Fall to Pieces (5 page)

But it’s
us
.

Before Amy died, we were the ultimate word nerds. Slinging Shakespeare quotes back and forth between us. Arguing over whether or not Freud was relevant or irrelevant or just a fucking misogynistic bastard.

Before, it was Mark and Amy and Petal and I in this
class. All four of us. And then Amy killed herself, and Petal hid away for so long that she was too behind to rejoin the class when she returned to the world of the living.

Now it’s just Mark and I. And two empty seats in our row. Until E came along, that is.

Woodson claps his hands together. “So, if you guys read the notes on Aristotelian tragedy I handed out last week, you’ll be able to pick up on how that structure is operating in the scenes we’re about to read. Hamlet is going to—”

I tune out. I don’t even have any paper, any pens to pretend to take notes with. Shit, I really am letting my act slide.

I snatch a pen off the table in front of Mark, steal his notebook, and flip it open to a blank page.

The guy in front of you. Check him out.

Mark grins and scribbles furiously before sliding the notebook back to me.

UNFORTUNATELY, I’M JUST NOT COOL ENOUGH TO BE GAY. ELLA, YOU SHOULD KNOW I DON’T CHECK OUT DUDES. I CAN’T GOSSIP ABOUT HOW CUTE HIS BUTT IS WITH YOU. GO FIND PET
.

It’s such a ridiculous comment that I snort with laughter. And then grab an eraser from his pencil case and throw it at him. Our shoulders shake and shake and shake
with silent laughter, and for a moment I feel totally okay. For one second everything is whole.

And then I wonder whether I should be feeling this way with Explosive Boy sitting in Amy’s seat.

And once that thought has wormed its way into my mind, the laughter falls out of my mouth.

Mark’s shoulders keep on quivering, but I’m letting red pen bleed all over the notebook again.

He could play Pick Me Ups with us? The new kid.
I shove the notebook toward Mark.

Now I’ve got his attention. His brows get tangled with each other, and he lets out a soft, low whistle. He slides a single word out the corner of his mouth. “Why?”

FRESH MEAT.

He draws a smiley face next to that. Writes,
YOU CANNIBAL
.

“Seriously, though,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Why?”

I shrug. “For fun. To shake things up a bit.”

Me? I don’t bother to keep my voice down. My words have shattered the English teacher’s preciously cultivated silence.

Woodson looks at me and sighs. He opens his mouth, then thinks better of it because I’m still the kid with a dead best friend. I’m still fucked-up Ella Logan, and it’s still better to leave me the hell alone.

“I think he could be up for it,” I say.

Mark flicks his eyes over to Explosive Boy. Sizes him up and nods. His lips curve. He’s impressed.

He leans toward me. “Do you want him in?” His words are whisper-quiet. I doubt anyone but me, and maybe Explosive Boy, is close enough to catch them.

I nod.

Mark gives the new kid another appraising look. His mouth twitches up at the sides. Grimace. “Yeah, okay, he might be up for it,” he whispers. But he’s giving me this look. This pointed stare. It’s all
why the hell would you do that?

He pulls the notebook over. Scribbles. Slides it back to me.

IS HIS BUTT THAT CUTE?

I laugh and shake my head. Even if Explosive Boy had the kind of face that looked as if it had been broken into halves, quarters, eighths, and then pasted back together again with the average glue stick, I’d want him in.

No one’s butt is that cute
.

THEN WHY?

I tap my nose. For me to know and Mark to never find out.

Mr. Woodson begins casting people into various roles so we can reenact
Hamlet
. Go Shakespeare, way to write a tragedy that people willfully, stupidly repeat over and over again throughout the ages.

I sneak a hand toward Explosive Boy’s back. Tap him—well, more like punch him, actually, because taps aren’t my style.

To his credit, he doesn’t even jump.

I can tell I’m going to like this guy. Which is too bad, because I’m also going to break him.

He spins to face me. “Yeah?”

Voice like earth mixed with gravel. The soil of my garden that Amy crashed into.

And suddenly my face wants to crack like a mirror under the pressure of seven years of bad luck. But I force my lips to twist, my brows to lift.

