Chapter 2 - The Echo of the Fire
The silence in the backyard was absolute.
It was no longer the silence of anticipation, but the suffocating hush of a collective, heavy realization.
The smoke from the barbecue grill hung in the air like a ghost.
My sister, Olivia, was on her knees by the pool.
She wasn't smiling.
She wasn't victorious.
Her hands were pressed against her mouth as she stared at the map of keloids on my chest and stomach.
The memory had finally returned.
I saw the recognition in her widening eyes.
Twelve years ago, we were six.
We were playing in the garage when a spilled gasoline canister and a discarded match turned our world into a furnace.
Olivia had tripped, falling directly into the path of the spreading flames.
I had been younger, smaller, but I hadn't hesitated.
I had tackled her, shielding her small frame with my own, feeling the skin of my back and chest blister and tighten as the heat consumed us.
When the firefighters pulled us out, they only saw me.
They saw the burn victim.
They didn't see that I had saved the Golden Child.
The doctors had done their best, but my skin was permanently altered.
My parents, devastated by the accident, were so relieved Olivia was unscathed that they began to subconsciously avoid looking at me.
They couldn't handle the visual reminder of their failure.
To them, I was the "broken" twin.
To Olivia, I was a nuisance, a constant, silent judgment she couldn't understand.
"Why didn't you say anything?" she choked out, her voice barely a whisper.
"Why didn't you tell them what happened?"
I watched her, my expression cold.
"You were six, Olivia."
"And Mom and Dad couldn't bear the guilt of knowing it was your match that started the fire."
"They chose to protect your innocence."
"And in doing so, they sacrificed mine."
A girl in the back of the crowd started to sob.
Then another.
The phones that were recording my "humiliation" were now being lowered, one by one.
They weren't filming a joke anymore.
They were filming a confession.
I looked at my father through the glass doors.
He was no longer pounding on the glass.
He had slumped to the floor, his face buried in his hands.
May you like
He had heard everything.
The secret we had all been holding for a decade was finally in the open.
