1 It started as a game. That was what they called it. On a humid Tuesday afternoon, while I was knocked out on cold medicine in the bedroom, my best friend Brooke and my fiancé Garrett decided to see just how deep my sleep went. Brooke crept into the kitchen and twisted the brass knob on the gas range just enough to let out a low, sulfurous hiss. They made a bet: how many minutes before I woke up coughing? Except there was a frayed wire behind the vintage refrigerator. A spark. A sudden, concussive roar. The fire chewed through the drywall and tore into the bedroom before I even had time to scream. A burning ceiling joist crashed down across my left shoulder, pinning me to the hardwood. By the time the paramedics pulled me from the smoldering shell of our apartment, seventy percent of my body was covered in third-degree burns. My face was gone. Erased into melted wax and scar tissue. I spent two weeks in a medically induced coma in the burn ICU, suspended in sterile darkness. When I finally drifted back to consciousness, I looked through the glass partition and saw them. Garrett and Brooke were on their knees on the linoleum outside my room, their foreheads pressed against the floor, sobbing so hard their shoulders convulsed. Brooke slapped her own face until her cheeks bruised, screaming that she would spend the rest of her life making it up to me. Garrett held my blistered hand through the sterile sheet, his eyes bloodshot, swearing on everything he owned that he would sell his soul to pay for my surgeries, that he would never, ever leave. I believed them. I let their tears wash away the horror because the alternative—knowing the two people I loved most had done this to me for a laugh—was too heavy to survive. So Brooke moved into our new apartment to be my full-time caregiver. Garrett worked from home, never stepping more than a room away. At first, penance looked like devotion. But guilt is an exhausting currency; after a while, it buys only resentment, and then, inevitably, indifference. Slowly, the apartment shifted. It started with them watching movies on the sofa late at night, laughing until they were breathless, their shoulders knocking together under a shared throw blanket. It became dinners where they stood hip-to-hip over the stove, Brooke tasting marinara off Garrett’s wooden spoon, feeding him bites of garlic bread straight from her fingers. It became Sunday afternoons binge-watching reality television, their hands colliding inside the same bowl of buttered popcorn, playful shoving matches breaking out across the cushions. And there I sat. In the dim corner of the room, wrapped in medical gauze, wearing my rigid plastic compression mask, a silent gargoyle watching a life I had been exiled from. Their remorse turned into routine. Routine hardened into habit. And habit, eventually, became forgetting. No one asked if my skin pulled when I swallowed. No one looked directly into the eyeholes of my mask anymore. Until Labor Day weekend. It was a spontaneous impulse—a three-day getaway to the coast before the summer faded. They packed their duffels, pulled the heavy blackout curtains, locked up, and walked out the door. They completely forgot I had dragged an armchair onto the balcony to sit in the breeze. When I woke from my nap, the sliding glass door was locked from the inside. Eighteen stories up, the autumn wind was sharp and merciless, whipping the loose edges of my gauze against my neck. Below me, the city was alive with evening traffic and golden windows, every square of light representing a family, a dinner, a shared warmth. I looked over the railing. For a single, quiet second, it occurred to me that leaning forward wouldn’t even be an ending; it would just be an acknowledgment of what had already happened. After all, if they came home to an empty chair, would they even notice someone was missing? “Garrett, what do you think Nina’s doing right now? Do you think she even ate lunch?” Brooke nibbled on the plastic straw in her coconut, her sunglasses pushed up into her highlighted hair as she stared out at the turquoise swell of the Atlantic. Garrett pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser and placed it neatly into her palm. “She’s an adult, Brooke. When she gets hungry, she’ll find something in the fridge.” Brooke wiped a drop of moisture from her chin, her mouth pulling into a slight pout. “Her graft sites are still so raw, though. She barely comes out of the bedroom anymore.” She lowered her voice, feigning concern. “I just feel guilty. Maybe you should text her. Just to check.” Suspended in the humid, salt-thick air above them, my detached spirit hovered, watching them in silence. I watched Garrett pull out his iPhone. I saw him tap our message thread. There was no hesitation in his fingers; they moved with fluid, practiced deceit across the glass. Hey Neens, the firm’s servers crashed—having an emergency system overhaul. Going to be stuck at the office until late. Please