They All Fall Down (3 page)

“As if my mother would let fifty beer-drinking lunatics into our basement for a list party.”

“Then you better take me to the ones you go to.”

“I will,” I promise, knowing my mother won’t let me go to parties anyway. I return to the phone, determined to find that text.

“Swear it,” she demands. “You will not get popular without bringing me along.”

“I swear it.” Could I have imagined the text after the accident? I was pretty dazed. But, no, I read it again before I went to—

A loud thwack on the trunk makes me jump, and Molly lets out a shriek.

“Oh my God, Kenzie,” she whispers, looking into the rearview mirror and grabbing my arm. “Look who it is. No, don’t look. Yes, look. But be cool.”

Without moving my head, I slide my gaze to the side-view mirror, blinking into the morning sun to see a tall silhouette. Very tall, broad, and sporting a Wildcats varsity jacket. I know that silhouette; I’ve watched it from every imaginable angle.

“Well, what do you know, Miss I Don’t Care About That
List,” Molly says, turning to me with an awfully smug expression on her pixie-like features. “It’s Josh Collier, man of your dreams.”

“He’s not—”

She points a finger in my face. “Don’t even try to lie to me. You’ve crushed on him since eighth grade”

“Seventh,” I correct her, fighting a smile.

“Grats, Kenz!” Josh pounds the roof this time and lopes around to my side.

Molly and I just stare at each other. “Who
says
that?” we whisper in perfect best-friend unison.

“Kenzie?” He taps on the window and I turn, blasted by his slightly crooked, seriously cute half grin as he grabs the handle and yanks the door open with an air of possessiveness.

“Hi,” I say. Beside me, I hear Molly let out a soft
ugh
of disappointment. What did she expect, witty banter?

“Damn, girl,” he says, bending down to sear my face with eyes the color of a summer sky. “You made the list.”

I give him an unsure look. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“You know what that means?”

Molly’s grinning as she gets her bag from the back. “She’s starting to find out,” she says with a bit of an “I told you so” singsong.

“It’s a big deal,” he says, his attention all on me. “Nice placement, too. Fifth.” He winks, sending a weight sliding right down my stomach and spine.

“Thanks.” I reach for my backpack on the floor, aware that Molly is taking her sweet time getting out, no doubt to eavesdrop. “But really, it’s no big deal.”

“I voted for you,” he says softly, a tremor of disappointment
in his voice, as though I haven’t taken the honor seriously enough.

“That’s …” Kind of unbelievable. “Nice.”

“You almost came in fourth.”

My eyes widen. “I thought the vote count was some big secret.”

“It is, but I’m
connected
, babe.”

Babe?
Did Josh Collier just call me
babe
?

He straightens as I get out of the car and then angles his head toward the school, those incredible silver-blue eyes still locked on me. “Can I walk over with you?”

I turn to look at Molly. “Go ahead,” she says, giving us a finger wave.

“No, come with us, Moll.” After all, she wants to ride the Popularity Train, and you don’t get much more popular than Josh Collier.

“Well, I kind of have to go into the band room.…”

He ignores her and steps close to me. “Bet you were stoked to see the list,” he says.

Molly backs away and catches my eye. “You go on, Kenz. I’ll see you at lunch.”

After an awkward beat, she takes off, leaving me alone and inches away from the guy I used to pillow-kiss when I first knew there was such a thing as kissing and that pillows were for practicing said art.

“Weren’t you psyched?” he presses.

“I guess, yeah.” I sling my backpack over my shoulder, painfully aware that the cool girls carry tiny purses and far fewer books … but they aren’t trying to get a classics scholarship to Columbia. I push aside a lock of my hair with my free hand, a
little resentful that my breath is tight and my palms are damp and I didn’t have the foresight to put on some makeup, like Molly.

“You don’t seem very happy,” he says, his casual hand on my shoulder burning through my jean jacket.

“Well, I …” I dig for something other than
You leave me speechless
. “I kind of wrecked my car last night.”

“Seriously? That blows.”

“No kidding.”

“Congrats, Kenzie!” A girl whose name I don’t know holds up her hand for a high five as she passes.

