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just like it was yesterday: the day I burned my house down.
    The details of how the fire actually started are still hazy in my mind. I remember being in a fight with my dad. He kept asking me why I had abandoned all my friends, saying that some of them had been calling and wanted to know if I was ok. He told me that he loved me, and no matter what was happening, we could work through it together. I just remember feeling so angry, knowing that I couldn’t tell him about what was happening to me. I just wanted him to leave me alone.
    I ran toward the car, hoping I could get in and leave before he could push the issue any further. I felt a hand on my shoulder spinning me around. That was when my world exploded in flames. It was as if they just leaped out of my body. I had no control, no way to stop it. When I finally fell to the ground in exhaustion, the flames seemed to taper out. I was too weak to stand, and the fire was raging all around us. I felt hands slide under my shoulders, and someone was dragging my body out of the fire.
    By the time the first fire engine arrived, the entire house was engulfed in flames. The fire department did what they could, but the house was a total loss. Mom managed to save the external hard drive and her laptop. That was all that survived the blaze. I tried talking to my dad about what happened, but he just told me it was over and it was better if we never brought it up again.
    The last month before school started, and we spent it in an apartment. My parents had to pay for new clothes, because the insurance company was dragging its feet. The fire department was investigating the scene for arson. Apparently they thought one of us started the fire. If they only knew the truth, that one of us did.
    Word had spread around town that I had burned down our house. Of course people believed it. The insurance company had refused to pay for the damage, and the fire department was working with the police to press charges against me. The single point of origin for the flames was what made them think it had to have been set. The only problem was they could not find any traces of an accelerant, and were having problems explaining how the fire spread so fast without one. I had a feeling that was the only thing that kept me sitting at home, instead of in jail.
    I heard my dad on the phone having heated conversations with someone. It sounded as if he was trying to call in some favors. The words “you owe me” were spoken more than a few times. Surprisingly, not too long after his call, the insurance company decided to pay us in full. They also covered the cost of our living expenses during the investigation. The arson investigator even stopped by our apartment to apologize. I was not sure who my dad knew, but it had to have been someone important to turn the situation around so quickly.
    With the fire behind us and the rebuilding project beginning, life seemed to settle back down. I had a gut feeling that wouldn’t last forever. School was going to be starting soon, and spending the summer under suspicion of arson was not going to help matters. Some of my classmates had already seen me around town and started to call me fire-starter. It didn’t help that I had spent the better part of the summer alienating everyone close to me. I still had one friend I could talk with, one that no matter how hard I tried wouldn’t give up on me. Alby—or, as everyone else knew her, Abigale Jones.
    Alby presented her own unique set of problems for me. She was one of the people I had been noticing who seemed to change when I looked at them a little longer. Her ears were slightly pointed, and somehow she seemed to have vines that ran up the side of her neck. I almost asked her once when she got a tattoo, but I stopped myself before I could make that fatal error. I tried not to stare; the last thing I wanted to do was call any more attention to myself. I just wrote it off as another one of my delusions and started to wonder