I am sitting cross-legged on the floor in the center of my living room, wearing a skirt and my short white socks, hair up in rollers. My roommate’s out, and that’s good, because I don’t want her seeing any of this.

My name is Jessie. I am twenty years old. I live in Lafayette, Louisiana. And my mother told me that one day, I’d have her power.

I had no idea that power would look like this. My hand is flat on my chest, feeling the pulse of my own heartbeat. I close my eyes, smiling. I recently discovered that if I hold my hand here and concentrate on her memory, I can feel the heat increase against my palm.

Abruptly, red and orange flames erupt through my fingers.

I want to see how big they can grow.

The next day, I am at the diner.

I push through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen to drop off an order. Laugh about a customer with an older cook at the grill. The smell of burgers and the sound of sizzling fat. Someone calls my name from the front, and the cook waves me away.

“Customer asked for you specifically,” a coworker says. She smiles.

I laugh with her too. Probably my boyfriend, I think, and I tell her the same. The day’s almost over and he’s come to pick me up. I already know his order. This will be my last table.

But when I approach, it’s not him. It’s a student from the college up the street. The one that only just started letting Black kids in. His hair is slicked back and combed up. One of those motorcycle types, in jeans and a plaid shirt.

His eyes are black as night, with red pupils. They suck in the afternoon light.

His smile pins my feet to the floor. Fangs and satisfaction and knowing.

The customers from the table next to his stand up, pass between us, obscuring us from each other. I want to run, but I don’t know why. When they clear, he is gone. My chest aches in relief.

I don’t try the flames for a long while.

But I do try again, a few years later. I sit alone in my new-to-me but run-down basement efficiency apartment. I draw the flame from my chest, missing my mother, wishing for her wisdom and company. Her smile.

The next day, I walk down the street in my also-new-to-me city. Horns honking.

A man walking toward me. Long, brown hair. Black eyes with red pupils, looking at me.

I’m shaking. Shaking. Fingertips burning.

He comes toward me, eyes raking across my skin like knives clawing, searching. I feel stripped. Exposed.