Hunter
It takes every ounce of will I have to keep my feet planted on the subway car while Charlie gives me that quick little wave and steps off at his stop.
The doors hiss shut behind him, and I stay rooted in place even as every instinct screams at me to follow.
To shadow him through the dark streets and make sure no one looks at him wrong, or gets too close, or tries to take advantage of him.
He made it clear he doesn’t need walking home. He’s a grown adult.
Jesus Christ.
Just being around him lights me up like nothing else has in years.
The second he’s in my vicinity, everything else fades—the burns, the court order, the empty ache where Robby used to live.
For those few minutes on the train, I forgot I was supposed to be broken.
I just wanted to stay near him. Like a fucking drug straight to my system.
The train rattles on toward my stop. I stare at the scratched-up window, watching my own reflection stare back.
Charlie’s words keep looping in my head: “if we were both in a better place, I would fuck you in a heartbeat.” The way his cheeks flushed right after, the regret flashing across his face chasing the blush away.
I shouldn’t have answered the way I did. “If we were both in a better place… I’d let you.” It was too honest. Too raw. Too close to admitting how much space he’s already taken up in my head.
By the time I climb the stairs to my shitty fourth-floor walk-up, the guilt is creeping back in like smoke under a door.
The apartment is dark and quiet, the way it always is.
No lights on except the one I leave above the sink so I don’t come home to total blackness.
I drop my keys on the counter and stand there for a long minute, staring at the fridge.
I know what’s inside.
I open it anyway.
One six-pack of beer sits on the bottom shelf. I’d bought it the other night when Robby was especially loud, telling myself I was just keeping it as a test. Proof I could be stronger than the bottle.
My hand closes around one before I can talk myself out of it.
The cap twists off with a familiar hiss. The first cold swallow hits my tongue and slides down easy, too easy. For a few glorious seconds, the guilt quiets. The burn scars stop throbbing quite so loud. Robby’s face stops flashing behind my eyes every time I blink.
I finish the first one in under a minute, crushing the can in my fist.
Then the shame slams in.
“Fuck,” I mutter, already reaching for the second.
I catch myself halfway through it. My hand is shaking. The taste in my mouth turns sour. I can already feel tomorrow morning—the headache, the self-loathing, the way I’ll want to crawl back into that same cycle because at least it’s familiar.
I dump the rest of the second can down the sink, the liquid glugging loud in the quiet apartment. Then I grab the other four and do the same, one after another, foam and beer swirling down the drain while my chest tightens until I can barely breathe.
When the last drop is gone, I crush every can and shove them deep into the recycling bin like they’re evidence of a crime. My hands won’t stop shaking. I brace them on the edge of the sink, head hanging low, breathing hard through my nose.
Progress.
Sort of.
I didn’t drink the whole six-pack. I didn’t black out.
But I still opened the fridge. I still drank the first one like it was oxygen. And the worst part? While I was swallowing that cold beer, all I could think about was how much quieter my head gets when Charlie’s around. How badly I want that feeling all the time.
I’m not fixing anything.
I’m just trading one addiction for a prettier, softer one with golden curls, pretty gray-blue eyes, and smudged eyeliner.
I drag myself to the couch, collapse onto it fully clothed, and stare at the water stain on the ceiling. The burns on my shoulder and arm throb in time with my pulse.
Somewhere across the city, Charlie is probably crawling into bed, exhausted from the pole, maybe still thinking about the stupid thing I said on the street.
I close my eyes and try to hold onto the memory of him—flushed cheeks, fishnets, that small crooked smile—because right now it’s the only thing keeping the ghosts from screaming Robby’s name again.
It works.
For about thirty seconds.
Then the beer I shouldn’t have touched kicks in, just enough to loosen the lock I keep on that night, and the memory twists its way in like it always does when I let my guard down.
We’re at the station. Engine 33, Ladder 9.
The fluorescent lights are buzzing overhead the way they always did, too bright, too loud.
Robby’s throwing his shit into a duffel bag on the bench like he can’t get away from me fast enough.
His face is flushed the way it got when he was really pissed—not the cute kind of pissed, but the ugly kind that made his voice sharp enough to cut.
“I’m done, Hunter,” he says, not even looking at me. “I’m moving out. As soon as this shift is done. I already told the landlord.”
The words hit me the same way they did then—like a boot to the ribs. I remember the exact smell of diesel and old coffee, the way my turnout gear was still damp from the last run. I remember laughing at first, thinking it was another one of his dramatic exits.
“You’re not serious.”
“I am.” He zips the bag so hard the teeth catch. “This—us—it’s been rotting for months. You drink until you’re mean, I fuck around because at least it feels like something. We’re not saving each other anymore. We’re just keeping each other sick.”
I step closer, voice low so the other guys won’t hear. “You don’t get to just decide that. Not after everything. I’ll stop drinking.”
Robby finally looks at me. His eyes are red-rimmed, tired in a way that has nothing to do with the shift. “No you won’t. And you can watch me, because I’m serious.”
Then the tones drop for the structure fire on East 11th.
We both suit up anyway. Protocol says we should’ve called out, should’ve sat the call out if we are compromised.
We don’t. We climb on the rig like nothing is wrong because admitting we are falling apart in front of the crew would’ve been worse than burning alive.
The memory fractures and twists the way it always does at this point.
Smoke, heat, Robby’s voice crackling over the radio that he’s going for a kid trapped on the second floor according to the woman.
I tell him to wait for me. He doesn’t. I follow anyway, both of us are sloppy, distracted, and angry.
Then it’s too much…it all happens at once, and I still only remember parts of it, not even really sure what’s real and what isn’t.
I sit up on the couch fast, heart hammering, the phantom smell of burning plastic and hair thick in my throat. My hands are shaking again, and I wish I hadn’t dumped the rest of the beer. Even though it wouldn’t be enough to drown out the truth that I will never say to anyone.
Robby was leaving me the night he died.
And I let us both walk into that fire anyway because I was too fucked up to do the right thing. It was over for us either way.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see sparks.
Since I no longer have alcohol to drown the memories, I grab onto the only thing that still works.
Charlie.
He was as beautiful as I told him he was. I could’ve stood there for hours, just watching him move as though the music lived under his skin. He doesn’t shove anything down. He lets it all pour out, and somehow it comes out raw and alive instead of poisoned by everything he’s gone through.
I’m starting to think that maybe I should stop shoving mine down, too.
The thought feels dangerous. Like opening a door I’ve kept nailed shut for a reason.
Because if I let myself feel everything I’ve buried—the rage at Robby for leaving, the self-loathing for letting him die anyway, the way I’m already addicted to the way Charlie makes the noise quiet—I’m not sure what’s left of me after it all spills out.
Still, I cling to the memory of him anyway. Golden curls stuck to his damp forehead. The small, crooked smile he tried to hide when I said it was beautiful. The way his voice cracked just a little when he told me he didn’t want anything with me.
I lie back down on the couch, arm thrown over my eyes, breathing slow.
Charlie feels everything I shove down. And right now, that feels like the only lifeline I’ve got. Even if it means I’m dragging a soft, broken kid into the same fire I couldn’t save Robby from.