<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">This time of year in Burning Bear was solemn and strange, a damp foray into late fall that left the heart maroon like the falling leaves but the head swimming in cool mist. October swallowed up September, replacing orange sunsets with early nights and flickering street lamps that, in their weary glow, tried their best to ward off the coming storms. There had been a time that Reno reveled in this season. The trees thickened, preparing for winter, and the woods became dense, that almost-November midday sun streaming through the brush, amber kissing the forest floor, crawling up the branches of the pines. In youth she had made the most of the last evenings of daylight, squeezing in every adventure before dark crept in and took afternoons from her. <br/>
<br/>
She recalled the long walk home from school, the way her sneakers scuffed the pavement and her knuckles tightened around the straps of her backpack. She recalled dumping it at the front door and waiting, patiently, for her father to go to the late-evening shift at work. Five o’clock, on the dot- father would leave and Volk would take his place. Then, she would have insisted that she no longer needed to be babysat, and really she wouldn’t have been wrong. She was easily old enough to fend for herself. But in truth she treasured those three hours it took for mother to get home. That in-between. That one hundred and eighty minutes of laughter, bathed in adolescent cheer, a sort of naivety that felt so, so good. That three hours of movies on the couch, complete with popcorn kernels getting stuck between their teeth. That three hours of meandering through the forest, ducking beneath branches and his hand in hers to keep her from straying. That three hours of him switching the vinyls on the player as she did homework, occasionally asking him how to spell a word though she knew it, just to hear him talk. That three hours of staring at the ceiling, wrapped up in her quilt, talking about all the things they would do once they left Burning Bear. <br/>
<br/>
In memory she swore they had talked about like it was something they would do together. Like all their juvenile trials would culminate in some movie-worthy sendoff, the duo speeding over the pass into the unknown, into the great journey. But he had gone and done it himself, and she was left stuck in the proverbial mud that was her fucked up, broken house. <br/>
<br/>
She wondered if those three hours every weeknight actually meant anything to Volk. At the time he seemed endeared by her childish anecdotes- he seemed to enjoy pulling up in the driveway to a beaming, gap-toothed girl that was helplessly overwhelmed with adoration for him. But after… <i>after</i>… she convinced herself that it was a façade, that the babysitting was <i>just babysitting </i>and an<i> obligation </i>rather than the best three hours of the whole day. She convinced herself that she was the justification for him to constantly be over, the <i>excuse</i>. She was <i>the means to the end</i>. She retched each and every time she considered that <i>end</i>.<br/>
<br/>
She didn’t understand it right away, or even when Volk left. But she understood it now, far too well.<br/>
<br/>
When Volk released her from her grasp, she finally looked at him. In his face she saw shadows, mostly, but in the gleam of his sideways glance, there she was- <i>mother</i>.<br/>
<br/>
Those three hours every weekday were sacred to Reno. When her mom came home from work, Reno was always adamant that she wasn’t tired, she pleaded for just another thirty minutes, <i>please mom, please</i>- but mom was just as adamant to get her to sleep, door closed tight behind her. And so eight o’clock came and Reno lay in bed, half in tears and half dozing off, aching for more of Volk’s time and yet simultaneously exhausted by him. The three hours had come to an end- but she hadn’t any idea that there was another hour or so that Volk remained under the roof.<br/>
<br/>
Reno’s focus glazed over Volk’s features and she had to choke back a backwash mixture of sobs and vomit. She wanted to ask him <i>why</i>- but he hadn’t answered her back then, so why would he answer her now? She wasn’t sure who she hated more- mother or Volk- <i>at least mother hadn’t come back to tease Reno at her own father’s funeral</i>.<br/>
<br/>
Somehow she felt warmer without Volk’s embrace, as if he emanated frost. Perhaps he did- she saw the ice in the harsh reflection of his gaze, the snow that paled in his skin, in his hair. Christ, he hadn’t changed at all and yet he had changed entirely- there was a sense of familiarity in that crooked half-smile, forced now and with some resistance, but that was it. The way he carried himself, with a narcissistic sort of certainty, that was new- it, too, seemed forced. And the fucking leather. She wondered if it was his shell, if there was some soft, sorry, little fleshy beast underneath, scarred and beaten from all the payback he was due. But it was unlikely. He had to have made up for his shit morals somehow- otherwise mother would have never…<br/>
</span><br/><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Fucking hell she wanted to ask him <b>why</b>. </span></i><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><br/>
She wasn’t listening to what he said. She hadn’t been, not really, since he started speaking. He could have been profusely apologizing for his embarrassment, for his fuck ups, for his damn existence and she wouldn’t have known it. The dissociation rolled around in her skull, filling it like cotton as she stumbled over every memory on the fucking lane, considering and reconsidering the implications and the outcome and and and<br/>
<br/>
It bit at her like a ravenous dog- <i>why, why, why</i>? Was it her fault? Did he ever love her? <i>Why did she have to be the excuse? </i>She wanted to be more than that, she wanted to be good enough, for Volk and for mother and for father, she had wanted to be good enough and it had kept her up at night, now and ever since she was a child. <br/>
<br/>
“Hold on- hold on- you- you don’t really think-” there were sobs stuck in her throat, on the backs of her teeth, edging into her gums she could feel her tongue <i>bleed</i>, she was gnawing on it now- “this isn’t home to you anymore, Volk-”<br/>
<br/>
She was slipping, something in her cracking, “I just stopped dreaming about you, Volk, I was <i>just </i>starting to learn to forget- I- I- I’ve dreamt about this, about you, for years, and-”<br/>
</span><br/><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">How could he act like this was no big deal? How could he brush this off like ashing his fucking cigarette?</span></i><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><br/>
“You <i>keep me up at night</i>- I was starting to- to forget-” Her hands crimped into fists, knuckles white, nailing burrowing into flesh, “how could you come back- after all this time?”</span>