Fire With Fire Read Online Free PDF

manage a weak smile, even though I know I’ve got tears in my eyes.
Then it’s Kat who looks away. She steps off the bike path and
rips a handful of browning leaves off a low-hanging tree branch.
“It’ll all be okay. Trust me. Reeve will figure something out. The
kid always does.”
I nod, yes, sure, because what else can I say? I’ll figure things
out too. I managed to survive the week. That’s something.
I decide it’s best if I change the subject. “Who’s that guy you
were talking to?” I ask her. “Do you like him?”
“Please. Dan?” Kat rolls her eyes. “Mary, I don’t need any
boy drama, not when I’ve only got, like, seven months left on
this island. He’s a temporary cure for my boredom.”
If only it were that easy. Finding a boy to like, one who’d like
me back. Kat’s had all this experience with boys, and I’ve never
even had a first kiss. I guess that deep down I’ve been pining
over Reeve this whole time, hoping he might finally think I was
worthy of him.
There I go again! Thinking about Reeve, even when I’m trying not to. It’s like a sickness.
“What are you doing tonight, Mary?” Before I can answer
her, Kat says, “I’m heading to the mainland to see a show at
my friend’s music shop. They’re a deathcore band, called Day
of the Dogs, and they do this whole call-and-response thing
with the audience where you have to scream at the top of your
lungs. I know you’ve got a crazy set of pipes.” She says this as
a joke, referring back to the way I screamed on homecoming
night, but neither of us laughs. “You should come. It could be
good for you. Release some of whatever shit you’ve been bottling up inside.”
I don’t know what deathcore is, and though I appreciate her
inviting me along, I think I should take things easy for now.
“I’ve got so much homework to catch up on. I probably won’t
be able to go out for a long time.”
Kat stares at me for a second, and I feel her putting two and
two together. She turns her back to the breeze and tries to light
her cigarette. “Okay, Mary. Look. I know you’ve been in a funk
ever since homecoming. Things didn’t work out exactly how we
wanted them to, and I get it, it sucks. After my mom died, I like
refused to speak for six months.” She sucks in a few drags and
then checks the end of her cigarette, to make sure it’s lit. “You
know about my mom, right?”
I nod. I think maybe Lillia mentioned it once, in passing.
Cancer. But Kat’s never brought her up before. And a little part
of me feels happy that now she has, that she feels okay sharing
something so personal with me.
“Yeah, I thought probably, but I wanted to make sure.” She
takes a long, deep drag and sprays out smoke. “So, anyway, that
wasn’t a healthy way for me to deal. Shutting down like that.
It wasn’t good for me. You can’t be sad forever, you know? It
wasn’t going to bring my mom back, that’s for damn sure. At
some point you have to move on.”
I stop walking. “How do I move on?”
She pinches the cigarette between her lips and shoves her
hands in her pockets. “You should, like, I don’t know. Join
some clubs or something. Try to be more involved in school
stuff. Bide your time until graduation.”
“Like what kinds of clubs?”
Her face scrunches up. “I don’t know, Mary! Clubs aren’t my
thing. It’s whatever you’re interested in. You got to put yourself out there. Make some new friends. Focus on the things that
make you happy. I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but you
need to get a life, because you’ve got another year here before
you graduate.”
She makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is. “I know you’re
right,” I say. “It’s . . . it’s hard.”
“It doesn’t have to be, though.” Kat leans up against a tree.
“You just do it, and you don’t let your feelings get in the way.”
She pats her chest. “I hardly ever think about my feelings. You
know why? Because if I