Burn Before Reading

by Sara Wolf

  “I did nothing wrong,” I snarled. “The truth will show I haven’t done anything.”

  Mr. Blackthorn smiled patiently. “Yes. The school council will assuredly conduct a thorough investigation of your behavior. With video evidence. I believe most of it is you harassing my son.”

  “Harassing?” I choked.

  “You verbally assaulted him on the morning of October 7th. There are multiple eyewitnesses to it. In addition, you threatened him and his brothers.”

  I frantically thought back – that was the day Wolf dumped coffee on that freshman’s head. I know I said some furious things. Would that be enough to get me kicked? How was that even fair?

  “We wouldn’t take you off the attendance, of course. But until you could pay the tuition, you would be escorted off campus.”

  “You’re a dick,” I muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “I said you’re A DICK!” I yelled. Mr. Blackthorn looked stunned. The steady clink of dishes being washed in the kitchen went silent, and his bodyguards shifted forward slightly, ready to pounce. “You’re a slimy dick and I regret ever accepting your stupid offer!”

  Mr. Blackthorn’s shock wore off, and he started chuckling. “Oh, Miss Cruz. It’s a pity we can’t be friends. You’re the first person to have the courage to tell me off in such vibrant language in, well, ever.”

  “I don’t care about courage,” I snapped. “I don’t care if you have ‘evidence’. The only thing I’ve done wrong is agree to your stupid plan!”

  He smiled. “And what plan was that?”

  “Spying!” I threw my arms up. “Spying on your sons and reporting all the shit they do back to you! You – You made me pretend to become friends with them. You told me all of their quirks and ways to get on their good side just so you could know what they were doing! Newsflash – it isn’t that bad! They’re just kids! They’re kids who lost their mom, and they’re a little fucked up, but we’re all fucked up, okay? They don’t deserve a dad who’s an awful, manipulative asshole!”

  “So you admit it,” Mr. Blackthorn said coolly. “That you were only pretending to be their friend to save your own sorry little scholarship?”

  I grit my teeth so hard I swear I heard them crack. “Of course I do! Yes! I did it! I admit it! Unlike you, I own up to my mistakes!”

  Mr. Blackthorn smiled at someone over my shoulder. “Ah, boys. There you are. It’s good to see Kristin managed to get you all here. She had to…embellish the truth, as you can see. Miss Cruz is perfectly fine – I’m not holding her hostage. In fact, she was just about to leave, wasn’t she?”

  I was stone. Steel. I felt like all the blood in my body had turned to ice. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, I turned my head over my shoulder to see Burn, Wolf, and Fitz standing there. They’d heard everything. Mr. Blackthorn made sure of it – he tricked me into saying it all in front of them. Burn’s eyes were deader than I’d ever seen them, devoid of all emotion. Fitz looked like he was going to be sick, his face white with shock. Wolf’s expression burned into me, dark and furious, like a midnight blaze.

  Mr. Blackthorn set me up.

  “Guys, listen to me,” I frantically scrabbled for words. “I didn’t mean any of that –“

  “Oh, but you did.” Mr. Blackthorn said smugly. I ignored my burning rage towards him – I couldn’t let the brothers leave thinking the wrong thing.

  “You faked it,” Burn said simply.

  “It started out as spying, okay?” I pleaded. “But the more I got to know you guys, the more I liked you. I really, really liked you. All of you. Nothing about that was fake.”

  Fitz dashed out of the restaurant, his face twisted.

  “Fitz!” I called, and moved to go after him, but Burn’s huge arm flung across my chest, stopping me. He looked down at me, more soulless than a puppet.

  “No. He isn’t your problem, anymore. None of us are.”

  “Burn – Burn, I swear to you –“

  He let go before I could finish, turning and walking out after Fitz. Disgust clawed at my every organ. I’d ruined it. I’d ruined everything –

  I turned to Wolf, and he loomed over me, his posture determined to be imperious and regal and above it all, but his face said otherwise. His face said he hated me, but he hated the wound I’d inflicted on him more.

