Obscura Burning Read online

  My face is a different matter entirely. I used to be cute, with matching dimples. Danny loved them; he’d tell me the crappiest jokes just to make me smile, and in the other life, he still does. In this reality, my smile just makes children cry.

  At least my eyes are intact. Can’t say the same about my ears, but my hair covers the bulbous lobes. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, pulling grotesque faces at myself. The scars wouldn’t be so bad if people would just stop looking at me the way they do. They’re still apologizing to me for something that had nothing to do with them.

  My lighter, my fire. Or did I have matches? Can’t help feeling responsible even though everyone tells me it’s not my fault. Their words are hollow, echoing with accusation. Maybe I’d learn to live with the scars better if they didn’t keep disappearing. Tomorrow with Danny, my body’ll be pristine, all flat planes and angles.

  Bed. Sleep can’t come quick enough. Staring out my window, I imagine a hundred other lives. A life where we’re all still breathing, where I never cheated on Danny, where we never even went drinking out in Ghost Town. I’m so tired of bouncing back and forth; it’s exhausting. Maybe God’s listening for once, so I pray that tomorrow I won’t wake up, pray that it’ll be Danny and Shira planning my memorial instead. The dead have it easy.

  Chapter Two

  Shira’s dead

  Alarm clock blaring, I reach over and smack the damn thing across the room. The shrill ringing continues. My phone’s under my pillow. I grunt in answer with eyes still closed.

  “Morning, cielo. You ready yet?” Danny’s voice is syrup as his tongue wraps around the term of endearment. Hearing his voice makes me smile, makes waking up that much easier.

  “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. I’ll come pick you up.” I inch my way toward the edge of the bed, tossing aside the duvet.

  “You better. Don’t make me wheel it all the way to town.”

  I roll out of bed and into clothes. I grab the sticky notes sitting on my desk beside the terrarium. Looking at my watch, I make a note just in case things change and I can’t remember the “when” of this morning.

  Brush my teeth, twist my hair into a tiny ponytail, check and double-check my face. Not a single scar, not even the faintest trace of burns. I lift my shirt just to be sure, but my skin’s pristine. Life is so much better in this reality.

  Dimples intact, I grab my keys and head for my pickup, Dad’s pickup really, but he just sits at home all day, unemployed and apathetic.

  Danny lives in an orange adobe behind a chain-link fence at the end of a red dust road. The window frames and front door are a shade of blue labeled aquamarine in pencil sets. Mesquite gathers around the carport and the rickety windmill creaks in the breeze—a breeze that taunts us with the promise of rain—but there’s nothing but clear skies stretching toward the mesa.

  His room used to be on an upper floor, a tucked-away loft that gave us all the privacy we ever needed. We used to play guitar, make out, and smoke Danny’s organic cigarettes—his mom’s tea leaves rolled in rizzlers. Now he sleeps downstairs on the couch while his folks offer Hail Marys that he’ll walk again. After getting his spine crushed by falling timbers, Danny’s lucky he can still use his hands.

  I knock and take a deep breath. Danny’s older sister opens the door and wheels him out. His dark hair curls around his face; his fringe falls into even darker eyes.

  “Thanks, Gabs, I’ll take it from here.” Danny wheels himself across the sand, tilts his head, waiting for a kiss. I lean down and hug him instead. His lips brush my cheek.

  Gabriela raises an eyebrow before disappearing back inside and shutting the door. She hates me, blames me for the rent in Danny’s spine.

  “I swear your sister’s gonna spill,” I say.

  “And that’d be a problem?”

  “Daniel…” He doesn’t seem to understand how hard it is for me.

  “Nah, leave it, Kyle. All in good time, right?”

  I nod, not sure if there’ll ever be a good time to tell my parents I like boys, that my boyfriend asked me to run away to New York and marry him. Maybe if Danny hadn’t been such a pigheaded ass, I wouldn’t have downed Shira’s bottle of tequila and wouldn’t have played with fire.

  Grunting, I wrap my arms around his chest, and he holds onto my neck. Danny’s not light, five-nine and ripped. He used to run, long-distance marathon-type running that kept him lean and graceful as a gazelle. Now he spends his day pumping iron at the gym or treading water in physical therapy sessions.

