TESTESTEST

Alight Romance

The first thing I noticed was that it was cold out. And I mean really cold. Felt like 20 below zero, that's how cold it was. But I was only wearing shorts and a t shirt, so that might explain why I was shivering. I wasn't nervous, I'd done stuff like this a thousand times before. No biggie. But because I was shivering so much, it took me a second or two longer to strike a match.

Speaking of matches, they're the second thing. My matches weren't in the place they usually were. Left pocket, that's where I usually put them, but today they were in my right. Kind of panicked for awhile because after taking the time to pour all that gasoline on the house, I thought I wouldn't be able to burn it down. Took me a few seconds longer to get the fire going, which, looking back, was probably a good thing.

I'll get to the third thing later. So anyway, found my matches, lit one, and tossed it at the wall of the house. The fire spread kinda slowly, the house didn't go up in flames in like half a second. Probably because I didn't use enough gas. Lucky me, right? If it weren't for these tiny seconds that delayed what usually would've been a quick job... I'd probably still be burning down houses for hire. Or dead. Maybe the cops would've caught me, I don't know.

Anyway, the job took probably fifteen, twenty seconds longer than usual and just my luck, in those twenty seconds, a person in the house managed to escape. Crawled through a second story window and landed in a big old rosebush. I ran up to her and was a split second away from killing her right then and there.

But then I saw her face. Well, not really her face, just her... everything. God, she looked so... cute. Her hair in a mess, pajamas with a few ashes and burn marks on them. She sat on her rosebush throne, out of breath, scared and I knew... I knew.