Emma on Fire

Chapter 1

Four days before the fire

EMMA CAROLINE BLAKE decides to drop the bomb in third-period AP English.

It’s not a literal bomb, obviously. It won’t blow up any buildings; it’s not even going to knock over a desk. But it will, she hopes, destroy something, which is the smug complacency of literally everyone here at Ridgemont Academy, an extremely elite, extremely expensive prep school in the foothills of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

On this beautiful spring day, six weeks before graduation, Emma is completing the first homework she’s done this semester—unless you count reading, which Emma doesn’t. Reading isn’t work; reading is escape. It’s an essay that Emma spent an entire week researching, then all night writing in a Monster Energy–powered blur.

It’s also the first time in a long time that Emma has felt like something that was happening at Ridgemont Academy actually mattered. She couldn’t participate in the excitement of the lacrosse team (once again) being on a winning streak, or the daughters of the one-percenters giggling behind their phones while they snapped pics of the “blue-collar hot” boy who had been hired to muck out stalls.

Mr. Montgomery, their young, bookishly handsome teacher, gave them the assignment as a break. (A break at Ridgemont doesn’t mean no homework; it means slightly easier homework.) He told them that because everyone had written such excellent critical essays on Anna Karenina, they deserved to have some fun with a descriptive essay.

Fun didn’t really seem like the right word, if you asked Emma, but since she hadn’t written an Anna Karenina essay at all, she felt like it was best to keep her mouth shut.

“Describe your socks,” Mr. Montgomery said, “or your first car, or the way the sun sets over the ocean, or what it feels like to be caught in a rainstorm. Use your personal experience! Be creative! Don’t forget specific, concrete details and descriptive language!” He seemed so excited, talking about it. Like he couldn’t wait to see what they’d come up with.

Emma considered fulfilling the essay requirements by using descriptive language and concrete details about the videos that her roommate, Olivia, uploaded to her OnlyFans account, but she ultimately decided that yet another naked teenage girl on the Internet wasn’t really the shake-up that Ridgemont needed.

Now, sitting in his class, feeling the warm breeze like sandpaper on her skin, Emma feels certain Mr. Montgomery is not going to like what she came up with. Which is totally fine with her. In fact, it’s kind of the point.

At the front of the room, nerdy, yellow-haired Rhaina Johnson is reading about her antique French horn and how she feels when trying to play Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony on it. The rest of the class is totally distracted, although a few students giggle when Rhaina describes the experience as “ecstatic.”

“It’s probably the closest she’ll ever get to an orgasm, amiright?”

Emma overhears Nathaniel “Chewy” Ballantine whispering this to same-named Nathaniel “Nate” Gourdet. Nate snorts appreciatively, not noticing Emma glaring at them. Not that he’d care if he did. Once upon a time, a scathing glance from Emma Blake would have meant something. But all kinds of things have changed.

Not one of them, Emma would note, for the better.

When Rhaina finishes her essay, Mr. Montgomery leads the class in a round of applause, increasing his in volume and enthusiasm to get his students to follow suit.

“All right,” he says, “who’s up next?” He looks hopefully around the room.

Usually half a dozen hands would shoot up. But no one’s thinking about school for once; everyone just wants to be outside in the golden April sunshine.

Finally, Emma lifts her hand. Mr. Montgomery looks surprised.

“Emma?” he asks. “Are we participating today?” He sounds so hopeful, so relieved. It’s been months since she’s volunteered for anything.

She imagines his own descriptive essay, the one he’ll submit with his doctorate application, about how he really made a difference in this one girl’s life. This girl who had obviously been hurting for so long. This girl who just needed the spiritual cleansing of a descriptive essay to restore all of her emotional balance and return her to her former glory.

“We are,” Emma says.

Mr. Montgomery smiles. “I’m so glad to hear it.”

Pretty soon he won’t be. Pretty soon he’ll be worried about whether he’s even going to be allowed to continue teaching at Ridgemont, let alone getting his doctorate in being intuitively connected to his students.

Emma picks up her essay and walks to the front of the room. When she turns to face the class, they look a little more interested than they did when Rhaina was reading. And they should. Because what she’s got is better than French horns and outdated composers. What she’s got will get a full-page spread in the yearbook, along with the head- ing “Local Tragedy Highlights Global Problems.”

Chewy blows her a kiss from the back row, and Emma rolls her eyes at him. He can’t help himself, he’ll flirt with a brick wall.

She stands up straighter. Clears her throat. “Trigger warning, guys,” she says. “My topic today”—she offers them a quick, false smile—“is self-immolation.”