‘Want the books?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Clothes?’ He looked doubtful.
She shook her head.
He loaded the last box on the pile and she watched him, fascinated, and kind of freaked, as he poured petrol on her stuff. He sat in the silence next to her. The petrol stank. There was only one way this was going to go. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter and handed it to her.
‘Do it,’ he murmured. When she looked at him, he was staring at the pile of crap like he wanted to watch it die. She hesitated for a moment and wondered what she was scared of. Nothing. She crouched, cupped her hand around the lighter and set the first box ablaze.
It crackled as the fire bit her geography notes and the paper curled away. She walked to the other side of the pile and lit it as well, looking up to see Henry sitting on the bonnet of the ute enjoying the view. She watched the flames consume her past, and wondered, panicked, if she could have saved some notes from Brigit. What did she say? She couldn’t remember, something about a boy named Simon she had loved desperately. And maybe something about her parents, who didn’t really understand her and who never would. Maybe there were tickets to concerts they had gone to together, or a T-shirt she had borrowed and never returned. It was just stuff. It wasn’t her memories, or her life. It wasn’t Brigit.
The fire started to smoke, like a signal being sent out across the prairie to somewhere far away. Cate Christie doesn’t live here anymore.