Between the Spark and the Burn Read Online Free PDF Page A

buttered rum and not-taking-no-for-an-answer.
    A minute or so passed with neither of us talking, and me just running my fingers over the necklace and smiling, and Neely just sitting there looking at the necklace and me behind it, like it pleased him in some deep way.
    â€œI found Freddie’s diary,” I said then, since I had to tell someone.
    â€œWhere was it?”
    â€œBuried in the stack of books on the library floor. Probably been there since she died. I would have found it years ago if I’d ever bothered to put those books away.”
    Neely laughed. “That’ll teach you.” He reached for my hand and then turned it over and started rubbing his thumb over the center of my palm, softly, slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he should be doing it.
    â€œI haven’t read it yet,” I said. “The diary, I mean. I couldn’t bring myself to get past the first line.”
    â€œYou will,” he answered. Quiet.
    â€œNeely,” I said, after a moment. “If I keep sitting here in Citizen Kane, staring at the sea and doing nothing about anything, I’ll go mad. A devil-boy with fiery eyes, stealing dreams . . . That sounds like as good a lead as any. I say we take it. And this time I want to come with.”
    Neely was quiet for a bit. Then: “You have, what, a week before school starts again?” he asked, not looking at me, still rubbing my palm.
    I nodded. I listened to his breathing until his eyes met mine. “Violet, do you ever wish that you’d never met my brother? That he’d never come here, that he’d never glowed you up in the first place and started this whole thing?”
    â€œAll the time. All the damn time, Neely.” I paused. “But I’m still going with. I want to find River. And Brodie. Both. I want to do something. Anything. I miss River. I worry about him. Sometimes I think about—I remember . . .”
    I didn’t finish my sentence and Neely didn’t make me. He just dropped my hand, went over to the sofa, slipped off his shoes, and tucked himself in.
    â€œNeely?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œDo you think River ever told the truth? Like when he said my sleeping next to him kept his nightmares away? Or when I held him in the attic, and he told me about your mother dying? It wasn’t all just lies and glow, right?”
    Neely laughed, a whispery, nighttime laugh. “Not even a liar lies all the time, Vi.”
    A few minutes passed.
    â€œNight, Neely.”
    â€œNight, Violet.”
    I didn’t fall asleep, though. My mind raced with thoughts of devil-boys and heroes and River and not-River. I picked up Freddie’s diary and started to read. My new necklace kissed the skin of my neck, and Neely’s soft breaths whispered to me from across the room.
    This time I got a whole lot further than the first sentence.
    September
Can still feel Will’s lips on me. On my neck, stomach, back, hips, thighs.
    If his burn is bad, if he is bad, then why does he feel so good?
    It wasn’t the first time. I can’t talk about the first time yet. Because it all happened, everything all at once—the burn, the pain, the pleasure, the fear—and it’s still jumbled up inside of me. I was a fairy-tale girl locked in a tower, waiting for the white knight to save her, but taking the first burned-up boy that came along.
    Glenship Manor. The library. The smell of books mixing with the smell of Will. His brown-sugar-scented slicking-back pomade. The citrus-smelling cologne he slapped on his beautiful face. The sea salt deep in his skin.
    Lucas’s steps. While we were behind the green curtains. I knew it was him. I knew it by the way he walked. Soft, but determined. If he’d guessed where we were, and what we were doing, he was smart enough to leave it alone. He was smart enough to know he didn’t want to know.
    Lucas.
    Lucas.
    Your love is gentle. Gentle as cool night