My sister was upstairs.
So while everyone was looking toward the road for the fire truck, I ran.
My mother made a sound when I said it aloud.
A broken sound I had heard only once before.
“You went back into the house,” Chloe whispered.
I nodded.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
I remembered crawling because the smoke was thicker when I stood up.
I remembered the heat against my arms.
I remembered finding Chloe on the floor of the little room, barely conscious, Buttons clutched against her chest.
The window wouldn’t open.
The hallway behind us had grown brighter.
There had been another door leading to a narrow exterior balcony used mostly for storage.
I dragged Chloe toward it.
The metal handle was hot enough to burn my palm.
I opened it anyway.
By then, my father and two firefighters had reached the side of the house.
They saw us.
One firefighter climbed a ladder.
But before he reached the balcony, part of the burning frame above the doorway broke loose.
I did the only thing my six-year-old mind could think to do.
I covered Chloe with my body.
That was where most of the scars came from.
My back.
My shoulders.
My arms.
The side of my stomach.
The firefighter reached us seconds later.
Chloe was carried down first.
I came down second.
She spent one night in the hospital for smoke inhalation and a minor burn on her ankle.
I stayed for weeks.
Then came surgeries, dressings, therapy, itching, pain, and years of learning how to live inside skin that strangers sometimes stared at.
Chloe’s face had gone completely white.
“Why don’t I remember any of this?”
“You remember pieces,” Mom said.
“You had nightmares for years.
You remembered the smoke.
The alarm.
The rabbit.
But whenever you asked about Maya’s injuries…”
She stopped.
That was the second truth.
The one even I had spent years pretending did not matter.
I looked at my parents.
“Tell her.”
My father flinched.
Mom’s tears fell harder.
“Maya,” she whispered.
“Tell her.”
Chloe rose slowly from her knees.
“Tell me what?”
Dad looked at her.
“We told you Maya was hurt when the firefighters brought her out.”
