Ashes to Ashes (Burn for Burn 3)

Chapter Sixteen

KAT

I CRASH INTO MY HOMEROOM seat, tuck my headphones into my ears, and lay my head down so my cheek is on my desk. Then I press play and turn the volume up and up and up, basically as loud as it can go. The kids milling around hear it too, because they turn and look my way for a second. Then they go back to their business of being annoying, and I go back to my business of ignoring them.

I close my eyes and try to fall asleep, but the fluorescent lighting in here is just too awful. It colors the backs of my eyelids acid yellow. So I’m forced to watch the girls parade into the room like a silent movie scored by my favorite punk band from Germany, Umlaut Suicide.

I don’t know exactly when this became the thing at our high school, but every February 14 everyone with boobs dresses up like a literal living Valentine. Red pleated skirts, pink fuzzy sweaters, white kneesocks with hearts running up the backs. They do their hair up special, barrel curled or braided with ribbons or pinned up with sparkly barrettes. I shift myself and bury my nose in the arm of my hoodie, because the smells of all the different perfumes make me want to barf.

The boys, they don’t wear anything special. They have a different responsibility today.

Since the first of the month, there’s been a mention every single morning about placing orders for the rose sale run by the student council.

Yellow roses are symbols of friendship, sold for a dollar a stem. Pink roses are for crushes, at three dollars a stem. Red roses mean true love and are sold for a whopping five bucks a stem. On the morning of Valentine’s Day, a student council person goes to each homeroom and delivers the flowers, and then the girls compare who got the most.

It’s, like, the biggest affront to feminism, like, ever.

Back when I was a freshman, anyone could buy whatever color rose they wanted for someone else. But the “rules” have changed over the years as the girls have gotten more competitive. Now you can only buy red roses for a person of the opposite gender, unless you’re g*y, because we are very progressive. It’s effing ridiculous, if you ask me.

Now, I’m not trying to shit on the very idea of Valentine’s Day. I’m a fan of love. I’m a sucker for romance. Truth be told, when I’m home alone, I usually channel surf to the sappiest movie I can find, one where the sound track is just violins and there are, like, big passionate kisses at the airport, or on some rocky beach. Or, best of all, in a hospital bed.

It’s Valentine’s Day played out inside our high school that’s utter bullshit. I mean, I don’t think I could find even one or two couples in the whole school who are really, truly in love.

Love is not a big show of spending fifty bucks on some bullshit flowers as part of a fund-raiser for school. I’ve seen plenty of girls get a red rose from their boyfriends, and then they’re screaming at each other ten minutes later in the hallway.

They don’t know what love is. They’re just hopped up on hormones.

I’m sure some people think I’m bitter because I’ve never gotten a rose. First off, none of my guy friends are going to waste their money on dumb shit like that. You can get better roses at the dang gas station for half of what our school charges, and they won’t be wilted by eighth period either.

I’ve gotten my fair share of tokens of romance. Like my sophomore year, when Vincent Upton drew a heart on a pack of cigarettes and cut off my padlock with a hacksaw he’d stolen from the shop room so he could put the pack in my locker.

So whatever.

All throughout homeroom everyone’s eyes are on the door, waiting for the flower delivery person to come by with their cart. And when ours comes with a big white box, I pull my hood up over my head.

A few minutes later there’s a tap on my shoulder. I lift my head up, and there is the flower girl with a pair of cardboard angel wings on her back and an arm full of roses. I tug out my headphones. “Yeah?”

“Can you move back a little?”

I rock back in my chair, and she sets twelve yellow roses on my desk along with a card.

I look around. A few other girls have gotten a red rose or maybe two. But no one has a bouquet in any color.

I feel my cheeks heat up as I pick up the card. The delivery girl is standing expectantly, like I’m going to read it out loud or something. I give her a bitchy look and she leaves.

The bell rings, and then I gather up the flowers and the card and head to my locker. I stick them inside because I’m not parading that shit around for everyone to see. And later, once the next period starts, I discreetly open my card.

Dear Kat,

It was hard to hear, but you were right—my Lillia Cho oeuvre was definitely junior high material. If not for your musical kick in the ass, I don’t know if I would have ever found the guts to quit writing songs about Lillia and just tell her how I really feel.

Here’s to having “No Regrets.” (See what I did there?)

Rock on,

Your friend,

Alex

Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Chapter Seventeen

LILLIA

BECAUSE IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY, I’M wearing a salmon-pink sweater and tomato-red cigarette pants. My mom says I look like something out of a 1960s Italian Vogue, and she insists that I wear my hair pinned up on the side with her pearl pin. I’ve always liked to dress up special for Valentine’s Day, but now everyone does it and it’s slightly annoying.

The student council starts delivering roses during homeroom. It’s part of it—you get your flowers in the morning, and then you carry them around all day for everyone to see. Red for love, yellow for friendship, pink if you have a crush on someone. Rennie and Ash and I always send each other two yellow ones and one pink.

Last year I set the record for most roses ever received by a girl at Jar High. Twenty-four! A dozen from my dad, Rennie’s three, Ash’s three, one from Alex, one from PJ, one from my chem lab partner, Tyler, and three from a group of freshman guys I gave a ride home to once after school because they missed the bus.

I already know I won’t be getting a rose from Reeve, and it’s not just because we’re keeping things on the down low. It’s a point of pride for him—that he wouldn’t ever waste his money on something so cheesy and meaningless. I’ve heard him give the speech every year, how Valentine’s Day is complete bullshit. Also, in the past he’s always had more than one girl he was flirting with at a time, and it would have been drama if he’d sent a rose to just one girl or to all the girls. So his policy is to send none. Junior year, Rennie begged him to send her a rose, and he still refused “on the principle of it,” and she wouldn’t speak to him for days.