Fire with Fire (Burn for Burn #2)

I know why she’s doing it. She’s on the outs with Lillia. She’s probably not even invited to the party tonight. If things were okay between them, she’d never reach out to me. Um, yeah. Thanks but no thanks, you witch.

Another text comes, before I can delete the first.

Pleeeease? Why is she refusing to take the hint? The fact that she keeps trying, even when I’ve blown her off . . . well, it’s making me feel bad, which is total BS. Because I don’t owe her anything. She’s the ass**le. Not me. She needs to get that straight.

I write back. Go f**k yourself.

I figure that’ll be the end of it. But she texts me back again, almost immediately.

One coffee. Java Jone’s in ten minutes? My jaw drops. Girl has serious balls.

There’s no way in HELL I’m meeting you at Java Jone’s!!! My fingers tap the screen so hard I’m afraid I might break my phone.

For all I know she could be planning some grand humiliation of me à la Stephen King’s Carrie, complete with a bucket of pig’s blood that’ll crash down on my head when I walk through the door.

Fine. No coffee. Can I stop by your house? For five minutes? Classic Rennie. She’ll browbeat you until she gets her way. She pulled that shit all the time when we were kids. Once, Rennie wanted permission to go to a midnight screening of a horror movie that was rated R for being extra, extra gory. Paige said no, but Rennie kept asking until the answer changed. Which, of course, it did.

I write back, all caps, DIE BITCH!!!!

Then I cram my cell between couch cushions, because I’m over it. I’m over this damn knot of lights, too. It’s Pat’s fault; he’s the one who chucks them in a bag every year instead of wrapping them up carefully. I dig in the boxes, looking for our tree topper. Instead I end up unwrapping the white porcelain angel from a shell of newspaper. I use the sleeve of my black sweater to dust the windowsill and then set it down. There’s a place inside to put a candle, one of those tea lights that come inside a metal cup, but we’ve never done that. I make a mental note to buy some of those candles. I’m not even sure where we got the angel, if it was ours from before or a gift after, but when I see it, I always think of Judy.

The doorbell rings. Shep slides off the chair and barks his way to the front door.

Oh no. No no no no.

I peek through the curtains and see a white Jeep in my driveway.

Hell no!

The doorbell rings again. And then there’s knocking. Impatient knocking.

I stand a few feet from the front door and shout, “Get off my property, Rennie!” through the wood. I wish Shep was a guard dog that I could sic on her.

“Kat, come on. Please talk to me!”

I press my back against the door. She keeps knocking.

This is ridiculous. Rennie’s somehow found a way to make me look like the idiot. The girl hiding inside, afraid to face down her tormentor. I swear to God . . .

I pull the door open, hard.

“You have sixty seconds. Go.”

Rennie smiles shyly. She’s got on an olive-green sweater, dark jeans, and some fringy suede Sherpa boots that look utterly ridiculous. “Hey,” she says, casual.

I don’t say anything. I stand there and wait for her to start.

Except that Rennie doesn’t do anything but stare at me, like she’s a person with amnesia, trying to remember who I am.

I burst out with “Say what you’ve got to say!” to get this moving along.

She bites her lip and nods. “Kat,” she says, and then pauses to take a big breath. “I’m sorry.” She raises her arms up like she’s offering me something, I don’t know what, and then lets them fall back limply to her sides.

I laugh, I can’t help it, and it makes a cloud in the cold air. “That’s it? That’s what you came here for?”

She lets out a sigh, and it sounds almost annoyed, like I don’t know how hard this is for her. “I know the people I hang out with haven’t made things so easy for you. Lillia, Ashlin . . .”

“Don’t.” I shake my head. I’m shutting this shit down right now. “Don’t you dare blame anyone else for what you’ve done to me the last four years.” I don’t say it; I growl it.

Her eyes flutter, and then she stares at the ground. “I . . . I . . .”

“Oh, come on.” I start pushing the door shut, because this is ridiculous.

Rennie takes a step toward me and uses her foot to block the door from closing. “Wait. Okay. Okay. I wish I could go back to the first day of high school and do everything over. I wish I could take it all back, Kat.”

“Well, you can’t,” I tell her. It’s way too late for that.

“I know I can’t. And that’s what sucks.”

I lean against the door. “You know what sucks? Your timing. I love that this apology is coming now, now when your whole circle of friends is completely f**ked up and you’ve got nobody.” I’m practically screaming.

She blinks a few times.

“Everyone at school knows, Ren. You and your precious little are on the outs.” I don’t know why I say that stuff about Lillia. I’ve made my peace with her; I’ve forgiven her. We’re cool now. But it’s like the anger is still inside me, somewhere, for getting dropped. “You picked her over me, so why would you think I’d give a flying f**k that she’s ditched you now?” I laugh, and it sounds hollow, but I don’t care. “I love it! Karma, baby!” I try closing the door again.

“Wait! Please, Kat. Just listen to me for a second. Lillia’s a duplicitous bitch. It’s almost psycho, how two-faced she is. I just never saw it before now!” Rennie looks so convinced, so sure of herself. In her sick mind, Lillia’s clearly guilty of something.

I stare at her, mouth agape. “Don’t you get it, you little idiot? There’s not an apology in the world that could make up for the shit you’ve done.” I can feel my temperature rising, despite the fact that I’m trying to keep cool. “All the lies you’ve told about me. The teasing, the bullying. I never deserved that. I was your friend. I never did anything to you.”

Rennie starts shaking. She wraps her arms around herself tight, but it doesn’t make it stop. She stares down at her uglyass boots. “Fine. You’re right. You’re totally, totally right. I’m getting everything I deserve.”

I don’t comfort her. Instead I say, “Eh, I’m not so sure about that, Ren. I mean, I hope you do get what you deserve. I hope things get a lot worse for you.”