Page 82 of Angels Fall

“Dude, I was thirteen and I barely had tits when you last actually saw me. And when you saw me again I was wearing a wig. And dancing in a strip club.”

“Valid points.”

“But you… you’re the same guy I remember. Except just more… hirsute, obviously.”

I nod at her, thoughtfully. Then ask, “Hirsute means hairy, right?”

“Yes, Tyler.” She sighs.

“Right. That’s like a whole fetish category on my favorite porn website.”

She rolls her eyes, pushes away from me, and starts toweling herself off.

“I dunno,” I say, “For whatever it’s worth, I don’t feel the same.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Maybe? Yes and no. I mean nobody really changes after the age of, like ten, they just get taller. But after you hit double digits, you’re pretty much locked, personality-wise. That’s my theory, anyway.”

“That’s an insane theory.”

“Um, yeah. Have we met? Of course it’s insane. Duh. But I stand by it.”

She smirks and shakes her head.

“That said,” I go on, “spending every day almost literally dying for a few years will give you a whole new perspective on shit. I mean, really, everybody’s always right on the edge of dying all the time anyway so there’s nothing special about it, but when you’re in war, you just become more aware of it, I guess.”

She’s done toweling off and is pulling on her jeans now. She offers me the towel, but I wave it off. I want what we made to dry into my skin and become part of me. I want to smell like us for pretty much the rest of my life.

I start pulling on my jeans too, stopping just before fastening the top button.

“How did Scotty die?” I ask.

She’s bending down to pick up her bra, and pauses for a second.

I continue, “In my apartment—old apartment—you asked me if I knew how Scotty died. I thought I did. I obviously don’t. How did he? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

If shit hadn’t gotten real before, it’s sure as hell real now. But I needed to ask. Because… fuck it. She and I both know why.

She exhales, then keeps getting dressed, putting on her bra and t-shirt while she tells me.

“The stuff that you know happened. It did. He, uh, was fighting that fire in Colorado, and, um, y’know, went to push the other guy out of the way of some timber he saw coming down, like I think you must’ve heard about…”

She glances at me. I nod. She goes on.

“So, yeah, all that happened, but uh, yeah, that’s… that’s not how he died.”

She doesn’t look my way and I don’t say anything. She sits down on the ground, putting on her shoes now.

“Uh, all that did was, like, um, crush his spine, but it didn’t kill him. But the other guys couldn’t drag him out right away because there was so much fire and shit raining down around them that every time they’d get close, they’d have to back away. So, y’know, the whole time he’s trapped under this burning, like, fucking, whatever. So y’know, he’s just stuck there, inhaling smoke, fire burning through his turnout gear. Through the moisture barrier and down to the thermal layer, so basically he’s just being baked like a potato in tin foil—I know all this stuff because the doctors and everybody explained it to me.”

She’s tying her shoes.

“And so finally they got to him and somehow, like, somehow, he was still alive, and they got him out of there, and actually got him to the hospital, and got him into surgery right away, and... Oh, and so we got there like the next morning, and uh, and we were there for… ten days? I guess? Two weeks almost? Whatever. And so...”

She’s standing now. Putting on her jacket.

“So he had a couple skin grafts, and like there was some discussion about how to repair his spine and if it could even be repaired, and how traumatic it would all be given the severity of his burns, and of course the whole time his lungs are filling with fluid and having to be drained and filling again, and…”