Afton sidesteps over and puts her hand on my shoulder, to let me know she’s on board with whatever. “So we hate Leo now?”

I stare into the flames. “Yes.”

“What happened at the swim meet?”

“I surprised him.” I take another shirt from the trash bag. The wine-colored tee. I took it off upstairs. Afton instinctively reaches out to stop me from burning it, but she’s too late. Onto the fire it goes.

“You surprised him, and . . .” prompts Afton.

“And he was kissing Kayla,” I say.

Afton obviously doesn’t know who Kayla is, but she understands sisterly loyalty. “Well then, screw Leo.”

I smile grimly. “I think Kayla’s got that covered.”

I burn several other things in quick succession: photos of Leo and of Leo and me together, a few ripped-out pages from my sketchbook, the pair of red lacy underwear I bought today, so new they haven’t been washed yet, the dried rose corsage I wore at prom a few weeks ago, followed by my prom dress, which takes a surprisingly short time to burn. Lace, it turns out, is highly combustible.

Then I get to the final item, the stuffed white horse that Leo won for me at the boardwalk at Santa Cruz. I hold it up and gaze into its glass-marble eyes.

Afton takes a step closer. “You don’t have to—”

I toss the horse into the fire. It smokes and smokes, horrible black puffs that smell awful, like when something plastic ends up on the heating coil of the dishwasher. Then the wind shifts and blows the smoke directly at us.

“We’re probably inhaling toxic chemicals right now,” Afton says, but I don’t move out of the path of the smoke. The horse finally catches fire and burns, its ears blackening, first one and then the other. Then the entire thing kind of melts into a sludge.

I cough. I’m being melodramatic. I know that. But I can’t shake the urge to destroy everything in my life that has ever touched Leo. Those things are tainted now. They need to be cleansed.

“Did the horse have a name?” Afton asks somberly.

“Bucky.”

“Farewell, Bucky the horse,” Afton says.

The screen door bangs. It’s Abby holding a bag of marshmallows. “Can we have s’mores?”

“Why not?” I say.

We put more wood on the fire until it’s burning cleanly again. Then we find chocolate and graham crackers and settle around the firepit, roasting marshmallows on the metal poles we use for camping. Abby soon gets bored and goes back inside. Afton and I stay and watch the fire go through its stages, first hot and fierce and a little bit out of control, then steady and warm, then glowing embers. I scooch my chair close to the fire like I’m cold, even though it’s 75 degrees outside. I wrap my arms around myself and stare into the flickering glow.