Burn by Monica Hesse

Author:Monica Hesse
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471400605
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2014-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

30

When he left, she didn’t come out of her room to see him off. She knew she should, she just couldn’t. “I’ve already said goodbye,” she told Gamb, when he pressured her. And it was true. What else could she and Fenn say to each other that they hadn’t said a few days ago? And more importantly, how could she open her mouth again and not try to take it all back?

Instead she heard Fenn outside of her bedroom, just before Ilyf took him to the train station. She knew his footsteps. She knew the balance of his weight, and she knew, when she heard the softest noise against her door, that it was Fenn’s fingertips pressing against the wood.

Ilyf and Gamb had a party the night before he left. A small one. A sad one. It seemed the most counterintuitive thing in the world, to celebrate Fenn leaving. “It’s not a party,” Ilyf rationalized to Lona. “It’s a dinner that a few friends are holding for another friend because he’s moving on and they’re happy for his success. You should come.” Her message was clear. Don’t let you and Fenn ruin our whole group’s friendship.

But Lona couldn’t bring herself to sit in a restaurant and watch Fenn open goodbye presents, and be reminded in a dozen ways of all of the reasons she wanted to be with him. It would hurt too much to see his face.

Instead she spent that night in bed. And the day after that – sleeping, reading, listlessly finishing backlogged homework assignments that were too easy and didn’t seem important anyway. She cancelled a dinner with Talia, claiming she had the flu. She was sure Talia could tell that her throat was raw from crying and not from coughing – Ilyf must have told her what happened – but she let it slide. “Just this once,” Talia said. “And I’m calling you every day.”

Now there was a knock at her door. A rapping that turned into a pounding. “Go away, Gamb.”

“I can’t hear you—”

“Go away, Gamb.”

“I think it’s because this door is closed. I think if the door were open, I could hear you better.”

“Go—”

“Unless the problem is that I’m not knocking loudly enough. Maybe that’s the problem.”

She scooted off her bed long enough to undo the lock on the handle before diving back under the comforter.

Gamb’s face appeared seconds later, peering around the door. “Redecorating?” he asked, sitting on the edge of her bed, gesturing to the tissues piled on her desk and nightstand.

She didn’t answer, keeping her eyes on the physics problem set open in front of her.

“Lona, the stuff with you and Fenn is not really any of my business. Even I’m not too oblivious to realize that.” He grinned. “Fortunately, I am too oblivious to let the fact that it’s none of my business prevent me from making it my business.”

“What do you want, Gamb?”

“To drop off your mail.” He waved a couple of envelopes. She nodded toward her desk and he shoved aside an empty tissue box to leave them.

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