eat dinner on time and don’t skip your antibiotics. Brooke said her mom took a fall, so she caught a bus back upstate for a few days to help out. Love you. He hit send. Then he flipped the phone facedown on the wooden table. “Done,” he said. Brooke leaned across the table, her eyes crinkling in an amused squint. “You’re such a liar, Garrett.” “It’s mercy,” Garrett said flatly, taking a long sip of ice water. “You know how fragile she is right now. If she knew we took a long weekend at the beach, she’d spiral. She’d convince herself we’re abandoning her.” Brooke sighed, swirling her drink. “I know. Ever since the fire… she’s just so sullen. It’s like walking on eggshells. Half the time I’m afraid to even say good morning.” “Then let’s not talk about her,” Garrett said softly. “We came here to breathe, remember?” He picked up his fork, flaked off a tender piece of blackened snapper, and dropped it into Brooke’s bowl. “Try this. Catch of the day.” Brooke beamed, her teeth white against her sun-kissed skin. “Thanks, bestie.” Looking down at their casual, sun-drenched intimacy, my memory drifted back to that Tuesday afternoon three months ago. I had come down with a chest cold, woozy on decongestants, asleep under a down comforter. Through the bedroom door, muffled by the wall, I had heard their hushed voices by the stove. “Garrett, I barely turned it,” Brooke had whispered, giggling. “Are you out of your mind?” Garrett’s voice had carried a faint, nervous edge, but no real anger. “Oh, come on, just a crack. Let’s see how sharp her nose is. She’s been sleeping sixteen hours a day, it’s so depressing. She needs a wake-up call.” Garrett had paused. “Fine. Five minutes by the front door. If she doesn’t come out, we shut it off.” They didn’t get five minutes. A stray draft through the open window had pulled the gas toward the back of the pantry, where an exposed terminal on the old wine fridge sparked. The concussive blast blew the kitchen cabinets off their hinges. By the time I woke up, choking on black smoke, the hallway was a tunnel of orange fire. I dragged myself on my elbows across the scorching rug, only for the timber beam above the closet to buckle and slam down onto my back. When the fire department excavated me from the smoking debris, seventy percent of my skin was charred black. My nose, my cheeks, my upper lip—melted away. Two weeks in the ICU. Through the observation glass, I watched Garrett and Brooke throw themselves onto the floor, weeping hysterically, promising the doctors any amount of money, promising God their eternal servitude. Brooke had bruised her own face beating her chest, swearing she would live the rest of her days as my shadow, caring for my ruined body. Garrett had gripped my unburned ankle, sobbing that he would love me through every surgery, that beauty was superficial, that he was mine forever. I believed every word. I thought their guilt was an anchor. Now, at a seaside patio, Brooke speared a piece of grilled calamari and held it inches from Garrett’s mouth. “Come on, open up.” Garrett leaned back slightly, smiling. “I have hands, Brooke.” “Hurry up, my arm’s getting tired! What, two best friends can’t share food now?” Garrett gave an indulgent sigh, leaned in, and bit the calamari from her fork. “Good?” “Delicious.” Brooke set her fork down with a satisfied hum. “See? A quick text was all it took. Let’s go walk along the tide.” “Whatever you want,” Garrett said. He paid the bill, leaving a generous tip, and they walked out onto the boardwalk side by side. My spirit trailed in their wake, watching their long, slender shadows stretch across the white sand, blending into one. 2 “Garrett, be honest—is this neon bikini cute, or should I go with the white one-piece?” In the beachside boutique, Brooke held both hangers against her chest, swaying slightly to the indie pop playing over the speakers. Garrett kept his gaze trained on a rack of sunglasses, his jaw set. “Both look fine. You look good in whatever.” Brooke’s lower lip jutted out. “Lazy answer.” She tossed the one-piece back onto the rack and marched toward the dressing room with the two-piece. “I’m trying it on.” A few minutes later, the curtain pulled back. Brooke stepped out, her cheeks flushed pink, tugging self-consciously at the thin string ties around her hips. “Is the cut too low? Does it look desperate?” Garrett turned around. His gaze swept down her throat, across her toned stomach, and lingered on the curve of her thighs for two full seconds before he jerked his eyes back to her face. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It’s… a lot.” “It’s a beach town, Garrett, everyone’s in practically nothing,” Brooke teased, stepping closer until her bare arm brushed his polo shirt. “We’re bros. Give me an objective male opinion.” Garrett’s voice dropped an octave, gravelly and tight. “Buy it.” They walked out with a branded tote bag, heading toward the shore. Floating above, I watched Brooke unscrew a bottle of sunscreen and press it into Garrett’s hands. “I can’t reach my shoulder blades. Put some on for me?” Garrett stared at the bottle. “Brooke, come on. People are going to get the wrong idea.” “What wrong idea? You’re basically my sister. Hurry up, I burn in ten minutes.” Garrett let out a breath that sounded like surrender. He squeezed a pool of white lotion into his palm and smoothed it over the warm, golden expanse of her back. His touch was slow, deliberate, his fingers splaying across her skin, tracing the line of her spine. Brooke closed her eyes, letting out a soft, feline purr. “God, your hands are warm.” Watching them, my mind was pulled backward to the week I was discharged from the hospital. In those early days, they were frantic to keep their vows. They carried my luggage into the apartment like pallbearers carrying a casket. Garrett carried every meal to my bedside, blowing on the soup, guiding the spoon past my ruined lips. Brooke washed me with warm, lavender-scented washcloths, speaking in hushed, reverent whispers as if any loud sound might shatter me. But contrition has a short half-life. A month in, I woke up hungry around midnight. I crept into the living room on silent feet, looking for something to drink. Laughter drifted from the kitchen, accompanied by the sizzle of butter in a cast-iron skillet. “Garrett, you over-salted the ribs!” “No way. Let me taste.” Brooke had picked up a braised short rib with her bare fingers and shoved it playfully into Garrett’s mouth. “Well?” “It’s perfect. Your palate’s just boring.” Garrett had chewed the meat and bumped his hip hard against hers, sending her stumbling against the counter in a fit of giggles. Brooke snatched the platter and darted out into the dining room. “I’m eating the rest. You get nothing!” “Give that back, you thief!” Garrett chased her around the kitchen island. They were breathless, laughing like college sweethearts, tugging on opposite sides of the plate until sauce smeared Brooke’s collarbone. I stood there in the shadow of the hallway, swathed from neck to brow in heavy white bandages, my breath whistling through my collapsed nasal passage. Then Garrett turned, his eyes landing on me. The laughter died instantly on his lips, curdling into something rigid and cold. “Nina… what are you doing out of bed?” Brooke froze, the plate slipping slightly in her hands, her expression snapping from euphoria to a strained, guilty grimace. “Nina! Are you thirsty? I can warm up some almond milk.” I shook my head slowly behind my mask. “I want a rib.” Garrett looked down at the messy, sauce-streaked platter they had been tearing apart with their fingers, his brow furrowing in irritation. “The meat’s too tough, Neens. With your skin grafts, your jaw can’t handle the chew yet. Tomorrow I’ll slow-cook some until it falls apart, okay?” His voice was so tender, so full of practiced patience. He didn’t make me a fresh plate. Neither of them asked if I went to bed hungry that night. I turned around and walked back into the dark room. After that, I stopped leaving it. And the laughter in the living room grew louder, freer, unburdened by the reminder of what they had built it upon. “Garrett, stop daydreaming and get in here!” Brooke’s shriek pulled me back to the present. She was standing waist-deep in the rolling surf, scooping up a handful of water and hurling it straight at his chest. Garrett was drenched from head to toe. He wiped the saltwater from his eyes, a grin spreading across his face as he charged into the waves. “Brooke, you’re dead!” He lunged for her, their laughter tumbling over the waves, swallowed by the roar of the ocean. 3 By nightfall, the salt air turned cool, carrying the scent of fried oysters and woodsmoke from the open-air deck of the marina bar. A live acoustic guitar played somewhere near the docks. Brooke was three Long Island iced teas deep, her cheeks glowing a deep, wine-stained crimson. “Garrett,” she mumbled, her head lolling sideways until her temple rested against his bicep. “The room’s spinning.” Garrett didn’t pull away. He held his beer with one hand, his other arm stretched across the weathered wooden back of her chair, hovering inches from her bare shoulder. “I told you not to order the third one. You have zero tolerance.” “I’m celebrating,” Brooke whispered, tilting her face up to look at him, her eyes heavy and liquid. “Garrett… don’t you ever feel like you’re choking? Going home to that apartment every single day?” Garrett’s hand tightened around the amber glass of his bottle. “Don’t start, Brooke.” “I’m not starting anything. I’m just being honest.” Her voice took on that slurred, petulant cadence she always used when she wanted to be excused for cruelty. “Even with that plastic mask on… at night, when the lights are off, it’s terrifying. You walk through the door after ten hours at the firm, and there’s no smile. Just silence. Just that smell.” Garrett didn’t speak. He rotated the beer bottle on the