Chapter 27
FIREWORKS
ALICE
I’m not feeling exceptionally patriotic as the fireworks boom overhead. When you marry someone in the military, there’s a certain level of unpacking you have to do about how complicit you are in the world’s horrors.
Even when your partner’s job is decidedly positive—even if they have a list of folks who they’ve literally scooped out of the ocean or rescued from a mudslide in some European mountain range—they’re still a part of the machine.
You can argue that they’re changing it from the inside. Don’t you want a kind soul to be in charge of the big red buttons? Someone who actually cares?
You can also argue that taking the military-industrial complex’s money and using it to patron art and advocacy is the biggest ‘fuck you’ you could give to a government that continues to strip away folks’ rights.
Ryan liked to remind me of this when I’d cry about the news.
He’d gently take my phone away from me, place it on the table, and hold me. Ground me. Tell me that I’m only one person, and that I have a specific set of skills that I can use to make a difference.
As an artist, I can do more than people would think. I can connect. I can take a stand. I can change a point of view. I can comfort. I can make folks feel seen—I can make them feel heard.
I can remind them they’re not alone.
I’m not alone now, which is nice; Jessa, Harley, and I lay on their roof, watching the fireworks pop and fizzle. My gaze follows the sparks that hang onto glowing life with everything they can, only to die out a few seconds later.
The past two summers, I escaped to the desert to outrun these booming reminders of my loneliness. I replaced the nagging questions of how pointless it all is with the nothingness of the Mojave sky. Unscathed blue. Searing sun. Refreshing cowboy pools and the sound of dust breezing by.
It might have made me a coward, but at least I didn’t feel so fucking sad.
Jessa’s hand curls around mine, fingers slotting into empty spaces that are meant to be filled. “You’re thinking awfully loud.”
I turn my head and our noses almost brush. Her lightly tanned, white skin glows pink, orange, and red in quick succession with the fireworks bursting above us. Her bangs sit askew, half stuck to her forehead from the persistent humidity.
“So loud I can hear you from down here,” Harley says, raising an arm and pointing at himself. His head rests on Jessa’s stomach, and it bobs up and down with her silent laughter.
“What’s plaguing you, Trouble?” Jessa asks.
“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” I mutter.
“Whichever you’re willing to give me,” she says.
I wait for the next popping of color to subside, watching it play out on her skin and in the reflection of her concerned eyes. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You already did.”
I chuff, turning my gaze away from her smirk.
Another pop.
Another boom.
Another crack and fizzle.
“Would it be so bad to stay here?” I ask in the break.
“You mean in Meadowbrook?” Jessa asks.
Her hand twitches in mine. Another pop. Another boom.
“Yeah,” I say.
Ori’s words have sat heavy with me—that he refuses to risk Harley and Jessa. At the time, it didn’t fully register; I was high on adrenaline and frustration at his lack of communication. But now, I hear the fear behind the words, the struggle in the syllables.
He’d choose them over an entire kingdom. Over duty.
It strikes a chord deep within me, one I try not to think about, but today is hard to ignore.
“I’ve been to Arcadia a few times now, and it never seems like anything is actually wrong?” I add. “What am I missing?”
“You’ve only seen the Wandering Woods, Alice…” Jessa says, trailing off.
Another crack and fizzle. This one has a different shape than the rest, more oblong than circular. It’s nothing to write home about.
I turn on my side, placing my hand between my face and the blanket that does little to cushion against the shingled roof.
“Explain,” I demand.
“Maven and Enzo are controlling and unhinged. They don’t care about the people, only themselves.
They think everyone lives to serve them.
You haven’t seen the towns…” she says. “I snuck in once. It reeked of terror. Maven has Enzo make a spectacle of those that openly defy her. Dragon fire is a terrible way to go.”
Jessa’s lips purse as the fireworks pick up; the annoyed scowl is frustratingly cute, and I reach out to smooth the line between her brows. Her face slackens, expression softening.
“We have a duty to our people, Alice. They shouldn’t have to live in fear. And if we have the means to save them, how can we not try? How can we disappear and live our lives like they don’t matter?”
“Fuck duty,” I say. Anger blooms in my chest, sudden and fierce. “And fuck responsibility.”
Jessa flinches at the vitriol in my tone. Harley even sits up, concerned expression directed my way.
The fireworks pick up again, in tune with my inner turmoil.
The booms are deafening, ringing out every other second.
