Fire With Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

sat there and cried over every single bad
thing that’s happened to me, I’d never get out of bed. Plus you
can’t change the past.” Her eyes find mine, and she looks at me
deeply. “We changed it as much as it could be changed, but now
the rest is up to you, kid.”
I pull my coat around myself. Kat’s right, I know it. I know
better than to wallow like this. I lost a whole year of my life
after I tried to kill myself over what Reeve did. I can’t let that
happen again.
“Thank you.” I say it and I truly mean it, from the bottom of
my heart. Because there is one big difference between then and
now. Now I have friends looking out for me.
    I do homework until I can’t stand the sight of my textbooks,
and then I go for a walk down to Main Street. A ferry pulls into
the dock, and the first vehicle to drive off is a school bus packed
full of football players. The windows are painted with different
numbers and trash talk like Drown Those Gulls!
    Sheesh.
I guess we’ve got a football game tonight.
I wonder if Reeve will go.
I make my way over to the field. I don’t plan to stay for long,
    but it’s easy to find a seat in the bleachers. There’s about half the
crowd, maybe even less, than showed up to cheer on the team
at homecoming. I guess that’s what losing your star player will
do. The first game after homecoming weekend, after Reeve got
hurt, we lost. Badly. Our backup quarterback, Lee Freddington,
didn’t complete a single pass.
    A group of cheerleaders is huddled together, practicing their
“De-fense! De-fense! De-fense!” clap. I figure we’ll be hearing
that cheer a lot more now that our team no longer has an offense.
The rest of them mill about casually on the sidelines, like this
is a practice and not a game night. Rennie’s sitting cross-legged
on the grass, looking at her phone. Lillia and Ashlin are near the
players’ bench, talking to each other. Lillia sees me and beams
me a smile. I smile back.
    The announcer welcomes the opponents, and then our cheerleaders line up and make their way toward the field-house gate,
to great our team as they take the field. I watch Teresa Cruz
navigate her way to the front of the pack. I guess since she cheers
for Lee Freddington, the backup QB, she’s more important now.
    Rennie sees this, and she positions herself right in front of
Teresa.
Reeve is the first one out of the field house. He has his jersey on and a pair of warm-up pants, the same thing he wore to
school today. As soon as he appears, everyone in the bleachers
stands up and cheers for him. It’s not the level of enthusiasm
that Reeve got at the start of the season. This is more muted
applause. Respectful. A courtesy.
Reeve tries to go as fast as he can on his crutches, but the
ground is soft from the rain we got this week, and his crutches
sink into the turf. The faster Reeve tries to go, the deeper he
sinks, and it slows him down.
The other players burst out of the locker room. They try to
stay behind Reeve, letting him still be their leader, but Reeve is
going so slow they bottleneck behind him.
Then along the side of the pack comes Lee Freddington. He
passes right by Reeve, as if he isn’t even there, and takes the lead.
It’s like Lee Freddington grants them all permission, because
then the rest of the players pass Reeve too. Reeve ends up being
one of the last in the pack, with Alex, PJ, the team trainer, and
the water boys who have to lug the coolers. I can see Reeve getting more and more frustrated. At one point the toe of his cast
drags against the field, filling the space between it and his toes
with clumps of grass and dirt. His face turns bright red, like he’s
about to boil over.
I stop clapping and sit on my hands. It’s stupid. I know it
probably makes me weak. It’s just that Reeve is so completely
unprepared for this. He doesn’t know how to handle being
on the outside. He’s so used to being the center of it all. It’s
almost painful