Mirabelle was fidgeting with her lighter as she sat in Kincade's ship, waiting out the long trip to Baldwin's Fall. She had bought it to celebrate breaking up with Buster, since he always wanted to throw away her lighters when they lived together. It was the modular, refillable kind with a satisfying click when she flicked the metal lid open and shut. She had even paid extra to get it rubberized in magenta instead of the stock bare metal, and the coating gripped her feathers nicely as she held it in the hand of her wing.
She had used that lighter to burn her photos of Buster. It felt good to watch his smiling black and white face turn into grey ash and soot. She had burned the gifts from him, the mementos, the letters, the sketches, everything she had that reminded her of the wasted years with the big stupid angry panda.
She used that lighter on the candles of her birthday cake. She ate it alone at her mother's house, the elder Blackburn too far gone to even share it with her. She was now the age that Buster had been when they started dating. He had seemed like he had so much to look forward to back then, but she felt like she had nothing now. She hadn't worked in years, she didn't have an education, and her friend circle had collapsed after quarantine.
She missed them. They had all seemed to live such interesting and exciting lives. They were ostensibly her peers, but when she saw them selling their photographs or performing live shows it made her feel like a failure. All these exciting people with non-traditional relationships and she felt like a quirky wife from a television comedy, fat disinterested husband in tow.
It was all Buster's fault. She had wasted her 20s on a man she couldn't understand and couldn't change, a man who hurt her and didn't take her seriously, and all she had to show for it was a pile of ashes and a fire in her chest that never went out. Every morning in the shower she was haunted not just by their arguments, but by all the times she had wanted to say something but been too afraid to.
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She remembered the first time he sheepishly talked about benzos and offered her some, returning the favor for all the fun treats she had introduced him to. She hated it, she felt absolutely nothing; all the drugs she had shared with Buster were ones that made you feel good. Feeling nothing was worse than being dead to her. She felt awful as she thought back over all the nights they had spent together on the couch in silence: how many of them had he actually been there for? Was it even the same for him? Was something wrong with her? So many questions she wanted to ask, but she was a people-pleaser and she didn't like to ask questions that she knew would make people uncomfortable. So she said nothing, but every time she heard the rattle of a pill bottle she felt a shudder of revulsion. And when it finally became too much and she blew up at him about it, he just looked so hurt and confused: "You said it was OK, why did you say it was OK if it wasn't OK?"
Back then she had felt sorry for Buster. Now she wanted to burn him. When they were together she tried to get him to see the beauty in fire, and he had laughed at her. "I'm sorry dear, I love you but I don't get the fire thing at all. It just hurts to me." he said almost apologetically.
After a few talking-tos he at least tried, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it and he didn't seem comfortable around her afterward. She felt awful. Not having fire in their relationship was bad enough, seeing that he really truly didn't care or appreciate it made it so much worse.
When she moved in she had tried to behave. She had left all her lighters behind, did her very best not to buy new ones. She had sworn to herself that now that she had a partner and a home of her own, fire would be a thing of the past.
Besides, if she told Buster then would he even want to live with her? Better to just not let him know about her unfortunate proclivities, they would never come up anyways.
Now she resented ever trying to give up the flame. When everything else had failed and left her, it was still here. She might never make movies after all, but she could always make fires.
She would never give it up again.