Burn Before Reading Read online

  “So you’re saying…there’s nothing I can do for him?”

  “Just be there,” I said. “That’s all.”

  Fitz studied his empty milk carton. I noticed the faint eyebags around Fitz’s green gaze. It struck me, then, that the Blackthorn brothers were going through a lot more shit than people knew. I was so convinced their lives were perfect and easy, and yet sitting in front of me was clear evidence that they weren’t. For all their money and connections and popularity, they were still just boys, recovering from the loss of their mother, confused and as lost as any of us.

  “Do you wanna,” Fitz ran a hand through his hair. “Do you wanna come and smoke with me? To get my mind off all this shit? I’d rather not be alone.”

  “You can’t hide in drugs forever, Fitz,” I said. He smiled, though something about it was a little broken, cracked on the edges.

  “I know. I know that better than anyone. Just let me have this now, okay?”

  I nodded, but refused to come with him. He finally gave up when he spotted Keri – trotting over to her and forcing his smile to be cheery. Had he always done that? Or was I just noticing it now?

  ****

  When people are sad, they deal with it in a lot of different ways. For Fitz, it was drugs. For Dad, it was closing the doors on the world. For Mom, it was staying out more.

  For me it was, and always would be, hiding in the library.

  The smell of books was the smell of my childhood, of old imaginary friends and new, hidden between the pages. Libraries meant quiet - gentle and soothing quiet - like the quiet of a low tide. Everything was orderly, too – the Dewey decimally sorted books, the A to Z labelling, the fiction and nonfiction and vampire romance sections. Everything had its place. When life got too confusing, I came to the library, because nothing about the library was confusing. The librarians would help you, no matter what you were looking for, they always had at least one answer, or a semblance of an answer. And sometimes, that was a lot more than the world outside could give me.

  Unfortunately, Fitz knew about this. He knew my hideout was the library. Doubly unfortunately, he’d told Burn.

  “Bee,” Burn’s low voice made me put my book down, and once again I was struck by just how damn big Burn was. He was tall enough to reach the topmost shelf, easily.

  “Oh, uh, hey,” I closed my textbook. “What’s up? Are you alright –” I stopped myself. He hated that phrase. “I mean, uh, how’d you find me? Wait, let me guess – Fitz.”

  “Fitz,” Burn agreed with a nod. “Come with me.”

  “If you want me to run my ass off again after this morning, in which you worked me like a racing horse, I’m gonna have to decline.”

  “It’s a surprise,” Is all he said. His face was placid, calm as always. His eyes were sleepy, giving nothing away about what he was feeling or thinking.

  “Is it a good surprise?” I asked.

  “I think you’ll like it.”

  “Simple and mysterious at the same time,” I sighed and stood up, packing my books in my bag. “I don’t know how you do it, Burn.”

  “Talent.” He answered. I followed him out of the library, admiring his height. He was like a giant striding among walls of books. Even the librarian gaped a little, then waved nervously goodbye to me.

  Burn led me across campus, over the short grasses and around the statues of important old dead guys, until we reached the parking lot. He opened the door of his convertible, and I hesitated.

  “Wait. The surprise is off-campus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to sell me on the black market for my liver?” I asked as I settled in the passenger seat.

  “No.”

  “Fair enough.” I clipped my seatbelt on as he got in. “Take me away. Just. Not very fast, please. But also make it quick – I should probably get home in an hour or so.”

  “Demanding,” He sighed. I smiled.

  “They don’t call me ‘Annoying Annie’ in this school for nothing.”

  He drove past the fancy sign that read LAKECREST PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL. I flipped it off.

  “They don’t call you that.” He said.

  “Well, they should. I’d prefer a mean nickname to all the weird looks and half-baked rumors.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  I’d spent enough time around him at this point to translate the Burnese; I was lucky that’s all it was. And he was right. It could be a lot worse. But that didn’t mean I had to be grateful for it.

