Page 5 of The Truths We Burn

I could fucking come just staring at it. Thinking about the destruction it would bring to the town, the people inside of it, the capability of damage it holds. And in that moment, I feel like the only person who could control it.

I take my seat between Alistair and Thatcher, tilting my head back and shutting my eyes for a moment, listening to everyone else talk.

“Are you four going to be at the homecoming fundraiser before school starts this year?” Rosemary asks naively.

“Possibly,” Alistair answers. “Probably not in the way you’d like us to, but it is a possibility.”

I grin, knowing what we have planned for that stupid fucking fundraiser.

“Nothing too illegal, okay? I don’t feel like bailing my boyfriend out of jail.”

“As if we’d ever get caught,” Thatcher adds.

“Maybe you can join us this go around, Rose,” I add, joking obviously because of her overbearing boyfriend who happens to be my best friend. “Might be fun.”

I can practically hear his grip tighten around her waist and his teeth grind from across the crackling fire.

“Over my dead fucking body. She stays out of the shit we do when night falls in Ponderosa Springs,” Silas says.

“When night falls? Is this where we scoot in closer and tell ghost stories?”

“Fuck off, Rook. You know what I mean. She doesn’t need to get involved with that shit.”

“I can handle myself, you know, and like Rook said, it might be fun, babe,” Rose argues, and I just know Silas is going to ream my fucking ass later for even bringing it up, so I might as well keep it going.

“See? Let the girl live, Si.”

“Remind me why I’m friends with you again?”

Laughter resounds into the night from four of the closest people to me. Laughter is such a strange sound for me, something so normal and human. You’d never think we would be the kind of people capable of the things we’ve done, the things we would do.

We are bad people who do very bad things. Very well.

I sigh, tossing my hands behind my head.“Because you need me,” I say. “Who are we without each other?”

The question soaks into their skin. While all of us have our own secrets, ones that we’ll take to our grave, there is a mutual understanding that connects us. One that others would never comprehend.

A darkness, a hunger that lives inside each of us.

Separately, we are just kids born with tragedy leaking from our split veins.

Together, we are utter chaos.

Sage

“You heard about what she did, right? That’s the reason we have a new principal this year. She was humping her way through sophomore year!” Mary tosses her arms into the air, a perfect pout on her lips, letting her glue stick fall out of her hands and onto the floor of my room.

“Meanwhile, I’m over here busting my cute ass. I’m taking every single advanced placement they allow, running two clubs, not to mention cheer. I should be student body president dammit!”

For the past two weeks, all I’ve heard from her is how Stacy rigged the votes last year, how she slept with the principal—I think yesterday it was a teacher. It’s starting to sound like nails on a chalkboard, and if I’m not careful, blood is gonna start leaking from my eardrums.

“As if it matters, Mary.” Liz’s blonde pony sways behind her as she focuses hard on the television, some soccer game going on behind our friend’s personal crisis. “It’s student body president. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Oh my God, Lizzy I know you didn’t just say that to me. The girl who cried for three days after winning a state-qualifying game ’cause you didn’t score?”

The never-ending game of who can out-petty who. The direction this is headed is south at eighty miles an hour. I’m tired of hearing it—if she keeps dwelling, it’ll become her catalyst this year.

“Can you pull it together for five seconds?” I say, looking over at them, popping my fruit-flavored gum. “You’re a fucking Turgid, for fuck’s sake. You wipe your tan ass with hundred dollar bills. Suck it up.”