Playing with Fire

by L.J. Shen

my week had been a thunderstorm wrapped inside a tornado. It ripped away everything in my life, and all I could do was watch it swirling in the wind as I fell into the deep, dark depths of my own personal catastrophe.

“I’m grateful that Tuesday went down the way it did.” His voice was scratchy. Thick. “Because the worst day of your life gave me the best version of you.”

Nobody warned me what was going to happen when the phoenix finally burst up from the ashes, ridding its glorious, red-tipped wings of the heavy dust. That there would be other monsters and creatures to fight along the way. That despite having its freedom, there were still battles ahead. And that all of them would be bloody.

I’ll walk through fire for you. Love you. —Your old flame.

I was a phoenix, slicing the air, flying farther away from the ashes that had buried me for years. I knew I would always remember how they’d felt against my wings. But that I would never let them bring me down to the ground again. And still, I rise.

“I think what made me fall in love with her, was that every time we were together, we smashed each other’s walls with a hammer. It was ruthless. She put a mirror to my face. I put a mirror to hers. We saw each other at our best and worst. We made each other face our fears and insecurities and loneliness. At the end of it, I was so completely, ridiculously, pathetically in love with her, I couldn’t even see straight.