  “You let me believe - ” He said. “ - for a single moment, that I was normal.”

  “Wolf –“

  “All this time,” He interrupted me, snarling. “All the kindness you showed me – was because you wanted to keep your scholarship.”

  “You were the one,” I managed. “You were the one who put it in jeopardy in the first place!”

  “I told you – because I was scared,” He lashed out.

  “Scared of what?” I shouted. “Of me? I don’t understand – why are you so scared of me, Wolf? What have I done to make you so afraid? You have to tell me! I can’t read your mind!”

  “And now you’ll never have to try,” He said. He turned on his heel, and pushed out of the doors. I was going to throw up.

  I couldn’t let it end like this.

  I dashed out after them, into the parking lot. I was just in time to see Wolf get in Burn’s convertible. I blocked the driveway with my body, the headlights blaring into me. I couldn’t see their faces at all.

  “Please!” I shouted. “Please, guys. Just hear me out –“

  Burn laid on the horn, and wouldn’t let up. I tried to talk over it, but it was so loud. They couldn’t hear me, even if I did apologize. Hot tears prickled my eyes. Even if it was useless, even if they couldn’t hear me, I couldn’t let it end like this. They had to know how I really felt, even if they never spoke to me again.

  “I was alone,” I shouted, the horn blaring me out. “Before I met you guys, I was alone! Completely! I wasn’t….I wasn’t happy, okay? And then I met you three, and – “

  I inhaled, my lungs burning.

  “I still wasn’t happy! But little by little –“

  Burn held the horn down even louder, if that was possible. I had to scream, but it drowned in its own sound.

  “I like you!” I declared. “I like all three of you – Fitz, you’re the only person in the world who’s got better jokes than I do! Burn, you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met! And Wolf –“

  I swallowed, blinking furiously to clear my eyes.

  “I’ve never had as much fun…as I had being enemies with you!”

  The horn kept blaring. They didn’t hear me. Nothing I could say mattered, now. It was petty and childish to keep them from leaving. I stepped aside, watching the cement as they peeled away. I didn’t deserve to watch them leave. So I watched the ground, instead, and the dark, round spots of water that dripped from my cheekbones and left imprints there.

  When the convertible was long gone, and my fingers and toes started going numb from the cold, Mr. Blackthorn came out. I heard his slow, even clapping, like he’d just watched a play.

  “Delightful, Miss Cruz. I’ve never seen someone offered everything good throw it away as readily as you. Not only did you manage to lose your scholarship tonight, but you also managed to make the three boys - who perhaps trusted you the most of any woman since their mother passed – hate you. I’m astounded at your multitasking skill.”

  I couldn’t say anything. My throat was raw and hoarse, my body was freezing. Everything was wrong, and cold, and painful.

  “You are dismissed,” Mr. Blackthorn sniffed when I didn’t answer. “You may come to Lakecrest one last time, next week Monday, to fetch your things from your locker and return your uniform. I expect it washed and pressed. Farewell, Miss Cruz, and I wish you luck in your future endeavors.”

  The heartless click of his shoes on the pavement dimmed, until all that was left was the sound of my own broken heartbeat.

  Chapter 15

  WOLF

  “I can’t believe it!” Fitz bawls. “She �
�� She was working for Dad the whole time? I thought – I thought I’d see it coming, but not her! Anybody but Bee!”

  Burn is deathly quiet, but his knuckles on the steering wheel are ghost-white. Fitz sniffs wetly, burying his face in his hands.

  And I watch the trees flash by.

  I’m so numb I feel like I’ve been shot up with Novocain all over. I can’t feel the wind on my face, or the seat beneath me. I can’t smell anything – not the night air, not the exhaust of the convertible. Everything is muted and senseless, a harsh, buzzing static ricocheting in my ears.

  She betrayed us.

  She betrayed me.

  “We should’ve known better,” I say. Burn looks up at me in the rearview mirror. “After Kristin we should’ve known Dad would try the same trick twice, but with a better liar.”

