C Y P R E S S

[cupressus sempervirens] ➳ despair.

ON THE FIRST of December, just after noon, the string lights on our Christmas tree burst into flames.

They burned slowly, sullenly, before flaring up and swallowing the house top down. Sort of like a shot, sliding down a throat, or our family's future, crumpling into its own foundation.

When the collapsed building was deemed safe to enter, we gathered up the things we had left. It was a blessing that nobody had been home, but also a curse. Without anyone's firsthand account to go by, the investigation lazed on for weeks before we got any closure.

That was the extent of the tragedy the news back home had covered, published with a quote from my father about being devastated. 

When Isaac recited the sordid story, then asked if I wanted to head outside, I felt a spool of thread unravel inside of me. Even my parents didn't know the rest.

"It's raining." The door slammed behind us.

"It's quiet," he countered, his smile soft as the pitter-patter on the roof. "No one'll interrupt."

I couldn't argue. I sank onto the sidewalk, right in front of the door, crossing my legs and tucking them close. Isaac sat down across from me, still beneath the overhead cover that held off the rain. For a while, we sat watching puddles grow and fuse together on the soccer field.

"So," he said, his voice quiet but daring, like a gentle push from behind. "You moved here right after that?"

I shook my head. "My parents moved in with my aunt and uncle, but they had this huge family: five kids, and they all lived in the same condo. It stressed me out, and I was trying to prepare for exams at the same time. So after a few days of that, I went to live with..."

Isaac met my gaze expectantly. I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I went to live with my boyfriend."

He didn't say anything for a while. Then, after testing a few possibilities between his lips, he asked, "Your parents let you do that?

"We were family friends." I sounded bitter; there was no point disguising it. "There were a few Brazilian families in my neighbourhood and he belonged to one of them. We were the same age, so naturally, we ended up dating. My parents knew his parents, and they let me sleep in his sister's bedroom."

It was hard to pick out what was most important, so my brain stumbled over the details. Anthony was a lot of things: he was captain of track and field at my old school, and the reason I tried out for the team in grade ten. He was as tall as Isaac, but with dark eyes and the kind of look in them that could snuff out any light.

He was the kind of person to refuse a second-place ribbon. When we were eight, his family's cat disappeared around the time humane society trucks showed up to their front door. When we were eleven, his sister told me she hated him. 

Isaac laid his hand on my kneecap. I looked into the rain, and his voice grew urgent. "Did he hurt you?"

There was a wetness on my eyelids that I didn't dare identify.

"Once I moved in, Anthony seemed to forget I wasn't really family," I said quietly. "At that point we'd been sort-of dating for a year, and I'd known him for more than ten years. But he became a completely different person at home."

The rest came in flashes — of arguments that ended with the contents of a dining table swept onto the floor; of his fourteen year old sister wiping her cheeks on the backs of her hands before she left for school; of me being the only thing stopping him from bloodying his knuckles on the lockers that lined the halls.

"His parents wouldn't let me say anything to anyone." A raindrop splashed my nose, sending a wisp of anxiety through me before I continued. "I was scared, but I didn't want to overstep after they'd taken me in like I was their own kid."

Isaac's brow furrowed with concentration. "And then you moved away."

I nodded, trying to preserve what little poise I had left with. "My parents had been considering it even before the fire. My mom's first generation, so she and her siblings stayed close to my grandparents. But my dad likes small towns. When he met Jackie's family and they helped us secure a place here, they were both so excited. We wanted to rebuild our whole lives."

Though I couldn't remember standing up, when Isaac slid his arms around me and pulled my head into his chest, I realized I would remember this moment for a long time.

I didn't say any more, though there was more — there always was.

How my parents and I had spoken to therapists in the weeks leading up to our move to try to come to terms with the fact that we'd lost everything. How I'd broken up with Anthony the night before we drove out of Kitchener because I'd been too scared to do it any earlier.

How I could barely look at my friends anymore, because they were his friends too.

Isaac moved his chin from the top of my head. I untucked myself from his proximity and for a second I felt exposed to the world. "I hope you didn't tell me this just because I told you about my life the other day," he said, eyes flitting to our shadows on the ground. "You didn't have to."

Our silhouettes were together as one; I took a step back so they would disconnect, then smiled tightly. "I didn't."

The truth was, I had told the story to warn Isaac — to let him know that running from the boy I'd called my high school sweetheart-to be had set my insides alight and now there was enough residual anger inside of me that Isaac would never make it out alive if he were to do a fraction of what Anthony had done.

That was the idea, anyway. It was a concept too far-reaching to really make it to fruition, and I didn't have any anger inside of me, no matter how much I wanted to.

I wanted to be like the fire that had uprooted me, but I was barely a spark. I knew better than anyone that flames never forgave — yet I always did.

AFTER OUR ENCOUNTER that morning, I expected Jackie to ask me about Isaac in the car on the way home. But when I stepped into the backseat of the truck, rain sloshing off my shoulders, she and Doug were already waist-deep into an argument.

Isaac had never finished his thought about the Merritts and ruining people's lives, which made me fidgety and paranoid. I watched the raindrops that glistened on the windows, counting down the seconds until we could drive away.

"You knew this could happen, Dad," Jackie said, her voice lower than I'd ever heard it before. Normally her words were feather light, like she was afraid that if she spoke too loudly someone would step all over her syllables and string them together a different way. "I can't do anything about it."

Doug gritted his teeth in the rear-view mirror, then caught me looking. I whipped my gaze to the floor, studying the cracks in the tops of my shoes as he finally pulled down the parking brake. "That doesn't make it acceptable."

"I know." She was briefly silent as the truck's tires rumbled out of the parking lot. "It's just really hard."

"Ren," said her father, and I blinked at him in the rear-view again. The top of his head nearly reached the ceiling of the car, and there wasn't a wrinkle in his dress shirt sleeve as far as I could see. "How hard did you find grade ten to be?"

Jackie released a tiny hiccup beside me. Disbelief whirred in my head — normally Doug was so keen to tell me about his daughter's accomplishments that I'd never heard him try to undercut her before.

My stomach churned with pity.

"Hard," I said, trying to sound convincing. "Harder than I expected. Teachers like to pile a lot of stuff on you in grade ten."

Jackie shot me a grateful look, the puffiness of her eyes rivalling mine. Something still lingered in her expression, but I wasn't interested in pursuing her academic ghosts. From the front seat, Doug released a grunt, which I took to mean he was unhappy with us both.

I couldn't have cared less. Before he could speak again, I turned to Jackie, adding, "I've talked to Leo about tutoring already, since we have fourth period together. He might be able to, but he's pretty busy."

Her eyebrows tugged. "Do you know when he's available?" she asked, glancing at her father before turning to me. "I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm always free."

She laughed self-deprecatingly, dislodging something inside my chest. "You can ask him," I told her. "I'll give you his number."

The last thing I needed was to feel sorry for Jackie Merritt when all she did was feel sorry for me. But when I watched her open the contacts screen on her phone, a sickly feeling permeated through me at the realization that there were only a handful of names on her list.

And I was one of them.