I would have gone back down to the party then, maybe not to fuck Marco Speck but at least to make a good effort, if she hadn’t stepped in front of the door.
“Fine,” she said. “You want revenge? Here’s the plan. We burn the fucking house down. Right now.” She pulled out a lighter. I didn’t know why she would have a lighter, or why she was lighting it, taking one of the kids’ pillows and setting it on fire, both of us staring, mesmerized, at the flames.
“Jesus Christ!” I knocked it out of her hands, stomped on the fire, hard, desperate, stop, drop, and roll spinning through my head, and all those panicked nights I’d spent in fourth grade after Jamie Fulton’s house burned down and the school sent home a checklist of clothes the family needed in the aftermath, including girls’ underpants, size small. If my house burned down and my clothes turned to ash and the other kids in school had it confirmed in black-and-white that I required their spare girls’ underpants, size small . . . better to die in a fire, I’d thought.
The flames went out. Docs were good for stomping.
“Are you trying to kill us?”
“The house burns down and what do you think will happen? Nikki’s party, Nikki’s fault, and everyone will know it,” Lacey said, something wild on her face, like she would have actually done it, like she would still do it, if only I said yes. “It’d be all over for her. And think of the fire, Dex. Flames in the night. Magic.”
“Since when did you turn into a fucking pyro?”
“That’s the plan, Dex. In or out?”
“Either you’ve gone truly insane, or you think this is all a big joke, and either way, fuck you.” I snatched the lighter out of her hands. “This stays with me.”
There was a feeble laugh. “I wasn’t actually going to do it. Jesus, Dex, learn to take a joke.”
I believed her; I didn’t believe her. I was tired of trying to figure it out.
“Just making sure there’s still a little Hannah in my Dex,” she said. “Where would I be without that little voice telling me, No, don’t do that, Lacey, that’s dangerous?” It was the sorry, pinched way she said it, like a bank teller rejecting a loan.
“I’m not your fucking conscience.”
She must have seen it then, how angry I was, how drunk and how done. “Come on, Dex. Come on, it was a joke, I’m sorry. Look, this was a mistake. This party. This week. Everything. Let’s erase it. Start again. For real this time. Burn our lives to the ground—” She held up a hand to silence me before I could object. “Metaphorically. Let’s really do it this time, Dex. Get away. Go west, like we planned.”
“Now?”
“Why not now?”
“I’m grounded,” I reminded her.
“Exactly. You’ll be grounded for life when your mother figures out you were here. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. Let’s go, Dex. I mean it.”
“Tonight.”
“This minute. Please.”
For a heartbeat, I believed her, and I thought about it. To jump into the Buick, aim ourselves at the horizon. To begin again. Could I be the girl who dropped everything and walked away? Could I be Dex, finally, forever?
Could I be free?
One heartbeat, and then in the thump of the next, I hated her for making me believe it could happen, because what could this be but another test, some wild dare I was supposed to shoot down, because—hadn’t she just said it?—that was my job, the wet blanket on her fire.
“Enough bullshit,” I said. “I’m going back to the party.”
She shook her head, hard. “No. Dex. We have to go.”
“If you want speed off into the sunset, you do it, Lacey. I’m not going to stop you. I’m going to have another drink. I’m going to have fun.”
“You don’t have to decide about leaving for good, not in the next thirty seconds, I’m sorry, that was crazy.” She took my wrist, squeezed hard. “But at least let’s get out of here. Please.”
It was the second time she’d said it to me in one night, and possibly in all the time I’d known her. It shouldn’t have felt so good to shrug her off. “I’m staying. You go.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
That was when I understood. She didn’t want me to be Dex, untamed and magnificent. That was her job. I was to be the sidekick. I was to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told, spin and leap and do tricks like a trained seal. I was to obey and applaud when appropriate. I was to be molded, not into her image but into something less-than.
Could I be the girl who walked away?
“Please. Go,” I said.
“It’s not my job to watch out for you,” I said, “and vice versa.”
“I don’t care what happens next,” I said. Maybe, finally, I was the one administering the test—maybe I was lying and maybe I wasn’t.
Lacey believed me.
She left.