  He always left me eating dust. Despite my longer legs, I could never keep up with him. Still, I’m pretty strong, so I manage to haul him out of his chair and into my pickup. I’m sweating by the time we set off down the road.

  Danny tries tuning into a Farmington station, but there’s only static and snatches of garbled conversation. My antediluvian tape deck is busted so we sit in silence for a while, eyes on the horizon, sweat staining our shirts as dust and warm air blows in through the windows.

  “You burning yourself again?” He flicks my arm a hairbreadth from the newest scar. My gaze drops briefly to the cigarette burns on my forearm. One’s fresh, still raised and raw.

  “Don’t remember doing it.” Maybe it happened when I was between worlds.

  “Wish you wouldn’t.” Danny leaves it at that. He knows it doesn’t help getting on my case. There are far worse things in life than stubbing out cigarettes on skin.

  “I think we should hold a memorial for Shira,” he says.

  “Ah crap, not you too.”

  “Not me too what? Someone else holding a memorial? Don’t look like it. Seems everyone’s just conveniently forgotten strange little Shira, strange little Goth Indian.” Danny’s getting riled up.

  “Relax, man. I just meant…” How the hell could I explain? “I hate memorials.”

  “People die, Kyle. We’ve gotta honor them. And tossing a tub of dirt into more dirt don’t count.”

  “Do we have to do this?”

  He drums his fist against the door. “No. You don’t have to. But all things considered, don’t you think you oughtta?”

  “All things considered?” I wish the radio was working so I could drown out his next words.

  “Couple of beers in you, and you’re the one sobbing on about how it’s your fault Shira’s dead. You feeling so guilty? Do something about it.” He’s staring at me, but I don’t dare look at him. I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles white.

  “We owe her this. She didn’t even wanna go to your stupid party.”

  I swerve off the road onto the rocky shoulder and slam on the brakes. My heart’s thudding a hundred miles an hour.

  Danny slips sideways in his seat, fingers scrabbling at the dashboard to keep himself upright.

  “My party?” I turn off the engine and face him. The memory’s there, hovering, just waiting for me to snatch it from the ether. “I thought it was your idea to have that party out in Ghost Town?” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my idea to traipse off into the boonies for a couple of beers.

  “I didn’t bring the gasoline and matches.” He’s scowling.

  We haven’t really talked about that night. We’re both good at avoiding the topic, and I reckon that’s because we’re both feeling guilty. The gasoline had been for starting a bonfire; a dipshit dumb idea in the middle of a drought, considering the old buildings are little more than tinder.

  “A lighter.” The same one’s always in my back pocket. Not even sure why. It’s not like I enjoy Danny’s homemade cigarettes. I like fire. Dancing flames and the feel of heat licking at my skin. Raking hair over my face, I try to purge the thought from my brain.

  “You had matches,” Danny says.

  I shake my head and dig in my back pocket for the Zippo rip-off, complete with embossed skull and bones. I picked it up three years ago at a swap meet.

  “Told you so.” He purses his lips and fixes me with his black-eyed stare.

  In my fingers sits a book
of matches from the Throbbing Strawberry motel, a dive just outside of town. I can’t ever remember being there. This is what a bottle of tequila will do to you.

  “You OK?” Danny reaches for my hand. “You look like you’re gonna puke.”

  I need air, need out of the stuffy car. I shove open the door and tumble onto the shoulder.

  Kicking rocks around doesn’t change the fact that I can’t remember the details. The memory is warped, just random snatches. The smell of gasoline. Shira yelling something at me, probably not to be stupid. The crackle snap of burning wood. That unbearable heat and the stench of frying flesh.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Still nothing?” Danny leans across the seats.

  “I don’t even remember having matches. I thought I had my lighter.” The breeze blows a scrap of paper against my legs. I unfold it. Burning crosses and white light pouring out of a bloody sky. Repent, sinner. Embrace the True God. The end is nigh… Cliché bullshit. I scrunch up the leaflet and toss it over my shoulder.

