Page 10 of Emma on Fire

But she’s afraid that if she watches it, she might lose her nerve. So with a couple of clicks, she labels the file “Fire Video #1,EMMA” and uploads it to YouTube. She decides she won’t check the comments right away.

forest man2 hours ago

fight your demons, you are strong I believe in you

jakob234563 hours ago

i wuld watch her Burn

Alicelovescats3 hours ago

don’t do it—know that ur important, ur amazing just the way you are

sophia allemande4 hours ago

the thing about cutting is that you get a sick thrill out of seeing your blood but burning just sux

Ash5 hours ago

WTF is this bitch serious?

CHAPTER 8

Three days before the fire

EMMA FINALLY FALLS asleep at four in the morning. Sometime around seven, she turns off her blaring alarm. By the time she gets up, breakfast is over, and she has ten minutes to get to class on time.

She dresses quickly, runs a brush through her hair, and manages to make it into Ridgemont’s brand-new, state-of-the-art chemistry classroom a minute before the bell rings. She slides into her seat, stomach rumbling. She offers Ava Green, who is flat-out staring at her, a half smile.

Ava just blinks at her.

“Are you, like, okay?” she whispers.

Emma shrugs. She doesn’t even know how to answerthe question. If your mood only ranges from pitch-black to dull gray, what qualifies as “like, okay”? Is now the right time to explain what chiaroscuro is?

Also, does Ava actually care how she feels?

“I heard about your essay,” Ava says. “You weren’t serious, were you?”

No, of course Ava does not actually care how Emma feels. Ava is not concerned so much ascurious. To her—and to most of Ridgemont—Emma is not a person; she is a curiosity. A rich, pretty, white girl who isn’t flourishing, and no one can understand why a person with all of her advantages in life isn’t performing up to standard.

Ava Green practically is the standard. Ava’s one of the Ridgemont princesses, a shiny-haired girl from Connecticut whose primary interests are boys and gossip. And at the moment, Emma is good gossip.

Emma shrugs again. “I don’t know,” she says. She opens her notebook and starts pretending to look over her notes so Ava will leave her alone.

Ava takes the hint and turns to her other neighbor. “Did you hear about that insane essay Emma wrote?” she asks Eden Graham in a stage whisper.

“No! Tell me!”

Thankfully the bell rings and their teacher starts talking, which drowns out whatever Ava has to say about Emma’s self-immolation essay. Although other people areprobably talking about it, too, Emma realizes—they just aren’t doing it right in front of her face.

She wonders if anyone’s seen the video. Probably not. Certainly there wouldn’t be many Ridgemont students checking YouTube before breakfast. Their GPAs, though, maybe. Olivia reaches for her phone as soon as she wakes up in order to plot her data points on her follower graph, but Emma has never seen the allure.

“—so make your way back to the lab tables,” Ms. Geller is saying. “Partners are the same as last week.” Her tone turns threatening. “Cormac, if I see that phone in your hand again, I’m going to drop it in sulfuric acid.”

“Chemical formula H2SO4,” adds Simon, the teacher’s pet.

At Emma’s lab station, Elliott Jameson, her partner and Ridgemont’s star quarterback, says, “Morning, gorgeous.”

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