The Complete Burn for Burn Trilogy: Burn for Burn; Fire With Fire; Ashes to Ashes (5 page)

I wonder what will happen. When everyone else fades away and it’s just the two of us standing toe to toe.

I could say,
Hello, Reeve,
calm and even.

I could say,
Didn’t think you’d see me again, did you?

The possibilities spin around in my head faster than my pedals. I don’t even think about what he’ll say to me. It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna get my moment, and that’s that.

The bike path lets out at the back of Jar Island High School. I skid to a stop. The high school stretches out just beyond the football field. I’m struck by how huge it is.

I came here once, as a kid with Mom and Dad, to see a theater company put on a musical version of
The Secret Garden
in the performing arts auditorium. I guess at the time I thought that was all there was, but now I see that the auditorium is a whole separate building from the school. There’s also one for the gym, and one for the pool. Kids are everywhere, hundreds of faces, swarming the place like ants. I keep thinking I’ll see someone I know, but I don’t. Everyone’s a stranger.

I follow the flow of students down a concrete path until it opens up to a big central courtyard. A bunch of guys are playing Ultimate Frisbee on the lawn. There are a few benches, a couple of trees, and in the center, a big bubbling
fountain that sends sprays of mist into the blue sky.

Reeve is here somewhere. I know it. I can feel it.

I smooth my hair and take a slow spin.

A girl in cutoff shorts, a black tank, and a cropped black hoodie, dark hair blowing behind her, charges toward another girl, a smaller one with wavy brown hair, and slams into her hard. So hard I hear the smack from where I’m standing.

The smaller girl stumbles on her high heels, and she almost falls into the fountain. She lets out a bloodcurdling scream. I recognize her now. I think maybe I met her once, a long time ago. Maybe at Sunday school or day camp or something.

The one in the cutoffs says, “You were the klepto, Rennie! I’ve never stolen anything in my life!” Rennie. That’s right. That’s the small girl’s name. She was in my swim class at the Y in the third grade. The other girl gets up in Rennie’s face. A boy with auburn hair tries to hold her back, but she pushes him away. “And if I hear you spreading any more lies about me, I’ll kill you.” The way the girl says it, dead serious, gives me goose bumps.

People all over the courtyard slow down to watch, like seagulls circling beach trash. I have this helpless feeling, this sick feeling. But everyone else looks entertained. Everyone except the auburn-headed boy.

Rennie stands up straight. “Umm . . . you’ll
kill
me? Really?” She laughs. “Okay, no more lies, Kat. I’ll get real with you right now. Remember that time you came over in ninth grade, begging me to be your friend again?” The smile on the other girl’s face—Kat—disappears. “You were crying, and you kept trying to hug me? Just so you know, the whole time I was thinking how your breath smelled like shit. How it kind of always smelled like shit, even right after you’d brushed your teeth. And I was so relieved when you left that I’d never have to smell your shitty-ass breath again.”

Kat’s mouth wrinkles up. She wants to say something but can’t. I see it in her face, in her eyes. She starts to cough, and at first I think she’s holding back tears. But then Kat’s head tips back slightly and she spits a huge loogey in Rennie’s face.

Everyone watching cries out, “Eww!”

The boy says, “Jeez, Kat!”

“OH MY GOD!” Rennie screams, wiping at her face furiously. “You are
such
trash, Kat!” She looks around at everyone watching her, and her cheeks turn bright pink. “Oh my God,” she says again, this time a whisper to herself.

Kat walks away. She makes eye contact with me as she passes. Her eyes are flashing, and I can barely breathe.

I feel turned around, not sure which way is up or down, or where to go. Is this what life at Jar Island High is like? ’Cause if it is, I’m not sure I’ll survive the day.

A pretty Asian girl comes to Rennie’s side and holds out a tissue, but Rennie doesn’t take it. Instead she wilts as a tall brown-haired guy scoops her up and offers her his T-shirt sleeve to wipe her face on. “Come here, girl,” I hear him say. “Fighting on the first day of school! Ren, you know you’re better than that. Don’t let DeBrassio drag you down in the gutter with her . . . But I have to say, watching you two throw down was kinda hot.” He tips his head back and lets out a laugh he must have been holding in.