  “Matches. I still tried to grab them outta your hand,” Danny continues. “You really don’t remember nothing?”

  “You want to tell me about that night?”

  He taps his fingers on the dash and shakes his head. Truth is, his memory isn’t all that clear either. I wasn’t the only one drinking.

  I sniff and lift my head to look at Danny.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, like I’ve said a hundred times before. I’ve meant it every single time.

  “Get back in the truck, Kyle.” He sits back in his seat, staring straight ahead. “We’re gonna be late. I don’t wanna miss my session.”

  In this life I’ve still got two perfectly normal balls, so I man up and get back in the truck.

  “So…” Danny starts every joke the same way. He puts on his joke-telling voice and I prepare for the incoming lameness. “These two peanuts are strolling down a big city alley at night and one was assaulted.”

  I grin despite myself. “Lame as piss, Dan.”

  “Yeah, but you almost cracked a smile. So, what do you do with epileptic salad?”

  “Can salad even be epileptic?”

  “You’re killing me, man. No guesses?”

  I shake my head. If I look at him now, I’ll lose it and will end up killing him in a tangle of car parts.

  “You make a seizure salad.”

  I chuckle and he pokes my cheek, smack center of the dimple. His touch causes pleasant tingles up and down my right side.

  “You’re prettier when you smile.” He traces a finger around the edge of my ear, tucking away loose strands of hair.

  “No distracting the driver.” I try to keep my eyes on the road as Danny’s hand wanders down my body. “And what’s the point? Not like we can have sex anyway.” At least in the other world, Shira can feel me touch her. Below the waist, Danny’s just numb.

  “Just ’cause I can’t get it up doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get any.” Danny’s fingers squeeze and I white-knuckle the steering wheel to keep us on the road.

  Thirty minutes later we pull into Sully’s Fitness Center and I park in the disabled zone. It’s swimming today, and I can’t wait to shuck my clothes and dive into cold water. Must be around a hundred and twenty degrees. The cruel sun bakes the earth and forces every last drop of moisture out of the dust.

  There are white leaflets tacked to the notice board outside the entrance. More burning crosses and supernovas meant to depict the end of the world, meant to terrify us into repenting. Damn whack jobs are everywhere, believing Obscura’s going to bring about Armageddon.

  “Morning sweetie. Pete’ll meet you at the pool,” the receptionist croons as I wheel Danny into the cool of the locker room. Pete’s a physical therapist, built like a tank and not shy about showing off his ripped abs and chiseled ass in the tiniest snatch of polyester I ever saw on a man.

  We change as quickly as paraplegia allows. I avoid touching the scar down Danny’s spine where they cut him open trying to put his vertebrae back together. There are burn scars too. Not as bad as mine in that other reality, just a smear of smooth flesh where the smoldering beam fell on him.

  The St. Anthony medal dangles on a leather thong around Danny’s neck. He never takes it off, not even for swimming. St. Anthony—the patron saint of lost things. Maybe I should get me a medal, although I think St. Jude would be more appropriate.

  Pete meets us besides the pool. “Hey, Daniel. Feeling Olympic today?”

  Danny’s smile doesn’t touch his eyes. “Always, Pete.”

  I relinquish Danny into Pete’s burly arms and head over to the noninvalid pool to swim laps while he goes through the motions of rehabilitation.

  The lanes are empty. With the pool to myself, I wonder if anyone would notice if I disappeared below the surface and never came up. They say drowning’s a terrible way to go. I can’t imagine it feels any worse than burning to death. But that happened in another life, and the memories of pain are dimmer when Danny’s around.

  There wasn’t even a funeral for Shira. Just her mom, stinking of gin, tossing her daughter’s ashes on the sand so she could join her Navajo ancestors. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her that Navajo tradition dictated a burial to ensure safe passage to the afterlife. There hadn’t been that much left of Shira anyway, maybe not even enough to bury.

  My lazy laps become frenzied sprints. For weeks I’ve wanted to tell Danny about my double life. It just seemed like even more of a betrayal somehow. I glance over to the kiddie pool and catch Danny’s eye. He winks, and something inside of me shrivels up.