wet ring it had left on the wood. “She’s my fiancée,” he said, but the word sounded hollow, like a legal clause read aloud in a deposition. “You’re not married yet,” Brooke pressed, shifting her hips closer to his on the bench. “And that fire… it was an accident. We were just joking around. How were we supposed to know the wiring was rotten? We’ve played nursemaid for three months. We gave up our entire summer. We’ve paid our penance, Garrett.” Garrett’s jaw twitched. “Brooke. Drop it.” “Tell me I’m lying,” she murmured, her fingertips brushing the sleeve of his shirt. “Look me in the eye and tell me what you feel when you look at her. Is it love? Or is it just pity?” Garrett gave no answer. He tipped his head back and drained the remaining half of his beer in three long, desperate gulps. Hovering above them in the cool night wind, watching Garrett’s shifting, evasive eyes, I felt entirely hollow. There was no rage left, only the cold comfort of confirmation. I had known for weeks. A month ago, it was time for my dressing change. The clinic had been strict: the medical gauze covering my facial debridements had to be swapped every seventy-two hours to prevent Pseudomonas infections. Brooke had gone out to meet a client, leaving Garrett home with me. I carried the sterile saline, the gauze packs, and the silver sulfadiazine into the living room. “Garrett, can you help me with the tape? I can’t reach the angle behind my ear.” Garrett was on the sofa, a controller in his hand, locked into an online match. He glanced up, his eyes darting away from my face almost instantly. “Yeah. Just let me finish this round, Neens. Ten minutes.” I sat on the ottoman and waited. Ten minutes passed. A new match loaded. “Garrett.” He let out an audible, weary sigh, tossed the controller onto the cushion, and snapped on the latex gloves. As he unwound the layers of gauze from my jaw, the warm, sour odor of serous fluid, medicinal ointment, and healing tissue drifted into the air. I saw it clearly: the violent shudder in Garrett’s throat. He stopped breathing through his nose. His jaw clenched so hard his cheek muscles twitched, and for a split second, a look of visceral, unmistakable disgust flickered across his eyes before he could mask it. “Does it smell bad?” I asked quietly. Garrett’s hands stiffened. “No. Don’t be paranoid.” He didn’t use the sterile gauze to wipe away the exudate the way the nurses had shown him. He rushed, dabbing iodine haphazardly over the raw, pink-and-yellow flesh, barely letting it dry before slapping the fresh pads over my face and securing the medical tape with clumsy, trembling fingers. “Done.” He tore the gloves off, threw them into the bin, and immediately pushed open the balcony door. “I need some air. Stepping out for a smoke.” I sat alone on the ottoman for an hour, listening to the heavy, frantic drags he took on his cigarette, pulling clean coastal air deep into his lungs as if he were trying to wash away the scent of my rot. When Brooke came home that evening and heard him complain about the apartment smelling like a burn ward, she went straight to the pharmacy and bought four cans of lavender aerosol. She walked through every room, spraying thick, choking clouds of synthetic flowers while holding her sleeve over her nose. “Don’t take it personally, Nina! It’s just so hot out, we have to keep the air fresh.” I never asked either of them to touch my dressings again. I learned to stand in front of the bathroom mirror, holding a handheld mirror with my left hand while my right hand picked the dried crusts of blood and pus away with tweezers, tear tracks burning lines through the raw nerve endings. “Garrett?” Brooke’s voice was thicker now, heavy with sleep and rum. “If my face got burned off… would you take care of me like this?” Garrett turned to look at her. The salt wind lifted her long, dark hair, exposing her unblemished forehead, her smooth, glowing cheeks, the soft pink curve of her lips. A whole, untouched woman. Garrett raised his hand, his thumb tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered against the curve of her jaw. “You’re never going to get burned,” he said softly. The tenderness in his voice was sickening. Brooke smiled, closing her eyes, and let her head rest fully against the crook of his neck. This time, Garrett didn’t pull away. 4 The three-day weekend slipped away like water through fingers. By ten on Monday morning, they were loading their bags into the trunk of Garrett’s Audi. “I can’t believe it’s over,” Brooke groaned, slumping into the passenger seat and rolling down the window to catch the last of the salt breeze. “I feel like we just got here.” Garrett pressed the ignition, the engine purring to life. “We’ll come back.” “Promise? Next time let’s do Miami. Somewhere with real nightlife.” Brooke unlocked her phone, selected a photo she’d taken of the sunset over the pier, and typed out a caption: The best kind of reset. So lucky to have you in my