Fire With Fire (3 page)

We’re all at the lunch table, and people keep coming over, trying
to sign Reeve’s cast. The Reeve I know would have lapped up
the attention; he would have loved every second. But not this
guy. This guy couldn’t care less. All he wants to do is talk about
his physical therapy plan with Rennie. They’re huddled together
on the other side of the table, his cast up in her lap.

“While I have the hard cast on, I’m focusing exclusively on
my upper body. Chest, biceps, triceps, back, core. Bulk up from
the waist up. Then three, maybe four weeks and I’m in the soft
cast. Boom. Hydrotherapy.”

I’m mesmerized as I watch him tear through two steamed
chicken breasts and a huge ziplock bag of cut-up carrots and
spinach. He’s inhaling food like he’s a vacuum.

“I ordered you a buoyancy belt last night,” Rennie says. “It
should be here by the end of the week.”
Alex keeps leaning over and trying to convince Reeve to
come to the football game on Friday, but of course selfish
Reeve isn’t having it. Alex says, “Come on, Reeve. You know
it would be huge for morale. The guys are scared shitless
about Lee Freddington quarterbacking for us again.”
“That’s ’cause Freddington can’t throw for shit,” Derek says,
his mouth full of pizza.
It’s true. Our game last weekend, the first without Reeve,
was a complete disaster. We lost big-time to a team that’s second
to last in our division.
PJ pipes up, “We miss you, man. And, I don’t know, maybe
you could give Freddington some tips or whatever.”
“Yeah,” says Alex. “You don’t have to suit up or anything.
Just be on the sidelines. I really think it’d make a big difference.”
Reeve gulps down his Muscle Milk. Wiping his mouth, he
says, “You guys are on your own now. I can’t carry you anymore. I’ve gotta worry about myself. If I don’t get my shit
straight, I don’t play next fall.”
“You’re still a captain of this team,” Alex reminds him.
“I have to focus on my recovery,” Reeve says. “I’m in bed by
nine and up by five thirty to work out. You think I have time to
go to a football game?”
“Just think about it,” Alex says. “You don’t have to decide
today. See how you’re feeling on Friday night.” It gives me a
stomachache to see Alex be so patient with Reeve’s temper tantrum. If I were him, I’d tell Reeve to forget it.
Shaking his head regretfully, Derek says, “Damn, man. I can’t
believe this happened to you. I was looking forward to watching you throw TDs on ESPN next fall.”
Reeve jams a forkful of salad into his mouth. Chewing forcefully, he says, “You’re still gonna see me on ESPN. Don’t count
me out.”
“Yeah, Derek,” Rennie says, glaring at him. She points at
Reeve. “From here on out, this is a no-negativity zone. Only
positive thinking allowed.”
Reeve heaves himself out of his seat and up onto his crutches.
“Where are you going?” Rennie asks him.
“Bathroom.”
He lurches off toward the men’s room, and Rennie watches
him like a hawk, ready to spring into action if he needs her. When
he’s gone, she looks around to make sure no one else is listening,
and then she says to Ash, “He’s being so strong. He practically
cried in my arms the other night when he heard Alabama was out.
That was one of his safety schools! And there he was, begging
the coaches to redshirt him for the first season.” She closes her
eyes and rubs her temples. “But his injury is too much of a risk.
They don’t think he’ll ever get back to where he was. I can’t wait
until he proves those idiots wrong.” Rennie takes a sip of her soda.
“Sure, he might not end up at a D-one school after this is all over,
but any division two or three school would be lucky to have him.”
“Did you spend the night over at his house again?” Ash
whispers.
Again?
They’re doing sleepovers now? I fully believe that
Paige would let Rennie sleep over at a guy’s house, but Reeve’s
parents have always seemed pretty traditional to me.
Running her hands through her hair, Rennie says, “I’m basically the only thing keeping him going right now.”
“Did you guys finally DTR?” Ash asks her.
“What does DTR mean?” I wonder aloud.
“Define the relationship,” Rennie says, rolling her eyes like
I am a moron for not knowing. But she doesn’t look at me.
“And no, we didn’t. Not yet. He has too much on his mind
right now. I just want to be there for him. That’s all he needs.”
Rennie stands up and gathers her things. “I’m going to go look
for him.” She leans down and gives Ashlin a peck on the cheek.
“Bye, Ash. Bye, Peej, bye, Derek.”
Without even a glance in my direction, she takes off. No one
notices that Rennie said good-bye to everyone but me.
It’s been like this since homecoming, and every day it gets
a little worse. I have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Rennie’s mad at me. Like, really mad. I hate that it affects
me this much, but it does. I want things to go back to normal,
where nobody’s in a fight with anybody.
As soon as she’s out the door, I say to Ash, “Has Rennie said
anything to you? About me?”
Ashlin shifts in her seat, avoiding my eyes. “What do you
mean?”
“She’s been acting like a total bitch to me ever since homecoming. Is it because I got queen and she didn’t?” I bite my bottom lip. “I’ll give her my tiara if she wants it that badly.”
Ash finally looks up at me. “Lil, it’s not because of that. It’s
because you kissed Reeve on stage at the dance.”
My mouth drops. “I didn’t kiss him! He kissed me!”
“But you let him. In front of everybody.”
I feel like I’m going to cry. “Ash, I didn’t want him to! He
basically forced me. You know I don’t even like him. And . . .
why is she mad at me and not Reeve?”
Ash gives me a sympathetic shrug. “You know how she feels
about him. He’s her first love. He’s her Reevie. She’d forgive
him for anything.”
“But it’s not fair,” I whisper.
“Tell her you’re sorry,” Ashlin says. “Tell her you’d never
think of Reeve like that.”
I frown and rock back in my seat. Maybe that would make it
better, but I kind of don’t think so. “That’s the thing,” I say. “I
shouldn’t have to.”
CHAP
TER THREE

