Falling (18 page)

“I hope to see you
in
class tomorrow, Reid.” She holds her eyebrows up high, so it looks like her eyes are balancing on the rims of her eye sockets.

“Of course,” I mumble, looking remorseful. Remorseful that she interrupted my conversation with Keller.

* * *

The second the bell rings and I run through the corridor back to my locker, grab all the books I need for homework tonight and sprint across to my room. I shut the door, lean on it and pull out my phone. I dial Keller's number waiting for him to get to his phone, looking at my watch again. I’ve got five minutes to get down for sweeping duty.

“Keller, it’s Reid. Sorry I hung up on you. I was in class and already in trouble. Anyway, sorry, call me when you can. Bye.”

I hold onto the phone sitting on the edge of my bed staring at it, willing it to ring for three out of the five minutes I have left.

Sara walks in and looks at me. She doesn't say a word and walks right back out again. Nice.

Scrubbing at my face with my fingertips, I throw my uniform on the floor, pull on my jeans and an old hoody, and drag my feet down to collect my broom from an eager Mrs. Snouse.

“Getting ready for your future employment, Reid?” Megan asks watching me sweep. I ignore her. I know she's talking to me. I can hear her just above my music, but I keep pretending she's not there.

* * *

Two hours later, and Sara is still missing. I sit at our usual table in the dining hall watching for her, but she never shows up.

I sit alone for thirty minutes.

I push away from the table. I'm going to bed.

“Reid South,” Sara says before I have the door open. I throw it open the rest of the way. “This is a help taskforce.”

I stand frozen in the doorway. “I don't know what to say.” I really don’t know what to say.

“You need to have a night of awesomeness. No Keller, no sad faces, just us. And our good friends.”

I start laughing. “I'm sorry. I still don't know what to say.” First I probably need to come out of the doorway.

“Meet good friend one.” She moves to the side and her desk is revealed. “Chocolate.”

“Wow, that's a lot of chocolate.” I say stunned.

“Just in case you felt like dark.” She holds up a really expensive bar of dark chocolate.

“Because I'm bitter?” I throw in cheerfully.

She nods. “Or with nuts.”

I close the door behind me. “That one's easy. I’ve definitely gone nuts. So I need any more help with that.”

“Smooth milk, to lighten your mood,” she says like a doctor diagnosing a patient.

“Peanut butter.” She pauses. “No, I've got nothing for that, it's just good.”

I laugh properly for the first time in days. “I'll start with, it's just good.”

She throws me a packet and I tear it open.

“Various kinds of crappy foods for our list-making exercise.” She lifts a cloth covering the next section.

“Oh, oh, oh. That's my favourite. I love those potato chips.”

“Yes, I know,” she says in a sombre voice, holding her hands together like she's running a self-help seminar. “There are also your second and third choices available.”

“Twinkies!” I dive for them shouting. “I don't care if they are horrible. They are awesome.”

“Who said Twinkies?” Hannah asks, walking through the door with about half of yellow house.

“Oh my goodness, what are you wearing?” Peanut-butter-filled chocolate spits out of my mouth.

They file in. Fluffy slippers waddle past, thick flannelette pyjamas, robes, wide hair bands holding their hair back.

“We are the search and rescue team.” Hannah answers seriously.

“Right.” I'm more confused.

“We are trying to figure out where Reid went,” She continues.

I don't know whether I should laugh or cry.

“Have we started compiling the list?” Juliette asks in an official tone.

“Just about to begin.” Sara states, hands behind her back.

At her word everyone piles onto my bed. Sara pulls out an extendible pointer. “Katy, would you start?”

“Certainly.” She sits behind my desk where someone has set up a projector attached to Sara's laptop. The first slide pops up.

‘The best looking guys we know.’ Flashes on the wall.

“Huh?” I laugh out.

“Food.” Sara announces throwing bags around the room to cheers.

“Tyler Smith.” Sara uses her massive pointer. “Quite nice,” she comments appreciatively.

“He's awful,” I call out.

“Okay, next then. Ben O'Connel.”

Someone whistles when his picture pops up.