A deluge. An avalanche. They mirror the thoughts and memories blasting apart behind my lids as I squeeze my eyes shut.
Crackling debris strings together, a near constant static that fills my eardrums. Panic pushes up my throat and chokes me.
The show ends.
There’s a brief moment of shocked quiet. Then, the crickets take back the night.
“Alice… do you not want to compete in the tourney?” Harley asks.
Jessa removes her hand from mine and sits up. Her expression is serious but not angry, and yet a thread of guilt weaves though my ribs as if I’ve been reprimanded for expressing doubt.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” she says. “But I’m confused. The other day, you—”
“No, I still want to fight for you, I just—” I groan, my hands rubbing over my face as it tilts to the smoke-filled sky.
“I’m thinking about Ryan. He would say the same shit, always droning on about his duty to protect.
I hated the connotation, but I also secretly loved that he was chivalrous.
How could I hate that I had a husband who cared deeply about others?
” My hands fall to my lap and wrap around my middle.
A painful ache emanates from my center. “Why couldn’t he have been a doctor or something?
” I whisper. “There are a million other ways to save people.”
The breeze blows a curl across my face.
“Babe,” Jessa chides. Her gentle fingers tuck the stray strand back into place behind my ear. “What’s really the matter?”
Tears well in my eyes, and when I blink, they cascade down my cheeks. Jessa’s thumbs catch them, and though blurry, I can tell she’s stricken by the sight of me crying.
Harley crawls over on his hands and knees when the sobs hit. My chest heaves, and emotions I’ve long stored away break free. Two heartbeats press into me as I’m sandwiched between one hard chest and one plush one.
“Talk to us,” Harley whispers into the crook of my neck. He places a tender kiss below my ear.
“It’s so stupid,” I say through hiccupping sobs. “I can’t even be mad at him because it always made him so happy.”
They don’t interrupt; only their hands respond to my words, running over my body with intent to soothe.
“He was a rescue pilot,” I explain, swallowing my tears.
“Helicopters are dangerous. We both knew that, but he loved flying. He loved the adrenaline rush. And he loved that he got to help people in such a tangible way.” I swipe at the snot dripping from my nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
“Do you even know how many times people need to be rescued in the middle of the ocean? It’s not a lot but it is more than you’d think. ”
Emotion gets caught in my throat, and I have to breathe for a moment before continuing.
“But he didn’t save the person who mattered most. Him,” I choke out, and the hands on my body pause.
“I’ll never know exactly what happened that day.
I think my brain shut down when the officer and chaplain came to our apartment and broke the news.
And any information I read about the crash after that never fully digested.
All I know is that there was an equipment malfunction and they hit the water. ”
I detangle myself from Jessa and Harley’s hold, sitting up.
“He had that same strong sense of duty and responsibility for others that you speak of. But he also made a vow to me. To come back to me. And he didn’t.
So, fuck responsibility, and fuck duty. Now that I think about it, maybe Ori’s the only smart one of us.
Survival is more important. Maybe, if Ryan thought about that more, he’d still be here,” I say, all my twisted bitterness floating to the surface.
“You know how many people called him a hero after he died? Thanked me for his service and sacrifice? It made me sick. I didn’t care about heroics.
I didn’t care about service. I cared about him. ”
“I’m sorry,” Jessa says. “I know nothing I say right now can stop the swell of all that you’re feeling.”
I sigh, batting at the last few tears that fall down my cheeks. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Harley says, reaching out and grabbing my hand. My tears grow tacky between our palms as his thumb traces over my knuckles. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
“No, I shouldn’t have,” I agree, staring at our hands.
Two fingers lift my chin, and I’m met with Jessa’s sharp features.
“I hear all your fears,” she says. “But this is not the same situation, okay? Nod if you understand.”
I nod.
“Shouldn’t we be the ones worried about you, considering you’re the one that will be fighting to save us?” she asks in a raspy murmur. “I’m not planning on losing you now that I have you.”
My eyes dart from her to Harley. He shoots me a soft smile and nods his agreement.
Jessa does have a point.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Trouble.
” My throat bobs, a tickle of something else infiltrating all the anger and sadness stuck in the space where my neck meets my jaw.
Her nostrils flare and she sucks in a deep breath; as if she can read my mind, her thumbnail digs into my bottom lip, tugging it down. “Do you need to get out of your head?”
I nod.
“Make you remember that we’re here and that we’re not going anywhere?”
I nod again.
“Then let’s go inside.”