I. 

The school burns brightly with golden flames billowing out onto the cement sidewalks. The screams of the alarm go silent as the fire consumes the school. A coiled hose, unraveled by firefighters with bulky jackets and yellow stripes, only feeds the flames. 

I stand on a sidewalk, my mouth slack with shock, watching the structure crumble. Even though it’s all one billowing column of smoke, I think I can see wilting hands banging on the melting windows from the inside. Parents’ screams echo in the background but they are drowned out by my own. 

The fire rages on. Uncontrollably, it spirals upward until it eventually loses momentum. Throughout the rest of the night, charred bodies are salvaged by the firefighters on white stretchers, one after another. Gradually, most of the minivans waiting on the perimeter drive off, their cargo intact. But some remain, and the wails of the parents are too much to bear. 

Beyond my head, tattered shreds of papers float into the air.

Like invisible strings torn by magma.

Leaving behind the cremated remains.

II. 

Two days earlier. 

The school’s walls reflect a gleaming white shine with blue stripes. I walk through the front door, hardly bothering to give the once-admired paint a second glance. Dancing leopard spots of sunlight reflect off the window panes in our classroom, teasing our fragile attention spans.

“Alyssa, follow me. I want you to see something.” 

 Miranda extends her hand toward me at the end of class. I can smell the floral perfume that wafts out from her hair. It draws me in and I want to lean closer to her. 

“C’mon Alyssa, we’re going to be late for class.”

“We’ve still got five minutes,” I protest, though my lips curve into a smile when I hear her voice. It sounds like a melody, smoothing over small secrets that I want to unravel with my fingers. Even her hands are soft, I thought, fitting like a glove over my awkward digits. 

“I wasn’t talking about class, Alyssa.” she replies with mock exasperation. “Shallcross just hung my painting up on the ceramics display. Will’s too. It’s abstract.” She giggles. 

Even though I knew she harbored a crush on Will, I imagine that her painting was much better than his, the floral brushstrokes swirling around the canvas. I try to think of something to say in response but all I can concentrate on is her palm over mine. 

“Fancy-fancy, Miranda. Let’s go.” 

We take off in a sprint. My appendages feel giddy from her tight grip, I am ignited with something like hope. But before we can get there, the titanium bell rings, ushering all stragglers back to their classrooms. 

III. 

Two weeks later, the ceremony is held in an open funeral home, barren and undecorated. The wooden walls of the coffins have already begun to peel. Bodies brush past each other in line. Noiseless tears are shed among the students, the faculty, the parents of the deceased. 

Silent, in the shuffling procession.

Silent, in the hallway outside.

Silent, a numbness inside.

After the sixth one on the list, the priest sounds like he’s reciting the names mechanically. When I hear Miranda’s, it’s like a mute button has flipped on in my head. I’m filled with an irrational hatred toward the priest, for his practiced steadiness and the somber facade painted across his face. 

“Alyssa,” he gestures toward me and I can suddenly feel the heat of the room’s eyes. “I’m told that you and Miranda were close, would you like to say a few words?”

Deep breath.

“No,” I reply. I grit my teeth so hard that my eyes burn.

IV.

Weeks later, after another ceremony and a series of mandated “family vacation,” I see a newspaper clipping of the school on fire in a supermarket. It strikes me as odd how motionless the image is—an ugly blot of black smoke and ink, a still life. 

The headline: “6 Dead in Oklahoma Cherry Creek Middle School Fire, Including Students.” I struggle not to look at the names listed underneath but my eyes inevitably find hers. 

The memories are so hard to bury. The more I try, the more fiercely they struggle toward the surface. When they eventually bubble over, it isn’t tears but instead a silent panic that grips me. I start to have trouble breathing as I’m standing in the checkout line and my vision blurs as I start seeing smoke and firefighters with high-beam flashlights. I imagine I’m part of the line of grey Subaru’s parked alongside the school’s perimeter, part of the trail of parents who showed up to wait for their children to come home from school. I imagine I’m inside the belly of the smoke, fumbling, crawling, searching for her. 

I think about how scared she must have been. I think about how if I had only kept my mouth shut that day, she might not have darted into the upstairs art room at lunch to avoid me. I think about how if I had kept my mouth shut, she might still be alive and she wouldn’t be gone. I think these same thoughts over and over until a lady nearby screams and asks me if I’m having a seizure, the red a permanent etch in my brain.

V.

As I sit under the sun with my family, my mind swims with the flustering heat. The frigid water laps at my feet as the wave rushes in, then retreats, then returns. The town’s public beach is more crowded on Saturdays than any other day of the week, but my family chose to come today anyway. I feel strange here, among all of these people and colors and sounds. 

I sit up, criss-crossing my legs, rubbing sunscreen vigorously on my arms. I feel the heat melting the lotion on my freckled limbs. I feel like a popsicle in this setting, and if I stay here long enough, the outer layer of my body will liquefy and I will dissolve, leaving behind nothing but my raw insides.

A seagull caws as it swoops down next to me. Sand strings between my toenails. There’s nothing special about sand, I think to myself, it’s only a bunch of small rocks. Children scream as they run past me with sun-blonde hair and loaded water guns. In the distance, loose waves crash into a cropping of sharp rocks. I miss her. The sting of her rejection leeches out of my body in the heat, lapped up by the rising tide. I miss the brightness in her voice, the flecks of paint on her jeans, the way she said my name. 

Only I stay in my position as people and things happen around me, waiting and waiting for the dead to come alive. 

VI.

By Christmas, life has started settling back into its slow routines. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 peers at me from my lap. Miranda had given it to me during a Secret Santa exchange years ago but I have only just come around to reading it. When I get to the chapter on the firemen with their flamethrowers, the words make my skin warm and my eyes red. But I am okay. 

The irony of warmth in the midst of the freezing blizzard outside and the tickling wind chimes would have made Miranda chuckle. Still, I know it’s not funny. Miranda, I promise I’m not laughing. 

VII.

A year later, the school is rebuilt. The walls gleam in the sunlight. There is freshly planted vegetation everywhere, courtesy of a funding increase to the town’s Department of Education: the green heads of sprouts poke through the fertilized soil.

I see students smiling as they walk along the sidewalks and giggling at the new little details. How gorgeous the brick walls are now compared to the old white ones, the new basketball court and soccer field, the fact that a new sweets shop, Ada’s, just opened less than a mile down the road. 

I am also thinking about how new some things are, like how no student paintings have been hung up in the ceramics display. 

The first period of the first day begins. The titanium bell, one of the only salvageable pieces of equipment from last year’s fire, rings just as I am ascending the metal stairway to class. 

I hang onto the rails.