Ashes to Ashes (Burn for Burn #3)

I can’t wait to tell him. I smile my prettiest smile. “My name is Big Easy.”

I have his attention now. He’s frozen; his eyes are wide and alarmed. I show him the pocketknife, slide out the blade. “Look,” I tell him. “You kept it.” And then I try to kiss him again. I have to grab him by the back of his neck to bring our faces close together. But I can only get our lips to touch for the briefest of seconds before he’s pushing away from me, panicked.

I glance over my shoulder and watch the bleachers where Lillia sits. Alex has appeared next to her and he whispers something into her ear. As he does, everyone in the stands drifts far, far away into the background, as if they are on a conveyor belt. Reeve sees this too, and he looks distressed.

“Please, Alex!” he screams, and reaches out for Lillia. “Don’t tell her what I did!”

But they are gone. Finally he looks back at me. Reeve starts rubbing his eyes, as if he’s about to wake up. “You need to stay a secret,” he tells me.

I’m his secret. His shameful, terrible secret.

I scream, “You think you deserve to be happy, after taking my life? You honestly think you deserve that?” And my voice is so loud, it drowns out any other sounds.

Reeve looks stricken. “I didn’t know you were going to—”

Pointing at him with the blade, I scream, “You didn’t leave me any choice! You knew that I loved you, and you treated me like garbage!” I scream it so loud, the back of my throat burns like fire. Any decent human being wouldn’t do that. It’s crueler than cruel. It’s heartless.

I turn my head slightly, and there are Reeve’s teammates, rushing toward him with one of the big water coolers hoisted high in their arms. Reeve tries to back up away from them, and from me, but it happens too fast. They tip the cooler on top of us, and we’re both splashed with ice-cold water.

Except something shifts. We don’t get wet just from the water inside the cooler. It’s an impossible amount, an ocean’s worth. And the knife slips out of my hands.

Suddenly the water turns dark, dark blue, like midnight. We’re in the water around Jar Island.

He’s underwater with me, limbs flailing, mouth open in a silent scream. He tries to kick and swim up to the surface, where Lillia is peering down on us from the dock. But I’m not letting him. I grab hold of his arm, and I start swimming toward the blackness, toward the bottom of the ocean, tugging him down with me. Bubbles of air pour out of his mouth as he struggles to break free from me, but I’m not letting go. I’m Big Easy, fat and heavy like an anchor, sinking him farther and farther and farther away from the surface.

I open one eye and watch as Reeve thrashes around in the bed. It looks like he’s having a seizure, just like he did at homecoming. He saw me that night. He whispered “Big Easy.” He was afraid of me then, too. That the secret of me would come out. That everyone would know the truth, what a terrible, horrible person he is. Every muscle is taut as he writhes around, gasping for air. And his face—I swear he’s turning blue.

I don’t know why, but I pull my hand off his forehead. Reeve’s eyes immediately fly open and he sucks in a huge breath of air. He’s coughing and gagging, his eyes darting around the room. He clicks on his side lamp, sits on the edge of his bed, and tries to catch his breath. He’s panting. He pitches forward and sinks his head between his knees. “You’re dreaming,” he pants. “It’s only a dream.”

He lies back down and, after a bit, falls back asleep. I curl myself next to him and listen to him breathe.

Chapter Twenty-Five

KAT

AFTER CHUGGING THE LAST DROPS of orange soda in my can, I rewind the track about twenty seconds and click the playback button. The final strum comes on nice and loud—the very last note of Alex’s third song—and I slide up the treble just a bit on the mixer, so you can really hear the dirty vibration of him pounding that guitar string. It’s raw and messy, just like his lyrics.

We’ve each got one of my earbuds in, and we’re both peering at his laptop screen, watching the levels bounce up and down and then turn, abruptly, into a flat line when the track ends.

Alex turns his head to me and whispers with a half smile, “Are we good?”

I hit save and pull out my side of the earbuds. “We are so good.” I hold up my hand, and Alex high-fives me with a big grin on his face.

“You’re freaking awesome, Kat.”

“Tell me about it,” I deadpan.

Alex asked me to mix his audition tape, even though I told him that I didn’t know shit about music production. I mean, I sat in on plenty of bands screwing around at Paul’s Boutique with recording equipment, back when I used to hang with Kim. She and I would add hand claps or screams or whatever was needed to the tracks, but none of the guys ever let either of us near the mixing board to tweak the sound.

But Alex insisted. So I told him what software to buy for his laptop and picked him out a pimp microphone that cost more than a year’s worth of ferry tickets, and a new guitar pedal that we had to special-order from Europe.

He didn’t hesitate.

I’m glad he’s looking ahead and not moping around over Lillia and Reeve. He’s been texting me like crazy with lyric tweaks and chord changes, and he’s reworked all three of his songs according to my feedback. Everybody knows that the best music comes from bloodshed. Not one of those original Lillia love songs made the cut. It’s probably a good thing. He’s moving on.

“Well, that’s a wrap,” I say. “And now you can join me in the hell of waiting for an acceptance letter.” I’m about to shut his laptop screen, but Alex stops me.

“I’m going to upload them to the USC server right now.” Soberly he adds, “Hopefully they take me, because I can’t wait to get out of here. I don’t really see myself coming back after graduation.”

I let out a little snicker. “You sound like me. Anyway, what are you talking about? You’re coming back. Your parents live here.”

“For now they do. But my dad’s always talking about what a hassle it is to commute from the island to work. And, I mean, my mom loves California. She’s already talking about maybe getting a place in Santa Barbara while I’m at school.”

Okay, that I do believe. Alex’s mom is freaking obsessed with him. “What if you don’t get in?” I hate to say it, but I have to, because nothing is a guarantee. Shit, I can barely sleep at night, thinking about Oberlin. “Would they move to Boston?”