Page 151 of Burn

“You’ll never usually get to decide how you die, but you can decide how you live.” We’re all gathered around the table but turn and look at Owen dumbfounded, as he eats at bowl of cereal at four in the afternoon.

“That’s way too sophisticated for you,” Finn says, looking to us all as he laughs. Then he grabs the side of his head in pain. Took four stitches to clean him up, but an hour later he’s back in the house.

“Hey . . . I can be sophisticated.” Owen takes another bite of his cereal.

“No. No, you can’t.” Finn smiles as he scratches at his eyebrow and squints in Owen’s direction. “You eat Coco Puffs for breakfast.”

“So?”

“You’re a child,” Corbin says.

“It’s who I am.” Finn and I both look at each other as their words get heated . . . again. “I won’t apologize for that.”

“And no one will ever take you seriously on the truck because of it.” Some would venture to wonder what made Corbin so goddamn cold-blooded. I’d have to say he lost his best friend. He has a right to act a little cold-blooded from time to time.

Owen stands calmly, walks toward the sink and drops his bowl. The sound of his bowl hitting the counter causes us all to look up at him. “You may think I’m a child, Corbin . . . and that I don’t take shit seriously, but I think I have a right to. And fuck you. Until you’ve lived my life and seen everything I have, you don’t get to decide how I act or judge me.”

Corbin says nothing.

I wouldn’t doubt Owen would change things if he could. He lost his twin sister to cancer, and his parents haven’t been the same since. He deals with it by fucking women he doesn’t know and being childish.

When death happens, life changes. Your way of thinking is considerably different. And when you’ve experienced death as much as I have, it changes your personality.

“THAT MOTHERFUCKER HIT me!” Finn says, holding a rag to his mouth, cussing out Corbin over whatever it is the two were arguing about. “Do something!”

Corbin certainly wasn’t making any friends since he became lieutenant.

I glance up at him from my phone, smiling. He looks like hell, stitches in his head and now a fat lip. “What do you want me to do?”

He shrugs and throws his arms up in the air. “Something!”

“I’m not a cop. Call Kellan.”

“But—”

I hold up my hands when Finn starts to argue. “If he sets you on fire, then let me know. I know a guy who could probably put it out.”

I’m slouched on the couch with my legs sticking out in front of me, texting Mila. That’s when Finn kicks me in the shin. “Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick.” Reaching down, I rub my shin. “I just don’t know what you wantmeto do. This is Corbin we’re talking about. I don’t know why you’re surprised he hit you. Look at what he did to Owen earlier.”

“Tell him to get off his fucking high horse and stop acting like a goddamn warden around here.”

“What do I look like, your mother? You tell him.” I set the magazine on the coffee table. “I’m going to bed.”

“He likes you.”

I give him a confused look. I can’t remember Corbineverliking me. “Do you have me confused with Dr. Phil?”

“No.” Finn’s frustration gets the better of him, and he punches the wall. First time I’ve ever seen the kid this worked up. “Just . . . why’s he gotta be a dick?”

“All right.” Hauling myself from the couch, I then walk over to the kid and put my arm around him. “Let’s go fuck with Owen, and then we’ll think of something to do to Corbin. Sound better?”

Playing practical jokes always turns Finn’s day around. Though I can tell he doesn’t want to, he nods.

We sneak into the room when Corbin’s in the shower and put four cans of Coke we’d shaken up for a good ten minutes under the posts of the bed he slept in. Then we freeze Owen’s socks for the second time this month and put red Kool-Aid in his shoes. Last time we did that his feet were red for a week. Never gets old.

“Feel better, little buddy?” We’re walking back into the lounge when the alarm goes off.

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