Along the Way

Everytime I close my eyes, I see that boys face. His eyes haunt me as thoroughly as his words.
I haven't slept much in a few days, and it seems to be catching up with me.
Dahlia thinks I've simply caught a cold, but in reality I am plauged by my own mind. The sheets and comforters only make it worse. They constrict me as I breathe. The soups Dahlia brings in taste grimy and bland. Then further guilt sets in because I feel like a spoiled child. What about that boy? What about those women and that little girl Myra? What about every other trembling body that lays on makeshift beds and make believe homes? Just then the world sickened me.

She comes in with yet another tray of steaming soup.
"Shane? How are you feeling?"
I want to explain it to her, but I can't. This is something not even my hero can fix.
"I'm okay." I mumble.
She furrows her brow, her tell-tale sign of the stress I'm giving her. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste metal.

"I'll let you sleep, okay?" She gets up to leave, and I want something to say.
"Lia?"
She turns.

"Thankyou. For everything."
She smiles through her face of worry and softly closes the door.

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"We've gotta do it." His voice was rough and dominent over every other noise I heard. Sirens and people screaming, dogs barking from yards. My knees seemed weaker than they should have been.

"Go on! Are you just going to let them die?" I looked back at the burning building. The source of every commotion. In a few minutes, the whole place would collapse.
I look back at my dad, his forehead holds drops of sweat. His eyes are focused on me.
"What are you waiting for Shane? People are dying while you stand around!" He pushed me forward, my knees almost gave way, but I got my feet under me and staggered on. My dad ran ahead of me like any brave firefighter. I followed him in like a scared child.
Right away I was surrounded by flames, from every direction. The whole room was a candle. I squinted and covered my nose with my filthy sleeve and quickly discovered the stair case. The shouts were coming from another floor.

"Somebody!" I heard a tiny voice scream. It reminded me of my little sister. So I took off, bounding the steps as they began to falter. I got to the second story, parts in the floor were already turning to ash.
"Where are you?" I shouted as smoke filled my throat. I coughed and yelled again. "Tell me where!"
I heard tears and distant voices, but no directions. The room was a hall of doors.
Part of the roof had fallen into the center of the room. Sparks were flying as I ran to the nearest door. I swung the first three open to no avail. Just a charring room more smoke that spilled out. The fourth door made me stop short. The knob was hot, the palm of my hand had already begun to blister. I opened it with the hem of my shirt and was welcomed by a wall of flames. Across the room, there was a doll laying on the floor. Her eyes were closed and she looked like an angel among this chaos. But it wasn't a doll. I jumped the flames and scooped up the little girl, assessing my situation. Her eyes rolled open and I could've sworn she smiled. The greedy tongues of fire had consumed our path. My pulse quickened and I realized there was no where else to go.
The girl in my arms was trying to say something, coughs coming out every other word. "shh." I whispered to her as I held her against me and covered her head the best I could. "Other stairs."
She whispered and pointed to a smaller door frame I had assumed to be a closet. Without further explaination, I tried the handle. It was locked. Probably for this girl's safety, I thought bitterly. How ironic.
I shook the door and still it stood firm. "Can you hold onto me?" I asked the girl. There wasn't an answer. She was passed out and the pressure got to me. I kicked the door seven times before it gave way. Something was wrong with my foot, but I continued to run down the steep spiral stairs. The room behind us had become a furnace. We made it out of the house just as the beams began crashing down.
The firemen had just arrived, a group of them watering the hungry fire. A few saw me and took the small girl from my shaking arms. They put her on a stretcher and gave her oxygen. I tried following, but they held me back. They put me on my own stretcher and gave me my own mask.
I didn't want to breathe, I wanted to save that girl.

I woke up wrapped in my sheets and short of breath. I sat straight up in this bed I was in. Completely out of place. I rubbed my temples vigorously and threw the suffocating covers off. I dressed myself in my old ragged clothes and began writing a letter for Dahlia.
" I'm sorry. This isen't what I deserve." I left it on the counter and stormed off, not bothering to look at the time or even where I was going. As long as I kept my feet busy, my mind distracted. I didn't want to think.
I ended up in a park. Covered by a thick wall of trees and coated by the night, I felt safe. Hidden.
I sat on a swing and closed my eyes.
Pictures I had always planned on forgetting flashed through my mind. I pushed myself off with my feet and leaned back, letting physics take over.

Maybe I was there for minutes or hours, I wasn't sure. The sky was an eery shade of purple and blue. In a few minutes the sun would be up and a new day would begin. I thought of my old bridge.
It stood well above the water. Well above a nice jump.

Out of nowhere, Dahlia sat next to me. I almsot fell from my swing.
"How'd you find me?"

"Don't worry about that." She said as she looked to the tree line.
"We need to talk."

I nodded. I didn't feel like resisting anymore.
So I told her about the boy on the bridge, the girl from the fire I could'nt save. I didn't protect my mother from my father or my father from himself. I couldn't even save me.
I told her how no matter what I did or tried to do, the world would keep spinning and little girls would keep dying in fires and mothers would keep getting hit by angry husbands with drinking problems. No matter how many backpacks we hand out, there's still going to be empty mouths and cold skin in the world. "There will always be more, too much. And I can't stand it."

This time Dahlia didn't have any fortune cookie advice for me. She looked at me, just as the sun was rising. The hot pink glow silhouetted her face and her hair, her sober expression.
"Let's go, Shane."

"Where?"

She smiled softly.
"Everywhere."