I can feel my pulse starting to pound and my anxiety escalate as the trauma sears through me again in a fresh, torturous way. Part of me understands that I am in a shower, in a full-blown panic. That I’m having some sort of quickly escalating anxiety episode. But I cannot stop it, and I don’t want to. I want to be telling this nightmare and getting it out of me. I barely recognize my own voice as I sputter and cough out the garbled words.
“The color is bouncing off the wall in the hall … and I know, I know … I know it is coming for us.”
Chris rips open the shower curtain and catches me with one arm as I drop. There is so much steam in the shower now that I can barely see as he turns the shower handle. “Too hot, baby,” he says with more control and calm than the situation warrants.
It takes me a minute to understand that we are now sitting on the floor of the shower. He is behind me. I know the feel of his chest against my back, and part of me is comforted, even while most of me is spinning out of control. He reaches up and lowers the water temperature more. I look down and see that my stomach, my thighs, my arms are scarlet. I have nearly scalded my whole body with hot water.
“Fuck, Blythe,” Chris murmurs. I hear fear in his voice, but he doesn’t let me go. He pulls my head back from the stream of water and pushes the hair from my eyes. I am sobbing now, and he lets me cry.
“I’m here, and I’ve got you.” Then a few minutes later, when my crying has not lessened, “I think you should stop. You’ve told me enough for now.”
Even though I am drowning in water and fire right now, I let out a loud protest and shake my head back and forth so hard that he agrees to let me finish.
“You have to promise me you’ll breathe.”
“I … can’t.” I can’t breathe, I can’t even see properly. The only thing that I can see is the blood that I know is coming. And the screaming.
“Yes, you can. And you will.” This is not a suggestion. It’s a deal breaker. “Breathe with me.”
I am struggling terrifically for air. Because there is none. All I can taste is smoke.
“Feel me.” He inhales, and his chest presses into me. “Breathe,” he tells me. “Breathe with me.”
I feel the rise and fall of his chest, and I breathe as he does. His arms are around me, but he’s gentle, careful not to add to my suffocation. It is only now that I notice he is still in his clothes, his jeans now waterlogged and nearly black.
I keep breathing.
“There you go. Good girl.”
Slowly, my body cools down. But my mind is still there in the heat and the smoke. I am going to get through this, because even in the state I am in, I can feel how important this is for me.
“I see the fire, and I know I’m not strong enough to move James very far by myself when he’s unconscious. But I have to. I can’t even open the window. It’s jammed. Everything in the house is broken, and suddenly that matters. It’s not fun anymore. Because I can’t get the fucking window open … Oh God, Chris, I can’t open the window. There’s a lamp on the table next to the bed, and I take it and smash the shit out of the window. And I’m bleeding. My arm is pouring out blood, and for this one second I think that is good because it means I am alive. I am still real.”
“It’s not happening now. Blythe, you’re here with me.”
I see that I have started telling this story in the present tense, but I cannot stop.
“I can feel the cold air hit me and it means freedom, but there’s no time because it’s coming for us. It’s coming for us.” I hear Chris inhale and exhale loudly in my ear, reminding me to breathe. To live through this.
So I do.
“I take the quilt from his bed. It’s one of those patchwork quilts, and I’m seeing all the colors and patterns. And there are pictures. These stupid pictures that make me so angry. How can I be looking at fabric animals, and trees, and flowers when I am bleeding and James can’t fucking move and we are going to die because I’m not strong enough?”
Chris takes my clenched hands into his, and I dig my fingers into his skin.
Now another confession. Or, rather, a series of them. “I spend too much time looking at this quilt because it’s so normal while everything else is not normal. But I toss it into the window to cover the glass. I don’t do a good job. I don’t pay attention. James is so heavy, and I don’t know how, but I manage to kneel down next to the bed, and I pull him onto my back. I get us to the window, and I have to push my brother through. That’s when he really wakes up, and he wakes up … he wakes up screaming. I’m hurting him so much. Too much. He’s stuck and I can’t fucking get him out. I have to because the fire is almost on us. I don’t look behind me because then I’ll really know just how close it is. James is hanging out of the window, and so I just … push him as hard as I can.
“And the sound he makes … the sound …” I am sobbing hard again now. It’s as though James is right here, and I am hurting him all over. “Chris, it’s too hot. I’m too hot. Make it stop.”
I am escalating again, faster than I can manage. My legs are quivering, my whole body starting to shake. Chris reaches up and slams the faucet so that the water is as cold as he can get it. He moves his hands to my legs, trying to hold me steady, and I do my best to focus on the feel of him against my skin. The cold water is pouring over us, but it’s not enough to put out the fire.
“His leg is stuck in the window. On a big shard of glass. I push James’s body out, and I can feel the rip. Oh, I can feel that I’m … that … I am tearing him apart, but I don’t know what else to do, and there is no one to help me. I have never been this alone. Finally, he is through. Outside, I hear him screaming and coughing. The noise is more than I can stand, and I almost don’t go out the window myself because I don’t want to get closer to that sound. But then I see the fire. Without even turning my head, I can see the fire that is going to engulf me. So I get out. Somehow I get out, and I fall … I fall into his blood. My brother’s blood … is … everywhere.”
“Jesus, Blythe.” Chris runs his hands up and down my legs, then up to my arms, reminding me that I am here with him. That I am not in that house, that I am not drenched in blood.
“I crawl to him and drag him away from the burning house. The screaming does not stop. I take him as far as I can, and I have to stop and wipe my hands on my shirt because … because I can’t hold on to him. My hands are covered in blood. I don’t know if the blood is his or mine, but it is all over us, and my hands are too slippery to hold him.” I shiver against Chris now.
“Do you want the water warmer?” he whispers.
I nod over and over.
“I keep wiping my hands, but I can’t get the blood off, and it’s impossible to get us away from the house fast enough. Far enough. I’m not going to be able to move James.” My voice is broken with terror. “You have to get the blood off me. Then I can help him. You have to get the blood off.” I lunge for my bottle of soap, but I’m shaking so much that it’s impossible for me to open it.
Chris takes the bottle from my hand and pours soap into his.
“Get it off me! Get it off me!” I am panicked and out of my mind. I know that. “Please, Chris.”
He washes my palms and fingers first—so that I can save James—and doesn’t stop until my shaking begins to lessen. His hands go everywhere, covering my body with soap, and I watch while he washes invisible blood from my skin. As I lean to the side and dry heave, Chris’s hands don’t leave my shoulders. I reach for the walls and, with his help, weakly push myself to a stand. “My hair. There is blood in my hair,” I tell him. My throat is sore and my stomach still rolling.