A perfect yellow lemon, the only one in the garden, surrounded by ash. Lena pulled it loose, and black flakes flew into the air. The yellow peel gleamed in her hand, and she let herself fall back into my arms. “Look at that. Not everything burned.”
“It'll all grow back, L.”
“I know.” She didn't sound convinced, turning the lemon over and over in her hands.
“This time next year, none of this will be black.” She looked up at the branches and the sky above our heads, and I kissed her on her forehead, her nose, the perfect crescent-shaped birthmark on her cheekbone, as she tilted up toward me. “Everything will be green. Even these trees will grow again.” As we pushed our feet against each other, kicking off our shoes, I could feel a familiar prick of electricity every time our bare skin met. We were so close, her curls were falling into my face. I blew, and they scattered.
I was caught in her drag, struck by the current that bound us together and kept us apart. I leaned in to kiss her mouth, and she held the lemon in front of my nose, teasing. “Smell.”
“Smells like you.” Like lemons and rosemary, the scent that had drawn me to Lena when we first met.
She sniffed it, making a face. “Sour, like me.”
“You don't taste sour to me.” I pulled her closer, until our hair was full of ash and grass, and the bitter lemon was lost somewhere beneath our feet at the bottom of the blanket. The heat was on my skin, like fire. Even though all I could feel was a biting cold whenever I held her hand lately, when we kissed — really kissed — there was nothing but heat. I loved her, atom by atom, one burning cell at a time. We kissed until my heart began skipping beats, and the edges of what I could see and feel and hear began to fade into darkness….
Lena pushed me away, for my own good, and we lay in the grass as I tried to catch my breath.
Are you okay?
I'm — I'm good.
I wasn't, but I didn't say anything. I thought I smelled something burning and realized it was the blanket. It was smoldering from underneath, where it was touching the ground.
Lena pushed herself up and pulled back the blanket. The grass beneath us was charred and trampled. “Ethan. Look at the grass.”
“What about it?” I was still trying to catch my breath, but I was trying not to show it. Since Lena's birthday, things had only gotten worse, physically. I couldn't stop touching her, though sometimes I couldn't stand the pain of that touch.
“It's burnt now, too.”
“That's weird.”
She looked at me evenly, her eyes strangely dark and bright at the same time. She tossed the grass. “It was me.”
“You are pretty hot.”
“You can't be joking right now. It's getting worse.” We sat next to each other, looking out at what was left of Greenbrier. But we weren't really looking at Greenbrier. We were looking at the power of the other fire. “Just like my mom.” She sounded bitter.
Fire was the trademark of a Cataclyst, and Sarafine's fire had burnt every inch of these fields the night of Lena's birthday. Now Lena was starting fires unintentionally. My stomach tightened.
“The grass will grow back, too.”
“What if I don't want it to?” she said softly, strangely, as she let another handful of charred grass fall through her fingers.
“What?”
“Why should it?”
“Because life goes on, L. The birds do their thing, and the bees do theirs. Seeds get scattered, and everything grows back.”
“Then it all gets burnt again. If you're lucky enough to be around me.”
There was no point arguing with Lena when she was in one of these moods. A lifetime with Amma going dark had taught me that. “Sometimes it does.”
She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. Her shape cast a shadow much larger than she actually was.
“But I'm still lucky.” I moved my leg until it caught the light, throwing a long line of my shadow into hers.
We sat like that, side by side, with only our shadows touching, until the sun went down and they stretched toward the black trees and disappeared into dusk. We listened to the cicadas in silence and tried not to think until the rain started falling again.
5.1
Falling
In the next few weeks, I successfully convinced Lena to leave the house with me a total of three times. Once to the movies with Link — my best friend since second grade — where even her signature combination of popcorn and Milk Duds didn't cheer her up. Once to my house to eat Amma's molasses cookies and watch a zombie marathon, my version of a dream date. It wasn't. And once for a walk along the Santee, where we ended up turning around after ten minutes with sixty bug bites between us. Wherever she was, she didn't want to be.
Today was different. She had finally found somewhere she was comfortable, even if it was the last place I expected.