I climbed the tallest hill in the valley. At the top was a blue merry-go-round. I sat down and listened to the nearby trees rustling in the wind. It sounded like they were saying hushhh over and over.

Katherine came up the hill and sat down beside me. She leaned against one of the handle bars, staring out at nothing in particular it seemed. I kicked off of the ground, and we spun around in a slow circle.

“You’re quiet today,” I said.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?”

She took in a deep breath, sat up straighter, and reeled herself back into the present moment. “About being selfish for once.”

I chuckled. “You, selfish? Did you hit your head or something?”

“No, I’m serious,” she said. My smile died, and I cleared my throat. “I’m always thinking about other people. When it comes to what I want, it’s always last.” She tapped her fingers against the bar. “Well, what if instead of something happening to others, it happened to me? If I died right now, there would be so many things I never got to experience.” She gestured as if she were checking off items on a shopping list. “I was depressed all night just thinking about one thing after another.”

I watched the blurry patch of dirt underneath my dangling feet. “It could be different, you know,” I said. “You could just do what you wanted.”

She shook her head and looked down at her lap. “I couldn’t do that,” she said with a twinge of remorse.

I scooted closer to her as if to exchange secrets. “C’mon, it could be fun. And then you wouldn’t have to live, or die, with any regrets,” I said and poked her leg. “Tell me, what’s the first thing you would do?”

She let the idea slowly turn over in her mind. “I’m guessing that worrying about consequences is also being thrown out of the window?”

“Of course.”

“Then…I would…” she started to whisper. She looked at me with her signature penetrating stare. I was scared that she would see right through me, see the feelings I was hiding. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

She brushed the hair away from my forehead and let her fingers trail softly to my cheek. My heart drummed within my chest. The distance between us was dissolving as she leaned towards me. I held my breath and waited for something to go wrong. Surely, an asteroid was going to fall from the sky, someone would walk up on us, or she’d suddenly remember her inhibitions.

By some miracle, her lips met mine.

I honestly had no idea what to do. No one had ever shown interest in me before. I’d never gotten little notes on Valentine’s Day, or had a secret admirer. For so long, the fact that I was undesirable was pounded into my head until I believed it.

The moment I started to feel something more for Katherine, I did my best to bury those feelings under lock and key. What was the point of letting them grow or acknowledging them? I didn’t dare to hope that someday she’d feel the same for me, but now…?

With a single kiss, she let me know that—without a doubt— she wanted me. She chose me over the billions of other guys, even guys who were more confident or smart or whatever else. In one instant, she made all of the worries that had accumulated over the years disappear. Everything that happened in the past didn’t matter anymore. Only right now. Only her.

She pulled away and brought her forehead to mine. Our fingers wove together. I wished I could convey how long I’d been waiting for this. I felt like I’d been crossing an immense desert and just as I’d given up all hope of seeing water, I’d reached Niagara Falls. I whispered the only words that could somewhat grasp all that was swelling up in me.

“I love you.”

Then something odd happened. The sky began to crack. I could see my room. The sensation of being on the bed replaced the merry-go-round underneath me. I realized I was dreaming.

No! I thought. I desperately tried to hold onto my dream. I clung to Katherine; I didn’t want this to be a dream. Please let this be real. The more I tried to hold on, the more awake I became.

Finally, I returned to the waking world. I was laying tangled in my sheets. Sweat soaked my clothes. It felt like I’d woken up in a hot hut in the jungle. I was breathless as I sat up against my pillows.

The dream felt so real. I could still feel her lips on mine. The passion I had been keeping locked tight in my heart, knowing it had no place to be set free, was leaking everywhere uncontrollably. I could feel the desire swirling through my every vein, filling every inch of me with heat. My heart was an incinerator producing more fire than the sun.

Then, like a tsunami, it all rushed towards my eyes. I squeezed them shut. Heat built up behind my eyelids, making me feel like I had a fever. The moisture on them evaporated. The pressure pounded against my eyelids until I couldn’t bear it anymore and they parted.

Instead of seeing my room, I saw a bright, golden light. What the heck was wrong with my eyes? Then I realized…twin jets of fire were shooting from them. I shouted because I didn’t know what to do. I tried to look around, hoping to find a solution, but everywhere I looked probably burst into flames.

