A Fire That Burns (15 page)
Authors: Kirsty-Anne Still
“TOMMY
, Baby, Austin has
caused quite a stir in the time since she got back and maybe Tyler getting
married to Natasha is something that Austin needs,” Jane said as though nothing
had happened. She was obsessively cleaning the same patch on the kitchen
counter and hadn’t even noticed.
Tom knew his mom, she was good at pushing things to the back of her mind
and distracting herself when she didn’t like what was going on. Right now she
was compartmentalizing everything that had happened from the house catching on
fire to Austin being pulled from its fiery remains.
“So what about right now?”
Tom asked simply, “Austin needs us. She always has and now
sh
-”
“You need to let Austin get on with her life. She has done pretty well
for herself in the last six years,” Jane told her son as she tried to get away
from the pounding in her heart and stop thinking about her daughter. She had
been the one that had literally ran the Austin hate campaign on her own and she
knew she had taken it too far to just turn around and suddenly be the diligent
mother.
“Are you blind?” Tom questioned his mother rudely, he was done with her
ability to brush things aside and try and take out the complications and now
that they had a cause of the fire he was prepared to use that ammunition. “Your
daughter was nearly blown up, not by faulty piping or accidental purposes, but
someone
sabotaged
that house. Mom, Austin is in the hospital a mess
because of how her life is.”
“She left, Tom!” Jane flared up at her son and put a shaky hand to her
mouth to calm herself, “She chose to leave Tyler. She chose to leave us too.
She chose to take six years to come back, she cannot think that the world
stopped spinning while she was away and she cannot expect him to just beg her to
marry him again. She cannot expect me to just want her back when she has done
nothing to win my trust back.”
Tom growled, he didn’t want to drop the bomb shell just yet, but it
seemed he had to. “She was pregnant, Mom. Before she left, she was pregnant,”
he admitted and saw his mom stop all actions and if he looked hard enough he
could probably guess that she was holding her breath now. “I was there when
Natasha pushed her and I was with her when she lost that baby. I told her to
tell Tyler and she told me she was going to, but when I went to check on her
the next morning she was gone. She ran because she felt like she had let
everyone down. Not just herself, but Tyler and you, Dad and Tanya, James too.
Everyone.”
Suddenly the icy exterior to his mother began to thaw out and she began
to feel a rush of emotions she had been fighting. Finally finding out why her
daughter had left was hanging in the tense air and she felt overcome with
grief. Jane turned
to
looked at her son, “No,” she
said almost inaudibly, trying to fight away the tears.
“No,
Tom, no.”
Tom rushed to his mother’s side and wrapped his arms around her as she
broke down, “I promised Austin I would never tell a soul, but now I think it’s
time that we told.”
Pushing her son away, dread filtered through Jane’s body and everything
she had done since Austin’s return came at her with full terrifying throttle,
“I made her think I hated her.”
“She knows otherwise, Mom.
Deep down she does,” Tom replied as he let her go. “You’re her mom; you can
make it up to her now.”
“She won’t want me to help her,” Jane remarked and felt at lost. “I gave
up on her before even letting her tell me why she left. I never gave her the
opportunity to just tell me when she was ready.”
“She wants you,” was all Tom said to ease his mother’s mind. “You taught
us not to give up and I don’t think Austin did back then, she needed to make
sense of everything when she felt like she was losing it all which is why she
left. Except now, right now I mean, she is giving up. She needs her mom, that’s
why she came home. She came home to get forgiveness, but all she got in the
beginning was hostility and you pushed her out.”
He could see his mother silently asking for repentance.
“Now she’s alone in a hospital. She told me she doesn’t want anyone to
go to her because this is what she deserves, but she was nineteen when she
left.
Nineteen and
scared
.
Can you please just
go to her and repair your relationship because I loved watching you two while
we were growing up. You’re one of her best friends, Mom, and she needs you more
than ever, but she refuses to reach out to you because she thinks she broke
that tether with you.”
