Page 17 of The Truths We Burn

Rosemary grins. “I think he might like you.”

I recoil, not expecting that from her. “I was seconds away from breaking a nail off in his eye. I was going to waste a perfectly curated set of acrylics for a Hollow Boy. We were fighting, Ro. Or did you just not see that part?”

The blush that warms my face irritates me.

Rook Van Doren does not get to make me blush.Just like he doesn’t get to make me angry. He doesn’t get to see anything other than what I show him.

Rook Van Doren doesnotaffect me.

“There isn’t a difference for him. Flirting, fighting. It’s all the same for RVD.”

I shouldn’t care, and I don’t.

This is just a chance to gather more secrets, to uncover more dirt on the boys that are a mystery to everyone. The perfect people to have leverage on.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just refer to him by his initials. So what does that even mean? This is not kindergarten where boys are mean to us if they like us.”

She rolls over to her back with a sigh. “He’s the one I know least about. I know his mom died, and his relationship with his father is awful. But what I can tell you, from what I’ve seen over all these years, is he enjoys lighting things on fire, and his emotions are all the same. Rook Van Doren does not give attention to things he deems boring. If he notices you, if you interest him, you’ll know it.” She glances over at me. “And I’d say he noticed you.”

“Yeah, well, he can point his attention elsewhere. I have no urge to come into contact with himeveragain.”

We fall into a pleasant silence, the comfort of being next to one another soothing not only her but me as well. Underneath this blanket, I think of what my life will be like years down the road, after I graduate this year.

Just one more school year, Sage. Keep it together for one more year.

And it’ll be your best performance yet.

Rook

Homecoming.

Where the entire town comes out and watches high school students drive around downtown on excessive floats. Sports teams, homecoming attendants, local businesses, school clubs, anyone and anything involved with the school sits in these and waves as they pass.

I wonder if they know how stupid they look from the outside.

To each their own, but I can’t find the fun in sitting on the side of the road to watch teenagers wave and smile. Just say you peaked in high school and stay home.

All it’s doing is boosting the already colossal egos of my peers and their infatuations with their own image.

Music blasts through my headphones into my ears, the current song bouncing around violently in my head. My throttle hand tightens, pulling back a little more, spurring my bike forward with a sharp whine of the engine.

Wind pushes up my black hoodie, and the world outside is tinted light brown from the matte-black visor that is technically illegal to use on the road, but I doubt any police car would be able to chase me down on this thing.

Riding is a blank space. Even when I’m high, I’m still filled with thoughts and memories. But when I’m riding, everything is gone. I’m a complete white sheet with nothing scribbled on me.

It’s the nearest thing to flying unaided that anyone will ever know.

The speedometer’s hand ticks past eighty-five, climbing higher every second. There’s a thrill in knowing if I tilt the wrong way by even an inch, I’ll become another piece of the pavement. Nothing but a road-burnt pancake.

That’s the thing about fear. At the root, it’s just the fear of dying, right? You’re not scared of the actual experience, just the aftermath.

So fear doesn’t work for me.We found out early in our lives that fear doesn’t work on any of us.Not when you’re already dead on the inside. When you’re racing the Grim Reaper to the grave. When you could not care less if the world ever saw your existence ever again.

Adrenaline junkies on an intense scale.

For me, any chance to either hurt myself or put myself in a situation that would increase my epinephrine levels, I would do in a heartbeat. There is just something about that natural high that makes me feel electric.It makes me feel like my body is on fire, and I love that feeling.

My body leans with a curve, emerging through the soaring pine trees and heading into the town of Ponderosa Springs. It’s a square of sorts, and right now everyone and their mother is on the east side of this shit swamp.