Page 44 of Under the Influence

My heart starts to race as he closes in on me. He takes the plaque and sits it back down, “It’s just baseball.”

“Isn’t that like a religion around here?”

He brushes his fingertips down the back of my arm, “Not for me. For me, it’s just a game.”

“Why play then?” I question, taking him in. His jeans, his t-shirt hugging his muscular arms, the way his hair peeks out of the hole of his backward hat.

“The girls dig it,” he grins.

I step back, pretending to be shocked.

“Joke,” he confirms. “My dad liked it.”

His mom opens the door, setting a plate of brownies on the nightstand for us, patting Dray on his chest before walking back out the door.

“You can ask me,” he states, pulling a brownie off the plate and handing it to me.

“Ask you what?” I play dumb.

“Don’t do that,” he demands. “Not with me, not ever. You can ask me about the burns.”

“What happened?”

His face turns sad, “House fire.”

I feel the sudden fall of my stomach, “Oh God, that’s awful. Was it… was it here?”

Dray shakes his head, “No.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

He pulls me into his lap on his bed, “It was just a stupid Wednesday night in January. The snow had been falling for two days, the roads were slick as hell, no one had any power. I was staying at a friend’s house when I got the call. By the time I got there, the house was nearly leveled, all six thousand square feet. My mom had lit candles all over the house because my sister, Dottie, was afraid of the dark. They think it started on the top floor. My dad was upstairs in his office and got trapped. He didn’t make it out.”

I snuggle into his shoulder. “Dray,” I whisper at a loss for words.

“My mom said she started choking on the smoke. That’s what woke her up. She ran from her room and panicked when the flames were blocking the way to Dottie’s bedroom. She grabbed a small fire extinguisher that we kept under the sink in the kitchen and tried to get through the flames, but they had already gotten to Dottie before mom. She used her body to try and put it out. The fire spread up her arms when she grabbed Dottie out of bed. She dragged her out into the front yard and into the snow. She said at the time, she didn’t even feel her burns. It took us both a long time before we could feel anything at all.”

I sit in silence, unsure of what to say. Is that why she moved into this smaller house where everything is accessible? Because she couldn’t save her baby? Geez, I can’t imagine.

“Sorry, I’ve never really talked about that before. I don’t know why I just brought you straight up here and said that.”

My heart flutters a little in my chest at the fact that he trusts me enough to let me in.

“You and your mom are great, Dray.”

“She’s amazing. The best mom ever. She won’t admit it, but she’s still hurting. I still hear her crying at night sometimes. Dottie was little and well… I just wish it would’ve been me.”

I can feel his sadness as if it were my own, and suddenly my family drama and the betrayal that I’ve felt from my dad feels small.

“Dray... Please don’t say that.” I whisper, kissing him. I want to be as close to him as possible. If I could, I would crawl inside of him. I’ve never felt this way before, and I’ve never had anyone open up to me and want me to know them like this.

“Lainey?” He whispers, pulling away from my lips but staying against my mouth.

“What?”

“I like it when you call me Dray. Only my mom is allowed to call me that.”

“And now me?” I whisper, settling further down on his lap. Straddling him, his hands weaving into my hair as I pull his hat off.