Page 9 of Emma on Fire

If Olivia isn’t studying, she’s building her brand, expanding her audience, and analyzing algorithms. Meanwhile, Emma googles “climate crisis” and “teen mental health” and “modern day slavery” and “five stages of grief” and then writes essays about self-immolation. It’s possible they aren’t the best fit.

She peels off her socks and tosses them into the corner. Sinks into her uncomfortable desk chair. She’s never going to be able to sleep. She wishes she could blame Olivia’s snoring, but it’s Emma’s own brain that’s the problem. Thoughts swirling with nowhere to go. Words waiting in her throat. It’s bad in the day, but it’s gotten intolerable at night.

If only I could call Claire.

She’sstillpissed she never got to finish reading her essay out loud. But not because she wants the good grade she thinks she deserves. An A doesn’t matter when you’re dead. But if she can make her death matter, she’ll call that a win.

CHAPTER 7

WHEN OLIVIA MAKES a particularly violent snort, Emma considers the fact that posting a pic of her roommate in her CPAP mask could ruin her online identity as a sex object. Just the other day, Olivia surpassed ten thousand followers on her Instagram, and she shrieked that information at Emma, who was working on the part of her essay where she described the wicking effect of her body fat melting. She finds Olivia’s goals immature, but she can’t deny that the girl has an audience. Which gives her an idea.

Emma grabs her phone and sneaks down the hall. She tiptoes past the dorm monitor’s room, since Mrs. Vickers has hearing so sharp it’s like she’s bugged the hall with microphones. Once she’s safely on the other side, she breaksinto a soft jog. Passes the bathroom and the janitor’s closet. Hangs a right into the student lounge.

Lights out was two hours ago, so the lounge is dark and empty. But it still smells like microwaved popcorn, and Emma’s stomach rumbles. She skipped dinner again. She didn’t want to be ambushed by people asking about her essay. Plus food doesn’t taste as good as it used to. She brushes aside a memory of visiting Claire in New York—Claire holding up a foot-long Coney dog, begging Emma to dig in on the other end and see who got to the middle first. They ended up with noses touching, Coney sauce dripping off their chins, laughing.

She sinks into the cushions on a big soft couch and props her feet up on the battered coffee table. She holds the phone to her face and opens the camera. Selfie mode. Video.

She pushes her bangs off her forehead, but they slide right back into place. In early January, Emma cut off her hair. Just walked into the bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors and chopped off eighteen inches in two giant snips. Now she has a black bob, one side longer than the other. People say she looks like Uma Thurman inPulp Fiction,but Emma hasn’t watched the movie to see if they’re right.

She takes a deep breath. Her palms feel damp. She wipes them impatiently on her sweatpants. Wonders when she became the kind of person who has sweaty hands.Maybe it was about the same time she became the kind of person who plans her own death.

She tries one more time to brush her bangs aside. It doesn’t work. She presses the red button with her fingertip and looks right into the camera as she talks. Her voice comes out shaky at first. Quiet, too, but that’s on purpose. That’s because of Mrs. Vickers and her bat ears.

“Hey, guys,” she says. “I don’t know who’s out there. Who’s going to see this. But I have something to say, and I hope there are a few of you out there who want to listen. My name’s Emma. I’m seventeen years old. And today in class I read an essay about burning myself alive.” She smiles nervously. “Well, I readpartof an essay about burning myself alive. I didn’t get to finish it, because my teacher freaked out. Go figure.”

Emma shuts her eyes for a second to gather her thoughts, then opens them again and goes on. “I got to talk a lot about what happens to a burning body, which is—well, it’s gross. But there was a lot that I didn’t get to say. For instance, I didn’t get to saywhy. So I’m going to tell you why I’m going to do it.”

She stops for moment, listening. The lounge is still silent. She’s still safe. “I should add that if just killing myself was the only goal, I could find a nicer way to do it. Although maybenicer’s not the word. Maybe I just mean less terrible. Fire is literally the worst possible way to go. But that’s why it makes such a powerful statement.”

She pushes her hair back again. “And I want to make astatement about the state of our world. Do you understand how dark our future looks? No, you don’t. You’re not paying attention. You’re in denial.All of you out there are sleepwalking through a global catastrophe.A whole bunch of catastrophes, honestly. But when I light that flame, you’re going to wake up. You’re going to start paying attention.”

“Emma?”

Emma twists around, heart pounding. Silhouetted against the light of the hallway is Mrs. Vickers, hair piled in a gravity-defying bun on the top of her head and huge fuzzy slippers on her feet. Emma quickly hitsSTOPand slips her phone into her pocket.

“Um, hi, Mrs. V,” she says. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep.”

“But what are you doing out here in the dark?” Mrs. Vickers demands. “Were you talking to someone? Is anyone else up?” She flicks the switch, and the lounge explodes with light. She sniffs. “Were you using the microwave?”

Emma squints against the brightness. “It’s just me,” she says. “I wasn’t using the microwave.”

“All students must be in their rooms after lights out,” Mrs. Vickers says, not unkindly. “If they lie on their beds burning their eyes and boiling their brains on their phones, I can’t exactly stop it.” She taps a fuzzy-slippered foot on the shiny oak floor, eyeing Emma’s pajama-pants pocket, and the obvious bulge of her phone there. “Hustle back to where you belong, please.”

Emma pushes herself up from the couch. “Sorry, Mrs. V,” she whispers.

She tries to slink past Mrs. Vickers and scurry back to her room, but the old woman is too quick. She catches Emma’s sleeve in her grip.

“Oh, my dear,” she says, her voice now thick with sorrow, “I think about you, you know. I just can’t get over what happened to your sister. She lived in the room next to yours. She was the loveliest girl I ever saw.”

Emma ducks her head. “I know, you’ve told me,” she says softly.Like five hundred times.

“If you ever need anything, you come to me, do you hear? Just make sure it’s before lights out.” Mrs. Vickers winks. Then she actually pinches Emma’s cheek, like she’s a little kid. “Good night, child,” she says. “Sleep tight.”

Maybe it should feel good, maybe Emma should be grateful. Instead what she feels is an adult trying to replace her mother—who would never, ever have pinched her cheek and told her to sleep tight. Maybe tapped her shoulder and told her not to let the bedbugs bite—and if they did, to definitely let her know, because that meant the cleaning staff needed to be fired.

“Yes, ma’am,” Emma says. “Good night.”

When she gets back to her room, Olivia is still snoring. Emma opens her phone. Clicks on the photos app. When her video comes up, she almost pressesPLAY.

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