Girls on Fire(39)

What the f*ck are you doing?

I thought I heard her voice in my head, and I answered out loud, “Shut up.”

“Not a chance.” That wasn’t my head. That was Lacey, really her, standing behind me, hands on my waist, pulling me away from Marco and his hot sweat, pushing me through the bodies, up the stairs, into a child’s bedroom, a sad parade of zoo animals peeling off its wall.

“What the f*ck, Dex?”

She wasn’t dressed for a party. White wifebeater and gym shorts, she wasn’t dressed for anything. No makeup. No boots. That was the weirdest part. Lacey in sneakers.

“I didn’t even know you owned sneakers,” I said.

“Are you drunk?”

“Started without you.” Then I was hugging her, hugging her and saying how much she sucked for flaking out on me, but now she was here, and sneakers or not, everybody dance now—I sang it, took her wrists in my hands and waved her arms in the air.

She shook me. “Sober up, Dex. What the hell were you thinking?”

“You love me drunk.”

“When you drink with me. When I can watch you.”

“You’re late,” I said, and we shook each other off. “And in the wrong place.”

“And you’re sticking your tongue in Marco Speck. We’re both having off nights.”

“Lacey. Laaaaaaaaaaacey. Lighten up. It’s a party.”

“I have to f*cking talk to you.”

“Right. Revenge,” I said, open for business. “Vengeance. Monte Cristo–style. Bring it on. What’ve you got?”

“What?”

“Nikki Drummond. You said you had the perfect plan. So, go on. Make this worth it.”

“Because you’ve got better places to be? Like in Marco Speck’s pants? Like I’d let that happen.”

I would have gone back down to the party then, maybe not to f*ck Marco Speck but at least to make a good effort, if she hadn’t stepped in front of the door.

“Fine,” she said. “You want revenge? Here’s the plan. We burn the f*cking house down. Right now.” She pulled out a lighter. I didn’t know why she would have a lighter, or why she was lighting it, taking one of the kids’ pillows and setting it on fire, both of us staring, mesmerized, at the flames.

“Jesus Christ!” I knocked it out of her hands, stomped on the fire, hard, desperate, stop, drop, and roll spinning through my head, and all those panicked nights I’d spent in fourth grade after Jamie Fulton’s house burned down and the school sent home a checklist of clothes the family needed in the aftermath, including girls’ underpants, size small. If my house burned down and my clothes turned to ash and the other kids in school had it confirmed in black-and-white that I required their spare girls’ underpants, size small . . . better to die in a fire, I’d thought.

The flames went out. Docs were good for stomping.

“Are you trying to kill us?”

“The house burns down and what do you think will happen? Nikki’s party, Nikki’s fault, and everyone will know it,” Lacey said, something wild on her face, like she would have actually done it, like she would still do it, if only I said yes. “It’d be all over for her. And think of the fire, Dex. Flames in the night. Magic.”

“Since when did you turn into a f*cking pyro?”

“That’s the plan, Dex. In or out?”

“Either you’ve gone truly insane, or you think this is all a big joke, and either way, f*ck you.” I snatched the lighter out of her hands. “This stays with me.”

There was a feeble laugh. “I wasn’t actually going to do it. Jesus, Dex, learn to take a joke.”

I believed her; I didn’t believe her. I was tired of trying to figure it out.

“Just making sure there’s still a little Hannah in my Dex,” she said. “Where would I be without that little voice telling me, No, don’t do that, Lacey, that’s dangerous?” It was the sorry, pinched way she said it, like a bank teller rejecting a loan.

“I’m not your f*cking conscience.”

She must have seen it then, how angry I was, how drunk and how done. “Come on, Dex. Come on, it was a joke, I’m sorry. Look, this was a mistake. This party. This week. Everything. Let’s erase it. Start again. For real this time. Burn our lives to the ground—” She held up a hand to silence me before I could object. “Metaphorically. Let’s really do it this time, Dex. Get away. Go west, like we planned.”

“Now?”

“Why not now?”

“I’m grounded,” I reminded her.

“Exactly. You’ll be grounded for life when your mother figures out you were here. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. Let’s go, Dex. I mean it.”

“Tonight.”

“This minute. Please.”

For a heartbeat, I believed her, and I thought about it. To jump into the Buick, aim ourselves at the horizon. To begin again. Could I be the girl who dropped everything and walked away? Could I be Dex, finally, forever?

Could I be free?

One heartbeat, and then in the thump of the next, I hated her for making me believe it could happen, because what could this be but another test, some wild dare I was supposed to shoot down, because—hadn’t she just said it?—that was my job, the wet blanket on her fire.