  “Wolf - ” Burn starts.

  “She’s probably reported everything to him,” I interrupt him. “Your drugs and hacking included, Fitz.”

  “You’re being awfully cold about this!” Fitz sniffs and glares at me. “I thought you like her!”

  I ignore the burning in my stomach. “Liked. Past tense.”

  “That simple, huh?” Burn asks.

  “She betrayed us,” I snarl at him.

  “And I’m just as pissed about it as you are,” Burn agrees. “But maybe she had her reasons.”

  “What reasons? There’s no reason good enough to fake being our friend, to fake being nice to us, to fake smile and fake laugh and –”

  All I can think about is the feeling of her stroking my hair, and I hate it. I recoil at it, at the fact it wasn’t real affection. It wasn’t real warmth, and I was an idiot for thinking it was. Fitz explodes suddenly.

  “You were the one who threatened to take her scholarship in the first place, Wolf!”

  “So you’re blaming me? Me, instead of the person who really deserves it?”

  “You did try to take her scholarship,” Burn says. “You know how much it means to her.”

  “Yeah,” Fitz interjects. “That was her ticket to NYU. And you tried to screw it!”

  “She didn’t deserve to be here,” I snap. “She didn’t deserve to be here, working her ass off for someone else’s mental health! What about her own? What about her own goals and dreams? She wanted to write, you know. Her essay said she wanted to be a writer, to go to school for writing, but she gave it all up for her Dad. What kind of life is that? I wasn’t going to stand around and let her do that to herself!”

  “So you threatened to take it all away,” Burn muttered. “And Dad offered it all back, in exchange for spying on us.”

  “I’d take it,” Fitz says immediately, wiping his eyes. “If I was her…I’d take that deal, too.”

  “So that’s it? All of a sudden I’m the bad guy?”

  “You forced her into a corner, Wolf,” Burn says.

  “What about you two? You told me she’d been running with you every morning. You think she did that because she likes it? She did it because Dad told her to.”

  Burn’s silent, eyes narrow. I point at Fitz.

  “You think she was actually failing her History class? You think she actually needed you to tutor her?”

  “We had fun,” Fitz defends sullenly.

  “Yeah, because she planned it that way,” I insist. “Everything down to the last laugh was planned by her, to get on your good side. Our good side. Every secret we told her went straight to Dad. Everything we did with her went straight to Dad.”

  They’re silent. The car ride feels so long and torturous, like I’m sitting in an iron maiden with the lid closed instead of a car. When we’re finally home, Fitz and I retreat to our rooms. And like always, Burn puts his shoes on so he can go for a run, somewhere far away from us; somewhere he doesn’t have to deal with our emotions.

  “Seriously?” I snap. “You’re seriously going to go for a run right now?”

  “What else is there to do?” Burn mutters, tying his laces.

  “We need you here,” I say. “We need to talk about this.”

  “Talking won’t fix what’s been done.”

  “Well it sure as hell would make us feel better!”

  “Us? Or just you?”

  Burn jerks his head to Fitz’s door, which is, for once, closed, all the lights off. Usually there’s the pale blue glow of at least one computer shining from beneath the door. He’s hiding. He always hides – in drugs, in girls – to stay away from confronting reality.

  Burn takes my silence as an opportunity to leave, and I watch him go with disgust; disgust at him, disgust at Fitz. At Beatrix.

  At myself.

  I retreat to my room and pull the essay out. I reach for the lighter I keep in my drawer and hold the fire to the well-worn paper, the wrinkles I made and the finger imprints on the sheets eaten alive by the flames. Her words are consumed, once and for all, and I watch the ashes fall into the trash can one by one.

  I was a moron.

  I was a moron for ever believing someone like me could be loved.

  ****

  BEATRIX

  This is where I am now, pen-and-paper.

