Short Story Final

“With my last breath, I’ll exhale my love for you. I hope it’s a cold day, so you can see what you meant to me.
”  - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

My phone buzzed. “Annabelle, I’m here”

“Coming!” I responded.

I threw on a pair of dark jeans and my new pink shirt. Tonight was friday night and, as usual, my best friend Madison and I were going out. (Madison was a full five inches taller than me, but that was the only difference; we both had brown hair and green eyes, and were often mistaken for sisters. We had been best friends since our parents introduced us in pre-school.) Dylan, another senior at Pineview High School, was throwing a party. Dylan’s parties were known for being full of good music and good times, the September weather was electric, and I had a fire-escape ladder attached to my window, which made it perfect for sneaking out of. Nothing could go wrong tonight.

I grabbed my bag and hopped out the window. Madison was waiting in her black Honda Civic (a gift from her parents on her 16th birthday). I hopped in, and we quietly drove out of my neighborhood, and into this night of possibility.

When we got to Dylan’s house, there were already so many cars that we had to park a few blocks away and walk. We walked inside and were greeted by a sea of people, and house-shaking music. Obviously this party had been well advertised.

“Help me find Charlie,” I said (more accurately screamed) to Madison. Charlie was my boyfriend of almost two years. We had met in math class sophomore year, and bonded over our love of Sufjan Stevens, our hatred of whipped cream, and the fact that we both played soccer.

Madison and I pushed our way through the sea of people, half of whom didn’t even look like they were in high school, in an attempt to find Charlie. We finally found him by the pool in the backyard, talking to some of his friends from soccer. We made eye contact.

“Annabelle!” he shouted, and ran toward me. His blonde hair bounced as he ran, which I thought was absolutely adorable. He gave me a kiss, and said, “Hi,” to Madison, but Madison had just located her good friend (and secret crush) Jeff. I nudged her, and said, “Go see him!”

Charlie and I left Madison and headed inside to get some drinks. We pushed our way into the house and through the crowd, until we finally made it to the kitchen. We decided to go upstairs and see what was happening up there. We again went through the process of pushing through this sea of people, and up the stairs. I saw Kerry and John, a couple known for their rocky three-year-long relationship, fighting on the stairs, so I grabbed Charlie’s hand to make sure I wouldn’t lose him. We made it up the stairs and into Dylan’s game room, which was just as packed as the rest of the house. There was techno music and flashing lights set up in this room; obviously Dylan had intended this room to be a makeshift dance club. I started to feel really claustrophobic, the sweaty bodies bumping into me made me feel dirty and light-headed.

“I need air,” I told Charlie. He took my hand and lead my into the bathroom, and shut the door.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. I didn’t even get a chance to answer before we heard a loud bump on the other side of the door. I jumped, and he protectively put his arms around me. We stood silently for a moment, waiting for another indication that something was wrong. The music continued to play on the other side of the door, and as the seconds past with no other disturbances, we promptly forgot all about it. “Nothing, I just would rather spend some time with you than this crowd of people I don’t know,” I told him.

We sat on the floor facing each other, and let ourselves wind down from the stimulation of this party. “Hey look, a 17 Magazine!” I pulled the magazine out from the stack of papers in this bathroom. “Let’s do some of the quizzes!”

Charlie laughed but agreed. “Okay, should we do “Are You Flirtatious or Shy?” or should we do “Which Lipstick Fits Your Personality?”

Suddenly, the music shut off, and was replaced with “FIRE!!!!!!!!!” “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!” “GO GO GO!!!” Simultaneously, the smell of burning reached me.

“We need to get out of here!” Charlie said, and stood up. He reached for the doorknob, and turned, and pushed, but the door wouldn’t open more than a few centimeters. He tried again. No luck. “Something is in front of the door,” we said at the same time. I tried to help him push, and we kept pushing the door and screaming for help and trying to open the door and trying to get someone to help us, and it finally dawned on us that there were no longer any voices outside the door. Everyone else had left.

We were trapped.

It’s crazy how quickly everything seemed to be happening. There was a visible level of smoke in the bathroom now, so the fire must have been big and been close to our part of the house. “What do we do?!?” I asked Charlie. The look on his face told me he had run out of ideas. We couldn’t break down the door, there were no windows, and we really were trapped. Smoke poured into the room like liquid.

“I love you, Annabelle,” Charlie whispered. I tried to respond, but the smoke caught in my throat and I just ended up coughing. We sat down on the floor together, finally accepting that we could do nothing but hope and wait for help. Charlie took off his shirt and we wet it and put it over our faces, hopefully to block out the smoke.

“I love you, Charlie. We’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. I love you.”  I was so, so, tired. “I’m just gonna take a little nap, okay? Wake me up when the fire is gone. I love you,” I mumbled the last words, knowing that I needed more than anything to get them out there, but the smoke made me so tired and it was so hard to breathe. My eyelids closed, and I felt Charlie’s arms around me, and I drifted off to sleep.