  “Just because it isn’t super bad doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,” I said sagely. Burn grunted and took a left turn onto the highway, and I forgot how to breathe. Or, more accurately, the wind stole the breath from my lungs in that way that happens when you’re in a fast-moving thing and your windpipe is left open to invaders. I figured out how to breathe again, and let the wind whip my hair around. I watched the world flash by in autumn colors, the trees giving one last dying gasp of saffron yellow and burnt orange sugar.

  We entered a richy-rich suburb; you could tell from the way all the houses had roman columns on their porch and random, sleekly modern glass walls. Only rich people had glass for walls.

  Burn pulled over, and told me to wait. I did, twiddling my thumbs, only to groan when I saw who he was bringing back with him in the side mirror; Fitz, and Wolf. Together. One at a time they weren’t so bad, but together? Fitz thought I liked Wolf. I’d told Wolf we were squarely enemies. How the ever-loving hell was I going to pull this acting stint off?

  “If it isn’t our lovely mascot,” Fitz jumped into the convertible without opening the door.

  “Hi,” I managed. I didn’t look at Wolf, and he didn’t look at me either, though out of the corner of my eye I did see him hesitate with his fingers on the door handle.

  “Why is she here?” He growled at Burn. Burn doubled around and slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Because. She’s my friend.”

  There was a silence. Friend? Yeah, I could say Burn and I were definitely friends. He was easy to get along with, and helped me feel better about stuff. I think that qualified us as friends.

  Or, it didn’t. It couldn’t. A friendship wasn’t based on one person trying to get information out of the other. I’d started talking to Burn because of the agreement with Mr. Blackthorn. None of what we shared was built on a neutral standpoint. It was all me, trying to get what I wanted, through him. I knitted my hands around each other in my lap.

  Fitz laughed like something was funny. Wolf gave up and got in the backseat.

  “You don’t have friends, Burn,” Fitz corrected.

  “I do.” He said. “You should try it sometime.”

  “I have plenty of friends!” Fitz argued.

  “Ones that aren’t friends with you for your drugs,” Wolf grunted. Fitz laughed again.

  “Oh, you’re one to talk, Wolf. Your last friendship didn’t exactly go down so well now, did it?”

  He was talking about Mark. It was a low blow. Wolf flinched.

  “That’s enough,” I snapped. “Stop being nasty to each other. Burn has a surprise for us, so all of us need to grow up and try to act like we deserve it.”

  Fitz huffed. Wolf went silent. Burn started the convertible again, and we drove. I couldn’t help but sneak looks back at Wolf in the side mirror – the wind whipped his dark hair around. He closed his eyes once or twice, looking serene and almost peaceful, like the wind was sweeping him away to a better place. My stomach churned. Who gave him the right to be so damn handsome? I thought I’d locked all my positive thoughts of him in the bulletproof safe in the very back of my mind, but now they were threatening to break out all on their own, just by seeing him. It was garbage.

  “We’re not going to Seamus again, are we?” I asked Burn, desperate to tear my attention away from Wolf’s profile. “I don’t have his money for the dress, so he’ll probably break my kneecaps. With a teacup.”

  Burn
rolled his sleepy eyes. “Not Seamus. Somewhere more interesting.”

  I slumped in my seat. His version of interesting was probably another trail, even harder and wheezier than the one we ran every morning. But to my surprise, he took an exit that led to Baskerville – a small suburb east of Seattle known for its empty plains of…well, nothing. It used to be a farming community, but that got shut down quick with the advent of the dot com industry and all the kids moving into the city for work. So now we drove past fields and fields of fallow grass, little barns and houses dotting the landscape. The Cascade Mountains threw shadows on the horizon, tall and majestic and lonely.

  “Why are we in the boonies, Burn? You know me and Mother Nature broke up years ago.” Fitz complained. Wolf couldn’t take his eyes off the mountains.

  “Are we coming out here to hunt ghosts or something?” I asked. Burn rolled his eyes. It might’ve been exasperation, but at least there was more way motion on his face than usual. I took it as a good sign.

  Finally, Burn turned the convertible onto a little dirt road carving through a huge empty field. I squinted – in the distance I could see what looked like an old army barn – the kind they keep planes and stuff in.

  “Oh no,” Fitz suddenly moaned. “No, no, no –“

  “We’re going to do it,” Burn said. “Finally. Together.”

