Burn Before Reading(97)

All the air presses from my throat. “Reorienta –”

“It’s not natural, Wolf.” Dad looks at me with pitying eyes. “You’re sick. Trust me, this place will show you how things are supposed to be, how the natural order of things goes. You’ll thank me, someday.”

I reach out for the keychain with shaking fingers, and grip it tightly.

“I’m not sick.”

“What?”

“I said,” I shout. “I’m not sick! I’m your fucking son!”

“You like men, Wolf. That’s a sickness. You’re not on the right path –”

I’m stunned into silence, but only for a second. God, Mom, if you could see him now. If you could see what your death has done to him. Or maybe he was always like this. Maybe I was just too young, too blinded by our perfect family, to notice before you were gone.

“You’re a monster,” I hiss.

“I’m your father,” He asserts. “And you will listen to me when I speak.”

“You haven’t been my father for five years, now.”

I turn on my heel and pass Burn, and I can feel him following me as we walk up the stairs to our rooms, Dad calling after us.

“Wolf! Wolfgang William Blackthorn, you will come back down those stairs this instant and we will discuss this like civilized human beings!”

I wait until Burn is in my room, then slam my door behind me and lock it. Burn seats himself on my computer chair, his face solemn.

“He’s – he’s insane.” I manage. “He’s insane if he thinks I’m going to that fucking place!”

“I know,” Burn says, patiently. All his fury is gone, now, replaced by resignation.

“He wants to tear us apart!”

“I know.”

I spin my ring feverishly, like it’s the only thing that will save me. “What do we do? We don’t have anywhere to go – Mom’s family is in Ireland –”

“Calm down,” Burn says. “Breathe. We’ll figure something out.”

“We have to get Fitz out of here,” I insist. “Before he takes him away.”

“I know. I’ve already started looking.”

“You have?”

Burn nods. “Part of the reason I ran so much was Dad. I could see it in him. And I didn’t want to face it. And when Bee said she’d been telling him things, about what we did – I knew what he’d do. He’d try to fix it, with money. With force.”

“So –”

“Jakob,” Burn says. “Jakob offered us a place to stay on his property. As long as we help him upkeep the copter, and the equipment.”

“That won’t work,” I say quickly, my brain moving just as fast. “Dad will buy the land around him. He’ll force Jakob out with – with taxes, or regulations, or –”

“Dad doesn’t know any landowners that far out, so he has no influence out there. Trust me. I checked.”

I’m quiet. I hear Dad asking his bodyguards to contact someone. Burn looks so tired, sitting on my bed. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the dark circles under his eyes are strong. He must’ve been staying up, trying to think of ways to get us out from under Dad’s thumb. The fact he’s here at all, makes my heart swell a little.

I walk over and tentatively put my hand on his shoulder. It isn’t much, but it’s my way of trying to let him know I’m thankful. Words seem somehow too hard, even though that would be the simple option. But I know he appreciates gestures more than words.

And for once, this gesture doesn’t make me shake. I don’t feel the all-consuming urge to put space between us, to turn my rings around my finger. Burn looks at my hand on his shoulder, almost incredulous.

“She helped after all, huh?” He asks. When I don’t say anything, he stands up and picks up my trash can. There, still at the top, are the ashy remnants of the essay. He picks up a piece and chuckles.

“Probably would’ve been better off if you burned it before you read it.”

All the memories of Bee flash through my head at once. If I hadn’t of read it when I did, none of those things would’ve ever happened. I wouldn’t be able to touch Burn, now, if I didn’t read that essay before. Holding her in the garage, the skydiving, the ride in the back of Burn’s car with our hands intertwined, lying on her lap, watching her punch Mark and feeling like somehow, someway, even a bit, I’d been avenged. Her laugh face. Her smiling face. Her worried face. All of it. Even now, even hurt and confused, I hold onto what’s left of her with perfect, crystal clarity.

A loud knocking on my door shakes me out of my memories. I think it’s Dad, but then I hear Fitz’s voice.

“Open up! Guys! Open up!”

Fitz hadn’t come out of his room, except to go to school. And now he wanted in all of a sudden? Burn crosses over to the door and opens it, Fitz barging in, holding up a piece of paper.

“Look!” He shoves it in my face instantly. I try to ignore his disheveled clothes, the hungry look in his cheeks. He hadn’t been eating much.

The paper is freshly printed, still a little warm. It’s a few awful stick figures. Except then I realize the stick figures are of us; Burn, looking sleepy, Fitz, hacking at a computer, and then me, on my motorcycle, looking angry. It’s poorly drawn, but I can see a bit of an endearing charm to it.