I had no idea. It was all too much for me. The feelings. The emotions. Besides, wasn’t it more fun to feel nothing?

Sometimes, in my dreams, I could still smell the smoke. I still felt the ash settling against my cheek. But that was absurd, because I hadn’t even been home.

You see, my life changed when I was sixteen. I should’ve been going to football games and driving around with friends, embracing our newfound freedom. Thinking about universities and taking my girlfriend to the movies. Instead, after a night out, I arrived home to cop cars and fire trucks. Firemen swarmed the house I had grown up in, dousing the still-smoking shell even after everything had been reduced to embers.

A somber police officer took note of my shocked face, the duffel bag abandoned at my feet. I couldn’t tell you if my friend had left or not. I couldn’t even tell you the name of the friend who had dropped me off.

I listened as the cop explained to me what happened. A neighbor had called after seeing the flames lighting up the dark night through their bedroom window. My parents were found in their bedroom, my mom in the bathroom, my dad at the door. They thought he had been trying to figure a way out for both of them.

Lucky. That’s what the cop called me. Lucky I hadn’t been home. Lucky to still be alive. Lucky one foster family or another would be willing to take in a teenager on the verge of aging out.

I didn’t feel lucky. I felt alone.

The first foster family lived in a different school district than my own. I quickly learned being a football player didn’t make friends at my new school. I learned a bunch of other things from my new pals as well.

How to sneak out without my foster parents knowing, not like they cared.

How to lie.

How to smoke a joint without coughing.

How to fuck.

How to alternate between uppers and downers until I couldn’t remember anything. Couldn’t feel anything.

I was lucky I lasted with the first foster family for as long as I did. But even though the foster parents passed me off like I was nothing, everyone else seemed to like the new me. Teachers were wrapped around my little finger. Missed assignments or classes meant nothing, because I could talk my way out of it. I was popular in my new crowd of friends, too. Everyone wanted to be friends with Theo.

The cool thing about being emotionless, was how easy everything was. Nothing bothered me, got under my skin. How could it, when my skin was already nothing but an open wound, burnt to the core?