Dear Cassie Part 25

"That cigarette wasn't lit," he said, like his denying it meant anything considering the fire-breathing dragon staring us in the face.

"Well, Mr. Science, obviously it was," I said, wondering why we were still standing there, knowing it was only because we were both stupid and stubborn and didn't want it to be our fault.

"We have to put this out," he said.

"With what?" I asked. "You got a hose on you?" A huge smoldering branch fell and smashed my already burning tent into pieces like an apple smashed with a hammer.

I screamed, the kind of scream that embarra.s.ses you when it happens.

"f.u.c.k, Ca.s.sie," Ben said.

"Yes, Ben, f.u.c.k," I said. There was nothing we could do; the only water we had was in the canteen, which was in what used to be my tent.

"We need to get out of here. We need to tell Nerone and Rawe. We need to warn them," Ben said, his thoughts coming fast. He grabbed my hand and led us into the woods and away from the fire. He started running and I followed him, the heat dissipating as we moved farther and farther away. He kept turning to make sure I was keeping up, but other than that, I couldn't see anything but the back of his hair bouncing up and down as he ran.

A few paces before camp Ben stopped and looked at me. We were both bent over and out of breath.

"What?" I asked. I wasn't sure what I was expecting him to say, but it was certainly not what he did.

"I want to tell you about Andrew," he said.

"This is not the time, Ben," I said.

"When is the time?" he asked.

"Listen, if you want to tell me your f.u.c.king secret, then just tell me," I said. I was uncomfortable. I didn't want to think about why, but I knew. I could feel myself caring about what he was going to say next. It was a scary feeling.

"He didn't do anything to me," he said, exhaling. "I did something for him."

I waited.

"I lied for him," he said.

I waited some more, but he didn't say anything else.

"Big deal," I said. I'd lied for my brother a ton: when he was late for curfew, when he'd broken the back window with his baseball, when my mother's car had less gas than it had when she'd last driven it. Of course, I knew none of those lies made up for what I'd burdened my brother with. But I knew about lying for a sibling. I knew my brother knew about it, too.

"No," he said, "that's why I'm here."

"I don't understand," I said, even though I thought I sort of did, but that's what people say when someone is telling you something and you know they aren't done.

He exhaled, pus.h.i.+ng his breath out like he'd just put something heavy down. "He stole a car, but it wasn't the first time. It wasn't the first time he'd done anything, and he's over eighteen so I stole the car," he said. "I stole the car," he repeated, "just like I slashed that guy's tires the last time."

"Wait," I said, my brain going clickety-clack as I put his sentences together. "So you're saying you're not even supposed to be here? There's nothing wrong with you?" The last words spilled out fast. Faster than I meant them to, but I was able to stop myself before I kept going, before I added like there is with me.

"I wouldn't say that." Ben laughed. He didn't get that it made him different from me, separate from me. Whatever was between us couldn't be because he was not a f.u.c.kup. He was a good guy who did something because he loved his brother, like my brother had.

"But you're not here because of anything you've done," I said, feeling myself pull away from him. His allegiance to his brother was definitely something I could relate to, but not being a total f.u.c.kup like me, well, that was something else.

"You're no worse than I am," he said, like he could see it.

But he was wrong. I was. I was here for something I'd done and for everything I'd done. He was a good person and I suddenly felt disgusting standing next to him.

I could feel him leaning in to kiss me. I pushed him away. "No," I said.

"I told you the truth. Why are you mad if I told you the truth?" he asked.

"You don't understand," I said, feeling my voice crack. I couldn't even control it. My notebook was stuffed in my back pocket and with his admission I knew it would stay there. I could never tell him. He was too far from the kind of person I was for him to to ever understand. "You're not like me," I said quietly, "and when you find out who I really am, you'll leave."

"If you don't trust me by now, you never will," he said.

It was true that he'd done plenty to make me trust him, and I did, but I liked him, too, and that made me not trust myself.

"Ben, seriously, it's bad," I said, looking at my shoes, their laces not even tied because I'd put them on so quickly. "Worse than you think."

"What, did you kill someone or something?" He laughed, making his jokes again.

The irony made my stomach ache. I looked at him. I could say yes, but then he would really know. Then he could throw me away.

He reached out to hug me and I didn't move. He hugged my motionless body, my arms at my sides. "What's wrong?" he asked when he noticed I wasn't hugging back. He was really clueless. I guess all boys were. I guess that was how they were able to stomp on your heart without even noticing.

"I don't know," I said. How could I admit, You, you're what's wrong? How could I have let another boy become my problem?

"You seem mad at me," he said, stretching his whole body, rolling his neck.

