The day Ray Callows died, the fire department let the Vale burn out. When they found him face down, back burned, and hair singed at its dirty blonde tips, they carried his body up the hill where we stood. The ambulance nurse told us he suffocated, went unconscious, and died shortly after. He said it was a better way to go; Ray couldn't feel the fire touching him since he had passed out. It was deemed a suicide.

I knew it wasn't.

Throughout June we spent our days in the Vale, a vacant lot in the bottom of a ravine that split the neighborhood in two. A house was supposed to be built there, but progress had slowed and now the entire perimeter was overgrown. Grass and weeds sprouted from the leveled lot.

Before the end of June, Ray Callows stood proudly slouched, wearing black in the face of the summer sun. His straw colored hair furled under whatever hat he was wearing that day, and his face was overgrown with stubble. There was a charm about it all though. He looked put together, like it took a lot of time to look that half assed.

Ray was always “fine” if I asked him. So I didn’t ask him, I just took my best guess as to what wasn’t okay, then shot for that instead.

“How are you feeling since Julia left?” I asked four days before he died. I wasn't expecting a real answer, the breakup had forced a part of Ray to harden. There was no one left who could get through it.

“Fine I think. She’s fuckin lucky she got to get out of here. Wish I was her.” He spoke with an absence of confidence that once lived on his tongue.

Ray was wearing a new red mark on his arm. It didn’t stand out, not with the cigarette burns and jagged scars that kept it company; but I saw it.

“The fuck did he do this time?” I asked trying to hold back my disgust.

“I don’t know man it doesn’t matter,” He moved so the mark was hidden. “Barely hurts,”

“I mean, do you think you can get out of the house soon? I guess you could-”

“Aaron shut the fuck up for a couple minutes man.”

“Yeah, sorry.” I said. I never really learned to be quiet. Neither did Ray, but it wasn’t the same.

At that point I was a bystander to Ray’s whirling anger. I think that was manhood for him: a hurricane of all he deemed unholy, that he set in front of himself to spar with.

“What about the future?” I said.

Ray stood up and stared at the grass.

“What about it Aaron? What’s the point of even considering it if everything is coming down now. The future is just being able to forget crashing in the present tense. Aren’t you afraid you haven’t been fucked over enough? The future can wait until I’m fucking ready, and if I never am...”

He trailed off with a sigh. Ray’s ramblings were half genius always. The other half was self martyrdom or maybe just a child screaming through a man's throat.

I think I’m Ray’s will. That’s selfish and fucked but he left me here without the Vale or a note. Just a missed call on my phone, a voicemail asking to meet up later.

Now all I think of is what Ray would’ve thought. I see tourists get lost and hear Ray mutter “pricks” under his breath. I see the school building and Ray in there working hard as hell, as a fuck you to his old man. I see the Vale and see his last decree. One passionate undertaking that finally swallowed him. I see the gasoline can he used to extinguish June like wasp nests, and I see the flick of his lighter. I’m sure he swore when everything went up. It couldn't be too pretty or poetic. I know that’s why it wasn’t a suicide too. Ray wanted to watch the Vale burn. Not burn with it. He wanted his fury and fire on display, only to fizzle out. Instead it consumed him. The fire was another growing pain; a fit.

I called Julia a few days after he died. I told her he burned in the woods. I heard her choke up and say “oh.” Then she hung up. I wasn't worried for her. She would be okay. I think that’s why Ray loved her so much.

I only returned once to the Vale. The morning after Ray’s funeral, I put my suit on again and walked across the neighborhood, to the hill and then down. My clothes collected June’s ashes from the ground and tattered them until hiding that trip was no longer viable. I walked to the largest tree, pulled out a knife, and carved June 1993.

After June’s fire, the trees still standing had nothing to hold us anymore. No vines, no weeds, just ghosts in the form of memories.

The heat was still suffocating, but now I did not attempt to breathe as hard. Now death knew Ray like I did. I found pride in being his furies only witness. After, I couldn't feel like that anymore. The Vale is not where Ray was buried, but it is where I buried him. Sometimes I pass the Vale’s remains. I think of Ray, and death, and my death. I think of Ray’s luminous call to heaven, and the death I will never amount to. I know now, I will pass in a room, with a floral print couch or a bed, with a painting that means nothing beyond its color palette. I will pass in the night, and I will not swear. I will just go. In the way that most will; it will be said that “it was just time” and I will not be mourned, I will be “celebrated.” I don’t find peace in that anymore. It’s lazy. If Ray was dawn, then the rest of us were truly nightfall: coming quietly and without reason.

she’s standing still

and it seems to him

that she’s never looked quite so small

and so large at the same time

with her back to him

and her golden hair in tangles

her fingers covered in blood

trembling

from the sacrifices she made

to win the war

it is suddenly so clear to him

how she is just a girl

who has a scar in place of a heart

whose innocence was stolen away

and he wants to comfort her

protect her from herself

but he knows she won’t allow it

that she’ll flinch away from his words

his touch

and he knows

just as he should protect this girl from herself

he needs to guard his heart against her

because her fingers are covered in blood

trembling

from the weight of what she’s done

and he is just a boy

incapable of fixing her

because she is more than just a girl

she is a colossal force

a great storm

that leaves wreckage and sunshine in her wake

with fingers covered in blood

trembling