Autumn Falls (14 page)

“No,” I scoff as I help myself to a cup of punch.

I’m
not
jealous. I’m interested. Carrie swing dances like me … which is to say, like an elephant in a three-legged race. J.J. isn’t bothered, though. He moves very slowly, far off the beat, so he can teach her each step. It never works, but he doesn’t get frustrated. Every time she messes up, they both laugh. When the song ends, she falls into his arms and they hug.

Not romantically. It’s a friendly hug. Maybe she’d like it to be romantic, but he broke up with her last year. He’s in friend mode.

A slow song starts up, and I figure J.J. and Carrie will join us at the refreshments table. I adjust my dress. J.J. hasn’t seen it yet, and I think he’ll like it. Maybe he’ll make an anagram about how it looks on me. I should come up with one about him in a suit. He looks good. I mean, he doesn’t have the body to fill out a suit the way Sean does, but … still nice.

Instead of joining us at the table, J.J. and Carrie stay
in their hug. He slides his arms down to her waist and she curves hers around his neck.

I don’t even think he knows I’m here with Jack and Amalita. His eyes don’t leave Carrie’s until she pushes herself into his personal space and rests her head on his chest. Then he closes his eyes.

“Autumn, wake up,” Amalita says as Sean walks up to me.

“Hey. Did you watch?” he asks, his hair tousled. He loosens his tie a little.

“Yeah!” I say, blinking back into the moment. “You guys were great.”

“Way too many hours performing in the basement for parents who wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth.”

I smile at him. “Looked like you guys had a lot of fun.”

“We did. But I’d have a lot more fun dancing with you.”

He holds out his hand. My stomach flutter-flips as he leads me out to the dance floor. He wraps his arms around my waist. Before I rest mine over his shoulders I make the move I’ve wanted to do since I first saw him. I run my hands down Sean’s arms. Unbelievable. Even through the sport coat I can feel his muscles.

“Is there something on my sleeves?” Sean asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “A little fuzz. It’s gone now.”

“Thanks.”

We sway to the music. This time I have no problem following Sean’s lead. Limited range of motion. That’s the key.

“I’m really glad you’re here with me,” Sean says quietly.

“Me too,” I whisper.

He stares into my eyes. I stop breathing.

And then his lips touch mine, and everything else in the world collapses into that kiss.

“You look happy,” J.J. says when I meet him at our corner on Monday.

“That’s because I had an amazing weekend,” I say, rocking back on my flip-flops.

“Good time at the Winter Formal?”

I nod. “Fantastic. Sorry we didn’t really get to hang out.”

“No worries,” he says. “You looked great.”

“Thanks. I didn’t know you saw anyone but Carrie Amernick. Or should I say, ‘A Crankier Crime’?”

J.J. grins. “You looked up an anagram for Carrie’s name?”

“How do you know I looked it up?” I say. “How do you know I didn’t just come up with it right now?”

“ ‘J.J. Austin Rocks a Bow Tie.’ Go.”

I try to picture the letters in my head. They jump around in weird combinations that may or may not be words. “I need more than a
second
,” I say. “But you did rock the bow tie,” I admit. “It looked particularly good at Denny’s.”

“Ames sent you the pictures?”

I nod again. “So what about you and Carrie? Are you guys together now?”

He kicks a plastic water bottle someone tossed on the sidewalk, sending it flying. “I don’t know. She wants to be. We’ll see. How about you and Sean?”

I shrug. “Not sure. He invited me to hang out with him at his house yesterday, which was great, but all we did was watch football.”

“Which games?”

“Football games.”

J.J. laughs. “Sounds like you had a great time.”

I take a deep breath, not sure if I want to jump into this with him. “Is it weird that he didn’t kiss me?”

“He did kiss you.”

I can feel my cheeks turning pink. “You saw that?”

“You clearly underestimate my powers of observation,” J.J. says, waggling his eyebrows.

