Burn Before Reading(42)

“I don’t stare!” I insist, and follow Fitz back up to his room. Fitz peeks into Burn’s room, balancing his food precariously.

“Burn, please tell me whether or not Wolf stares at Beatrix a lot.”

Burn, pressing nearly four hundred pounds on his weight machine, looks up, sweat dripping into his eyes.

“He stares at Bee a lot,” He says, without a single sign of exertion in his voice. Fitz turns to me and smiles.

“See?”

He skips back to his room as best he can while carrying a plate, and I skulk after him.

“This is a conspiracy,” I decide. “Between you two.”

“I can assure you, Wolf, love is no conspiracy. It’s just hormones.” Fitz crams half the pocket into his mouth. He eats like a vacuum in a fifty-year-old attic. He swallows with much difficulty and sighs. “Oh, c’mon, don’t give me that look. It’s been years since Mark, okay? Me and Burn just want to see you happy.”

“Being with some girl won’t make me happy,” I cross my arms over my chest.

“She isn’t just ‘some girl’! She’s Beatrix Cruz! Our scholarshipper! She wrote that essay you obsess over constantly!”

“I don’t…obsess.” I hiss.

“Wolf, please. You’re acting like you don’t know I hack your webcam to spy on you four days out of the week.”

“You –” My skin starts crawling. “You what?”

“Don’t worry,” He throws his hands up. “I have my algorithms check first before I peek, so your jerk-off privacy is safe.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I knead the space between my eyebrows, trying desperately to stop the irritated headache that’s forming. The sound of heavy metal dropping resounds, and then Burn comes out, wiping his face with a towel.

“She ran away,” He says. “After the fight.”

“Poor thing,” Fitz pouts. “I’d run away too, if I saw Wolf lose it like that.”

I point at him. “Look – keep your nose out of my business. I don’t need you making my life harder than you do already.”

Fitz salutes, and as I stomp off I can hear him chirp ‘sir yes sir!’. I grab the webcam from the top of my computer and chuck it straight into the garbage can. I hear Burn – well, feel his presence, really, like a heavy cloud behind me in the doorway.

“What is it?” I snap.

“You’re losing it,” He says quietly. “That’s two people you’ve punched.”

“So what?”

“So,” He leads. “Maybe you do like her.”

“Or maybe I just feel like punching people.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

I’m quiet. Finally, I open my mouth.

“If it is her –”

“If it is her,” Burn interrupts. “You need to quit taking those frustrations out on other people, and just tell her.”

“I can’t.” I grit my teeth. “I promised myself it would never happen again.”

“That isn’t how it works, Wolf. You don’t get to choose. It just happens.”

“She hates me.” I snarl.

“I’d hate you too,” He says. “If you kept acting weird and aloof around me.”

I scoff, my body reluctant to acknowledge what he’s saying, but my mind lapping up every word. I know I’ve been acting weird around her. I know I don’t get to choose when it happens. But the thought of someone like me – broken and fearful and scarred – admitting his feelings to someone like her, who needs someone reliable and trusting and normal, is absurd.

“She needs to leave,” I say. “I need to kick her out of Lakecrest before she can ruin her life. It’s for her own good.”

“Or is it for yours?”

I’m quiet. Is it for mine? Life would be so much easier if she was gone. I wouldn’t feel this way all the time – tortured and torn between getting rid of her so she can stop living for her Dad’s sake, or keeping her close to me for my own selfish reasons.

“The first thing to do,” Burn says, like he can hear my thoughts. “Is get rid of that essay. And talk to her. Like a normal human being would.”

“I don’t need your advice,” I snap. Burn stares at me, conveying all his expression in his eyes – stern and doubtful. He leaves, and I close the door and savor the quiet. Before I know it the essay is in my hands again, and I’m reading it.

I’m not the sort of person who’s good at talking about herself. Focusing on myself gets a little overwhelming, sometimes. I much rather talk about other people. The way they smile, the way they laugh, the way they get mad. I like watching it all. Just watching, though. I can’t really get into people, right now. They suck up too much time and energy that’s better used for studying. But maybe someday – once I’m out of college, as an accomplished psychologist out in the world, I can go back to making friends. That’s my secret hope, anyway. I keep it in the back of my mind like a lighthouse beacon for when things get a little too dark in my head. That’ll be my reward once I’ve done everything I have to; get some friends, maybe fall in love and out of love and back in love. I don’t know. That’s the best part – I have no idea what’s going to happen. Anything can happen. My life is the Schrodinger’s cat, and I’m excited to see what’s inside the box when I finally get around to opening it.