THREE
Aspen
Everything in This Cabin is flammable. The fire is spreading faster than I anticipated and all we can do is wait for help that isn’t coming.
Not anymore.
Not since the men who made off with whatever they came for tried blowing up the fireboat that could have rescued us.
A million what ifs flash through my mind like a collage I can’t seem to focus on. Every decision feels like a mistake that wasn’t wrong an hour ago. All those decisions led us here, to a fresh start in a place we love, in a life that finally felt like ours.
Now all I can do is watch it go up in flames.
“Aspen, they just threw another one. Would grenades leave pockets of fire burning on the waves? They’re trying to blow up the firefighters. They’re never gonna make it to us in time. No one’s coming for us. What do we do?”
Meredith’s never been good in a crisis. Not that any of our crises have ever been anything close to this. They may have felt like life or death at the time but breakups and job losses pale in comparison. Even losing the paddle in the lake feels like nothing compared to our burning loft.
The smoke is too thick to see the bottom of the ladder anymore. I can’t even tell if the guy we knocked down is still there or if he left with the rest of his crew.
The smoke was leaving through the open windows at first but I’m pretty sure oxygen only makes fire spread quicker, that’s why we blow on it when we successfully light the firepit, right? The smoke’s all coming up here now, hovering just below the ceiling with nowhere to go. Like us.
Ice floods my veins. All I can think to do is soak our cardigans in the paintbrush water and wrap them around our faces, I know I’ve seen it done on TV.
“Mer, cover your mouth with this. It’ll stop us from breathing in the smoke.
” The certainty in my voice surprises even me, like I’m willing it into fruition.
“You’re right, the firefighters aren’t gonna make it.
We need to save ourselves. Hurry, let’s tie the sheets together to make a rope, we’ll go out the window. ”
She nods, unable to speak through the wet sweater covering her mouth.
I can tell by the fear in her eyes, she wouldn’t have said anything.
We’re not built for this. I should be, my family’s the epitome of dysfunction, which is exactly why I spent all my time with hers.
We’re not strong enough to do something like this, it’s a miracle we lasted more than a few hours alone on the island.
I give her a shaky thumbs up when she shows me her first knot, like I have any clue what I’m doing. I’m just twisting the fabric until it gets too tangled to come undone. Judging by the knotty mess in her hands, Meredith’s taking the same approach.
“No way is this long enough,” I whimper, wishing we didn’t bring the blanket to the couch when it got chilly the other night.
“The curtains,” she yelps, yanking them off the rod we used for jousting.
We never give Meredith the credit she deserves, she’s so much smarter than people think. So much stronger. Resilient in ways her family doesn’t bother to see, they’re too busy making fun of her for not following in their academic footsteps.
“Aspen, no. No crying. Stop looking at me like this is the last time you’re gonna see me. We’re getting out of here.”
A fracture forms in the middle of my chest. “It’s not that, Mer, it’s just… I’m so proud of you. I fucking love you.”
“I love you too, Ass.”
Her pet name for me always cracks us up, even in a burning building on death’s doorstep. Some people call me Azzy, my parents went with Penny, but Meredith chose Ass. And her curtain idea might have just saved both of ours.
The fire’s crested the ladder, it’s in the loft now.
The heat has nervous sweat pouring from every square inch of my body, which admittedly has a few more square inches than it used to.
High school us would die if they knew we’d put on forty pounds.
Each. Life got stressful and neither of us do stress.
When we do, she gets bangs and I break out, you should have seen the volcano on my chin when Meredith lost her job and cut terrible fringe in the same week.
I’m only half crying from the emotional state I’d give literally anything not to be in, the rest is from the smoke burning my eyes.
And the fact that if we make it out of this alive, none of our stuff will.
Our laptops. All the art we’ve been working on the last two weeks.
Our home since leaving the suite above her parents’ garage, supposedly temporary when she lost her job and I lost my live-in boyfriend.
Despite it all, I never thought of us as lost. We went into business for ourselves.
This was supposed to be the start of our next chapter.
We’ve only ever sold our work online but Kenzie just put our stuff in her shop downtown.
In the place we always felt most like ourselves.
The place we always felt was home. This was our beginning.
