Fire With Fire (21 page)

I read the text over and over. Does he mean come over and
watch TV with our other friends? Or does he mean watch TV
just us, up in his room by ourselves?

I text him,
Who’s coming?
And he texts back,
Just you.
Wow. I wonder if his family will think I’m Reeve’s girlfriend.
When my dad comes into the kitchen to get more water, I ask

him, “Daddy, can I go hang out with my friends tonight?” I don’t
tell him that I’m going to a boy’s house, and that he’s the only
friend who will be there.

My dad considers this. “Are you bringing Nadia and Walker?”
“Um, no.”
“Then my answer is no,” he says.
“Daddy!” I make a face at him. My mom would have said yes.

Shaking his head, he says, “Final answer, Lilli. It’s
Thanksgiving, and your family’s only in town for a couple
of nights. Come sit and watch the movie with us.”

“In a minute,” I say in a snotty voice. “I have to tell my friends
I can’t come.”
So that’s what I write back, and then I hang around in the
kitchen waiting for Reeve to text me back, but he doesn’t.
CHAP
TER THIR
T
Y -SIX

I didn’t even bother getting dressed
on Thanksgiving. I didn’t go downstairs and ask if Aunt Bette
needed my help in the kitchen.

But that’s where I find her now. At the sink, doing the
Thanksgiving dishes.
Or, should I say,
lack
of dishes.
I never expected Aunt Bette would make a turkey, because
she is a vegetarian. Thanksgivings with her usually mean a whole
lot of vegetable sides. Sugar squash, green beans with almonds,
roasted beets, creamy mushroom soup. But tonight she only
made a salad. For herself.
She’s spent the rest of the day in the attic. Painting. Alone.
“So I guess there are no leftovers,” I say, snarky.
Aunt Bette freezes. After a second she drops the dish back
into the sudsy water. Then she spins around to face me. I can
tell she’s mad too. “I didn’t make a lot of food, Mary, because
you never eat!”
It wounds me, her pointing this out. This is supposed to be a
day of giving thanks, of being with family. It’s all wrong.
I fall into one of the kitchen chairs. “My parents should have
come. I don’t know why they’re punishing me like this. They
never call me. Never.” Aunt Bette bites her lip, like she wants to
say something but second-guesses herself. “What? Did they say
anything?” Have they been calling and Aunt Bette’s not passing
along the messages?
She sighs. “I don’t know this for sure, Mary, but if I had to
guess, I’d say your mom’s still upset that you left in the first place.”
“I didn’t do it to hurt them!”
“Maybe not, but it did. You’re her only daughter, Mary.
She’d do anything for you! I used to fight with your mom and
dad because I thought they spoiled you something rotten. Gave
you everything you asked for. I said it wouldn’t be good for
you. But they didn’t listen. They’d bend over backward to give
you what you wanted. So can you blame your mom for missing
you? You were her whole world!” She turns back around, probably because she can’t face looking at me.
“I’ve been better, though. Since Halloween. Since you took
that weird stuff down and quit with your weird spells.” I haven’t
had any more freak-outs.
Aunt Bette shakes her head. “Mary, that wasn’t me.” She
turns around, probably so she doesn’t have to face me. “I was
trying everything I could to help you control yourself.”
I lean forward. Am I crazy, or is Aunt Bette? I don’t even
know anymore. “What do you mean?”
Aunt Bette looks at me solemnly and whispers, “You don’t
know what you’re capable of, do you?” A shiver rolls down my
spine. I don’t even know what to say to that. “Well, it’s probably for the best if you don’t. It’s safer that way.”
I feel the tears come. “Please stop talking like that! You’re
scaring me!”
“You need to calm down.”
“You’re the one who’s making me upset!”
Aunt Bette heads to her room. I follow her, but she’s fast.
She goes to her room and slams the door. “Go to your room,
Mary!” she calls through the door. “Go to your room until you
calm down!”
I do the exact opposite. I strike out into the night.

Main Street’s pretty dead. All the stores are closed; everything
is except for the theater. A few of them are already decorated
for Christmas. As people pile out of the theater, I stand by the
double doors and watch. Am I really not like them? Am I not
normal?

That’s where I am when Reeve and Rennie come out. He’s
walking behind her with his arms slung around her neck, and
she’s laughing. “Reevie, I told you that movie was gonna suck!
You owe me another movie.”

