Page 17 of Wildfire
omw
You good?
Yeah
You getting the feeling scaries?
Yeah
You wanna sleep in my bed?
Yeah
The feeling scaries is what Emilia calls the moment of clarity you get after you’ve left a situation you were wrapped up in. It’s the sinking feeling in your gut when the anxiety sets in and you consider whether you did the right thing. It’s a moment like now, when I’m alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. When I weigh whether what I just did made me feel better or worse. Whether I’d have done that if I’d stayed off my phone and minded my business. And how long that hit of validation and feeling wanted is going to keep me going before I’m looking for the next place to get it. Then finally, whether any of this really matters either way when nobody cares what I do.
The feeling scaries isn’t necessarily regret, it’s reflection, and I prefer to be distracted rather than reflective.
EMILIA BENNETT
Why are you moving really slow?
Are you in a car?
Aurora are you walking!!!
Don’t you dare get murdered
I’m so mad at you
I’m almost home
“You’re a clown,” Emilia says as I climb into bed beside her. “Stop playing chicken with your safety because you’re too impatient to wait for a ride.”
“Noted.” Maybe if I’d managed to get a ride I wouldn’t have spent the entire walk home thinking of the guy I just left.
“Your pizza is in the kitchen.”
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
Emilia sighs heavily. “Go to sleep. You’ll need the energy to break up your parents’ brawl.”
“Are you sure you want to go for breakfast?” I don’t get a response, just a pillow launched in my general direction. “We could just fake our own deaths.”
“Your mom would know. You really need to sleep, Ror,” she says through another yawn. “Just think, a whole summer without sharing your location in the middle of the night. Just weeks and weeks of keeping small children alive and uninjured, and self-development.”
“The dream.”
Chapter SixAURORA
NOTHING ON THIS EARTH INSPIRESthe same pure, unadulterated despair as having to spend any prolonged length of time with my parents in the same location.
It sounds dramatic, but honestly, Chuck and Sarah Roberts are the poster couple for “sometimes divorce is a blessing.” There’s just something about them being within six feet of each other that turns them both into monsters.
With that in mind, I should probably count myself lucky that Dad hasn’t shown up to the good-bye breakfast he promised he’d be at before I head to Honey Acres sleepaway camp to work for the summer with Emilia.
The most annoying part isn’t being consistently let down by a man who is supposed to be one of the stable pillars in my life; it’s the effect his absent-parent bullshit has on Mom, who, if anything, I could cope with being a little more absent.
“Why don’t you try him again?” She watches me over her orange juice with a sad pout. “Have you tried his assistant? Or Elsa? Your sister can always seem to reach him.”
