CHAPTER 5
1087 Words
The day after the confrontation with Anna’s mother, the town felt colder, as if the air itself had teeth. People watched them not with curiosity anymore, but with a sharpened edge — the kind that whispered, we know.
Mara didn’t say it out loud, but she felt the shift.
Anna did too.
They walked down main street together anyway, refusing to release each other’s hands.
Mrs. Taylor stepped outside the bakery only to look at them with a mixture of pity and thinly veiled disgust. “You girls ought to be careful,” she said. “This town doesn’t take kindly to… decisions like yours.”
Anna’s jaw tightened. “Love isn’t a decision.”
Mrs. Taylor clicked her tongue. “Everything is a decision. Even sin.”
Anna opened her mouth to snap back, but Mara squeezed her hand. “Not worth it,” she whispered.
But the humiliation didn’t end there.
By evening, something far worse broke.
A photo of them — Anna kissing Mara’s cheek, taken secretly at the sycamore grove — had been posted on the town’s f*******: group. Someone must have followed them during one of their nighttime dates.
The caption read:
> “This is what our girls have turned into. God have mercy on us.”
Within minutes, comments exploded.
> Disgusting.
They need prayer.
This is why our town is falling apart.
Someone tell their parents.
Lock them up separately. They’re confused.
This is the devil’s work.
Anna’s breath caught. “How—who took that? Who posted it?”
Mara felt her hands tremble. “It doesn’t matter. They’re coming for us.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Anna’s father was waiting at the house when she returned — eyes bloodshot, face purple with fury. “You’ve disgraced this family!” he shouted the moment she stepped inside. “You’ve embarrassed me at church, at work, everywhere!”
“There’s nothing disgraceful about loving someone,” Anna shot back.
He slapped her.
Mara wasn’t there, but Anna told her later — her voice shaking — that she stood there in shock as the sting burned across her cheek.
Her mother tried to intervene, but he shoved her aside, screaming: “You’re going to that church retreat next week, and they’re going to FIX you. Do you hear me? They’re going to FIX you!”
Anna’s heart shattered. “You mean conversion therapy.”
Her father didn’t deny it.
He raised his hand again.
Anna ran.
Barefoot, tears streaming, hair flying behind her — she bolted straight through the front door, sprinting down the street toward the sycamore grove. Toward the only place that felt safe.
Toward Mara.
When she arrived, Mara was already pacing, phone in hand, frantic. “Anna—Anna, what happened? You weren’t answering—”
Anna collapsed into her arms.
“He hit me,” she choked. “He’s sending me away. Next week. Somewhere to— to fix me.”
Mara held her, shaking with rage. “No one is sending you anywhere. I’m not letting them take you.”
Anna’s breath was ragged, her body trembling so hard Mara thought she might collapse again. Mara cupped her cheeks, kissed her eyelids, her forehead, her knuckles. “You’re not going anywhere. We stay together. Always.”
Anna nodded weakly, pressing her forehead to Mara’s. “Promise?”
“With my whole soul.”
For a moment, the world softened.
But then — a c***k sounded in the distance. Like a branch snapping. Or something heavier.
Mara froze.
“Did you hear that?”
Anna stiffened. “We’re not alone.”
The shadows shifted.
And then — a burst of orange light flashed behind the old barn near the grove.
A fire.
At first a small flicker. Then another. Then a violent rush of flame climbing up the rotting wood with terrifying speed.
“Oh my god,” Anna whispered. “Someone started it.”
“Or it started itself,” Mara said — but neither believed that.
The barn wasn’t just a barn.
It was where they’d first kissed.
Where they’d carved their initials.
Where they kept all their hidden letters, tucked into a rusted old toolbox beneath the floorboards.
Their whole love story lived inside those walls.
Anna grabbed Mara’s arm. “The letters—”
“We can’t go in there!” Mara gasped. “It’s too dangerous!”
But Anna was already running.
“ANNA!” Mara screamed, chasing her. “Anna, STOP!”
Anna didn’t stop.
She reached the barn just as flames spilled out the windows like wild orange wings. Smoke curled through the air, thick and choking.
“My letters—our letters—everything is in there!” she shouted.
“We’ll rewrite everything! We’ll start new memories!” Mara cried.
Anna took one step toward the burning doorway.
The roof groaned — a deep, monstrous sound.
Mara lunged, grabbing her waist. “No! If you go in there, you’ll die!”
Anna whirled on her, tears streaming. “I can’t lose the only proof of us…”
“You won’t lose me!” Mara pleaded, voice cracking. “Please. Don’t make me watch you burn.”
The words froze Anna.
Her chest heaved.
Her eyes softened.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too,” Mara said — then pulled her into a desperate kiss that tasted like smoke and salt and terror and devotion.
Another c***k split the air — louder.
A beam collapsed inside the barn.
Anna gasped. “We need to move! Now!”
Together they stumbled back as the fire roared higher, flames lighting the grove like a hellish sunrise.
Within minutes, townspeople appeared, shouting, grabbing hoses, calling the fire department. But the barn was gone, swallowed whole.
Mara held Anna from behind as they watched it burn — the heat searing their skin, the loss searing their hearts.
“This wasn’t an accident,” Mara whispered.
“No,” Anna said. “Someone wanted to destroy us.”
And they had succeeded — at least in part.
Their memories were ash.
Their secret place was gone.
Their faces were all over town.
Anna’s parents were hunting for her.
But even as the flames consumed everything around them, Anna gripped Mara’s hand hard and firm.
“They can burn down our world,” she whispered. “But they can’t burn us.”
And Mara — eyes shining with a fierce, furious love — nodded.
“Let them try.”
- Writer
