The First Flames
1085 Words
The summer of 1999 smelled like chlorine, sunburnt grass, and the cheap cologne Romeo wore the day he decided Phoenix was his.
It started innocently enough—or at least, that’s what she told herself. Sebastian had invited Romeo over after school let out, the two of them sprawled on the living-room floor with a PlayStation and bags of Doritos. Phoenix hovered in the hallway, pretending to look for a book, stealing glances at the boy with the sun-bleached curls who laughed too loud and looked at her like he already knew every secret she kept pressed between the pages of her diary.
He caught her staring. Of course he did.
“Hey, Nix,” he called, using the nickname only her family used, as if he’d earned it. “Come here.”
She hesitated. Annabelle peeked out from the kitchen, eyes narrowed, but Phoenix waved her off and padded into the room in socked feet. Romeo patted the carpet beside him. She sat, knees tucked under her, heart hammering so hard she was sure he could see it.
Sebastian barely glanced up from the game. “Don’t let him bore you,” he muttered.
But Romeo wasn’t playing the game anymore. He was looking at her—really looking—and when he smiled, something inside Phoenix’s chest unlatched.
“You’re prettier than your brother said,” he told her, voice low enough that Sebastian wouldn’t hear over the television gunfire.
She blushed so hard her ears burned. She wanted to say thank you, but the words stuck. Instead she shrugged, shy, and Romeo laughed like that was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.
After that, he found reasons to come over. Sebastian thought it was for the PlayStation and the free food. Phoenix knew better.
Romeo started waiting for her after her last class, leaning against the chain-link fence with a cigarette he never lit because he knew she hated the smell. He’d walk her halfway home, talking the whole time—about bands she’d never heard of, about how he was saving up for a car, about how school was stupid and the world was waiting for people like them.
People like them.
The first time he kissed her, they were behind the corner store, hidden from the street by a rusted dumpster. He tasted like spearmint gum and possibility. She was shaking. He cupped her face like she was something fragile and precious, thumbs brushing the line of her jaw, and whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you.”
She believed him.
They kept it secret at first. She was fourteen; he was eighteen. Even she knew what people would say. But secrets have weight, and hers sat heavy and sweet on her tongue every time she passed him in the hallway he no longer attended, every time he slipped notes into her backpack that said things like You’re mine now and I can’t stop thinking about your eyes.
Annabelle noticed first.
“You’re different,” she said one night, sitting cross-legged on Phoenix’s bed while Phoenix pretended to read. “You’re… glowing. But also scared.”
Phoenix closed the book. “I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” Annabelle’s voice was soft but firm. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”
Phoenix’s silence was answer enough.
Annabelle didn’t push, but the next day she watched Romeo like a hawk when he came over. Later, in the dark, she whispered, “He’s too old for you, Nix. And there’s something… sharp about him. Be careful.”
Phoenix wanted to be angry. Instead she felt guilty, because part of her knew Annabelle was right, and the rest of her didn’t care.
By August, Romeo had a car—a beat-up Camaro with one red door and primer patches like bruises. He’d pick her up two blocks from school so no one would see, and they’d drive out past the city limits where the houses thinned and the desert took over. He’d park under the stars, pull her across the console, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.
That was also the first time he put his hand under her shirt.
She froze.
He stopped immediately, searching her face. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he said, and he sounded so sincere. “I just… I want to be close to you. All of you.”
She let him, because saying no felt like losing him, and losing him felt like going back to silence.
After that, the lines moved faster than she could track. Hands under clothes turned into hands inside clothes. Kissing turned into more. Each time she hesitated, he soothe her with words that tasted like honey and felt like chains.
“You’re so beautiful when you let go.” “No one will ever love you like I do.” “If you really loved me, you’d trust me.”
She was fourteen. She didn’t know yet that love doesn’t always sound like no. Sometimes it sounds like I’m not sure or I’m scared or just silence while tears slip sideways into your hair.
The first time they had s*x, it was in the backseat of that Camaro, on a blanket that smelled like gasoline and old French fries. It hurt. She cried quietly while he whispered sorry, sorry, you’re perfect, I love you. When it was over, he held her like she was glass. She stared at the fogged-up window and wondered why fairy tales never mentioned this part.
She didn’t tell anyone. Not even Annabelle.
By the time school started again, Romeo had convinced her she belonged to him completely. He got angry when she spent time with other friends. He’d show up at her house unannounced if she didn’t answer his pages fast enough. He’d grip her wrist a little too hard and say, “You wouldn’t want me to think you’re with someone else, right?”
The bruises were small and easy to hide under bracelets.
Phoenix told herself this was what love felt like—intense, consuming, a little scary. All the songs said so.
But late at night, when the house was quiet and Annabelle’s breathing evened out across the room, Phoenix would lie awake and stare at the ceiling, feeling something essential slipping away from her, grain by grain.
She was still on fire.
She just didn’t realize yet that some flames only warm you while they burn you alive.
- Writer