“Where did you get these from?” Have they been following them around all afternoon stealing photos? The photos look like they have been taken outside of their school.

“We have our sources.” Katy nods from behind her desk officially.

“Any comments?” Sara asks.

“He used to date Megan,” Alex says looking sad.

“We’ll move straight past him then,” Sara says trying to keep her official tone going. “Colin Tait?”

“Dreamy. Completely dreamy.” Alex calls out.

“Sounds like you should be asking him out,” I reply.

“Only if you're sure,” she says quickly. “Do your slides come with phone numbers, too?”

“Not for you sweetheart,” Katy says. Everyone erupts with laughter.

“We'll find it,” I say to Alex, patting her head.

“Fletcher Cass?” Every one of us call out and Katy whistles.

“Are there any objections?” Sara asks. We all look at each other. “That seems unanimous. Fletcher Cass is lovely. Reid, should we send out a search party for him?”

“We'll see who's next. Anyone starting with a K?”

“Definitely no Ks.” Sara says, looking at Katy.

Without waiting a second Katy stands up. “Time for the second stage to begin.”

The lights die and a disco ball begins turning. Speakers turn up, and everyone cheers as a song starts. A disco ball. How did I not notice that hanging from my ceiling?

“You guys rock.” I grab Sara while she's dancing with everyone else.

“Sorry you guys broke up. You should have told me.” For a second it looks like she is going to say something else, but then the light changes as the ball turns, and I can't see her and she doesn't continue.

“Sorry.” I mumble, but she's gone before she hears me. She melts into the others, calling over the music and laughing with Laura.

I perk up my face. This is so beyond anything. I want to feel it, but I miss Keller. And everything they are doing to stop me thinking about him seems to make me more focused on him. I shake my head, that barely makes sense to me.

Right. Get into it. I roll my shoulders like I'm getting ready to swim. I push myself into the middle of the swaying group singing at the top of my voice. My arms up in the air as I move to the music and lose myself in the moment.

“Oh yeah,” Macy calls and someone ups the volume and we all sing to the words moving around each other.

The song finishes and we collapse into a heap on my bed.

“Thanks you guys,” I say.

“We're not finished with you yet,” Sara says insulted.

“Oh?”

The next song begins building on the stereo, and we are all back on our feet.

* * *

At eight o’clock Mr. Nash knocks on the door, “all right, girls, that's enough for tonight. It's time for homework then bed. Wind it up.” That makes sense. I’d wondered why Mrs. Snouse didn't come and shut us down just after the music went on.

“Thanks everyone,” I call, standing in the doorway watching everyone file out, Sara with her arm across my shoulder. Megan lifts one eyebrow at me, but moves past silently on her way to the prep room.

We follow the last one out and Sara slips her arm through mine as we walk. “Feel better?” She asks.

“Yeah, that was great. Thank you. You’re really the best.”

“So when did it all go down? When did he ...” She flicks her head back and forth not wanting to say the words out loud.

“He didn't. We had bit of a thing on Friday night, and it got all weird. Then out of nowhere Hayden, his ex-girlfriend, showed up. She wasn't supposed to be back until the weekend like everyone else.”

“Didn't you say that Megan knew her?”

I stop, my arms out like I am trying to balance myself. “No. That's too low, even for her.” I stare at Sara, I hadn't even put the two in the same universe.

“I doubt it,” Sara counters. “If she can't have him, then why should you?” She tugs on my arm when it's clear that I'm not going to move on my own.

“It makes sense why she's been so smug all week. She keeps being rejected by him, so I figured she was just putting it on. But this makes a lot of sense.” My head swirls, surely even Megan couldn't get this low. Surely. I walk into the prep room, Sara's arm still through mine, searching for Megan's face.

She looks up and virtually points her finger in my direction laughing.

“Told you,” Sara whispers. My face snaps to hers. I don't know what to say. Everything in my head has been erased and emptiness is left in its place.

I grab Sara’s arm just as she is about to sit down. “Did anyone else see Keller come here the other day when I was out? Or was it just her?”

She looks over at Megan, “I didn’t see him.”