“He did kiss me,” I say slowly, “but just that night. Not yesterday. I feel like that’s weird.”

“Not necessarily,” J.J. says. “I mean, if it were me, once that bottle was uncorked I’d want to keep drinking it. But that’s just me. His head could be anywhere.”

“I’m letting the bottle-corking-drinking thing go because I appreciate your advice, but seriously, it’s kind of gross.”

“Noted,” J.J. says.

We’ve been walking slower than usual, so by the time
we get to school we have to race to homeroom. It’s a shame, because I wanted to see if Sean might be waiting for me at my locker. I’m hoping he at least saved me a seat in class.

Everyone stares when I walk in.

Everyone except Sean, who concentrates hard on the top of his desk.

There is no empty seat next to him. The only open seat is at the front of the room, and I feel as if I’m swimming through a thick sea of disgust to get there.

My skin tries to crawl off my body. I’ve felt this before. Reenzie did something. Another picture. Another rumor. It’s the only explanation … but it’s impossible. I wished on the journal for her to stop doing evil things to me. I get that “evil” can mean a lot of different things, but given the weight of everyone’s stares, I’m pretty sure whatever she did qualifies.

When Ms. Knowles looks down at her attendance book, a wadded-up piece of paper flies over my shoulder and lands on my desk. I open it up. A not-so-friendly word is printed there.

I crumple it up and throw it on the ground. What did Reenzie do?

When Ms. Knowles dismisses us, several people “accidentally” slam into me on their way out the door. My books go flying. No one hangs out to help me pick them up. Not even Sean.

When I finally get into the hall, Sean isn’t there, but Amalita is.

“Tell me it’s not you,” she says. “I mean, I
know
it’s not you, just tell me it’s not you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Good. Okay. But you need to know. Come on.
Vámanos
.”

She leads me to one of the study carrels on the lower floor of the library. “Ames, I have a class,” I say.

“You think I don’t? This is more important.”

There’s a computer in the carrel and she types in a URL. What loads up is an orange background with a title on one side and a paragraph of type on the other. The title reads:

“What is this?” I ask.

“Read.”

It’s hard because I’m stressed, and letters always jump around more when I’m stressed. I eventually have to put a finger on the screen and run it past each word as I scan it, just to keep track.

My heart is now throbbing from somewhere inside my throat. “People think this is me?”

Amalita raises an eyebrow. Of course they think it’s me. It’s my story exactly except twisted—no one ever shined a harsh light on any of my secrets; Reenzie made my secrets up.

“The name doesn’t hurt either,” Amalita says.

I look at the URL: winterofdiscontent.com.

“What, people think I like Shakespeare?” I ask. “Has no one seen me in English class?”

“You’re serious?” Amalita asks. “
Winter
of discontent. You’re
Autumn
Falls.”

“Yeah, but that’s stupid,” I say.

“Stupid enough for people to interpret it as a clue that it’s you. You come off as someone trying to get revenge while staying anonymous.”

I let out a strangled laugh. “
I’m
not getting revenge!”

“I’m just saying,” Amalita says slowly, “that’s what people think. Hit the Enter Site button. It gets worse.”

“Great.”

I click the link and end up on another orange-background page. This one has a single column of text broken up into bullet-pointed paragraphs.

“Oh my God,” I say. “Tell me you didn’t think I actually wrote this.”

“No!” Amalita scoffs. She shoots me a quick glance, then looks down at the computer.

“Okay, maybe for like a second,” she admits, “but I know better. Taylor’s the only person who knew about that.”

I stare at her, my eyes wide. “That’s real?”

She nods. “Intertrigo, two years ago, we’re not talking about it.”

“So you think Taylor did this?” I ask.

Amalita shakes her head. “Taylor’s weak, she’s disloyal, and
necesita que la den una colleja
, but she wouldn’t do this. Reenzie and her genius brother are the ones who put this up.”

“But she was supposed to stop being evil to me,” I say in a small voice.

Amalita snorts. “Says who?”