I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything. Just the pounding in my ears. Everything else is on mute. Because it’s him. Right there in front of me, after all these years. It’s Reeve Tabatsky.

I’d know him anywhere. He has the same brown hair, same Roman nose. And those eyes. Green like sea glass. He’s taller now, much taller. Broad shoulders, muscular arms. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and a worn-looking pair of khakis, and he has a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses perched at the top of his forehead.

When we were young, he was a good-looking kid. But now . . . he’s beautiful. He’s so beautiful.

My legs start to quiver. I can’t do this. I want to run away, to hide, but I can’t move. I just stand there, rooted to the spot.

The two of them walk in my direction, Reeve’s arm slung around Rennie’s shoulder. I hold my breath and wait for a flash of recognition, something, anything, as Reeve gets closer. But there’s nothing. He walks right past me, so close we nearly touch. He doesn’t notice me.

I spin around and stare at his back. Did he not see me? Or could it be that he was too distracted by Rennie hanging all over him. Or maybe he did see me but I’ve changed so much, and that’s why he didn’t recognize me. I’m probably the last person he’d expect to see again.

Dazed, I follow them inside the building. Reeve and Rennie disappear down a hallway together, swallowed up by a crowd of other students. I don’t know where to go. I wander around and end up ducking into the girls’ room as someone exits. I slip into the dwindling space of the closing door.

My stomach seizes up. I hurry to the last stall and collapse at the bowl, the ends of my hair skimming the water.

I take a couple of deep breaths. In and out. Maybe it wasn’t any of those things.

Maybe I wasn’t worth remembering.

CHAPTER FOUR

LILLIA

W
E’RE SITTING AT OUR NEW LUNCH TABLE WITH THE
regulars—me and Rennie, Ashlin, Alex, Reeve, PJ, Derek, plus a couple other guys from the football team. We inherited this table from last year’s seniors. It’s a tradition. Star table, center of the so-called action. The last day of school junior year, the coolest seniors call the coolest juniors over and invite you to have lunch with them. It’s like the passing of the popularity torch. Too bad it’s just the same as any other gross table in this cafeteria.

Ashlin is being annoying, going on and on about the sauna
her parents had installed. I finally say, “Ashlin, nobody cares,” and her mouth snaps shut, her brown eyes hurt. I feel kind of bad, so I add, “Just kidding.”

Rennie snags a powdered sugar doughnut off my tray and pops it into her mouth.

“I thought you weren’t eating carbs during cheer season,” I say, and I pull my lunch tray closer. I only have three left.

Rennie makes a face at me. “I deserve some comfort after this morning. I should probably get an AIDS test or something. Who knows what kind of germs that skank is harboring.” She gags, and her tongue is white from powdered sugar.

I can’t believe Kat DeBrassio spit in Rennie’s face. I mean, that was totally gross. But it’s not like Rennie didn’t have it coming. I just can’t believe someone called her out on it.

Reeve pulls his chair up closer to us. I scoot away a little. He must have used half a bottle of cologne this morning. It’s giving me a headache. He drawls, “Rennie, honey?”

“Yes, Reevie baby?” Rennie flips her hair around.

“You know you’re my wifey, right?”

Eww.

“Of course.”

“And a wifey has to make sure her man is taken care of,” he
continues. I make a
Gag me
face at Ashlin, who giggles. Reeve sees me do it, and he waves his hand at me dismissively before turning back to Rennie. “Anyway . . . will you
please
make sure that I get a cheerleader who knows what she’s doing this year? I’m serious. I can’t have a girl up there representing number sixty-three if she’s just a pretty face. Whoever gets the job, she’s gonna have a lot of airtime, and she’s got to have the entire package.”

“What’s the entire package?” Rennie purrs.

Reeve ticks off his fingers. “Rhythm, good hand-eye coordination, flexible enough to do some of the more complicated moves. No cartwheel bullshit. I want back handsprings, pop and lock. Good variety. You know what I’m saying.”