I can’t stand it anymore. I have been thinking about it all night. It’s the only thing I could think about in class all day.

We round the corner to double back to the library the next afternoon. I haven’t been able to think about anything else since last night at prep. I tried to ditch Accounting but I got caught on my way out. I said I dropped my calculator out the window, otherwise I would have ended up with sweeping duty again. And I need to see him.

I circle my shoulders loosening away the nervousness that has settled in my stomach. I'm going to tell Keller if he doesn't want me to do this jumping thing, then I just won't. I’m not sure how to make it stop, but I’ll figure out how to make the pull go away. We can just ignore it. We can never talk about it. Just pretend it doesn't exist. Then we can go back to how it was before everything became awful.

I know last night was supposed to be about forgetting Keller, but I can't. He's Keller. No one can forget him.

I blow my breath out coming down the steps off the bus. My stomach flips as I look in the window of his store, but I can't see him. I push the door open anyway. His dad is standing behind the counter, and the look on John's face spells out clearly he's not here. I back straight out the door. I will go hide in the library for a while, but I'm not quick enough.

“Reid, wait. He's not here. He'll be in later though. Come back in an hour.” Something in his voice stops me, and I turn around. Hayden comes out from the stock room holding up a box. She recognises me straight away, but doesn’t stop, she goes to the counter, placing the box on top she looks me up and down and smiles.

“Tell him to have a good break. I'm heading away early. I thought I would just stop in and tell him before I left. But he looks too busy with Hayden to care where I’ve gone.” She doesn’t say anything, just stays there with that horrible smirk on her face like she’s won something.

Tears burn in my eyes and I shove the door out of my way and run down the street, dodging into the entrance of the library purposefully brushing past a person coming out the door, leaning sharply into them, I fall into his body without anyone seeing me.

John was right behind me, mumbling to himself. “I don't even know why he is still talking to her.”

He keeps looking for me, but goes into the library while me and the man walk the opposite way. As soon as he stops I dive to the side, and pretend to bump into him.

“Sorry mate,” I call out running down the street. I glance back, he’s just looking around confused.

I pull out my phone. “Aunt Kelly. Sorry to be a pain, but I'm going to hang out at school over the break.”

“I thought school would be closed?” She answers slowly.

“They made an exception for me because … you know. I'm an orphan. They are letting me stay.” I don't pull out the ‘I'm an orphan’ card very often, but people don't seem to argue with me once I say it.

“And you want to? Usually you can't wait to leave,” she replies surprised.

“I know. But I've made some new friends and they live close, so I thought it would be nice to hang out with them outside of school.”

“Some new friends. That sounds nice. I'm really happy for you. But would it be more correct to say that it is one new friend and you would like to hang out with him?”

“Maybe,” I laugh instead of crying like I want to. “I hope you haven't gone to any trouble.”

“No you're fine. To be honest I haven't even made your room up yet. So there's no trouble at all, I’ll just transfer my ticket until next break.”

“Well that's good. I hate being such a pain.” I pause, “I'll let Mrs. Snouse know you said thanks. You don't have to be grateful, but she loves it when people think she is doing this great service for them. I feel sorry for her husband.”

“Reid, don't say that, she is your teacher.” But aunt Kelly is laughing too much for me to take her seriously. “And you know you are never a pain. We love to have you.”

“Aw, thanks. Say hi to everyone for me.”

“Will do, sweets. You have a fun break. Just let us know if you decide that you want to come anyway. You don’t need me to come get you, okay? Just come if you change your mind.”

“'Kay then, bye.”

Next call. “Good afternoon,” I say in the most confident, forceful voice I have. “I am the aunt of Reid South,” I continue.

“Hello, Ms.?” The receptionist at school answers.

“Sorry, this is Mrs. Miller. I am Reid's guardian. She is coming home for the holidays but I have had to change her flight details. I am so sorry to be such a pain, but Reid will need to be at the airport at eight a.m. tomorrow.”

“I'm sorry, but we have a no class-missed policy. You will have to rearrange the flight.”

“I have already had to do that once. School is shutting so I have no choice but to do what I can. I am sorry, Ms.?”

“Smiler.”