The temperature in the room skyrocketed as the fire spread, and the fire alarm blared. The door flew open. I resisted the urge to look. Otherwise, I’d set whoever came in on fire. I forced my eyes shut. It hurt to try holding the fire inside, the way it hurt trying to hold off going to the bathroom.

“What happened?!” Hot Stuff shouted.

“I don’t know!”

The next thing I heard was a fire extinguisher. Someone snatched my shirt and dragged me out of the room. I kept my eyes sealed. They propped me up against the wall in the hallway and dumped a bucket of water on me. It turned to steam instantaneously. I covered the lower half of my face with my shirt because my mask was still somewhere in my room.

“Kaine, are you okay?” It was an unmistakable voice. It was Katherine. Immediately, the fire rammed into my eyelids, intensified by her presence. I put a hand over my eyes for added protection.

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“I don’t know.” I struggled to speak; it took all of my concentration not to burn anything else.

“Can you open your eyes?”

A shaky laugh escaped me. “If I do, you’ll all be roasted.”

“Did you start the fire?” “Yeah,” I said.

“But…how?”

The internal pressure was getting worse. It spread, filling every nook and cranny available in my head. I could almost hear my skull creaking with strain. The fire needed release desperately. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate the pain for much longer.

I had to get away from the others. I couldn’t live with myself if I reduced Katherine to a pile of ashes. I had to get outside.

I followed the wall blindly. Katherine called after me. She didn’t try to grab me to stop me. She knew she’d get burned if she tried. When I reached the end of the wall, I knew I was at the end of the hallway. I held my arms in front of me and searched through the open air for anything that could tell me where I was. Without my eyesight, the space seemed infinite, and the objects around me were years away as if I was floating out in space.

I was relieved when I walked into something. My hands flew across it. The squishy cushions let me know it was the couch. I moved around it. My shin hit something hard, and there was a crash as something broke.

“Sorry!”

My palms hit the smooth recognizable feeling of glass. A window! I followed it to the back door. I escaped out to the balcony. I tried to remember how many steps there were until I reached the stairs. I found them when my foot fell through the air. I went tumbling down the steps. THUD! THUD! THUD!

“Ow! Ow!” I got up and felt the grass on my naked feet. I was almost to safety.

“Kaine!” Katherine called. Her voice came from high up. She must’ve been on the balcony. “Where are you going?!”

“Uh, I just have to get away for a while! I don’t know what’s going on!”

“What? You can’t just leave!” I heard her footsteps on the stairs and then the grass. I could feel the warmth of her body coming closer. I picked up my pace, hissing as I stepped on a rock.

“I’ll be back! Don’t follow me,” I said.

“What do you mean? I’m trying to help you. We can figure this out together.”

“You’re not helping, you’re making it worse. Just…stay!”

I didn’t trust her to listen, so I took off. I felt bad treating her like she was a leper, but I had to put as much distance as I could between us. I wished I could explain that it was for her safety, but I had no time for that. I was like a volcano ready to erupt. The fire twisted through my body, getting more frustrated the longer I held it inside.

Running at super speed with my eyes closed was idiotic. I was across the valley faster than I anticipated. I knocked into a tree, bounced off, and found myself flying through the air. I hit a few more trees like I was a ball in a pinball machine. Aching and covered in splinters, I finally hit the ground.

I tried to open my eyes, and the ground beneath me caught fire. “Enough already!” I said and closed my eyes. I gripped the sides of my head. My brain was burning and tingling the way it did when I needed to sneeze, but it wouldn’t come.

The fire was fueled by the dream and by my freed emotions. Despite my need to get some sort of control, I let the dream replay in my mind. I didn’t want it to go away. I wanted it to be real. I fought to hold onto everything I felt. I would never have it in reality, and the fact only fed my anger.

All I wanted was for her to love me back. Why couldn’t she? Was I not good enough? Was I not worth the risk?

The more my emotions tormented me, the stronger the fire became. I was unable to hold it back. I shouted with frustration and opened my eyes; letting the blinding light fill them. I could barely see past it. Fire exploded again in two streams from my eyes and touched everything in its path.