“I know exactly what you’re saying, Reevie,” Rennie says, her eyes bright. “Consider it taken care of.” Reeve reaches across the table and pinches her cheek.

Rennie slaps his hand away, laughing. “What about you, Alex? Who do you want?”

“I don’t care,” he says, and he goes back to talking to Derek.

Rennie mouths to me,
What’s his problem?
I shrug back.
PMS,
she mouths.

She leans forward and takes another doughnut off my tray. “What do you think about me giving Alex to Nadia? . . . I mean,
it’s definitely true that if she nabbed a senior player, she’d be hot shit with her little freshman piggies.”

I snatch the doughnut right back. “Yeah, whatever.” I still feel bad about what I said to Nadia this morning. Maybe this will make her feel better.

“So you’re cool with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I know what she’s getting at, but I refuse to play along. Like I’ve told her a thousand times, I don’t see him that way.

“O-kay.”

I get up from the table and walk over to the soda machine before she can say anything else.

I’m trying to decide between grape soda and Coke when Alex comes up behind me. “Hey, Lindy,” I say, pressing Coke. It occurs to me that Rennie is probably leaning on Alex just as hard as she’s been leaning on me. I bet she’s telling him the same lies too. That I’ve been dreaming of him. That we’re supposed to be together.

Flatly, he says, “That’s all you have to say to me? ‘Hey, Lindy?’ Have you not noticed that I’ve been giving you the cold shoulder since Saturday?”

I stare at him, my mouth an
O
. What’s the matter with him?

“I can’t believe you, Lillia,” he says, seething. “You and Rennie ambush my house for a freaking party and you make a huge mess with glitter everywhere, and then you dip out after half an hour to go to another party! What the hell!”

I’ve never seen Alex like this before, so pissed. But he’s right to be upset. We never should have left like that. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. He has no idea how sorry I really and truly am.

He shakes his head at me and turns to go, but I reach out and grab his shirtsleeve. Tugging on it, I say, “Don’t be mad.”

He’s glaring at me, but he doesn’t shrug me off. “When are you going to come and get your decorations and crap?”

Quickly I say, “Rennie and I will come over after cheerleading tryouts today and pick everything up.”

Alex doesn’t say anything. He just walks away. Not back to the table but straight out of the cafeteria.

*   *   *

Rennie got it into her head that we should have a welcome home party for the boys.
She decided that the theme would be “Under the Sea,” and she would be a mermaid. The other senior girls were allowed to wear bikinis and grass skirts and leis. The juniors and sophomores were sexy fishermen. We let Nadia invite three of her freshman friends, but they had to dress as
minnows, and they had to wear flippers on their feet the whole time or else they’d have to leave.

There was one more condition—I told Nadia she wasn’t allowed to drink. She agreed right away. When she showed up with her friends, all dressed in green tanks and green shorts, and waddling in their flipper feet, I gave her a virgin piña colada. I had one too, even though Rennie kept trying to top mine off with one of the bottles of rum she had hidden around the backyard.

The party was a hit. Music was blasting out of the speakers, we had tiki torches lit over the lawn, people were dancing, and swimming in the pool. Even the guys got into the spirit of things. Reeve took a sheet off Alex’s bed and made himself a toga and called himself Poseidon. He was walking around with a rake, calling it his trident. I was pretty sure he just wanted an excuse to take his shirt off. Alex was wearing his fishing hat, and the other guys at least had on swimming trunks and zinc oxide.

Rennie was wearing a tight blue skirt, a shell bikini top, and fishnet stockings. She spent a week’s worth of her hostessing money on the wig and the rhinestone starfish barrette she found online. I was a
Baywatch
lifeguard in my red one-piece bathing suit, short white shorts, and flip-flops. I had a whistle around
my neck and a lifeguard float strapped to my back. Ashlin was a jellyfish. She had on a sheer white beach cover-up over her white bikini, and she braided long strips of white crepe paper into her blond hair.