  “No! Are you crazy?” Fitz yelled. “Let me out of this car! Let me out right now!”

  “Are you gonna walk back?” Wolf inquired. Fitz slumped down so far in his seat he touched the floor.

  “Burn, I don’t ask for much as your brother. I just want a quiet place of my own, a nice cup of tea, a book –“

  “A computer to hack,” I chimed in.

  “A joint to smoke,” Wolf added.

  “A class to sleep through,” Burn said.

  There was a pause. Fitz groaned.

  “You make me sound like a monster.”

  “A whiny monster,” Burn agreed.

  “Where are we, anyway?” I asked.

  “An old friend’s,” Wolf said. “Of our mother’s.”

  Fitz stopped groaning at that. Burn pulled the car over to the side of the barn, and got out. I followed. Wolf got out too, but Fitz crossed his arms and laid sideways over the backseat, his freckled face scrunched up.

  “I’m not getting out.”

  “You are,” Burn insisted. Fitz sat up quickly.

  “You know I hate this place! I specifically avoid it every year you and Wolf go. You used her –” Fitz pointed at me. “As distracting bait! I can’t believe you, you – you charlatan!”

  “Small words,” Burn requested.

  “It means you’re a filthy liar and a huge asshole!”

  “I try.” Burn deadpanned.

  “It would be nice,” Wolf said. “If you joined us for once.”

  Fitz’s eyes darted between me and Wolf, then back to me again. I was still utterly lost as to what was going on.

  “You’ll get out,” Burn said. “And you’ll do it. Like the rest of us.”

  “I’m not like the rest of you!” Fitz hissed. “I don’t like flinging myself off into five thousand feet of air –“

  “Air?” I muttered. Suddenly it made sense. The aircraft barn, the big open space –

  “There you kids are!” A rough voice greeted us. An older man with tanned nut-brown skin smiled at us with all his wrinkles. He tipped the brim of his baseball cap to me. “And you brought a lady with you, this year. Good afternoon, darling.”

  “H-Hi?” I tried. “I’m Bee.”

  “Bee – well isn’t that a pretty name. I’m Jakob Petersen, owner of this fine establishment.” He smiled, his eyes going wide. “And Fitz! By the devil – I thought we’d lost you to the sands of time, my boy. Turns out those sands just made you taller and more handsome, didn’t they?”

  Fitz grumbled something that sounded like a ‘hi’. The man nodded to Wolf, and shook hands with Burn, who towered over his average height.

  “You gotta tell me your secret, Burn,” Jakob said. “How’d you get Fitz to come back after all these years?”

  Burn nodded to me. “Bait.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s great knowing how much I’m worth around here.”

  Jakob laughed. “More than your weight in gold, Bee. I haven’t seen Fitz in nearly ten years. He must like you something fierce to turn up out here again.”

  “She’s amusing,” Fitz barked. “Unlike everyone else here!”

  “Stop being sour about it,” Wolf snapped. “You got fooled. So what? Roll with it.”

  Fitz slapped a palm to his forehead. “I never thought I’d see the day where you, Mr. Stick-Up-Your-Ass, would be lecturing me on the merits of going with the flow.”

  “This is a sky diving facility, isn’t it?” I asked. Jakob nodded.

  “You betcha. Blackthorn kids here used to come with their mom – god rest her soul – every year for her birthday. She loved the adrenaline. Can’t say I knew a woman who loved it more than she did, that’s for damn sure. You still taking care of her bike, Wolf?”

  Wolf nodded, avoiding my eyes. We both knew he’d let that bike fall in the garage that day – saving me from injury instead. I was still mystified by that. He cherished that thing more than breathing.

  “Let’s get this show on the road, then.” Jakob clapped his hands. “How many we taking up today – four?”

  “Three,” Fitz squeaked.

  “Four,” Burn insisted.

  “Four it is. You kids wait in the office while I get everything ready. There’s a water cooler and a chip machine in there if you get hungry or thirsty.”

  “Thanks, Jakob.” Wolf said. Jakob smiled.

