Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty-Six

It's a certain sort of peace that comes with the warmth of a fireplace. It's a certain sort of serenity that comes with flame-lit rooms and golden smiles. I don't think there's another feeling in the world that can top fire's kiss and I don't think there's anything better than feeling that warmth wash over your skin.

It's true that fire can hurt. That it can scorch and scar and destroy. I'm not denying the damage it can do, but I think it's just as important to remember the good that comes despite the bad. Fire helps more often than it hurts, providing warmth and food and power. In the end, fire gives more life than it takes.

Because there are two sides to the flame. There's the white hot, stabbing burn and then there's the soothing shine. Luke Collins had once been able to spark the former with a single look in my direction, but it wasn't until that night that I realized he now brought forth the latter. When that had changed, I wasn't sure.

He was still shaking. The shaking always lingered the longest. Sure, shallow breaths and rapid heartbeats stuck around long enough, but sometimes it felt like the shaking never stopped. Mom and Matt had started the fire and brought him blankets, but these shivers weren't something that hot cocoa could fix. These ones took time and patience and, in my experience, a lot of tears.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but he seemed smaller, lying in front of that fireplace. His eyes were closed, blanket over his shoulders and breaths short.  Flame cracked beneath his feet and the most comfortable pillows in Italy sat beneath his head.  If I hadn't known better, I would have said he was sleeping, but I knew that couldn't be the case.  Those shakes were the kind that woke you up, not the kind that let you drift off. He was awake. I was sure of it.

He must have heard me coming, because when my own pillow hit the floor, he didn't flinch. When I pulled a blanket over my own shoulders and laid down next to him, he didn't open his eyes.

I didn't say anything at first. Couldn't, maybe. I didn't really know what to say. All I knew was that whenever I was coming down from an attack, the last thing I wanted to hear was all of the it's okays and the you'll be fines. Those would come later. Those would come after the shaking stopped and he could trick himself into believing them.

The only thing I could do right now was be there, not as the girl he liked to fight or the girl he liked to not-kiss, but rather as someone who knew. He just needed someone who knew.

So I watched. I watched his chest's shadow move across his chin. I watched his shoulders shake as the last of the attack left him. I watched his lips twitch, trying to hold back the urge to scream until his throat bled, and I watched his eyebrows pinch, pulling out that crease in the center of his forehead. Every movement felt small and purposeless and not at all like the Luke Collins I knew. It wasn't long before I had to close my own eyes—even just watching him was exhausting.

But then, of course, the sounds were exactly the same. Steep, strained breaths and the rustle of his blanket across hardwood. The short, quiet grunts that came involuntarily with the smack of a new thought. Quick, sharp intakes of air as the anxiety flared up and then, surprisingly, his voice. "Did you know you don't scream?"

My eyes shot open, but his stayed shut, leaving me to wonder if he'd actually said anything at all. "What?"

"You," he said. "When you get the attacks. You don't scream—it's terrifying." His eyes fluttered open, still just as bright and brown as ever. Maybe that was the scary part. Maybe I was bothered by the fact that he was dying inside and his eyes didn't look any different. "You curl up and then you start muttering things. Sometimes I think you're going to crush yourself under your own weight."