Perfection

Chapter 6 - Down the river

The flames were warm, dangerous, superior. Their orange and red streaks danced with the blue lights from the firetruck as the cold water from the hose embraced them. The brake underneath her heel felt further away than it usually did and her car slowly stopped, right in time to not hit the spectators who had backed off the sidewalk to take in the disaster that had built up in front of them like some sick light play.

The twenty six year old Melanie Young pushed her car door open and placed her broken heel down to the asphalt. She leant down and lifted her foot to rip the heel off from the unsteady shoe. A broken pearl bracelet hung loosely from her wrist and a knot had been made to keep the remaining pearls from falling off.

She limped across the street and the blurred out face of a police officer tried to stop her. She couldn't be stopped now, she wouldn't let anything stop her from now on. She made her way past a fireman and someone on her left side kept calling out her name, over an over like a never ending tune on repeat. Broken records, never ending. Someone grabbed onto her left arm, he was saying something, repeating himself, angry, annoyed at her presence, wanting her gone from the scene.

“Don't you know who I am?! Get your hands off me.” Mrs Young began with a steady voice, but she flinched the slightest as her ankle got twisted from the unsteady shoe.

“My parents are in there, now get off me.” She pointed to the log house, the one now devoured by the flames.

She shrugged her shoulder to brush him off and a camera flash blinded her for a second before a reporter got pushed away by a fireman. Close. Warm. She could feel the sweat pearling on her powdered forehead as she moved closer to the flames.

Someone grabbed onto her again and pulled her back with force. She turned her head the slightest to gaze back at the gray-haired police officer who had now successfully dragged her back to the sidewalk.

“Chief! Sorry I'm late!” Someone called out in the background.

“Here's your first assignment, Jeremy.” The man let go of her.

“Keep her calm and away from the scene.”

“Who do you think you are?!” Melanie threw her broken heel at the back of the older man, but he didn't bother.

“Mrs Young?” The newly arrived one spoke up.

“Mrs Young, we need you to stay here.”

“You don't understand.. None of you, you have no clue of anything that is going on in your own town.” Melanie closed her eyes tightly before slowly opening them again, a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I heard they died. Both of them.” Someone whispered in the background.

Melanie gasped for air. Over and over, she tried to breathe but it wasn't enough, hadn't ever been enough. The oxygen around her hadn't been enough for the past six years. She couldn't bear it any longer, the absence of tears, she couldn't hold them any further.

“I'm.. I'm sorry for your loss.” He spoke. Him. The man named Jeremy.

Melanie knelt down to the asphalt, her new stockings got torn by the small stones and she knew that  her designer Max wouldn't be pleased. Her fingers tangled into her long curls and she sobbed. She sobbed her heart out, for one who hasn't cried for so many years sure had a lot of tears to spill when it really came down to it.

She blinked, repeatedly in a try to make logic and sense of her blurry world, but it all came down to a white card. A card stuck in front of her face. And she turned, and gazed up at the man next to her, the first one in years to lend her a shoulder to cry on and he spoke;