Eternal Flame

     It started with the fire. I flinch every time I see an open flame. A bonfire, lighter, stove... it doesn't matter it's all the same. I've had to live with the guilt everyday. He's gone. I didn't know what to do. I panicked. I ran. They never discovered the body. It's probably still sitting there. Laying burnt and ruined among the ashes.

    They all wished Ashton would have made it out, instead. He was the popular boy. He had a 4.0 GPA, he was the starting quarterback on the varsity football team, and captain of the varsity basketball team. He had it all. They said he was destined for Stanford. 

     They blame me for leaving him in the fire, for not saving him. How was I supposed to know that he wasn't following me? That he wouldn't get us both out like he promised? That he'd never be able to make it to Stanford or his basketball tournament the next day? 

    I walk pass that burned down house everyday. It's always the same. Nobody has bought the lot on Thornton Street since. Everyday people from the town come to leave fresh flowers. The same time everyday. The time when it caught fire all those years ago. The same kind of flower everyday, fire lilies, some sick kind of humor they have. 

     I watch as the fire lilies are being placed by our old junior high teacher. She loved Ashton; despised me. Always thought I was a bad influence on him. That I would get him into trouble. That never happened, though. If anyone was a bad influence in our relationship, it'd be him. He loved to party, get drunk for celebrations, and for his sixteenth birthday he got drunk and got a tattoo of a flame on his hip. I was the good girl. The girl with the 4.5 GPA, the flyer on the cheer-leading team, and the star in all of the school musicals. I was the good girl and he was the secret bad boy.

     I sigh remembering to get out of the past. I was dressed for work, and very out of place in the subway wearing my blue blouse, black pencil skirt, gray heels, and the necklace that says,"Ash's girl."  I've never taken it off and I never will.

   Lost in my thoughts, I step onto the subway. I see a flash of red bump into me. I closed my eyes for the impending fall. Waiting for my back to come in contact with the train floor. I wait... and wait... and wait. 

     I open my eyes, feeling a warm hand around my wrist. The man in the hoodie pulls me back onto my feet. I catch a flash of his face before he looks back at the ground, hiding it, once more. I lower my gaze to his hoodie. His Stanford hoodie. I look back to his face in alarm.

     "Ashton..." I say my eyes open wide, my jaw almost to the floor. 

     "Hey, Sammy."