Fire Burning

I used to watch my mother and father slow dance in the living room—
before everything started to burn.

The fireplace crackled behind them, golden flames licking the stone like they were applauding the moment. Family photos stood still on the mantle—smiling faces frozen in time, bathed in firelight. My mother’s eyes always glowed the brightest when she looked at him. Like she forgot everything else the moment his hands touched her waist.

He was her world.
And she was mine.

Back then, I thought I wanted a love like that.
Slow-burning. Passionate. Unbreakable.

But I was a child.

Back before I understood that even heroes can decay—quietly, cruelly, from the inside out.

My father was a firefighter. The kind who charged into burning buildings like he couldn’t be touched. He saved strangers like it was nothing—just another day on the clock. But when the smoke cleared and the sirens faded, something darker always came home with him.

Trauma turned to silence.
Silence turned to drinking.
And drinking turned to rage.

He stopped looking at us the same. Stopped laughing. Forgot birthdays. Burned dinner. Got quiet. Then loud. And still, my mother loved him.

The first time it happened, I remember the sound—not a scream, just a thud. Followed by the kind of silence that wraps around your throat. My mother stumbled into the hallway, hand pressed to her cheek, her eyes unfocused. She looked more surprised than hurt.

But later that night, I watched her gently cover him with a blanket while he lay passed out on the couch. His hand dangled off the edge, a half-empty bottle at his feet. She even brought him water. Knelt beside him and whispered something through the tears streaking her face.

I think she was praying.
Still begging God to bring him back.

---

It took two years for her to realize he was already gone.

The man she loved had disappeared somewhere inside the flames, and no matter how hard she reached, he never reached back. She held on until her knuckles turned white. Until her body gave out. Until hope turned into grief—and grief turned into surrender.

And when it did, she left.

---

It was morning when I found her.

The light outside was soft, bleeding through the blinds like it didn’t know what had happened inside. I knocked on her door. Once. Twice. No answer.

Her bedroom was still. Too still. The air felt thick with something I couldn’t name.

The bathroom door was cracked open.

I pushed it slowly, and the hinges creaked like they were trying to warn me.

Her dress was white. The one she wore every year on her anniversary. It floated around her like it didn’t want to let her go. Her hair spilled over the side of the tub and onto the tile, wet and tangled, like it had tried to cling to life longer than she did.

Her lips were blue—not cold blue, but dead blue. Her skin had lost all its warmth, pale and quiet like porcelain that had given up trying to shine.

One hand hung limply over the tub’s edge, the other rested gently on her chest. A thin trail of blood had dried at her wrist. The water had turned a sick shade of pink.

And on the floor, written in her blood, was a single word:

Free.

The rest of me broke with it.

I dropped to my knees, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t even scream. My body just… stopped. My lungs forgot how to breathe.

She was gone.

Just like that.

---

The funeral was full of people who didn’t really know her. They said the right things.
“She was so kind.”
“So beautiful.”
“She loved her daughter so much.”

But they didn’t know her.

They didn’t know how she flinched at sudden sounds. How her hand would drift to her cheek when she thought no one was watching. How she still smiled at my father—even after he started to destroy her.

They didn’t know she asked to be buried in that dress.
The same one I found her in.
The one that soaked up her last breath like it wanted to carry her out of this place.

---

After the service, my dad stood beside his old blue Buick like nothing had happened. The passenger door was already open, waiting. Like this was just another errand.

I slid in without a word. My black hair fell across my face, shielding me from the stares behind us. I could still hear their whispers as we drove away.

> “Poor girl. She was the one who found her mother.”
“What kind of woman does that? Selfish. Left her daughter to deal with the mess.”
“So tragic.”

But they didn’t know her.
She wasn’t selfish.

She was tired.

And if I’m honest…
Part of me wished I had gone with her.

---

We drove in silence.

The kind that settles in your bones and makes your thoughts too loud. Outside the window, the trees were starting to shed their leaves—red, gold, and orange, all falling softly to the ground like embers from the sky. I imagined one leaf drifting free, untouched by the wind, finally landing without shattering.

That’s what she must’ve felt like.
Finally.
Free.

---

“Emery.”

His voice cracked the quiet like a whip.

I flinched. “Yeah?”

He didn’t look at me. “After school ends, you’re moving out.”

My chest tightened. “What?”

He turned into our driveway and killed the engine. Still didn’t look at me.

“Your mom made arrangements before she died,” he said. “Said if anything ever happened to her, you were to go live with her friend. Sarah. Your godmother.”

A long pause.

“Only way I get the inheritance is if I sign over my rights.”

He exhaled slowly, like the whole thing was just a hassle.

“So yeah. You’ll be leaving.”

No goodbye.
No emotion.
No fight.

Just a transaction.

---

He gave me away like I was a signature on a piece of paper.

His only daughter.
His last tie to the woman he ruined.

And the worst part?

I was relieved.

Because the only thing scarier than leaving him…

was staying.