“What type of mother am I, Tom?” Jane asked as she realized the truth
that her daughter was alone in a hospital no more than four hours after being
pulled from a burning building. “I don’t even know what type of condition she’s
in, or how badly burnt she is. Oh God,” Jane finished and the fact that her own
pride and dignity had stopped her from doing what was innately right. She
realized that her husband had the right idea all along as he played good cop,
while she played bad.
As her anger lifted, Jane was rendered weak and ashamed.
“You can go to her, Mom. You can fix this, but I need you to read the
letter she left me. It will put so much perspective on everything. You’ll
understand where she was back then,” Tom finished and took the letter from his
pocket and gave it to his mom. He had gotten it when he had arrived back from
the hospital; he knew it was the key to making everyone understand. “I’ll leave
you for a minute or two and then we can go to the hospital.”
With his piece said, Tom stood up and left his mother alone in the
kitchen with the letter that had torn his world apart six years ago.
Tom, I know you told me to tell him, but I can’t. I
can’t tell him what happened or how I’m feeling so I’m doing the only thing I
can do. I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going, or how I’ll manage, but I
will. This just feels like the right option in the long run.
I’m starting to realize that we rushed, Tom. He
doesn’t want a wife and he certainly won’t want a child – maybe it’s a good
thing I lost this baby before I could tell him. Whatever you say, sitting here,
right now, I can only think that leaving everything behind is right for
everyone. I know that Tyler is a career man, he will succeed in that job and I
won’t stop him from doing that and reaching his dreams. I won’t ruin what he
wants.
He is a good man, and he is an even better officer. I
can see him reaching high up places before he’s even thirty. He’s courageous
and intelligent. He has so much to prosper from and he will make it in life. I
know Tyler and he will get the best out of what he is given.
I know I love him, and always will. I want to love him
and I want him to love me back, but that isn’t how this is going. I thought it
would be simple, but this isn’t. There is nothing simple about this.
I want you to promise me that you will never tell him
the reason why I left. Not just him, but mom and dad too. I don’t want anyone
to know about this, Tom. That’s all I ask of you. I don’t want anyone to know
about Natasha pushing me, about the hospital, about the baby at all. I just
want it to be buried and forgotten.
Don’t think I am just disappearing on you because I
would not have lasted earlier without you with me. I will call you when I know
what I’m doing with my life.
Tell mom and dad and everyone that I’m sorry. It isn’t
about them, this decision is just an impulsive one, and until I know what I
want, it’s the right one.
I am so sorry, Tom. I know I’ve let you down. I let myself down. I’m
sorry.
Austin x
AS
Jane finished she
came to realize quickly that she was violently shaking and couldn’t withhold
her knees from buckling from underneath. Grabbing onto the counter beside her,
Jane steadied herself before she fought for composure. She had just read how
her daughter had become so lost in life in such a short amount of time when she
was so young and how she felt that the man that wholeheartedly loved her didn’t
actually loved her at all.
Because of grief, Austin had become consumed quickly and she had lost
her way within a couple of hours and everything had imploded on her, leaving
her with only one option – to run away from it all.
She gathered her own inner
tranquility
and
stood up, laying the letter down she ran her hands over her daughter’s
penmanship and she knew she had to get out of this house and find out what they
were dealing with. She needed to see how Austin really was and she knew she would
be sticking by her daughter trying to rebuild what she had now made of their
relationship. She would build up from the ashes she had made and she would
fight to keep her daughter’s spirits high.
Jane had always felt that Austin had disowned her, but when reality
became clear, it was Jane who had disowned her daughter.
Suddenly, her feet were carrying her to where she needed to go. She ran
outside, letter clutched in her hand, looking around wildly and she caught him
staring at the destroyed house and she just sprinted towards her son. “Tom!”
She yelled as she ran in the direction of him.
She needed her daughter now.
She needed the forgiveness.
HOW
the hell did she get
out of this?