“Thanks,” I say, brushing her hand. Is this what today is going to be like? Is this the power of the list?

“You going to the game tonight?” Josh asks as we approach a set of wide, trapezoid-shaped steps. Right now, my legs are so wobbly I’m not sure I can navigate what we call the crooked steps.

“The football game?”

He laughs softly. “No,” he says, layering on the sarcasm. “Girls’ volleyball.”

“No, I …” I shake my head. I don’t want to insult him because I know he’s on varsity, but I haven’t been to a high school football game … since Conner played and I was still in middle school. “Maybe,” I say, hedging bets left and right.

“Kylie and Amanda are throwing a list party afterward. You want to go with me?”

Holy, holy—

“Hey, Collier!” Another kid in a football jersey jogs over to us, giving me a tipped chin in greeting. “ ’Sup, Kenzie.”

Tyler Griffith wouldn’t have acknowledged me yesterday, let alone said my name.

“Dude, you’re killin’ my game here,” Josh jokes, with a pointed look at me.

“I’m saving you from being benched is what I’m doing,” Tyler says. “Coach wants us in the weight room for first period.”

Josh mumbles a soft curse, then puts a hand back on my shoulder, turning me away from his friend. “So, see you tonight?”

The list might be incredibly tacky and dumb, but a date with Josh Collier is … rare. Hell, a date is rare.

“Maybe, if I can.”

“I’ll text you.” He leans closer and puts his mouth near my ear. “Fifth.”

CHAPTER III

I
don’t get it. Indefinite integrals and Riemann sums make zero sense no matter how furiously I take notes in Calculus. Actually, not that furiously because I’m still getting texts—did my phone number get published on someone’s Facebook page? Every message that’s from an unrecognized phone number gives me a little flutter, but each text is more congratulatory and friendly than the last.

Molly’s right about the royalty factor. It’s crazy and weird and, okay, not completely horrible.

Under my desk, I skim through a few more texts.

Three people text to tell me the girls who got ninth and tenth were calling the voting fixed. And apparently Austin Freeholder is so pissed off his twin sister, Alexia, isn’t on the list that he’s demanding a recount.

“Is it, Kenzie?”

I look up at the sound of my name, a quick squeeze of dread
when I see Mr. Zeller lift his reading glasses to get a better look at me. Is what … 
what
?

He angles his head at my blank expression. “Is it a horizontal asymptote in that case?”

I close my eyes and shake my head. “Can I get a hall pass, Mr. Zeller?”

He lets out a typical Zeller sigh of disgust, but he likes me and isn’t going to be a jerk about letting me off the hook.

“Hurry up so you don’t miss the homework assignment.” He tears a yellow slip from the pad and I take it, mumbling thanks as I rush into the silent hall dying for a gulp of solitude.

I’m suddenly hit hard with a memory of what it was like to be on the radar. After my brother died, almost two years ago, people stared at me. Not with envy, but with pity. And, of course, sadness, because I reminded them that one of Vienna High’s brightest lights had been snuffed out in a freak accident. But I’d been a freshman, swamped by grief and overwhelmed by high school. I actually don’t remember much of my freshman year. By the time I became a sophomore, no one noticed me anymore.

Until today. And now the looks aren’t pitiful or sad. All morning, I noticed kids checking me out. During class changes, I could just imagine their thoughts.
That one made the list? The skinny one with brown hair? I guess from a distance she’s got nice eyes and a decent smile, but … is she listworthy?

Some of the looks, though, were from boys, eyeing me like a new target has been added to their game. I’m not sure how I feel about that, even from Josh Collier. After all, I’m the same girl I was yesterday, minus the list placement.

There’s a bathroom not too far away, but I’d rather take a longer walk, so I slip into the stairwell, going down to the first floor toward my locker bay.

In my pocket, my phone vibrates again, but I ignore it. I consider texting Molly to meet me to take a walk across the quad for air, but she’s in History and I know Moriarty won’t let her leave.

Rounding the corner, I’m relieved to see an empty hall, and as I pass each classroom, the sounds of teaching and laughter and even the quietness of test taking somehow soothe me. This part of school makes sense: the learning, the classrooms, the teachers, the homework.

