Trial by Fire

“Girls across the tri state area will be inconsolable. A national day of mourning is sure to follow.”


He smiled at her lazily, his mouth inches away, eyes locked with hers. Lily desperately wanted to forget the whole thing and kiss his cootie-infested face, but something held her back.

“How’s Miranda?” Lily asked, looking down at her hands.

“How should I know?” Tristan turned back to the steering wheel and started the car. His coldness toward Miranda disturbed her. Was this how Tristan treated every girl he was finished with?

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Lily offered. “I can tell her it was unexpected. That she’s got the wrong idea about us and what happened.”

“Miranda has so many wrong ideas in her head I don’t see how setting her straight about one of them will make any difference. She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, Lily.” Tristan glanced at the look on Lily’s face while he drove out of the parking lot and knew what she was thinking. “I know, I know,” he said with exasperation. “If I think she’s an idiot, I probably shouldn’t have fooled around with her in the first place, right?”

“She’s a lot younger than us, Tristan. Two years is a big deal,” Lily objected gently.

“I guess.” He sighed. “But trust me, Lily. Miranda’s not some innocent little girl. I didn’t, you know, ruin her or anything.”

“Ruin her? What century is this?” Lily chuckled. Tristan’s lips turned up in a tiny smile. Lily took a second to steel herself for the next question. “Were you still involved with Miranda the other night?”

He rolled his eyes. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. I never made any promises to her, and it was idiotic of her to think we were going to be a couple.”

They drove in silence for a bit.

“Just out of curiosity, how would a girl know if you were going to be a couple?” Lily was reaching—fishing for a commitment from him like she was one of his desperate admirers. She disliked herself for it, and as the silence stretched out, her question hanging like a bad smell in the air, she started to dislike him for not answering her. They pulled into Lily’s driveway, Tristan’s face never even twitching to show that he’d registered what she’d said.

“I’ll pick you up at seven for the party,” he said, then drove off.

Lily stood outside in the cold sea air after Tristan left. She liked the cold. She especially liked the clean, salty air that blew in off the Atlantic Ocean, which was pounding away at the rocky shore just a few blocks from her house. Cold, damp air cleared her head and soothed her skin. Luckily for Lily, growing up in Salem meant that there had always been plenty of blustery winds off the water.

When she was comfortable and cool, Lily turned and went inside the ancient colonial house that had been in her family since the Pilgrims had landed. Literally. Lily’s parents, Samantha and James Proctor, could trace their families back to the Mayflower, and both of them had family members who had either lived in Salem or the surrounding Essex County since there was such as thing as an Essex County on this continent. Sometimes Lily wondered if her raging allergies were from inbreeding, but her sister told her that was ridiculous. Tristan’s family, the Coreys, had been in Salem just as long as the Proctors had, and there was certainly nothing inbred about Tristan.

Lily put her stuff down on the kitchen table and listened to the house for a moment. “Mom?” she called, when she decided it sounded empty.

“Is that you, Lillian?” Only Samantha, Lily’s mom, called her by her full name.

“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?” Lily wandered toward her mother’s voice, confused. It sounded like she was out in the garage.