Page 92 of Burn

There is. She knows what I’m doing before I even tell her. It’s like she’s telepathic. Or psychic. I’m not really sure the difference between the two, or if there is one.

“No one said anything about stalking.” Izzy suddenly seems nervous, but her eyes hold, I don’t know, excitement? Is Izzy Bizzy secretly a rebel?

Well, you have to admit, the rebel idea isn’t all that surprising. She does have a tattoo the size of a toddler on her body.

She slaps my shoulder. “Are you serious? Is that what we’re doing?”

“I think he’s at home, but I’m too afraid to go there by myself.” Some dude in a Nissan cuts me off and I almost rear-end him. “Goddamn stupid fucking drivers!”

“Yet another reason I use water bottles. Spill proof.” Scarlet smiles when she picks the bottle up from the floorboard of my car. “So we’re going to his apartment then?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m so lost right now.” Izzy isn’t great at keeping up with conversations. She’s actually easily distracted. “Why are we doing this? I thought you said you weren’t into him very much?”

I look at Scarlet. “I’m about to make you feel a whole lot better about your life.”

“Doubt that.” She knows exactly what I’m referring to.

My eyes meet Izzy’s in the rearview mirror. “I lied. I really like him a lot.”

“So why are we going to his apartment? Wouldn’t you want to go alone?”

“Mila thinks he doesn’t like her anymore because he hasn’t seen her in four days,” Scarlet informs her.

I should have gone alone. It would have been easier.

“Ididn’tsay that.” Or maybe I did? Crap. “I just want to . . . I don’t know.” This sounds even worse when I try to explain it. “It’s been a few days and all of a sudden he stops coming by. I don’t get it . . .” My words drift with the thought of me being crazy and much like the emotional fifteen-year-old who faked her own death for a break-up. Did I tell you I even did up a death certificate?

I’m thorough with shit.

I sound pathetic. I really do.

“You just want to see for yourself,” Izzy says, our eyes meeting in the mirror again.

“Yes.”

“Cool.” Scarlet claps her hands together. “Now that we have that settled, stop by McDonald’s.”

“Jesus.” When you go anywhere with Scarlet, she demands certain things. Like McDonald’s. But I’m getting impatient, and I need to go by his apartment first. If I feed her first, I’ll chicken out and be left wondering all night.

Scarlet flips her hand at me. “You want my help, you’ll feed me.”

Izzy pops her head forward. “I could eat.”

The peer pressure gets to me and I drive twenty minutes to downtown Seattle, catch every stoplight, and manage to get the bitches with me their food. Which, by the way, could have fed the entire firehouse.

“Where do you put all that food?” I ask Izzy. I can tell by the way Scarlet is watching her, she’s thinking the same thing.

“I’m very active,” she says, shoving a handful of fries in her mouth.

I’m not at all surprised.

Another dozen stoplights and we find ourselves two blocks down from Caleb’s apartment. And guess what, his truck’s parked on the street. I’d recognize that lifted white Ford anywhere. I’ve been by here every day, a couple of times a day, all four days, and it hasn’t been parked there.

“Okay, so now what. You want us to go in there with you?” Izzy asks, trying to hold back laughter as she slurps down her diet Coke in a cup that’s as big as her head.

Just as I’m thinking about going up there with maybe some lame-ass excuse about seeing if he was home and saying hello, Izzy gets out of my car and starts climbing up a tower crane across the street next to his apartment where they’re working on a new building.

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