The scratchy material of a fireman’s uniform rubbed my bare arms raw. I clawed and kicked at him only to realize that he wasn’t going to let go and that he was much stronger than me. I didn’t care, though; I continued to fight as raw sobs tore out of my mouth, unable to form any other word but Mia’s name.
“You need to calm down because I can’t understand you.”
I shook my head harshly, crying uncontrollably, hair sticking to my wet face.
“Her sister. She’s asking about her sister.” Dawson came out of nowhere, his voice stern and demanding.
I snapped my head over to Dawson and the second I met his eyes, I felt myself break in half.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. My sister. Where is my sister? Mia. No, God, please don’t take her.
“We only found two bodies in the house. No one else.”
I repeated the sentence in my head, We only found two bodies in the house. Only two bodies.
Two bodies.
My parents.
My body went limp and I stopped struggling. I was still enclosed in the stranger’s grip, his strong arms wrapped around my body so tightly that it was hard to breathe. The flames were dying down a little but it didn’t matter; my entire house was burnt to a crisp. There would be no salvaging anything.
“Ivy!!” My head whipped over to a barely audible voice but I knew instantly that it was my sister.
My entire body sagged with relief. Thank you, God.
I cried harder and the man finally let me go after Dawson looked as if he was going to kill him. I ran past Dawson and opened my arms for my younger sister to burst into them.
She was wearing her cotton, lilac-colored, star PJs, her best friend’s parents following closely behind her. As soon as she was in my arms, we both collapsed onto the rough ground, hot from the fire. The volume of her cries eclipsed mine by a landslide. She pulled back just slightly and looked up into my eyes. “Are Mom… and Dad… okay?”
She could barely get the words out and I was hoping with everything I had that she wouldn’t make me answer. I couldn’t. I couldn’t form the words.
My silence was enough. She buried her head into the crook of my neck, sobbing even harder than I thought possible. Her tiny frame convulsed in my arms as the tears kept falling from my eyes, even though I was trying my hardest to get them to stop. They were silent tears. I wasn’t sobbing anymore. My body wasn’t hijacking its frame with uncontrollable shakes, like my sister; there were just rivers streaming down my face in silent pleas to make this all go away.
I turned my head to the left, staring at the dying flames and the firefighters working so diligently to get them under control.
My entire house just went up into hot, simmering flames, leaving nothing in its wake.
Nothing at all.
???
Dawson
Her cries would stay with me for the rest of my life. I had never known true pain until the moment I saw Ivy collapse in front of her burning house with her sister in her arms. I literally wanted to pick her up and just carry every single bit of hurt that was suffocating her. The second her eyes met mine, when she realized that her life had just gotten turned completely upside down, was the moment I realized that I loved her so fiercely that I would do anything to put the light back in her eyes. I would do anything to put a smile back on her face.
I promised myself right then, that I would spend the rest of my life making her happy again. I promised myself that I would spend every waking moment, surrounding her with love, making up for the fact that her parents had just been stolen from her.
I just wish I could have known that seeing her curled up with her sister in front of the smoking embers of her house was the last time I’d see her for a long, long time. Then maybe I wouldn’t have made promises I would be forced to let go of.
Chapter Eight
Ivy
It’d been three weeks since the fire.
These three weeks had been such a blur that I couldn’t even conjure up images of anything other than the four paneled walls that surround my sister and me every night. We shared a room, which was fine; I wouldn’t want her to be away from me, anyway.
As soon as things calmed down on the night of the fire, the police had contacted the only person who I knew would take us in.