I worked weekends at a bakery.
Whenever we got paid, we compared what we had saved.
One evening, David spread a pile of crumpled bills across the hood of his car.
“At this rate,” he said, “we can afford the smallest apartment in America.”
“Does it have indoor plumbing?”
He pretended to calculate.
“Luxury costs extra.”
“A window?”
“Don’t get greedy, Laura.”
Our plan was community college.
Then jobs.
Then a tiny apartment.
Nothing glamorous.
Nothing impressive.
But it was ours.
Six weeks after prom, David’s house caught fire before dawn.
I woke to my mother standing beside my bed.
“Laura.”
Something in her voice made me sit up immediately.
“There’s been an accident.”
David survived the fire initially.
His mother called from the hospital.
He had been badly burned.
“They’re keeping him asleep,” she told me.
“Can I come?”
“Not yet.”
I spent the next three days waiting.
