I’m practically screaming now. As Gabe watches in astonishment, I rip open their closet door and start yanking clothing from the hangers and drawers, throwing each piece into a huge pile on the floor of the bedroom. I throw her shoes, his work shirts, his ball caps, her underwear.
Everything goes.
Everything.
After a while I glance at the pile. It’s enormous.
“You forgot these,” Gabe says quietly, holding a stack of old greeting cards held together with a rubber band. I gesture toward the pile.
“Throw it on.”
He tosses it and we both watch as it slides down the mountainous heap.
Gabe looks at me. “I didn’t think you’d throw all of this out in one fell swoop. You’ve got balls, Maddy.”
“But what the hell am I going to do with all this stuff?” I mutter. The answer comes to me immediately and it’s the only thing that makes sense. I look at Gabe.
“Bonfire.”
A strange light shines in Gabe’s eyes and he nods enthusiastically.
“That’s perfect. Let’s carry this stuff out down to the beach and burn it all.”
We lug every last piece of the pile down to the damp beach. As we do, I remember all the bonfires Mila and I had down here over the years with our friends. In fact, Ethan came to many of them with us. We’d sit out here in the dark and make s’mores, go swimming and cuddle up around the fire with whatever boyfriend we had at the time.
This bonfire is very different.
For one, it’s broad daylight.
For two, it’s burning in effigy.
I turn to Gabe, throwing him a book of matches and a bottle of lighter fluid.
“I’m going to burn everything about my parents that hurt me, everything that caused me issues. My mom might not have been strong enough to deal with it,” I tell him. “But I am. Fuck this.”
Gabe nods, satisfied and pleased by my attitude. “This is exactly what I meant, Maddy. Fear is a choice.”
He tosses a pair of my dad’s shoes on the pile.
“That’s your dad leaving after every fight, after every time he hit your mom,” Gabe announces. Even though he wasn’t there, it’s as if he can see right into my life and knows what happened. Because that’s exactly what my dad did. He left every time, leaving Mom at home to cry.
Leaving me at home to console her.
I glance at Gabe in appreciation, then throw a handful of mom’s clothing and belts onto the pile. “That’s for every time I saw my mom’s bloody nose drip onto her dress… after Dad hit her.”
Gabe nods and we take turns adding things to the mountain of memories.
Screamed words between my parents, a blurred memory of my mother curled up crying, an image of my dad slapping her… all of it goes onto the heap, piled like the rubbish that it is.
Dried flowers from her closet—sent as an apology for hitting her—go onto the pile as well. His apology wasn’t fucking good enough.
So I’m going to burn it now.
Broken promises that he’d never hurt her again, broken promises that she’d leave him if he did… all go onto the pile. There are a lot of them.
When there’s nothing left to add, I watch as Gabe squirts lighter fluid all over the pile, then turns to me, holding out a match.
“You do it,” he tells me solemnly. “You deserve to do it.”
I stare at the giant mountain and sniff at the acrid smell of lighter fluid as I realize that it symbolizes a monster, a monster that I have allowed to control my life for far too long.
It’s because of my parents that I’m afraid to get involved with anyone, it’s because of them that I’m afraid any relationship I get into will hurt me, like my dad hurt my mom. Even though my father loved me, he damaged me so much more than he ever knew.
I don’t deserve that.
I toss the match and watch as the entire pile explodes into flame. The heat singes my hair, washing over me, and I take a step back. Gabe pulls me to his chest and together we watch my bad memories burn.
It is surprisingly cathartic.
I watch the dark smoke curling and wisping into the white sky, carrying the toxic memories away with it. I try to imagine that everything that has lain heavily on my heart for years is floating away… far, far away from me. It’s not my burden to bear. It was theirs and they aren’t here anymore.
They aren’t here anymore.
But I am. I have my own mistakes to make… but I sure as hell won’t make the same ones they did.
We sit beside the raging bonfire for at least an hour. When the fire grows dim I squirt more lighter fluid on it, causing it to rage again. I want to make sure that every bad memory has burned completely away.
“Do you feel better?” Gabe asks quietly as we walk back up to the house.
I realize that I do. I feel surprisingly lighter. I’m no therapist, but what I just did was really fucking therapeutic.
“I do,” I tell him. “This was a good idea. Thank you. I’m sorry that you had to see me that way, that you had to see all of that… shit. But I thank you for making me face it. I’m sorry I got mad at you.”
Gabe rubs his hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t really mad at me and I knew that. I’m just glad it helped,” he tells me.
We heat up some frozen burritos and rice, then sit curled up on the couch until bedtime. After we crawl into bed, Gabe holds me until I go to sleep, but he leaves me afterward.
I know this because he wakes me up in the night, tossing and turning and mumbling on the couch. He calls out for Brand. He mumbles incoherently. This is the Gabe I saw that first night. This is the Gabe he wants to hide from me. This is the Gabe he doesn’t want to face.
I watch him for a while before covering him up and padding back to bed. There’s nothing else I can do. He gave me the push I needed to face my demons… because I was ready to do it. That’s the difference between him and me.
He’s clearly not ready to face his own. I just wonder if he ever will be. And if he’s not, what does that mean for me? Or for us?
It’s not something I have an answer to, so eventually I give up thinking about it and slip into a fitful sleep.
When we wake in the morning, the water has gone down. I’m not very happy about it. On the one hand, I’ll be able to go see Mila.
But on the other, this little bubble that I’ve been in with Gabe will burst and we’ll have to go back to reality. The problem is, I’m not sure that we’re ready for it.