Tom asked
himself for the umpteenth time as he stood staring at the
smoldering
wreck of the house that had once stood proudly in all its renewed glory. He had
barely left his mother alone and now he was unable to look away from the death
trap. The anger within
him making
a newer more rapid
fire through his entire body.
As he stood there he finally noticed the sun was beginning to break in
the horizon and lighten the sky as morning dawned on the little town. He had
nowhere he wanted to be but back at the hospital with his little sister.
However, he refused to go back alone. He wanted his mother to get the last dose
of reality and really give up the fight.
“Tom,” Tyler called out from behind him on approach. After staying at
his parents that
night
, Tyler hadn’t slept but watched
the road instead. He had, after taking a long shower, sat staring at the house
out of the living room window remembering the chaos that had taken over. In
that time he had no update on the condition of Austin and when he had seen Tom
leave the Pearson house and walk the minimal distance to the charred house he
knew this was his time to step up and step in.
He wanted to get his relationship back on track with Austin and fix his
life. He was still grieving the death of his and Austin’s relationship, and now
a baby that he never even got a chance to see and now he felt like he was
grieving for the loss of Austin all over again.
Tom looked and turned back releasing a hoarse groan, “Not now, Tyler. I
really am not in the mood to deal with you.”
“I just need to know if she’s okay,” Tyler answered back simply. He
didn’t just need to know, he was dying to know. He needed to have that peace of
mind to be able to move on however he could.
“She’s as okay as can be,” Tom replied monotone. His voice neither quivered
nor did it show any life to it, just sheer exhaustion and the overwhelming
sense of worry. “You don’t get to come here and demand answers, not now. You
don’t get to come here and be worried when you weren’t too worried about Austin
at the diner the other night,” Tom could feel his tone tightening on him, his
anger getting the better of him. “So you know
,
she’s
as okay as can be.”
“I need more than that, man,” Tyler almost whimpered at how painful the
wait was to find out how she was.
Sighing, Tom ran a hand over his brow, “She’s in a lot of pain right now
and I don’t mean from what happened last night with the fire,” Tom told Tyler
and turned to face him, “I mean with what drove her from this town.
That
still kills her.”
“That sob story,” Tyler muttered with a sad head shake. He was still in
denial that what Austin had said was the gospel truth. It was more out of
disbelief and fear that it were truth than because he was a fool.
And just like that, Tom lost it. Exhaustion collided with his anger and
without a thought Tom balled his fist and took a swipe at Tyler, feeling the
pained beauty explode as his knuckles clashed down onto Tyler’s cheek bone.
Immediately Tyler stumbled backwards, moaning in pain, but trying to
gain his composure.
“No, you don’t get to say that and get away with it. Six years on and
that night is still very much real,” Tom spat at Tyler and his voice lowered
with his slowly releasing aggression. “She fled because something terrible had
happened and the man she loved would rather be at work getting a career than
acknowledge his own fiancée. He would rather be out with the girl that had made
it her point of call to make Austin a miserable during school. She was
pregnant, Tyler.” Tom finally spoke the forbidden secret to the man he had sworn
he would never tell, “And because of your current fiancée she lost it. I was
there when it happened so you best believe it was no sob story or anything
pathetic like that. It was real.
Scarily real.
I lived
it with her because after she was pushed, Natasha went to find you at the local
bar and she made damn sure Austin knew that small fact. She only had me to run
to.”
Tom didn’t give Tyler a chance to form a
defense
.
“Now she’s lying in hospital because of that,” he pointed to the house
as he remembered how he, Dean and Tyler had rushed into the house and found
Austin unconscious and attracting the fire quickly, her body beginning to
ignite. “This house was her new dream,
a way of helping
herself get
over you, and even that got torn down because of your
precious fiancée.”
“You can’t blame Natasha for this,” Tyler replied in astounded
disbelief.