I wrap the makeshift rope around the bedframe, tucked against the wall, knotting it more times than necessary. I believe its technical name is the drunk one-winged blindfolded butterfly knot, but I was never a Girl Scout.
“Meredith, go!”
“First?”
“You got this. Hurry, the floorboards are crackling and that can’t be good.”
I hold onto her shirt as she swings her legs over the windowsill, not letting go until she’s out of reach, like my death grip on her sleeve could stop her from falling.
Our rope’s working, she’s shimmying down. I don’t like the sound the bedframe is making but our knots aren’t slipping at all. I can’t go until she touches down, the wood frame is having enough trouble holding her. My weight would send us both to the forest floor below.
All I can do is stand here watching, a storm cloud swirling in my belly, wishing Meredith would climb faster while knowing I’d be moving at half the speed she is. Two stories doesn’t seem that high until you’re staring at the ground, knowing it can’t catch you if you fall.
What am I doing standing here watching when I could be gathering our artwork? We don’t need to lose everything. We’ve worked too hard to watch our dreams go up in flames.
I cram everything I can into the pillowcases from the loft bed. This isn’t just artwork, this is hope when we should have had none. This is proof we couldn’t be written off so thoughtlessly. This is a future we didn’t know we could have.
I’m not letting it slip away.
Not at the hands of some assholes who think their lives are more important than ours.
“Aspen, I’m down!”
Her words lift my heart out of the smoke.
Away from the flames.
Into a world where we become everything no one thought we could be.
Pillowcase full, I race to the window, knowing every second counts, but I couldn’t leave without this any more than I could leave without Meredith.
Her feet hit the ground and I’m already half out the window, trying to figure out how I’m going to climb with a sack of canvases in my hand.
“No, no! Aspen!”
Her blood curdling cries from below break my heart before I even understand what she’s screaming about. I can hear it in her voice, that sound when desperation turns to defeat.
The flames are shooting out of the kitchen window, directly beneath the loft. Our rope is on fire. My way down. My only way out.
No. This can’t be it.
There has to be something I can do. Some way we haven’t thought of. A gutter I can climb. A trellis meant for ivy. Something.
“You have to get down, Aspen,” she shouts, words barely audible through her tears. “You have to.”
There isn’t another way. The fire’s spreading, in another minute I won’t be able to get back to the bed.
“Don’t you dare throw that down! Aspen, fuck everything inside it, it doesn’t mean anything without you. Maybe you can climb low enough to jump. Please, you have to try.”
“The rope’s not long enough,” I whisper, dropping the pillowcase out the window into the bushes below. “I’m gonna look for something to get me down. I’ll be right back.”
Her howl into the night breaks me. We both know I just lied to her for the very last time. I don’t know what I’m looking for but racing around the room makes me feel better than sitting here, watching the flames encroach.
There’s nothing.
Nothing but fire and smoke.
The curtains were our last hope. They worked. We did it. We just did it a little too late.
At least Meredith made it. I knew I was risking my life getting her to safety first but it’s a risk I’d take every time.
Her screams are getting more desperate with every second that passes. I don’t know if they’re nonsensical cries or if the ringing in my ears is overpowering her words.
“There’s nothing, Mer,” I shout over my shoulder, towards the window, towards my end, watching my safe space dwindle by the second. “I’m gonna jump but you have to promise not to try to catch me.”
“No need. I’ve got a ladder.”
The deep voice from outside sends me spinning on my heels.
Oh my god, there’s a firefighter at the window.
That or I’ve already died and he’s who greets you in heaven, which I could easily be convinced of.
I’d definitely buy into him being an angel; a big, broad, buff angel with a voice like honey.
An angel firefighter who probably appears in every charity calendar across the country, probably on every month.
I don’t think I could accept it if he claimed to be anything else.
“Take my hand, I’ll get you down. But you gotta hurry, this fire’s spreading fast and I don’t want to repeat what your friend said she’ll do to me if I don’t bring you back in one piece.”
I can’t help but smile. Of course, Meredith would threaten a firefighter who’s putting his life on the line to rescue me.
I don’t waste a second climbing out the window and into his waiting arms.
I haven’t figured out if he’s taking me to the ground or to the heavens where he came from but something tells me I’ll be fine either way.