corner. Before hitting share, she opened her audience settings, scrolled down to my name, and tapped the red minus sign. Excluded. As the car pulled away from the coast, passing a strip of roadside tourist traps, Brooke suddenly leaned forward. “Garrett, pull over! Stop here!” “What’s wrong?” “We’re heading back. We need to bring Nina something, or she’s going to spend the whole week sulking.” Garrett pulled the car into the gravel lot of a dusty five-and-dime souvenir shack. “What do you want to get her?” “I don’t know, whatever’s cheap and looks like a souvenir.” They wandered between rows of plastic snowglobes and cheap shark-tooth necklaces. Brooke eventually picked up a wind chime made of cracked conch shells strung together with fishing line. Blobs of yellowed hot glue were clearly visible around the joints. “This is fine,” Brooke said, tossing it into her basket. “She can hang it by her bed.” Garrett glanced at the price sticker: $14.99. He didn’t argue. “Fine. Let’s pay and go.” On the highway home, the mood in the car was electric. They sang along to the radio, trading sips of iced coffee, Brooke laughing as she tried to harmonize with the pop songs blasting through the speakers. I sat between them in the empty back seat, cold and weightless, watching the back of Garrett’s head. My memory pulled me back to Friday afternoon. I had taken my midday dose of gabapentin for the neuropathic pain. The apartment had felt suffocating—the air thick with lavender spray and the hum of the air conditioner. I had dragged the small wrought-iron chair into the far corner of the balcony, tucked a thin fleece blanket around my legs, and closed my eyes against the sun. I drifted off. Sometime later, the clatter of zippers and the shuffle of sneakers woke me. Through the heavy double-paned sliding glass, their voices filtered through. “Did you get the sunblock?” Garrett asked. “Yeah, packed,” Brooke answered, her voice singsong and giddy. “Are we really just leaving? Shouldn’t we tell Nina?” “Tell her what? She’ll just get hysterical and ruin it. She’ll guilt-trip you into staying.” A pause. “Let her sleep. We’ll lock the place up and go. It’s a holiday weekend, Garrett. I refuse to spend three days staring at that mask.” Garrett let out a quiet breath. “Fine. Let’s hurry, we’re going to hit bridge traffic.” I pushed myself up from the chair, my knees trembling, and lunged toward the sliding glass door. I grabbed the exterior handle and pulled. It didn’t budge. Brooke had reached down just before walking away and flipped the heavy interior latch down. “Locking the balcony,” she had tossed over her shoulder to Garrett. “The weather app says there’s a severe thunderstorm warning tonight. Don’t want rain blowing in.” Then came the heavy, deadening thud of the front door clicking shut. I slammed both hands against the glass. “Garrett!” “Brooke! Open the door!” The glass was thick, soundproofed for city living. My ruined vocal cords could barely produce more than a raspy screech. Nobody turned around. By six that evening, the storm rolled in off the lake. On the eighteenth floor, the wind shrieked like a jet engine. The rain fell in sheets, horizontal and freezing. I was wearing only silk pajama pants and a thin cotton tank top. My core temperature plummeted; my shivering was so violent that the stitches in my skin graft tore, leaking thin lines of blood down my collarbone. My phone was inside, sitting on the mahogany nightstand three feet from my unmade bed. In the corner of the balcony stood an old, rusted tiered plant stand, loaded with heavy ceramic pots of monsteras and snake plants. The gale caught the broad leaves like a sail. The iron legs screeched against the concrete, wobbling violently. I tried to crawl toward the shelter of the structural pillar. The stand gave way. A twenty-pound glazed ceramic planter struck me squarely across the back of the skull. There was a wet crack. A sharp, brilliant flash of white light, followed instantly by absolute silence. When I opened my eyes again, I was looking down at my own body. The Audi pulled smoothly into the building’s underground parking garage. Garrett unbuckled his seatbelt with a satisfied sigh. “Brooke, grab the wind chime.” Brooke snatched the bag from the floorboard. In the elevator, she yawned, checking her reflection in the mirrored wall. When they reached the eighteenth floor, Brooke tapped her foot against the runner rug. “Hurry up with the key, Garrett, I need to pee.” Garrett slid the brass key into the deadbolt and turned it. Click. The door swung inward. The apartment was pitch-black. The blackout curtains were drawn tight, sealing out the afternoon sun. The air was heavy, stifling, and carried a faint, sour, unidentifiable rot. Garrett flipped the hallway switch. “Nina?” he called out, his tone casual, almost bored. “We’re back.”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “627747”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel
Leave a Reply