“Oh I can,” Tom told Tyler back defiantly, “And I will. Austin is lying
in a hospital bed happy for the only fact that she’ll be stuck in there and
will miss your wedding day. That one thought is breaking her all the more. She
knew she never had a hope in hell with Natasha around as it was but she kept a
grip on you until Natasha managed to take that away as well.”
“Man, I want nothing more than to believe that, but I can’t believe my
fiancée is a monster.” Tyler tried to get his head around everything. Austin
was back in his life, he had seemingly moved on with Natasha, now he was told
he had two miscarriages from both the women he had committed to – what were the
chances in that?! – And now the woman that held his heart most was lying in the
hospital critically injured.
“Tyler, open your eyes to everything!” Tom began to shout out, and felt
the anger begin to spread through his chest again as his mind filled with
Austin as she now lay fragile and even more miserable than ever before. “You
believed that Austin was a monster, so why is it so hard to see Natasha as one?
It all adds up, her little digs at Austin, the little things going wrong with
the house, the covered heater. Do the math, Tyler! She even promised to get rid
of her for fuck sake.”
Tyler went to speak but was cut off by Jane as she left the house
screaming out his name.
“Tom, please tell me how she is,” Jane called out as she hurried the
couple of yards to get to her son. “I need to know. Please tell me she’s going
to be okay.”
“Yeah,” Tyler added in, changing the subject away from Natasha’s part in
this. “I need to know too. Like really know how she’s doing. Is she going to be
okay?”
Tom sighed heavily and brought a hand up to the back of his neck to try
and calm down. The last thing his mother needed to see was him losing it
completely. He took the letter from his mother and took a breath before
repeating the doctor’s words. “She’s had one surgery already, but she’s
gotta
have more because of the burns to her arm and body.
The doctor told me they’re quite serious and I guess they’re hoping that by
skin grafting they can help reduce the overall scarring somewhat.”
As he spoke, Tom took in both of their expressions and he couldn’t help,
but feel that they were the greatest hypocrites living, but he knew that Austin
needed them the most out of everyone in this town. He was going to guilt trip
the hell out of them before he gave them any sort of satisfaction of seeing her
and helping her.
“They've dosed her up for now to help make her comfortable and were
treating her for smoke inhalation when she arrived in ER. She's not breathing
great, but she was doing enough on her own to bring her off of the vent."
He saw more fear and worry ignite on their faces as he spoke and was grateful
that he seemed to have a breakthrough of such. "She's in quite a lot of
pain and she basically told me she wants no one to go to her. She somehow
thinks she deserves this
for ever
coming back."
“Oh my poor little girl," Jane began to sob before Tom took her in
his arms to soothe her.
“We've called dad, he needs to be
home for this,” Tom said and looked at a silent Tyler; years of emotions were
rivaling
his strong will now. "She loved you more than
anyone else in her life and she felt like she couldn't tell you the hardest
thing ever. You chose night outs and time with Natasha and making a career name
over the woman who would willingly give you her heart right out of her chest if
it proved how much she truly loved you." Tom told Tyler, "She still
would because she loves you that much."
“I was young and naive and I paid, Tom,” Tyler said as the news sunk in.
“I got caught up in that life an-and,” Tyler couldn’t continue.
“Well then I suggest you do the one thing that you can right now,” Tom
told Tyler firmly and almost maliciously. “You go and man the fuck up, lose the
bad in your life and finally take care of the one person that loved you more
than anything else in your life!”
Jane looked at Tyler and could see how palpable his pain was as this hit
him harder than anything. She had to be the mother she always wanted to be. She
had to support her children right. “It’s your life, you do what you have to and
you make the choice. You have to make the change; no one else is going to do
this for you now.”
“I have to don’t
I
?” Tyler answered confused.
“I-I don’t know what to do to prove it to Austin though.”
“If you want something to do, read this first,” Tom said and thrust the
six year old letter into Tyler’s chest. Once the other man had it he felt
satisfied, “Now I’m going to the real victim in all of this.”
He then left Tyler standing alone – letter in hand, burnt ruins in
sight.