“You up for it, then? Pick Me Ups?”

He turns around and stares at me. Hard. As if he thinks his hazel eyes can bore holes into my skin and stop me from staring right back at him. Not happening. Explosive Boy doesn’t scare me.

Not one little bit.

“What are they?” he says eventually. “What are Pick Me Ups?”

We have an audience now. It’s as if I’m a magnet, and everyone in this room is made of metal. And given the horrible things we do to one another while trapped in this building, most of us probably do have hearts made of iron and steel and aluminum.

I lean toward Explosive Boy. Close. Closer.

Our cheeks graze against each other’s. If I move just a little bit more, my lips will brush across his earlobe.

“They’re orgies,” I stage whisper.

Everyone hears it. They draw a collective breath, and it’s deadly quiet for a moment. By tomorrow Brittany Evans will be telling the whole school that the new kid and I are doing it, covered in hay down at the barn. With Mark and Petal in supporting roles, of course.

“Seriously?” E says. He’s still speaking at normal volume. It doesn’t fit with his unintimidating presence around the kids yesterday.

“Yes.” I pull out my best Sexy Voice.

He looks totally unimpressed. “You’re so full of shit,” he says. But I can hear the doubt in his voice, the little question mark in his words.

Am I really bullshitting?

Of course. I’m always bullshitting. But he doesn’t know that.

“Well, then, don’t be a curious bitch. You don’t know what Pick Me Ups are until you try them. That’s just how it works.”

There isn’t really a rule about secrecy. I made it up. Because if he knew what he was getting himself into beforehand? He’d never do it. No matter how Explosive he is. And I need him to say yes right now.

I wait for his reaction. Inside, I’m holding my breath.
I examine my nail, flick away a piece of dirt. My features are like cardboard: not a scrap of emotion or color.

This is how I play the game. He can’t know I want anything from him because then he’d have leverage. I’m the only one who’s supposed to have leverage.

But he’s still in my face. So close that his breath, surprisingly clean and fresh, tickles my cheek. I notice the packet of Tic Tacs in his upper pocket. He’s waiting for me to break, but I stare at him unflinching, my blinking and breathing even.

Finally, he leans away from me, taking the smell of mint and gunpowder with him. I notice his fingers burrowing into the pockets of his jacket. Wonder what he’s hiding there. Matches? A knife? Or just his fingers?

The class is riveted. Their saucer-wide eyes make me want to purr with contentment. Who needs to study Shakespeare when you’ve got love and lust and death—and promised orgies—unfolding right before your very eyes?

E’s lazy drawl cuts through whatever the English teacher’s saying. “I’m in.”

M
ISS
L
OGAN
,” M
R
. W
OODSON
calls the second the bell rings. “Remain after class, please. I need to speak to you.”

Most people get saved by the bell. I get burned by it.

There’s a flurry of movement as everyone packs their books. They bob out of the classroom one by one. Blond, brunette, brunette, redhead, blond.

Mark gives me a comforting punch on the arm. “I’ll wait for you outside,” he says. He grabs his stuff and leaves.

I get up and cross the short distance between where I’m sitting and where Mr. Woodson’s standing. Then I just wait. And wait. Pretend that the mahogany wood of his desk, with Sherwood High’s crest carved into it, is the most fascinating thing in the world.

He’s the one who wanted to see me. I’m not going to make it easier for him by initiating the conversation.

He rocks back, peers at me seriously for a second, then says, “Ella, how are you doing?”

What am I supposed to say?

Shit. I feel like shit all the time.

That’s not what he wants to hear. That’s not what anyone wants to hear. Because that’s the kind of world we live in, and that’s the kind of town Sherwood is.

We’re all supposed to be fine all the fucking time.

“I’m okay,” I say, trying to keep my tone upbeat. I hope I’ve got that bright-eyed, hopeful, entirely-too-young look on my face. It’s the type of look that could get me out of trouble right now.

“So why haven’t you been coming to class?”

The look obviously isn’t working.

I turn over possible answers in my mind.

Because it’s boring. Because I prefer carrying out secret masochistic pastimes. Because my own life is so full of drama right now that I don’t need Shakespeare as well.

