Fire With Fire Read Free

Despite
all the ways I’ve changed since seventh grade, he saw the fat
girl who’d been dumb enough to believe he was her friend.
Reeve saw Big Easy. Hearing him say it knocked the wind out
of me, the same way it had when he’d pushed me into the dark,
cold water. I’d only ever be one thing to him. Nothing but
that. I was so angry. So hurt. And I snapped.
I can hear Aunt Bette breathing shallow breaths a few steps
away from my bed. “Was it . . .”
I roll back toward her. “Was it what ?” It comes out so mean,
but I can’t help it. Can’t she tell I’m not in the mood to talk?
Aunt Bette’s eyes are wide. “Nothing,” she says, and backs
out the room.
She’s scared of me. And the truth is, I’m scared of me too.
I can’t deal. So I get up, wrap a sweater around my nightgown, slip on my sneakers, and creep out the back door.
I walk down to Main Street and head toward the cliffs.
There’s a big one I used to love to look out from, because you
could see for miles.
But tonight there’s nothing but blackness beyond the cliff.
Blackness and quiet, like the edge of the world. I shuffle my
feet until the tips of my shoes hang over the rock. Some gravel
tumbles over the edge, but I never hear it hit the water. The fall
goes on forever.
Instead I hear Reeve whisper to me at the homecoming
dance. Big Easy. Like an echo, over and over and over.
I ball my fists, fighting to push the memory of what happened next out of my head. But it doesn’t work. It never works.
I remember the other times too. Like when Rennie fell off
the cheering pyramid. Did I make that happen? Or did she
slip?
Same with the locker doors that slammed closed all at once.
Could it have been the wind? Or was it me?
If it was me, how did I do it? Was it telekinesis? Telepathy?
Some kind of power transference?
The scary thing is . . . I don’t know. And if I don’t know
what it is, how am I supposed to know how to control it, so it
won’t happen again?
A cloud pulls away from the moon, like a curtain in a play.
Light reflects off the wet rock and makes everything glisten.
I catch the caps of waves rippling against a cove down below.
Above it there’s a ledge where a couple of beer bottles lie empty
in a pile. There’s some graffiti, too. And the ashy remains of a
small campfire. Someone else was looking for a place to hide.
I didn’t go to school today. Truthfully, I don’t know if I’ll
ever go back.
It takes me a minute to figure out how to get down to the
landing. But then I trace a path where the rocks stagger down
the side of the cliff in crooked stairs. When I was a kid, I’d
scamper along the rocks in bare feet, searching the pools for
hermit crabs or seashells, without any fear of falling. Tonight I
feel clumsy, stiff, unsteady. I pat around with shaky hands for
places to hold on, but everything is slick and cold. But I manage to scamper all the way down. The waves in the cove are
still a good bit below me, and they beat against the rock and
fill the air with mist.
If only I could talk to Kat and Lillia. But what would I say,
exactly? That I’ve got some kind of power? That the strangest
things are happening to me and I don’t know why?
They’d think I was crazy. That it’s all in my head. They’d
show me the article from the Jar Island newspaper, how the
inspectors determined it was an electrical fire. An electrical
upgrade had been in the works for a long time, but our principal was more interested in getting the swimming pool redone.
He’s probably going to be fired for it.
But I don’t care about that guy. I care about Reeve. He’s the
only thing I care about.
That’s how truly, truly pathetic I am.
Suddenly there’s a gust of wind and a splash of water. It
nearly knocks me over the edge. I fall to my knees and crawl
backward to the path, my heart in my throat.
And that’s the real reason I can’t talk to Kat and Lillia.
Because I’ve got an even bigger, more shameful secret than
what may or may not be going on inside