Playing with Fire

by L.J. Shen

Fire symbolized beauty, fury, and rebirth, she explained. Too bad in my case, it symbolized nothing but my demise.

His dark hair was always messy, and his emerald eyes had that dangerous glint that promised you your life would never be the same after a ride on his motorcycle.

As I watched him there, I didn’t see the most popular guy in college. The sex god. The illegal fighter. I saw the loneliest boy I’d ever laid eyes on. Sweet, confused, and lost. And I thought, bitterly, he didn’t even know that across the parking lot sat a girl just like him.

“Why should I trust you?” “You shouldn’t,” he said, point-blank. “Trust is putting your optimism in another person, the very definition of being dumb. You should believe me because stealing from the register would get me nowhere.

That was the thing about being on the fence with the whole life situation. I stopped caring and pursuing things I otherwise would have wanted and cared for. Life no longer had a taste, and a pulse, and colors. Nothing charted anymore, and pleasure and pain were replaced with an overall numbness.

I played the role of someone who had their shit together. I couldn’t afford having people dig into who my family was, get dirt about my life, find out I was as broke as a stick horse. So I pretended to be someone else. Someone to fear.

“If you’re not scared, you’re not being brave.”

“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.”

Your beauty is just one brief chapter in your history book. Nothin’ but a sweet, elusive lie. Elegant wrapping paper, wrapped around a mysterious gift. And while it is true beautifully wrapped gifts are more appealing to the eye” —I cocked my head sideways, giving her body a quick, cold scan—“I’m sure whatever I have to offer under my wrapping paper’s worth more than your ugly words tonight.”

“Listen to me carefully, Grace Shaw. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life. When I look at you, I see a fighter. I see resilience and strength and defiance that no one can touch. You take my breath away, and no one—and nothing—will change that.”

The one single time my parents gave me the responsibility of keeping my sister safe overnight while they were out, I failed them. I failed her. I failed myself.

But in my quest to find an answer to all of their trouble, I forgot to ask myself where the hell I fit into this equation. Forgot how to breathe without hurting. Forgot that there was more to life than earning money and surviving. Forgot that when you played with fire, eventually, you get burned.

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