He shakes his finger in her face. “Nuh-uh. You still owed me
for that cheering movie you made me watch this summer.”
“Then we’re even,” she says.
I stand there stock-still as they make their way down the
street to Reeve’s truck. He opens her door first; then he goes
around the other side to unlock his. Like a gentleman. Are they
a couple? I don’t even know what to think.
I feel the anger, the jealousy rise up in me. Instead of being
scared, I decide to try and focus it. I’ve spent too long trying
to ignore what’s inside me. To dismiss it. If there is something
going on with me, if there’s any truth to what Aunt Bette is saying, I need to know.
I stare at the lock on Reeve’s door. I stare hard and imagine
myself pressing it down.
Reeve struggles turning his key. He can’t get the door open.
“Ren,” he calls through the window. “I think the lock is frozen.”
Rennie slides across the cab into the driver’s seat and tries to
open it from the inside. “I can’t get it!” she whines.
Reeve tries his key again. This time I feel the force of it fighting against me. I’m not breathing, I realize, and my chest is
burning. It’s like arm wrestling. I’m losing. I feel myself losing.
And then, suddenly, the lock pops up.
I fall against the wall and gasp for breath.
Aunt Bette was right. It is me. And I don’t know what I’m
capable of. At least not yet.
CHAP
TER THIR
T
Y -SEVEN

I go to Ms. Chirazo’s office first thing on
Monday morning. Well, first thing after hitting up the
computer lab. I’ve got a stack of warm white pages in my hand.

She looks up, startled, holding the cord to an electric teakettle that plugs into her wall. “Katherine? Is everything okay?”
She motions to an empty chair.

I perch my butt on the armrest and drop the papers on her
desk. “I did a draft of a new essay. Sorry. I didn’t have a stapler or anything.” I spot one on her filing cabinet and use it.
Ms. Chirazo brightens. “Is this about . . .”
I nod. “But I don’t want to go over it in group.”
It was hard enough to write it alone in my room. The entire

time, I was crying and feeling so completely panicked by the idea
of anyone, especially Alex, reading it that it made me dry heave.
The thing is, my mom actually got into Oberlin. Only she
could never go, because she couldn’t afford the tuition. If I get
to go there, it’s like I’m making both of our dreams come true.
In some ways it felt cheap to put it in those sappy terms, but it
is true. And at the end of the day, I want off this island and into
Oberlin with a big fat scholarship, so I’ll jump through whatever hoops Ms. Chirazo tells me to. And I’ve convinced myself
that it’s not like I’m selling out my dead mom to get there. She’d
want me to do whatever it took.

“It might be a little all over the place,” I say. “And I’m still
not sure I’m going to use it. But . . . I’d be interested in what you
think before I send it off this week.”

She nods. “Of course. I’ll try to have it read by the end of
the day.”
“Don’t rush or whatever. It’s fine.” But I’m pleased. I stand
up. “Thanks, Ms. Chirazo.”
CHAP
TER THIR
T
Y -EIGHT

The choral practice room is a windowless room
directly behind our auditorium. The walls are bright white and
completely soundproof, and the door makes a funny suction
sound when it closes. As we file in, it’s so bright it’s like artificial
sunshine.

Mr. Mayurnik, the high school choral director, sits behind his
upright piano. As the students walk through the door, he plays
some jazzy, foot-stomping tune, pounding on the keys so hard
the air feels like it’s vibrating.