Because.

I shrug. Don’t say anything.

“I understand—”

“No, you don’t.”

I’m not sure where these words come from. But they pop out of my mouth. They sit between us, an ugly truth. I’m sure every teenager on the planet has thought this at
some point, but I really don’t think anyone understands this world.

It’s a senseless place full of senseless people.

“Well, regardless,” he says, not looking so convinced, “I have to tell you that if you miss any more classes, I’m going to have to inform the school and your parents. You can’t remain in my class if you aren’t going to show up.”

Why, god? Why did you stick me with the one teacher in the entire school who gives a fuck?

“That’s unfair,” I say. I think it’s mandatory that I utter this line, play up the role of teenage miscreant. “Look, you’re not doing anything to Mark, and we’ve missed all the same classes.”

Woodson frowns. “I think you know perfectly well, Miss Logan, why I’m not dealing with Mr. Hayden like this. If I have to drop him from my class—”

He loses his scholarship.

Of course.

“That’s not what I meant. I’ll—” I chew my lip. I’d be lying if I said I’d start attending classes again. Not that I have a problem with lying. Problem here is that it would be too goddamn obvious. As soon as my seat’s empty tomorrow morning, Woodson will know I was messing with him.

And he’ll call my parents. And Mom will—I actually don’t know. Maybe she’ll prescribe another Wholesome
Activity for me to do. The truth is, it doesn’t matter whether I attend school or not because, with my parents, there won’t be any real consequences.

A smile edges its way onto my face. I shoo it away. Straight face. “What happens if I keep up this way?”

“You get moved into a normal literature class. You flunk. Do you want to graduate, Miss Logan?”

Frankly, my dear English teacher, I don’t give a damn.

Once upon a time I did.

Last year, sophomore year, I was Ella Logan. I was going to ace school. I wouldn’t do as well as Mark, who was all set to become valedictorian; but the Ivy League would admit me, and I’d tell them to stick their offers up their asses and go to NYU. I’d get away from suburbia and meet new people. There’d be life everywhere. There’d be shouts and whispers and sobs all in a single second, and I’d be able to see it all. Soak it all in.

More than anything, that was what I wanted. It was The Dream. I was going to get away from Sherwood. I was going to get away from rich people and my parents and the rest of it.

And once upon a time, Amy was coming with me.

Then it all ended unhappily ever after.

I don’t want it. Not anymore.

But I don’t tell Mr. Woodson this. Instead, I say, “I’ll do my best.”

Always easier to make an empty promise than it is to tell the truth.

“Stop skipping school,” he says, a smile lighting up his wrinkled face, “and you can go back to being your old self.”

And I nearly laugh, because he’s so wrong. There’s no way I can go back to being myself. Not when Amy will never move beyond being sixteen and young and stupid and stuck in this goddamn town.

She’s dead. I know she’s dead, but it feels as if she’s still here. As if I have to stay with her.

“I’ll do my best,” I repeat, and force a weak smile. Then I grab my bag and bolt from the room.

I don’t want to think about who I used to be. Or who I am. Or who I’m becoming.

I don’t want to think about lost dreams.

E
XPLOSIVE
B
OY IS
standing by the water fountain in the tiny courtyard. I crunch over a bunch of twigs to get to him, enjoying the way his eyes grow wider and wider as I move toward him. They nearly pop out of his head when I grab his arm.

“Hi,” I say. I pull him along, back inside the corridors of Sherwood High.

“What are you doing?” he asks. As if he’s so fucking scandalized. But he follows me, and we’re both needles threading our way through hallways crammed with students.

“Faster,” I say, because Mark is waiting and I need to find Petal. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

I’m aware that I sound like a drill sergeant, crazy and deranged. But I don’t care. I’ve already fucked up first impressions with E by pulling that whole crying act. Now I get to be my screwed-up self.

“What are you
doing
?” he repeats.

“I’m dragging you through the corridors of your new high school. Consider it a tour.”

“You’re psycho.”

“Well observed, Holmes.”

To be honest, I’m not really sure why I’ve taken E barreling down this locker-lined hallway with me.