"I'm not anything at you, Ben." I sighed. It was a lie, but it was all I could think to say.

"Oh," he scoffed, "that's nice."

"You need to go," I said.

"Okay, Ca.s.sie," he said, "I'll go."

I watched as he slipped through the trees and away from me.

Was that really what I wanted?

I gave him five minutes and entered the camp. It was silent when I got there. If it wasn't for the smell of smoke growing in the distance, filling my nostrils like something burning in an oven, I might have let everyone sleep. I might have crawled into Troyer's tent and listened to her crackly voice talk until the crackly fire came and got us all.

Instead I let out a bloodcurdling scream. I couldn't decide what else to do. I had to admit it felt pretty good. Maybe Rawe thought I needed solitude to get through my issues, but honestly what I needed was destroyed vocal chords.

Nez was the first to unzip her tent and peek out, but when she saw it was me, she zipped back up before even asking what was wrong.

Fine. Given the choice I probably would have let her burn anyway.

Rawe bounded out of her tent in her uniform. It was probably why she had come out after Nez-either that or she slept in it. I didn't want to believe she had heard me screaming and decided to take the time to dress, so I went with slept in it.

"Wick, what?" She looked confused, by me standing there and by me screaming. She was probably asking as much about why I was screaming as what the h.e.l.l I was doing there.

Rather than bother answering, I screamed, "Fire, fire!"

She looked at me strangely and I remembered that I was talking about something that was more than a mile away that she couldn't see.

"There was a huge fire at my camp," I said, trying to pretend I was out of breath. I held my hands wide like you might when describing the size of a fish you caught.

Her eyes went as big as if someone was pulling the lids of them on strings. "What do you mean, huge?" Her mouth sort of dropped.

"Very," I said. "Very huge, tent- and tree-destroying huge," I explained.

She didn't ask why. She didn't ask how. Thank goodness. Instead she started banging on tents and screaming, Wake up, fire, Wake up, fire, like there was someone in each tent named fire.

Everyone ran out looking flat-haired and bleary-eyed, including Ben, who had added the extra touch of taking off his uniform so he was wearing only his boxers. He either really wanted Rawe and Nerone to believe he'd spent the night in his tent or he was determined to show me what I would be missing if I really never let him kiss me again.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Nerone asked. He was in his uniform and it was wrinkled, which meant he definitely slept in it, as opposed to what I wanted to believe about Rawe. That made sense. He seemed like the kind of guy who would never take it off, like someone wearing a flag pin or something.

"Wick said there's is a wildfire near where she is camped," Rawe said.

"That seems odd," Nerone said, sniffing the air like he almost didn't believe me. Of course he would do that rather than try to get us to safety. Because he was a robot.

Troyer ran over and asked me if I was okay. Her lips didn't move, like she had a ventriloquist's dummy on her lap. I guess she really hadn't yet shared with anyone else the fact that she was talking.

I nodded slightly, even though that was really only true in the physical sense. Yes, I had avoided being burned alive, so as opposed to everything else, I guess that was a positive.

I hadn't noticed before, but Nez's nose was covered with a bandage, which on her actually looked cute. She watched Troyer and me but didn't say anything, even though her look said, Oh, so you're back. You didn't die a horrible death in the woods.

I looked at Ben. He was playing with the waistband of his boxers, which meant I wasn't getting any help from him unless what I was trying to do was remove his boxer shorts, which I was not.

"If there's a fire coming, we need to get out of here," Eagan said. "Most wildfires move at a rate of five to ten miles per hour, and that's way faster than us."

"Faster than you, maybe," Leisner said, pus.h.i.+ng him.

Stravalaci laughed.

None of them seemed nearly as scared as they should have been, but that could be because they hadn't seen my tent turned into a smashed-up sun like I had.

"Maybe she's lying," Nez said. "She's lied before." She looked at me but didn't say anything else. I could see the secret she knew just under her lips. I felt the needles start to form in my stomach, instead of their usual place in my fists, which meant I was scared. Nez was going to say something, and I didn't want Ben to hear. If she said it, it wouldn't matter that I knew Ben was nothing like me because he would know it, too.

He would more than know it.

It was easy for me to dismiss him because of what he'd done for Andrew, but I was pretty sure I couldn't take him dismissing me for what I had done.

Nez stared at me. She could say it right now. She could find me on Facebook years from now and torment me with this. As long as I lived I would have this secret and there would be people who would be able to use it against me because of the power I gave it. Because of the power it had over me.

"We don't have time for this," Rawe said. "Start packing up."

