I was on shift with Arianna the night the Subway caught fire. It happened a little after nine—or at least that’s when we noticed the smoke curling under our tongues, thick and rotten. We checked the toaster oven, then the bread oven in the back, but nothing around us seemed to be burning. That’s because it didn’t start in the kitchen, but in the wiring of the lit-up sign outside. By the time we figured this out the flames had already caught their breath and were stretching themselves up and out: bright, ephemeral acrobats.
I’d just turned eighteen. Arianna was nineteen. We were the wrong people to witness this together. In part because we were both a little too young and uncertain to handle it properly: somehow in our scramble to evacuate we’d forgotten all of our belongings and most of the standard protocols, including calling 911. But also because—I thought about this, even right then when everything was melting—we’d always been badly suited to each other’s company. It wasn’t dislike, at least not on my end. I didn’t know what to call it.
Check out the full story in our summer issue, out in July 2025!