Watching Them Burn: My Rebirth Story novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Nightlight

Luka set me down off the desk and stepped back.

His hands were not steady.

"Sit," he said.

"I'd rather stand."

"Then stand. But listen."

He went to the window and looked out at the empty pool.

"Two years ago I won the state final," he said. "I was eighteen. I should have felt great. Instead I went home and couldn't sleep, because I'd watched Dane Abercrombie walk off that deck with his head down."

"You felt sorry for him?"

"I felt bad for taking something from him I didn't even want." He rubbed the back of his neck. "My little brother has a swim fan account. He'd told me there was a voice room open for the finalists. Anyone could listen. I put on his headphones at two in the morning."

I did not move.

"Dane was in there. Alone. Crying so hard he couldn't talk."

"And?"

"And somebody else came in."

I heard my own pulse.

"A girl. She didn't say a word to him at first. She just started to hum. Three notes, going down, and then the same line again. Over and over, slow, until he stopped."

I put my hand on the desk.

"It went on for almost two hours," Luka said. "At four, he said, thank you. He said, who are you? And she said, call me Nightlight. Then she left."

The room had gone very quiet.

He turned around.

"I never forgot it. I don't think I ever stopped hearing it. Then Monday morning I hear you humming in a hallway and I thought, no. That's just a tune." His voice dropped. "Then today."

I looked at him.

I was standing very still.

"I was sixteen," I said.

He waited.

"My little brother had his appendix out. It burst. I was in the hospital chair at two in the morning, and he was on a ventilator, and I couldn't sleep or cry or think." My throat was closing. "I had his tablet. He loved swimming. His app was open. There was a room."

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