Jill Sorenson - Set The Dark On Fire

He’d left her a single dollar bill and one solitary slice.

Upon sight of congealed cheese, red pepper flakes, and grease spots on cardboard, her stomach should have rebelled. It didn’t. Sighing, she sank onto the couch, picked up the cold slice of pizza, and took a bite. It wasn’t half-bad.

Having anticipated her little brother’s presence, and an inevitable discussion about Angel Martinez, she should have been relieved he wasn’t there. Instead she pictured Yesenia Montes’s battered, bitten body and felt a trickle of unease. Dylan hadn’t left a note, but that was nothing new. She was lucky he hadn’t taken her car.

Normally Shay appreciated solitude. She worked alone a lot and enjoyed her own company. Her friends were few but constant, her social calendar steady, if uninspired, and her love life… well, her love life had always been hit or miss. More miss than hit, but who was counting? She had her friends. She had her career. And she had Dylan.

Except that she didn’t have Dylan anymore. She hadn’t had him in a long time. Her mother’s death had torn them both apart, and he’d met the tragedy the way boys do, with defiant glares and sullen silence. Shay, on the other hand, had waged a teenage girl’s rebellion, falling in with the wrong crowd and staying out all night.

If her father had stepped up as head of the family during that tumultuous time, maybe things would have been different. But her daddy had never been much of a provider, emotionally or financially. Hank Phillips was a restless dreamer who refused to be tied down by mortgages or material things. While Shay went to community college, they’d survived on welfare checks, food stamps, and the grace of God.

Shay managed to graduate at the top of her class despite these hardships, and when she’d been offered a scholarship to Cal Poly, she’d jumped at the chance to escape her dysfunctional home life. In some ways, she’d sacrificed Dylan to save herself.

Since then her brother had been distant. By age ten, he’d mastered the art of apathy. She’d given him space, thinking he was missing their mother, having growing pains, and grieving in his own way.

As soon as she came home from college, their father took off again. Dylan hadn’t shown any reaction to his departure.

They hadn’t seen Hank in almost five years now. Every so often they got a postcard from Tucson, Albuquerque, or Saskatchewan. The sporadic correspondence was a poor substitute for a father who hadn’t been much of a parent when he had been around.

She wasn’t sure who’d had the more unconventional upbringing, her or Dylan. Shay had been raised almost solely by her mother, Lilah, a tenderhearted flower child no more equipped for reality, or the trials of parenthood, than her freewheeling husband. She’d been too soft, too emotional, too ethereal for this world.

For all her faults, Shay had loved her mother desperately, and been loved by her the same way.

Feeling a lump in her throat. Shay swallowed her sudden sentimentality along with the last bite of pizza. Directly across from her, next to the boxy old TV set, three half-deflated helium balloons were hovering above the carpet, their shiny, crinkly surfaces rustling under the whir of the ceiling fan.

Happy birthday.

Dylan made his way down Calle Remolino with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his head hanging low.

At just past 10:00 P.M., late by Tenaja standards, the street was deserted. The only sound was the almost indiscernible crunch of his sneakers on hard-packed gravel, and for the thousandth time, he wished he had an iPod.

He was tired from the long walk and an intense pickup game. Every Saturday night a motley mix of locals, some white, some Indian, played against the only rival team, a group of Mexicans who were short, quick, and ruthless. There had been a few minor scuffles, but that was to be expected, because from the high school cafeteria to the b-ball court, Indians and Mexicans were always feuding.

As far as Dylan could tell, the two heritages had a lot of similarities, so he wasn’t sure what the beef was. Mexico was part of North America, and the culture was, by definition, a mixture of Native and European. Dylan figured most Mexicans had as much Indian blood as the guys on the reservation.

Even so, they seemed to hate each other.

Tenaja Falls was kind of backward that way. A lot of the white kids, who enjoyed a slight majority at Palomar High School, stuck together and acted superior to everyone else. It was lame, but there wasn’t much else to do in this buttfuck town but drink and fight.

He could see his house in the distance, and knew Shay was home because the lights were on in the living room. Instead of going inside, he decided to keep walking. His pulse accelerated and his mouth went dry at the thought of seeing Angel again.

If she’d returned any of his calls, he’d have dropped the pickup game and asked her out in a heartbeat. She hadn’t, and he was pretty sure he knew why.

Dylan couldn’t believe his stupid sister had busted in on them this morning. Of all the lousy luck. Shay hardly ever came into his room. Not only that, she’d been out boozing it up with her friends the night before, and she couldn’t handle her liquor worth shit. He’d expected her to sleep in late.

His only chance to get laid in the past seventeen years, and she’d totally ruined it.

He didn’t fool himself into thinking Angel would be up for a repeat performance. At eighteen, she was an elusive older woman, ten times better looking than he was, and way out of his league. She’d also made it clear she didn’t consider him boyfriend material, and as far as he knew, she didn’t sleep around. Damn it.

She’d probably only let him kiss her out of gratitude.

Last night had been totally out of control. By the time they got to his door, it was already late, and they were both tired, but he’d invited her inside anyway. To his surprise, she accepted. They started talking about music, and although he’d never had a girl in his room before, let alone a really hot one with a knockout body, he felt comfortable with her. Which had been cool, because he’d always been tongue-tied around her before.

It was the bane of his existence. He had a 4.0 GPA. All of his classes were college prep, advanced placement, or honors. But when he tried to talk to girls, his brain shut off and his mouth went numb.

Cursing himself, and his sister for interrupting the most exciting moment of his life, he continued walking, even though he knew Angel didn’t want him, and that he would probably never drum up the nerve to talk to her again.

Like most of the houses on Calle Remolino, hers was quiet and dark. The Martinezes used to have a dog, a mangy old shepherd mix with a menacing bark and a mouthful of sharp teeth, but when he died, they hadn’t replaced him. Angel’s dad had a hard enough time feeding his kids.

Feeling like a stalker, and a fool, he walked along the side of the house, wondering which bedroom was hers, hoping Fernando wouldn’t come out with a loaded shotgun. He was about to turn around and head home when he noticed the muted glow from the kitchen window.

He stepped forward, drawn to the light.

Angel was inside, standing at the sink, her back to him. Apron strings were tied loosely around her waist, and her ponytail, sooty black in the fluorescent light, was curled over one shoulder. She was washing dishes.

He froze, struck by a powerful recollection of another time he’d spied on her without her knowing.

Her brother, Juan Carlos, was a year younger than Dylan, and he’d always been an enterprising little bastard. Right now he was in juvenile hall for selling an assortment of drugs out of his locker at Palomar High. When Dylan was thirteen, he’d paid Juan Carlos five bucks for the opportunity to watch Angel take a shower.