Nez walked toward her tent. She had spared me, but in some ways that was worse. She still held the secret over my head like a boiling pot of water she could pour onto me and anyone I was with at any time. Yet I knew she would probably never tell, because power was a hard thing to give up and an even harder thing to get back.

Rawe clapped her hands, trying to move us along. "Come on, we have to haul it back to Turning Pines. We can call the Forest Service from there and see what they want us to do."

Everyone started breaking down tents, packing up packs, tying up boots.

Nerone slapped on his pack. "I'll run ahead and make sure the van starts okay," he said, moving with the force of a stampede of horses through the woods.

I guess that means we are leaving. Where will they take us? Jail? Another camp? Or worse than that: home?

3 f.u.c.king Days Left T he Holiday Inn at the airport was where they took us. We're each going to fly home as soon as they can find an open flight for us. All I've wanted the whole time I've been stuck at this stupid place is to leave and now that it's coming early-even three days early-it feels too soon. Maybe it would feel too soon three days from now, anyway.

This is probably my final and absolute punishment while at Turning Pines: go home and face what I have to face even earlier. Surprise! Your life back home sucks more than here, in case you forgot.

The Forest Service was working on containing the fire and we were in one hotel room, the boys in the other, adjoined by a door that we were not allowed to walk through.

That was fine by me. I was still trying to figure out how I felt about what I now knew about Ben; still trying to figure out if I wanted to figure it out.

Even in our own rooms, we weren't supposed to do anything other than sit on our beds and wait for the phone to ring to let us know when it was time for one of us to leave. Nez sat on a bed, Troyer and me on the other. Looking at their faces it was clear I wasn't the only one scared s.h.i.+tless to go home.

Luckily, the airport we'd flown into was the same rinky-d.i.n.k one we were waiting to fly out of and likely wouldn't have extra room on the few flights that came through it. Even a twenty-by-twenty-foot room with Nez was better than going home. Sharing the closet with the ironing board attached to it with Nez for the next six months would have been better than going home.

I'm not better yet. How can I leave?

After we all showered, Rawe went to the vending machine to get us some breakfast, which meant we weren't eating any better on the outside than we had on the inside. Nez had her own bed because everyone hated her, Troyer and I shared one, and Rawe had slept on the loveseat at the front of the room.

Nez's honor of being most hated would have normally been bestowed on me, and it made me wonder if my time at Turning Pines really had made me soft. I mean, Troyer actually liked me. I actually liked her. In my old life I probably would have made her cry on an hourly basis. I definitely wouldn't have been the special chosen person she decided to talk to. She definitely wouldn't have been the special person I had decided to talk to.

Troyer hadn't said a word in front of anyone but me since the day before yesterday in the woods. I felt like I was in one of those movies where someone has an imaginary friend that only she can see.

We were supposed to wait for Rawe to come back, and not use the phone, and not turn on the TV, but honestly I don't think any of us wanted to anyway. We were sh.e.l.l-shocked. TV and a dial tone were a bit much to deal with when the lamp on the nightstand made us squint.

"What's the first thing you'll do when you get home, Ca.s.sie?" Nez asked, lying on the bed like she was lounging in an Arabian tent. I knew she was asking because she could tell I really didn't want to go home, just like she really didn't want to. I knew she was asking to remind me of this.

"Dunno, Nez, who's the first person you'll do when you get home?" It was easier to just deflect. I couldn't get past crawling into my bed and pulling the covers over my head and sleeping for the rest of my life.

Doing anything, going anywhere in Collinsville meant possibly running into Amy. Into her apologies about Aaron, which even the thought of made me nauseous. I wasn't angry at Amy anymore. I understood more than ever why she did what she did, but because of what I knew about her and Aaron, I didn't think I could ever be her friend again.

I had enough reminders of what had happened with Aaron without a living, breathing one in my face asking me for forgiveness.

"Funny," Nez said. "I think we know what Troyer's not going to do."

I didn't respond. I wasn't in the mood to fight with Nez. It made me nervous. I had bigger problems now.

Troyer went into the bathroom and started the shower. It had to be the fifth shower she'd taken since we arrived last night. It seemed excessive, but I understood why. It was the only place in this room you could actually be alone.

I looked at Nez, her black hair so clean and s.h.i.+ny from her own recent shower, it looked like an oil slick on water.

"You're not really going to tell anyone about me, are you?" I whispered. It was what I had been thinking since the day before, dreading since the day before.

Nez turned to me, her head c.o.c.ked and waiting. "You really are stupid." She laughed.

I was about to say, f.u.c.k you Nez, you're the one who's stupid, like I normally would, but I knew if I did that it would just take us around in our circle of hate and insults again. I needed answers.