He means it as a joke, but that’s exactly how Thanksgiving
felt. One hundred percent.
It seems like everyone has been dragging their feet today, our
first day back at school after Thanksgiving break. I know I’ve been.
But for me it’s not shaking off that happy, overstuffed feeling of
too much food and too much sleep. The truth is that I feel empty.
Drained. I guess that’s why my book bag feels extra heavy on my
back, even though I’m carrying the same textbooks as always.
I spent the rest of the holiday weekend practicing. Seeing
what I could do. Can I roll that pencil off that desk? Yes, barely.
Can I make the wind blow? No. How about the curtains in my
bedroom? Can I make them close without touching them?
Sometimes.
It feels crazy to be doing this sort of thing, and then to also
be here now, back at school, like everyone else.
I am so not everyone else.
A thick packet of photocopied songs has been placed on
every other chair. They have green paper covers with holiday
clip art on them—holly leaves, a snowman, presents wrapped
with bows, candy canes. Pretty much all my favorite things. I
think about seeing if I can’t discreetly ruffle the pages or something, but I fight the urge. I have to be careful with this secret.
Nobody can know. Not even Kat and Lillia.
Especially not Kat and Lillia.
It’s the one thing about this development that isn’t exciting.
What would they say if I told them? Would they still want to be
my friends? If that’s how it’s going to be, I’ll keep it a secret forever. My friendship with Kat and Lillia is the only thing going
right in my life these days.
I take a seat where I normally do, in the last row. Alex Lind
comes in a few seconds before the bell rings and sits in the front.
When the semester first started and I realized that Alex was taking this class too, I thought about dropping, to be on the safe
side. But I don’t think he knows who I am, beyond a girl he
sees hanging around Kat or chatting with Lillia every once in a
while. He’s never spoken to me.
After the bell Mr. Mayurnik stands up and speaks to us over
his piano. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with a shiny bald
head and a silver walrus moustache. His ties are always musically themed—piano keys, violin strings, clef notes.
He says, “Okay, ladies and gentleman. From this day forward, you are no longer turkeys. You’re little elves now. Not
Christmas
elves, mind you, because this is a court-ordered nondenominational, secular celebration.” He sighs deeply. “We
should have been rehearsing these songs for weeks already, but
the town elders wanted to approve the song booklet, and you
know how fast things move in politics.” Mr. Mayurnik bangs
out a slow scale to show what he means. Do. Re. Mi.
I have to share a booklet with the girl sitting next to me. I
lean over her shoulder as she flips through the pages. My favorite classics, like “The Little Drummer Boy” and “Joy to the
World” are nowhere to be found. Instead, it’s mostly “Winter
Wonderland,” “Frosty the Snowman.” Generic holiday songs.
Which is fine. I like those kind, too.
“As always, our class will be singing on Main Street during
the Jar Island holiday tree lighting next Tuesday, which means
we have a week to get these numbers in tip-top shape. So let’s
dive right in!”
He tinkles a few keys and we begin our standard warmups. It feels good to use my throat, to hear my voice blend into
everyone else’s.
Afterward Mr. Mayurnik says, “Great. Now that we’re
good and warm, we need to figure out who will be singing our
solos. Can all the sopranos to come to the front of the room.”
I’m a soprano, so I stand up. As I squeeze through the
rows, I get nervous. Instantly nervous. I do okay singing in
the back of the class, but here, with everyone looking up at us,
I feel my throat close up. My dad pops into my head, because
he always says that I have a pretty voice. So pretty he makes
me sing “Happy Birthday” twice before he’ll blow out his
candles. He doesn’t even care that the cake gets covered in
melted wax.
But that memory doesn’t make things better. It makes me
feel worse.
I take a spot around the piano and end up standing directly
in front of Alex Lind.
Mr. Mayurnik starts playing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I
forgot to take the booklet with me, but I know the words.
I try my best to do a good job. Some of the other sopranos,
I know they’ve been in chorus longer. And a few of them
are in drama club. They’re already practicing songs for the
spring musical. Hello, Dolly! I would love to be in the spring
musical. I can’t compete with their voices, so I just try not to
mess up.
For most of the song, I stare at the ceiling. But toward the
end I look down at Alex. He has his eyes closed and a smile on
his face, like we sound really good.
He’s nice. Alex Lind is nice. I know it.
When we finish, everyone in the room applauds. Alex even
whistles. Mr. Mayurnik picks Jess Salzar to do the solo, and I’m
okay with it. I’m actually kind of relieved. And anyway, she
does have a pretty voice.
“Okay, boys. Let’s hear it.”
Alex and the other guys stand at the front of the room. There
are only four of them. Mr. Mayurnik makes Jess stay up at the
piano to sing the girl part, and when the boys sing, he listens
closely.
I do too.
Alex has an amazing voice. He’s not like some of the musical-theater guys in the class, who you know are bound for
Broadway. His voice isn’t big like that, but you can still pick his
out from the lineup of guys. It’s just . . . sweet. Earnest. And it’s
perfect for the song.
And I’m happy for Alex, genuinely happy for him, when Mr.
Mayurnik picks him for the solo.
Alex looks shocked. “Me?”
Mr. Mayurnik bangs on his piano. “Yes, you! And a little
birdie told me that you’re pretty good at playing the guitar, too.
Can you read music?” Alex nods. “Great. Bring it with you to
school tomorrow and we’ll get started on you playing along.”
“I don’t know . . . I’ve never played in front of an audience
before.”
“You’ll make all the ladies in the crowd faint! Won’t he, girls?”
As if we’re all on cue, every girl in the class screams for Alex
like he’s a pop star or a teen idol or something. Even me. Alex
turns redder than a holly berry.
It’s a good reminder that nice things do happen to good people, every so often.
CHAP
TER THIR
T
Y -NINE