Little Fires Everywhere

by Celeste Ng

“Just a friend,” Mia had answered. “A fri...

In the hours after the segment aired, the station had been flooded with calls about the story—en...

“The lawyer says we’re on solid footing,”

“He says that by leaving the baby, she gave up custody to the state and the state gave it to us, so her grievance is really with the state and not us.

“It’ll blow over,” Mrs. Richardson said to Mrs. McCullough now. “People will forget about it. It’ll pass.”

But it did not pass. Improbable as it seemed, something about the story had touched a nerve in the community. The

a local lawyer, Ed Lim, had offered to represent Bebe Chow, gratis, and sue the state for custody of her daughter.

if Mia trusted Bebe, Izzy knew where her loyalties lay.

“Baby stealer,” she said.

Mrs. Richardson’s eye: “Ms. Chow had been informed of her daughter’s

whereabouts by a coworker at Lucky Palace, a Chinese restaurant on Warrensville Road.”

How hypocritical of Mia, with her stubborn privacy, to insert herself into places where she didn’t belong.

A sweet face. A young face, but not an innocent face.

Even years later, Mrs. Richardson would insist that that digging into Mia’s past was nothing more than justified retribution for the trouble Mia had stirred up.

No, there was no Mia Warren in any of Professor Hawthorne’s classes

But there had been a Mia Wright

her sudden interest in Pearl struck Izzy as strange.

“She’s the mom. They’re not.” Something about the case had lit a spark in her, though she could not yet put her finger on it, and would not be able to articulate it for a long while.

All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never—could never—set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration.

Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn’t, you might burn the world to the ground.

Mrs. Richardson seethed, and deep inside her, the hot speck of fury that had been carefully banked within her burst into flame.

You can’t just do what you want, she thought. Why should Mia get to, when no one else did?

the desire to see justice for her oldest friend, that led her to step over the line at last: as soon as she could get away, she would take a trip to Pennsylvania and visit Mia’s parents.

everyone knew more about sex than it appeared, everyone except her.

It was in this mood that Pearl, in mid-February, found herself walking to the Richardson house alone.

She had always struck him as a mousy little thing, cute even, but not a girl he’d thought much about, beyond the baseline of teenage hormones that made anything female worth looking at. But today there was something different about Pearl,

made him think suddenly of lips and hips and other curves.

and then he kissed her.

It was Trip who tipped her backward onto the couch,

But it was Pearl who, some time later, wriggled out from beneath him, took him by the han...

“Tell me when to stop,” he said, and she said, “Don’t.”

“What’re you up to,” he asked, almost shyly,

“Just hanging out,” she said. “With Moody.” She toyed with the dial of her combination lock, twisting it this way and that, and decided to be bold again. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

Trip said, “I might know

somewhere.”

long time ago,” he said. “You’re the only girl I want to bring down there now.”

she remembered Moody. He would be wondering where she was, why she hadn’t met him at the science wing as usual so they could walk together.

“Are we dating?” she asked

“I just want to know what I’m getting into.”

“I’m not planning on seeing anyone else. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“we don’t have to tell anyone.”

“I don’t mind being a secret,” she said, and kissed him.

Pearl had been increasingly aware that Moody’s feelings toward her were different, in quality and quantity, than hers toward him.

when Lexie reached into her purse and found no condoms, they were not deterred. “It’ll be fine,” she whispered to Brian. “Let’s just—”

Lexie found herself in the drugstore, contemplating the shelf of pregnancy tests.

One line meant no, two lines meant yes.

Already she could see the lines forming. Two of them, bright pink.

Lexie believed, truly, that they could keep the baby.

“You know who’d have the cutest babies, though?” she said.

“Us. That’s who.