It’s the end of the week, thank goodness, and
I’m on my way out of school, totally and completely exhausted
from playing catch-up with all my classes. When I hear Kat
scream from the parking lot. It’s a playful scream, not a scared
one or anything. I glance around and spot her a few feet away,
cigarette clenched between her teeth, trying to pull a flannel
shirt off some guy.

I recognize the guy, sort of. I don’t know his name, but
I always see him wandering aimlessly around the school
grounds. I don’t think he has any classes. Or if he does, his
teachers must be pretty liberal with their attendance sheets.

Kat could be on the Jar Island wrestling team, she’s so light
on her feet. She keeps moving, bouncing on her toes, twisting
left and right as she works the back of the flannel up over the
boy’s head. I bet her brother, Pat, taught her how to do that.

The guy is unsteady, and also it seems like he doesn’t exactly
know how to fight back against a girl. Kat definitely takes
advantage of it. She stays aggressive, tugging and pulling until
she has most of the flannel free, distracting him by poking him
in the ribs or pulling out the rubber band that’s holding back
his shoulder-length hair. It doesn’t take long before all he’s left
clinging to is one tiny bit of sleeve.

Kat plants her feet like she’s preparing for a serious game of tugof-war. She warns him, “It’s gonna rip if you don’t let go, Dan.”
“All right, all right,” the guy—Dan, I guess—finally concedes.
Kat lets out a howl of victory and does a spin, whipping the
flannel around over her head like a lasso. “This is a teachable
moment, Dan. When I want something, I take it. Boom. End of
story.” Dan’s face turns bright pink. I bust up laughing because
she’s so crazy.
Kat must hear me, because immediately she looks over to
where I’m standing. She nudges her chin my way the slightest
bit. I smile back, quick, and am about to climb on my bike and
ride away, when Kat does something surprising.
She holds up a finger, like I should wait up for her.
It happens so fast I wonder if maybe I imagined it. We haven’t
really ever done this before. Acknowledge each other in public,
out in the open. I guess we can now, since our whole revenge
plan is over. But I take out the book I need to read for English
class and flip through it, so I don’t look obvious. I watch as she
grinds out her cigarette.
“Come on, Kat. Give it back.”
Kat puts it on over her sweatshirt. “But I want to wear it.
I promise to bring it back on Monday. And then it will smell
like me.”
He pretends to be annoyed, but I can tell he likes her by the
way he gives in so quick. “You want a ride home?”
“Nah. I’m gonna walk. But can I bum one more smoke?”
She doesn’t wait for him to give her a cigarette. She takes it and
tucks it behind her ear.
Then she heads over toward the bike path.
I put my book away and start walking slow, pushing my bike
along, waiting for her to catch up. We probably should still be
careful.
“You hanging in there, Mary?” she asks when she gets close.
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “Pretty much.”
“Did you see Reeve much this week?”
“I tried not to, actually.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and
keep my eyes on the ground. “Hey. Um, I heard some people
talking, and they said Reeve might lose all his football scholarships because of his injury.” I feel my lip quiver as soon as the
words are out. “Is it true?”
Kat shrugs. “Maybe. But maybe not, you know? It’s not
like he
lost
a leg. It’s a break. And not even a bad one at that.
My brother broke his femur once during a dirt-bike race. Now
his left leg is half an inch shorter than his right.” Her voice is
strangely sober. I feel her eyes linger on me; it’s like she’s waiting
to see if I’m going to break down again. I lift my chin and manage a weak smile, even though I know I’ve got tears in my eyes.
Then it’s Kat who looks away. She steps off the bike path and
rips a handful of browning leaves off a low-hanging tree branch.
“It’ll all be okay. Trust me. Reeve will figure something out. The
kid always does.”
I nod,
yes, sure,
because what else can I say? I’ll figure things
