Wilde Fire

The hot rays of the afternoon sun were warm on my face as I leaned back and watched the clouds roll across the endless expanse of bluer-than-blue sky. The birds were singing, perched high above in the trees, the wind whistling and whipping through the tangles of branches and leaves. Waves rippled along the river’s surface, the water crystal clear and beautiful as always.

Nothing could have been better, and that was why it was days like these that I loved the most. I loved the warm days, when Ben worked his magic and somehow signed us both out of school early so we could go on an afternoon adventure to the river. I loved the long nights, where the two of us hopped into his two-door pickup truck with the chipped, fire-engine red paint and sped through the streets of town. We would hold on for our lives as huge, nearly impossible smiles covered our similar faces, and I enjoyed every single second of the thrill. I loved the memories, thousands of them, nearly all consisting of Ben’s favorite thing in the entire world, aside from me, his little sister.
I loved all of the laughs that we shared, as our laughter soon became contagious to whomever we happened to come across during our little after school trips to ultimately nowhere. And we just couldn’t forget the countless adventures, as we sped down the little road along the river, past reality, and straight to the riverside near the edge of town; the exact place where we were then.

The silver metal casing of the lighter was only inches away from my face, my eyes focused solely on the glowing flame, sprouting from the top like a flower out of a vase. “Watch this,” he said quietly, and he let the flame go out. My green eyes were wide and intrigued, my mouth slightly ajar as I stared at the top of the lighter, waiting for the flame to spark again. The bright April sun glinted off the rough metal, nearly blinding my gaze. Yet I remained transfixed, eager to see what new, unbelievable trick he had for me now. We were parked beneath the canopy of oak trees that lined the river, the sun shining through the only open space between the crowded leaves and branches above our heads. A few dogwoods that had recently gone into full bloom stood just along the bank, the silky pink petals falling from the limbs and onto the gentle, rippling water. They were the kind of trees that people would pay to have planted in their front yards. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen, barely growing to ten feet tall, with four precious pink petals, the tips of each dotted with a hint of red.

I could sit for hours, just staring at the dogwoods, portraying different scenarios in my head, any other reason for the trees being so gorgeous and special in such a strange way. If there was one thing, besides fish, that Kala Island was known for, it would be the trees. There were so many of them, so many different kinds and colors, heights and sizes; but the dogwoods always remained my favorite.

Ben, on the other hand, ignored the trees. Instead, he spent all of his time making fire. He would twirl the lighter in his hand, doing cool tricks with the little metal object before producing the glorious flame. He would sit on the large rocks along the bank, tossing flat ones into the water as he rubbed sticks together, trying his absolute hardest to make them spark. Sometimes, he would even just lay back in the grass, looking up past the canopy of oaks at the sky, and claim that if he stared at the sun long enough, he could create the fire himself. Ben always said things like that. And back then, I never thought anything of it.

“Your brother is weird,” people would say, but I didn’t believe them. I never did. I thought they were stupid for even thinking such a thing. Ben wasn’t weird. He was just unique. And most importantly, he was my brother. Mine.

I leaned against the front of the truck, struggling to step up onto the grill and pull myself onto the dented hood. I was shorter than the average thirteen year old girl and could still barely see through the window of the truck when I was standing. Ben noticed my struggle. He effortlessly lifted me from the ground, setting me on the hood of the truck before moving both of his hands back to the lighter. The wind blew through his long, auburn hair. The strands were sticking up in several random directions, and it was very obvious that he was in need of a trim. As if he would really listen if someone said such a thing out loud.

The last time our mother had told Ben he needed a haircut, she gave him a ten dollar bill and told him to be at the barber’s shop by noon. Yet instead, Ben had proceeded to jump into the truck and drive straight past the barber’s shop just across the bridge, ending up at Burger King, where he bought himself and his girlfriend a Whopper meal. Ben came home smiling, a lip gloss kiss still fresh on his cheek. When my mother asked why his hair didn’t look any shorter, he only laughed and said, “Sorry, Mom, but I’d pick Kelby Blackwood over scissors to my scalp any day.” I didn’t even have to ask him if he was telling the truth or not, because I knew it just by looking at him. Ben may have lied about a lot, but he definitely didn’t lie when it came to his feelings for Kelby Blackwood.

The leather of the truck seats were going to be scorching hot when we climbed back in at sundown, but Ben didn’t care. As long as we were here, in our little alcove beneath the oaks for that amount of time just as we always were, we would be just fine. “Hot seats make the ride that much more entertaining,” he would say, reaching forward to turn up the radio. My ears would be blasted with the loud bass of whatever song he decided to play. And I never, under any circumstances, bothered to ask why. His reasons were secret, things that he never shared, and would most likely still keep to himself even if I had one day brought up the courage to ask.

Ben walked to the river, bending down by the slippery rocks and dipping his hand in the cool water. I watched him as he got to his feet, rubbing his damp hands together. I didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Honestly, I had only just recently found out why Ben always wanted to come down to the river in the first place. “What’s so special about a little creek?” I asked one day, clutching onto the door as he took a sharp corner, nearly tipping the truck onto its side. He had just signed us out of school early, after using his mom-voice on the principal, who had yet to catch on to Ben’s antics. We were driving fast. It was the third day in a row that he had signed me out early for this very reason.
“Because, Sidney Bean,” he had said with a smile, “we can light up anything we want, and the water is right there to put it out.” I knew exactly what he meant when he said the words “light up.” I had been living with him for far too long, gone on too many adventures involving that one obviously dangerous thing that Ben just couldn’t seem to live without. I had seen so many things burst into flames during my trips with Ben, so many times where one of his hundreds of lighters would fly out of his hands and into the walls of an abandoned building, or worst of all, the belly of an innocent frog…

But Ben’s love for fire always seemed so normal to me. Maybe it was just because I was used to it. I was used to walking outside our house and smelling smoke, glancing out the back door just in time to see him laughing as a tall flame sprouted from a pile of wood in the yard. I had opened the bottom drawer of his dresser many times before, gawking at the mass collection of fire-making devices; from boxes of unlit matches, to plastic bags packed plum-full of lighters, even to the occasional blow torch that he had snuck out of our father’s tool shed. I looked past the strange things like that. I ignored the fact that my brother was obsessed with something so terrifying. For some reason, it was just easier that way; to pretend that nothing was wrong, that we were all just fine. Ben was fine.