  You’re caught up. That’s all the story I have, leading up to this night. An hour ago, I came home. Mom was, of course, gone, and Dad stared into the distance as he watched TV. I was numb, too, so I sat and watched a good hour of it with him, letting the bright, blaring commercials wash my mind free, for a moment. I’d never be free of what I’d done. But the yogurt ads and car ads let you pretend for a little while.

  “Dad?”

  “Hrm?” He grunted.

  “Are you and Mom getting divorced?”

  He went still for a moment, then let out a weary exhale. “I can’t lie to you, Bee. I don’t know what’s going to happen between your mother and I. It’s hard to think about.”

  “Yeah.”

  We watched another few mindless episodes of some sitcom. The guy lamented about how marriage was a ‘ball and chain’, and I inwardly flinched the whole way through.

  “I finished my writing,” Dad said suddenly.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty good.”

  “That’s great.”

  More silence.

  “What do you want for your birthday?” Dad asked. I thought about it, staring long and hard at the scan lines in the corner of the old screen.

  “A hug.”

  Dad laughed. It was faint, and so tired, but it was nice hearing his voice happy.

  “I think I can manage that.”

  I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around my sides, and we stayed like that, unmoving, unspeaking. We were both too exhausted to question the other about what happened tonight. I’m sure when Mom comes home – if she ever comes home – she’ll confront me about taking the car and sneaking out. But that’s wasn’t what was happening right then. Right then, I was hugging dad. If I closed my eyes I could imagine I was young again, small, like six or seven, before he got too sick. Before Lakecrest. Before the Blackthorns. Before all of it.

  “Do you remember the old playground?” Dad asked. “The one I took you to when you were young?”

  “The one on the bluff? Yeah,” I nodded. “I liked that place.”

  “Me too.”

  The commercials came blaring on again, selling a movie this time. An escape.

  “I don’t say this enough,” Dad muttered into my hair. “But I’m very proud of you, Bee.”

  I fought back tears until I realized there was nothing left to cry. I was dried up from the parking lot.

  I knew moments like this never lasted. Tomorrow, the next day – who knows? Dad might lock himself in his room again, or not smile at all, ever. But for now, he’s here. For now, in this moment, he really does feel like my Dad again, instead of an unpredictable stranger. I hold him close, and wish with all my might that time would just freeze.

  But it didn’t. It kept ticking on
, and Dad fell asleep on the couch. I extracted myself from under his arms (his arms are too light, too thin) and headed to my room. I opened my notebook, got a nice pen, my favorite pen, and here we are.

  I wrote all of this, everything I could remember. My eyes feel dry and shriveled and old. I don’t know what time it is right now, let me check my phone. Crap – it’s not turning on. I’ll turn my laptop. Four am? Sounds about right. I have an entire week before I have to face the funeral music of going back to Lakecrest one last time. Dad said he’s proud of me, but how proud will he be when I tell him I lost my scholarship? Mom will flip. Everything is wrong – this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I feel like I’m living in another timeline, the bad one, and the real timeline is continuing on somewhere without me, happily and naively.

  I can’t sleep. I try to, but Burn and Fitz’s faces haunt me, Wolf’s expression the most painful memory. I fucked up. I fucked up and the worst feeling is the helplessness – I can’t do anything to take it back. I can’t do anything to make it right again. Nothing will be the same, again. No amount of study or preparation can save this. No textbook has the answer. There’s no test I can take, and make it all okay again.

  My name is Beatrix Cruz, and no matter what anyone says, no matter what happens tomorrow, this was the story of how it went down.

  This is how Lakecrest ruined my life.

  This is how Wolfgang Blackthorn destroyed me.

  ***

  When I wake up the next morning – at 2 in the afternoon – Dad still hasn’t come out of his room. I’m perversely grateful for it; explaining to him why I’m staying home would be so much harder with him on one of his good days. Mom comes home in two days– theoretically. But two days come and go, me puttering around the house, explaining to Dad the second day, when he comes out of his room, that I’m sick, and staying home from school. He lets me off the hook, and we order pizza. Mom never comes home.

  “Maybe she got a hotel somewhere,” I offer. Dad nods.