out too. I managed to survive the week. That’s something.
I decide it’s best if I change the subject. “Who’s that guy you
were talking to?” I ask her. “Do you like him?”
“Please. Dan?” Kat rolls her eyes. “Mary, I don’t need any
boy drama, not when I’ve only got, like, seven months left on
this island. He’s a temporary cure for my boredom.”
If only it were that easy. Finding a boy to like, one who’d like
me back. Kat’s had all this experience with boys, and I’ve never
even had a first kiss. I guess that deep down I’ve been pining
over Reeve this whole time, hoping he might finally think I was
worthy of him.
There I go again! Thinking about Reeve, even when I’m trying not to. It’s like a sickness.
“What are you doing tonight, Mary?” Before I can answer
her, Kat says, “I’m heading to the mainland to see a show at
my friend’s music shop. They’re a deathcore band, called Day
of the Dogs, and they do this whole call-and-response thing
with the audience where you have to scream at the top of your
lungs. I know you’ve got a crazy set of pipes.” She says this as
a joke, referring back to the way I screamed on homecoming
night, but neither of us laughs. “You should come. It could be
good for you. Release some of whatever shit you’ve been bottling up inside.”
I don’t know what deathcore is, and though I appreciate her
inviting me along, I think I should take things easy for now.
“I’ve got so much homework to catch up on. I probably won’t
be able to go out for a long time.”
Kat stares at me for a second, and I feel her putting two and
two together. She turns her back to the breeze and tries to light
her cigarette. “Okay, Mary. Look. I know you’ve been in a funk
ever since homecoming. Things didn’t work out exactly how we
wanted them to, and I get it, it sucks. After my mom died, I like
refused to speak for six months.” She sucks in a few drags and
then checks the end of her cigarette, to make sure it’s lit. “You
know about my mom, right?”
I nod. I think maybe Lillia mentioned it once, in passing.
Cancer. But Kat’s never brought her up before. And a little part
of me feels happy that now she has, that she feels okay sharing
something so personal with me.
“Yeah, I thought probably, but I wanted to make sure.” She
takes a long, deep drag and sprays out smoke. “So, anyway, that
wasn’t a healthy way for me to deal. Shutting down like that.
It wasn’t good for me. You can’t be sad forever, you know? It
wasn’t going to bring my mom back, that’s for damn sure. At
some point you have to move on.”
I stop walking. “How do I move on?”
She pinches the cigarette between her lips and shoves her
hands in her pockets. “You should, like, I don’t know. Join
some clubs or something. Try to be more involved in school
stuff. Bide your time until graduation.”
“Like what kinds of clubs?”
Her face scrunches up. “I don’t know, Mary! Clubs aren’t my
thing. It’s whatever you’re interested in. You got to put yourself out there. Make some new friends. Focus on the things that
make you happy. I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but you
need to get a life, because you’ve got another year here before
you graduate.”
She makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is. “I know you’re
right,” I say. “It’s . . . it’s hard.”
“It doesn’t have to be, though.” Kat leans up against a tree.
“You just do it, and you don’t let your feelings get in the way.”
She pats her chest. “I hardly ever think about my feelings. You
know why? Because if I sat there and cried over every single bad
thing that’s happened to me, I’d never get out of bed. Plus you
can’t change the past.” Her eyes find mine, and she looks at me
deeply. “We changed it as much as it could be changed, but now
the rest is up to you, kid.”
I pull my coat around myself. Kat’s right, I know it. I know
better than to wallow like this. I lost a whole year of my life
after I tried to kill myself over what Reeve did. I can’t let that
happen again.
“Thank you.” I say it and I truly mean it, from the bottom of
my heart. Because there is one big difference between then and
now. Now I have friends looking out for me.