Absent (Katie Williams)

the burner girl that finally pierces my fog. When the last bell rings, I walk Kelsey out to the road and then descend from my death spot to Mr. Fisk’s classroom, where I stutter through the strange story of Lucas and the burner girl in the bathroom to the increasingly appalled expression on Evan’s face.
    “We have to tell Brooke,” Evan says. “Where do you think she is? Maybe the gym? The soccer field?”
    “I don’t think we should say anything,” I protest, well aware of all the other secrets I’ve been keeping from Evan, too. “Brooke already hates Lucas. This will just make it worse.”
    “But what if he does it again? What if she walks in on it? If he’s doing it on her death spot, it’s only a matter of time before she does.”
    And he’s right, I know, but just when I gather the words to argue some more anyway, a voice behind us says, “Save your ethical debate.”
    The two of us turn to find Brooke in the doorway.
    “I already walked in on him,” she says.
    “You saw? You mean, Lucas and—”
    “His latest disposable girl?” She makes an angry, ugly scoffing sound. “Yeah, I saw.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    “Don’t you apologize for Lucas Hayes. And”—she pauses as if deciding something—“don’t be angry at me.” Her mouth twists. “Or, on second thought, be angry at me. I would.”
    I shake my head. “Why would I be angry at you?”
    “Because.” Brooke’s gaze is so level and still, it’s almost like she’s forcing herself to meet my eyes. “Because I should have told you a long time ago.”
    “Told me what?”
    She bites her lip. Unbites. “About Lucas Hayes and me.”
    “I don’t understand,” I say.
    But this is a lie. I do understand. I’ve understood since I saw Lucas with the burner girl. I’ve understood from the moment he pointed to Brooke’s death spot and asked her to lie down. Maybe part of me understood before that. The meeting with Heath. The flooding of Brooke’s bathroom. Don’t say that, Lucas had said to me in the burners’ circle when I’d told him he’d practically saved a girl’s life. Because I didn’t save her, he’d said.
    “You were together,” I say slowly.
    Brooke nods, her face coldly pretty, the way sharp things are, glittering, daring you to touch them. “We met up. Like you. We hooked up. Like you. If anyone else was around, he would ignore me. Like you.”
    Like you, her words whisper in my mind. Like you. “How long?” I say, and my voice sounds like an echo in my ears.
    “From the end of junior year until the day I died. He didn’t want anyone to know, though, and so no one did. I can keep a secret.” Her mouth quirks. “Like you.”
    “And that day? The day you died?” Evan asks.
    “It was Lucas, wasn’t it?” I say, thinking of the conversation I overheard between him and Heath in the bathroom. “He was the one who bought the cocaine. Who wanted to use it.”
    “Did he get you to try it, too?” she asks.
    “No.”
    “I’m surprised. But it was probably just a matter of time. He has a real nose for it, you know?” She wraps her ponytail around and around her hand, then unwraps it. Wraps it and unwraps it, like a boxer wrapping his fists. “I’ll be honest. He didn’t have to convince me much. I wanted to try it. We did it a couple of times together, after school, one weekend. That afternoon, we were supposed to go to his house because his mom was at work. But then Bosworth was monitoring the parking lot, so we couldn’t get out, and who cares anyway, right? We’d just do it there in the bathroom and find our way off campus once Bosworth left.” She pulls her ponytail across her face, hiding the crumple of her mouth and chin. “He handed it to me, you know that? Said, You first. And maybe something was wrong with it. Maybe something was wrong with me. I don’t know, but it started to burn. My whole brain was burning. My eyes.” She closes her eyes and exhales a shuddering breath. “And he watched it happen. He stood there staring while I died.”
    “And, when they found you, he said he didn’t know you.” I say the rest for her, the story everyone at the school knows. “He said he’d been walking by and heard a noise, like someone had fallen, and he’d gone in and found you on the floor.”
    “Innocent bystander,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Big hero. Who wouldn’t believe him? Everyone knew the kind of girl I was. No one even questioned it.”
    “He must have been