pants?" Brandon asks from my left.

"Nope. Well, yes. I was in a room with three guys half naked and my emotional support person wasn't there, but other than that, no." He nods, and Derrick speaks up from next to him.

"So Katherine and Mark aren't your birth parents?" He asks. I shake my head.

"I call them Mom and Dad of course, but no, Katherine is my mom's sister, so my aunt. They weren't able to have kids themselves, so they adopted Hera and I." He turns his head in confusion, and opens his mouth and asks the question I was praying he wouldn't ask.

"Who's Hera?" I open my mouth to speak, but Brandon beats me to it, knowing I won't be able to talk about it. I zone out while listening to him.

"Hera was her sister. A couple months before you moved, she was driving at night to pick Athena up from a volleyball practice and a drunk driver hit her. She didn't make it." Derrick looks at me, but I'm looking at the ground, no expression on my face.

"I think I'm gonna go to my room." I whisper, slowly standing and making my way out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into my room before screaming into the pillow over and over until no sound would come out. There were no tears, just anger. I stand, and push the table over onto it's side. I throw things, amd I punch things, all while screaming in a rage. Why did she leave me? She should've been more careful! She should've let me stay with Bridgett like I had planned.

I finally sink to the floor, laying on my side, and let the tears fall. This first day of vacation really sucks.

Just then, the door opens and Bridgett walks in. "The boys are outside. I wouldn't let them in. And I'm kind of glad I didn't." She looks around the room. "Well it doesn't look like you've actually broken anything, so that's good." I don't move from my spot on the ground. "C'mon, let's get up." She sits down next to me, and tries to pull me into a sitting position, but gives up once she sees that I'm not moving.

She turns to picking the tables and dresser up, putting the things back on top of them as well. "I forget that when you get mad, you do this. I should've warned someone." She chuckles a little, and a knock sounds on the door. "You want them in here?" I don't move. "I'll take that as a yes then." She moves to open the door.

"Athena, I'm so sorry I didn't know that would be a trigger to something like this." Derrick says as soon as the door opens.

"We thought you were breaking everything in here. That would've been hard to explain to Charles." Lucas says.

"Yeah, my dad would've been so confused." Brandon agrees. "This is my favorite room. I was a little sad when you took it. But I like the red room too."

"Damn, what are all the colors of the rooms?" Lucas asks.

"Well there's this one, the cyan room, there's a purple room, I think you have that one. There's a red room, a sage green room, there's a blue room, and then a pink one. Nobody chose that one apparently." He says, and everyone but me chuckled a little bit. We have a thing with the color pink being deceiving.

"Athena, we're gonna go to the beach and you're going with us. If I have to, I'll carry you. I'm not kidding. So you have thirty minutes to get ready." Brandon says.

I groan, and pull myself from the ground, making the others literally cheer.

"Don't clap, you idiots." I rasp, the screaming had taken my voice.

"Ooh, do you want some tea?" Bridgett asks, and I shrug, pushing the group out of my room so I could get ready.