  “No worries, Wolf. It’s good to have you all here again.”

  Burn led us over to a small trailer that’d been refurbished with an air conditioner and a few couches. Wolf settled on one, resting his head on the back of it. Fitz fiddled with the chip machine, stuffing Fritos into his face nervously. Burn leaned against a wall and waited, and I skimmed my fingers over the brochures piled by the door – Petersen’s Sky Diving Company.

  “Are you afraid of heights, Fitz?” I asked. Fitz laughed, brittle.

  “I’m not afraid of heights.”

  Wolf looked up. Burn looked over. Both fixed their stares on him.

  “Okay,” Fitz relented. “So I’m a little afraid of heights. But you have a fuckin’ phobia, Wolf! You know what it’s like! Why are you forcing me to do this?”

  “Because,” Wolf droned. “Every time we did it when we were kids, you got so scared before it happened. And when it was over, you got excited and wanted to do it again.”

  “I don’t remember that!”

  “You probably blocked it out. It happens a lot to kids going through traumatic experiences.” I offered helpfully. I skimmed through the brochure, eager to lap up the extensive safety tips Jakob had included. Heights wasn’t my thing – any sane person was afraid of them – but least sky diving wasn’t anywhere near my house, or my family. If I was diving through the sky, I couldn’t be home, and no matter how much my conscious nagged at me to get home and make dinner for Dad, I just didn’t want to. Not today. Just for one day, I’d take a break. I deserved that much, didn’t I?

  “Okay, Madam Shrink, then what do you suggest I do?” Fitz asked.

  “Deep breaths,” I said. “One at time. Oh and whatever you do, don’t look down.”

  “Fantastic,” He threw his arms up in defeat. “I can’t wait to die in the prime of my life by falling fifteen-thousand feet straight down.”

  “Actually, it’s usually only twelve thousand feet for casuals.” I flipped through the brochure and showed him all the facts. “Also, there’s only a .0007 percent chance you’ll die skydiving, compared to, like, a car crash which is –“

  I realized what I was saying and shut up quickly. The Blackthorns didn’t seem to be bothered, though.
Fitz groaned and collapsed on the couch next to Wolf.

  “Stop being a diva,” Wolf said.

  “Stop being a holier-than-thou jerk!” Fitz snapped back.

  “So you guys do this every year?” I asked Burn. Burn nodded.

  “It’s better than visiting her grave.”

  “Why?”

  “It just…feels wrong. She never liked being cooped up.”

  The sound of something loud and rumbling echoed through the walls. Jakob walked in seconds after, dust blowing in with him.

  “Alright! The chopper’s ready. Let’s get you guys up there!”

  Wolf and Burn and I got up to follow, Fitz moaning as he shuffled out behind us. It hit me as we got closer to the source of the noise – this was really happening. My stomach uneasily twisted. I was going to jump off a helicopter into open air. Fitz was right – this was crazy.

  "It's the perfect day for jumpin'!" Jakob yelled over the noise. He led us into the aircraft barn, where a black helicopter waited, the kind that was bulky enough to fit a lot of people. Military helicopters, I guess they were? I had no idea. The sound was incredible - the massive blade whomping every time it went by. Wolf talked with Jakob about the engine of the thing as Burn got in the open door. Fitz patted the side of the helicopter and shouted mournfully.

  "Nice to meet you, murderer. I'm Fitz. Please, if there's any goodness left in your cold metal heart, don't kill me."

  "We'll be fine," I said, walking up behind him. "Wolf and Burn have done this a ton. And Jakob's a professional."

  Fitz shot a 'if only you knew' look at me. "I thought you'd have realized by now - just because Wolf and Burn do something a ton doesn't mean it's safe. Or sane."

  "Look, Fitz, I'm in the same boat. Er, plane."

  "Helicopter," He offered.

  "Helicopter," I put a hand on his shoulder. "I've never, ever done this before. You have way more experience than me, and I’m scared shitless."

  "Then why are you agreeing to this? You could just wait in the car. Burn would let you get away with it, I know it."

  "Because," I shrugged. "Skydiving is better than what I'd be doing right about now."