The flames were so big, so powerful; it seemed like nothing could put them out. For a second it felt good to let it out, but then I realized I was going to burn the forest down. I blinked in an attempt to get it to stop, but it was like trying to stop the water surging out of a hose. The longer I held my eyes closed, the more the fire became backed up.

“GRAH!” I shouted. I pressed my eyelids together. I had to get control.

My teeth were locked as I struggled to ignore the thundering pressure in my head. I wanted to hold on to my dream and embed it into my mind, but I couldn’t do that and suppress the fire. I had to let it go. My heart didn’t like that one bit.

So I emptied my mind until there was only a single thought left. I built an imaginary sandwich in my head. I went through each step slowly. Get the bread, unwrap it, lay slices flat, get the mayo, open the jar… I pretended nothing existed outside of that. Even thinking of Katherine’s name was taboo.

The pressure in my head finally died down. The swelling heat receded into my chest. It lingered there for a while until it fizzled out. At that point, it was safe to open my eyes again.

When I did, a wall of fire surrounded me. Every tree was covered. Some were collapsing. The ground around me was black, and smoke clogged the air so much that I couldn’t see the sky. My clothes were trying to burn. I swatted at the flames. I had half a shirt left, and my pajama pants were now shorts.

There was no way I could walk through the flames and remain clothed. For the moment, I was trapped. So, I lay down on my charred bit of earth. The ground was warm and soothing. I focused on the sound of the crackling fire to help keep my mind empty.

By morning, I no longer had to fight to keep the fire inside. The dream faded quickly from my memory because after all, none of it had been real. My insides felt scorched like a house in the aftermath of being burned down. My heart ached with longing, but otherwise, my emotions shuffled back into their container. The door that held them back was gone for good. I knew that when I saw Katherine again, it would all come flooding back.

I worried I wouldn’t be able to contain the fire. I feared I’d incinerate her. So I vowed that I would just have to be careful. I might have to keep my distance for a while. The thought made my heart wrench. It wouldn’t have to be forever, but at least until these feelings dimmed. Although that seemed pretty out there, I couldn’t imagine ever feeling anything less for her.

I walked back to the house, drained. I didn’t know how long it took me. The sun was high as I approached the backyard. Katherine was waiting out on the patio. She had her face in her hands the way all athletes did after they lost a game.

The sight of her struck me a lot harder than it used to. Straightaway, heat poured into my eyes. I halted for a second and shut my eyes. Panic hit me. I could feel the flames dancing around my irises. I looked at the ground to see if it was safe. The fire didn’t jump free, but it would only take a slight push to send it shooting outwards. I held it back, took a deep breath, and stood up tall as I started to walk.

Katherine’s head jerked up as she heard me coming. Relief filled her face. She jumped out of her chair and ran towards me. I was dumfounded when she threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

“I was worried sick about you,” she whispered into my ear. “We could see the fires from here.”

“I’m alright,” I said. She pulled away from me but kept an iron grip on my arms as if to keep me in place.

“You took off in the middle of the night! Do you know how dangerous that is? Don’t ever pull a stupid stunt like that again!” she said.

“I’m sorry. I was only trying to…” I forgot what I was trying to say. I was distracted by the look on her face. “What? Do I—?”

“Your eyes.” She squinted and leaned closer. I froze as she invaded my personal bubble. That’s too close! That’s too close! What’s the next step? Think! Carefully lay the tomato on top of the lettuce! “They’re different.”

“Uh.” I swallowed. “Different how?”

“They’re gold. It’s almost like they’re on fire,” she said in fascination. “What did you do?”

My memory tried to answer her by flooding my head with the images of my dream as if she could read my mind. I didn’t even dare take the time to focus on any one image. I shoved the thoughts away, replacing them with the imaginary sandwich I struggled to make.

With how good her skills were at reading people—most of all me—I started to worry she would start asking questions I couldn’t answer. Questions I didn’t want to answer, either. I took an uneasy step back, relieved to put some space between us. The closer I got to her the more her gravitational pull drew me in. Now since my dream, I wasn’t motivated to stay away.

“I’m not sure. It just kinda…happened,” I said. “I’m starving. Has someone started breakfast yet?” I went around her, pulled my shirt up over the lower half of my face, and ran into the house.