  By the way, Dan, I live half the time in this other reality. You’re dead and I’m fucking Shira. Just thought you should know.

  A squeal and smack as a body hits the water, showering me in spray. The form swims below the surface, popping up in the next lane beside me.

  “Sorry, did I splash you?” a girl asks, her face obscured by goggles.

  “You’re not supposed to jump in, you know.” I sound like a ten-year-old brat, but I’m not in the mood for chitchat with strangers.

  She removes her goggles. Hazel eyes smile before her lips do. She looks Latino even with her blonde hair.

  “I did say sorry. Just couldn’t help myself. Feels so good getting wet, doesn’t it?” She does a backflip and returns to the wall.

  I keep my gaze on Danny.

  “Poor guy, huh? But not bad looking…for a retard.”

  “Bitch.” I haul myself out of the water.

  “No, wait. Come on, can’t you take a joke?” she calls after me, but I ignore her.

  I spend the last ten minutes of Danny’s session watching from the side of the pool with only my feet in the water. I don’t want to look at Pete, at his fine physique and the way his fingers squeeze Danny’s limbs. My gaze wanders back to the girl. She’s swimming laps, moving like an otter in the water. I’ve never understood why pretty girls have to be such bitches.

  Session over, I wheel Danny back into the locker room. There’s a private shower for wheelchair users. I lock the door behind us.

  “Good session?” I ask.

  “Yeah, Pete works me hard. It’s good though. I’m making great improvement.”

  “You going to walk again?”

  Danny looks at me; a flicker of something like anger crosses his face and then he smiles. “I’m still gonna run circles round you. Just you wait, Kylie-boy.”

  He aims the handheld showerhead at me, squirting me with warm water. I flinch and gasp as the hot water hits my skin. For a moment I’m burning, a thousand fire ants burrowing into my skin, my flesh melting…and then it’s over. Danny’s expression is perplexed.

  “You OK, man?”

  “Fine, just wasn’t expecting it to be so hot.”

  Danny sprays himself and his frown deepens. “Did you take my advice and go talk to someone?”

  Taking the shower spray from him, I rinse myself off and rinse his hair before untangling my own.


  “You mean like talk to a shrink?” Fat lot of good the head doctors did me as a kid. It was growing up and not their prescription meds that stopped me lighting fires.

  “Yeah, or someone. Anyone.”

  My folks aren’t believers in that sort of thing. If it hadn’t been court mandated, I never would’ve seen the shrinks in the first place. My dad believes in alcohol, and my mom believes in denial. Going to a shrink to help me mourn my dead best friend—either of them—hasn’t ever come up, least not in this reality. Mom suggested I see someone in the other reality, but if I tell a head doctor what’s been happening to me, they’ll dope me up again and put me in a padded cell for good this time.

  “Not really.” I shrug and remove my swimsuit. Danny’s hand is against my thigh, his fingers brushing my hip.

  “Maybe you should think about it,” he says, top incisors gripping his ample bottom lip.

  “You’re a tease, Dan.” Warmth seeps up from my groin through my belly. I ache for him.

  “Nope.” He pulls me closer and kisses my hips. Goose bumps flare across my body as his lips brush my skin. I don’t want to, but I can’t help myself thinking of Shira, of her chipped, nail-polished fingers tickling my scars, her tongue in my mouth and licking my chest.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” Danny looks up at me. “I’ll give you a blowjob every day if you promise to help out with Shira’s memorial.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re totally getting the better end of the deal.”

  His hands…I can barely breathe.

  “OK, I promise,” I whisper as Danny nibbles my belly.

  * * *

  There’s no such thing as post-orgasmic bliss, just a feeling of emptiness and the overwhelming desire to nap. I feel shitty about the whole thing while wheeling Danny out to my pickup. We pass the notice board and I rip the leaflets from it, tearing up the pages and tossing them in the trash.

  “They piss me off,” I say when Danny raises his eyebrows at me.

  I’m about to heave him into the truck when the bitch from the pool saunters past, her wet hair plastered to her shoulders and her long, muscular legs topped by tiny shorts.