Unlike my brother, who personified the “big man on campus” cliché, I’ve never been very adept at navigating the social stuff. Conner never met a stranger, but I’ve battled shyness my whole life, and it only got worse after he died.

So maybe this list isn’t a bad thing. Maybe this
will
change life for Molly and me. Holding tight to that thought, I wander past the biology lab, the faint scents of formaldehyde mixing with the lingering smell of freshman boys doused in Axe. My feet follow the blue-and-white-patterned linoleum floor, circa 1940.

Before I reach the new wing of the school, I turn into the last locker bay, nothing more than a dead-end hall with about forty lockers and two bathrooms. Molly and I celebrated at registration last summer when we got this choice location, usually reserved for seniors. The lockers are as ancient as this original part of the building, with a row of glass blocks along the top of the wall that lets in natural light on sunny days. No one cares that the lockers are rusty; these alcoves are old-school
(literally) and they are off the beaten path. And right now, I couldn’t love that more.

Facing the lockers, I put my hand on the cool cobalt metal and take a deep breath. What is going on with me today?

Is it just the list business that has me feeling so weird? The accident last night? The fight with my mom that preceded it? The fact that Josh Collier asked me out and kids who never acknowledged my existence are now fist-bumping me when I walk by?

So much has changed in the last twelve hours, and I’m reeling a little. A
lot
. I didn’t ask for this sudden notoriety, and while a part of me wants to bask in the glow of something I’ve never known before, the other part of me wants to run far and fast.

I lean my head forward, letting it touch the locker as I sigh.

“You okay, Mack?”

I spin at the sound of a boy’s voice so close the hairs on the back of my head flutter. The sunlight through the glass block hits his face, highlighting long lashes around shockingly dark eyes and forming shadows on his hollowed cheeks. I don’t know how he sneaked up on me or why he’d call me by a name no one uses—well, not anymore, not since Conner died—but I know exactly who he is.

Levi Sterling.

“I’m …” I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to him. If I had been, I wouldn’t forget it any more than I’d forget a personal brush with the devil. “Fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Just … you know.” No, how would he know? We’ve never talked. We’ve never exchanged a look. Levi Sterling is bad
news, and the fact that he’s still enrolled in school at all is kind of remarkable.

He’s been in fights, he’s been in handcuffs, and he’s been in juvie. And right now, he’s zeroing in on me in a way that actually steals my breath.

“I know.” He takes a step closer, making me want to back into my locker. He’s not super tall, like, say, Josh Collier, but he’s strong. He’s … a force. “You made the list.”

I lift one shoulder, trying really hard just to look into his eyes and not linger over every feature, from the dark brows to the cleft chin, or study every lock of thick black hair that looks like it air-dried on his motorcycle, falling into silky strands that brush his shoulders.
What is wrong with me?

“It’s no big deal,” I say, possibly for the twentieth time today. I want to turn back to my locker and let him do whatever he came into this bay to do—which I’m certain
wasn’t
to corner me and make me go all gooey inside—but I don’t. His eyes essentially pin me against the wall, and all I’m capable of doing is staring back like a helpless baby deer in the face of a forest fire.

“So how’s it feel to make school history?”

I can’t think of anything clever, so I go for honest. “Lame.”

He gives me a slow smile, revealing perfect white teeth and, holy cow, a dimple on one side. Really, God, was that necessary? “It is lame.”

Finally, one person in the whole school with common sense. With a record, too, but still. “It’s all anyone’s talking about,” I say.

“Because they’re not on the list,” he says. “Making them losers.”

“Pathetic losers,” I agree.

That makes him laugh, a short, low rumble in his chest. “You gotta be the only girl in school who doesn’t think the Hottie List is a big-ass accomplishment.”

“It’s not. Although I’m sure you voted like everyone else.”

“I’m alive, aren’t I? I voted.”

But probably, I muse, not for me. Still, he’s the first boy who’s talked openly about the voting, and curiosity gets me. “So is there a ballot with names on it or are they all write-in?”

He tips his head, the softest moan of disappointment in his throat. “You
do
care.”

I actually feel like I’ve let him down, which is crazy. “Not in the least,” I say too fast. “I’m just curious because I don’t belong on that list.”