Ember

3 AM at my door, her car sideways in the drive, she stumbled past me into the kitchen, shedding snow from her jacket, then steadied herself against the counter, unzipping her black knee-high boots.

I pulled a match from the jar by the stove. Scratched it to life against the grout.

The dark held her body. Only her face remained, lit, weightless, mascara smeared down one cheek.

She said my name, once, from deep in her throat.

I held the flame between us. Watched the wood burn, blacken, eat down to my fingers. The heat turned sharp, then liquid.

I didn’t let go. She didn’t look away.

The blister came up white, then clear as a contact lens. I wore it for two weeks. Picked at the edge in meetings. Pressed my thumb into it when I couldn’t sleep.

She was gone that September. The postcard said St Louis in fat cartoon letters across a skyline I’d never see. No message. Just her initials in the corner.

I burned it in the sink.

The smoke detector went off. My neighbor knocked. Asked if I was okay.

I said yeah.

But kept the carbon smudge on the porcelain. Ran my finger through it every morning for a month, embedding tiny fragments in ridges and whorls.

Until the landlord came to fix the faucet and wiped her clean with a rag.

He asked if I needed new batteries for the detector.

I said no.

The scar is a small pink knot now, shiny and tight. Smaller than a dime.

I still press my thumbnail into it sometimes, looking for the heat that isn’t there.

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