It Burns Within Us | Wildfire Series Book 1

T W E N T Y - F I V E

B R E N

The grub from Richie's was some of the best in Fresno. Luckily, Beau emphatically approved after plowing through almost an entire pizza by himself. I wondered how he managed to stay so skinny. It was only a matter of time before it caught up with him. Eventually, all our bad habits did.

"Dude, I thought you said that your parents weren't loaded?" I asked after washing down a slice of pepperoni with a can of coke. Caroline was cool but not cool enough to let us throw back a beer with dinner.

"Yeah, about that." Beau shifted his eyes to the side. "I lied."

I laughed, shaking my head.

"I didn't want you to judge me, okay? I'm not just some rich kid," he said. "I did have a bunch of jobs in high school, and my parents didn't pay for shit." Beau rolled his eyes, and Caroline chuckled lightly from the other end of the table.

"They just didn't want you to be too spoiled," she said.

"It's damned annoying," Beau concluded before taking a swig of his soda.

We all laughed again—well, Caroline and I did—before chatting about Fresno and pizza and bubble tea. And for a minute, everything was normal, and everything felt right.

I tried to hold onto that feeling the next morning as I loaded up my Mustang with the few bags I had and pulled out of Caroline's driveway. I followed Beau's Range Rover out onto the highway, wondering why I'd ever believed he wasn't loaded.

The open road felt different his time. The wind attacked my face, chilling it in the best of ways. I was running toward something, not away from it.

Arriving back in Oakland, Beau walked me through details for the beach house one more time before heading to his biology lecture. I headed straight for our dorms. Stepping inside felt weird—like I was gone for an eternity. But I supposed time was measured more by what happened in it than by the minutes on a clock.

Nessa didn't say much when she let me into their dorm room to wait for Madie. She gave me a quick hug, a light slap on the arm, and then shook a finger at me. "Don't let me down, Bren."

A kind of strangled noise came up from my throat. "Trying, Nessa."

And with that, she left, closing me into her room.

I stared at the door and willed myself to stop shaking, but it seemed impossible. Most of my energy was in staying put and not running away. It wasn't that I didn't want to see Madie. Shit, I wanted to see her so goddamn. But an emotional hurricane pounded inside my chest, and who didn't run away from a storm like that?

The knob turned, and I stilled. Madie pushed her way into the room. I studied her head first, trying to find anything wrong. But she looked mostly the same. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and she wore some yoga pants and a zip-up. To most, she wouldn't stick out from the sea of other girls on campus, but I'd never been able to overlook her.