I repeated that thought as Ben approached me.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked, curious as he stopped in front of me, still rubbing his damp hands together. He hushed me quickly by putting a finger to his lips, using his free hand to dig into the pocket of his jeans. Ben fumbled with his lighter some more, twirling it effortlessly between his fingers as he began to whistle, now focusing on popping the cap of the metal lighter and igniting the flame repeatedly. I had seen so many of Ben’s fire tricks--too many to count. New or improved, I was almost positive that I had seen them all. Then again, it was Ben. And after so many years of being with him, I had learned to expect the unexpected when it came to my elder brother.

Benjamin James Wilde was a lot of things. He was tall, with long hair that hung in his eyes and looked red in the sunlight. But no doubt, he was handsome. With those mesmerizing green eyes and dimples that formed in his cheeks when he smiled, Ben was an obvious catch when it came to females. And one in particular, that one girl whose heart was stolen by a Whopper, somehow changed it all.

Ben didn’t date much. He had girlfriends every now and then, and hookups that he kept secret until I found out for myself. He always told me that it was the alcohol that did it to him. “Just take my advice, Sidney Bean,” he would say the morning after a party, as he moseyed around the house in the grasps of a terrible hangover, “and don’t do what I do.” And after seeing the way he held his temples from migraines and hung his head over the edge of the toilet seat, I was determined to listen to him when he told me those types of things.

It wasn’t until Kelby Blackwood came along that something about Ben changed. He stopped partying as much, changing his life for the better. I finally witnessed true love, and it happened right there, with my brother and the gorgeous girl from across the street—right there in front of my very eyes.

“Ben, seriously,” I sighed, crossing my arms across my chest as a sudden wind blew over the water, sending chills up my spine. “What are you doing?” The branches of the dogwoods shook in the breeze.

“Put your hands here,” he said, stepping toward me with a crooked smile on his face. He motioned with a finger to an area above the top of the open lighter.

“It’ll burn me!” I yelled, but Ben only laughed. His laugh was hearty and exuberant--another characteristic about my brother that I loved.

“Just trust me, Sidney Bean,” Ben said softly, and he made the same motion with his index finger as he had before, “you’ll be fine. Now put your hands here.”

I drew in a long, deep breath. I squeezed my eyes tight shut for a moment, opening them to stare off at the dogwoods one more time. The soft pink petals fluttered in the wind, the river rippling just beyond the spindly trunks and thin, skeleton-like branches. I was thinking many things at once. My first assumption was that those dogwoods would be the last thing I saw before I died. After all, Ben didn’t have the best luck with experimenting new tricks. But ultimately, I stuck with the latter of my thoughts. I told myself that I would be fine, and I fully hoped and believed, at least for a second, that it was true.

“Is that good?” I whispered with a shaking voice. I lifted my hands slowly, cupping them above the invisible flame just as Ben had said.

“Perfect.” Ben nodded, still grinning. The breeze blew his auburn hair into his pale green eyes. His eyes were focused solely on the lighter again, watching my hands as they hovered above, quivering slightly along with my fear, watching his own fingers—his thumb—as my eyes squeezed shut tighter than ever before, and then…

What happened next was so fast and painful, so completely unexpected, that I almost forgot to scream. Just as Ben’s thumb slid down and ignited that scorching flame, I fell forward, straight into my brother’s chest just as my wrist found the first of the terrible pain that was to come.
My skin was like fire as the stinging sensation snaked its way up my arm. I stared in agony, flipping over my wrist and ignorantly grasping at the skin--the pink, wrinkled flesh, the turquoise blue veins like road maps in the palm of my hand.

“Don’t touch it!” Ben screamed, and that terrified look in his eyes signaled that what had happened definitely wasn’t part of his master plan. He pried my hands from my arm, holding me hostage as I tried to claw my way back toward the itching pain taking over my wrist. His fingers wrapped around my forearms so that he could examine the burn.

“It hurts!” The pain was unbearable as I finally let out a shrill cry. As if it weren’t obvious by the large red welts that began to bubble out of my leathery, deformed skin. Ben had burned himself so many times. His arms and legs were covered in scars. Sparkler bombs gone wrong, homemade firework displays set off too soon, matches or lighters or candles put in the wrong place at the wrong time. But never once, not even close, had one of Ben’s inferno inventions harmed me. I didn’t have any scars, no pale marks on my skin that could be pinpointed and placed on a timeline of my life. Not until then, anyway.

And that day, as we piled ourselves into Ben’s truck--the seats just as hot as I had figured--as we left our little alcove by the river before the sun started to set in the sky, as we sped across the bridge and to the local hospital, I should have realized that there was something wrong. I should have known that this simple accident, this innocent mistake, was just the beginning. But I didn’t. I didn’t acknowledge the fact that Ben’s love for fire was more than a passion; it was an addiction. His own personal brand of heroine. The only thing that he thought he needed in order to survive.

The one thing that, so dangerous and appealing at the same time, would eventually leave him dead.