The Harder the Fall

by Lauren Barnholdt

  I’m even wearing one of my favorite outfits—a pair of sparkly shoes with a heel, a tiered black skirt over ribbed tights, and a red sweater with a huge white heart on the front. It’s very cute and casual, but still kind of dressy at the same time.

  “You look so cute,” Ellie says when I get to school. “I love your shoes, and those tights are adorable.” Her eyes move up my body, and when she gets to my nails, she frowns. She grabs my hand. “Why are your nails painted a dark purple color?”

  “Um, it’s supposed to be dramatic,” I say, pretending to be looking for something in my bag. “You know, to offset the cheerfulness of my sweater.”

  “The cheerfulness of your sweater?” Ellie repeats.

  “Yeah. You know, because it has a heart on it?” I’m still rummaging around in my bag, and then I realize that I’m going to have to actually, you know, get something out of it. So I pull out a pen, like that was what I was looking for the whole time. “There it is!” I exclaim.

  “Since when do you have to offset your sweater?” Ellie asks.

  “Ellie, don’t you know anything about fashion? You always want to pick contrasting colors and, ah, moods.” I watched Project Runway last night, and they actually did say something kind of like that. Talking with Lyra about fashion put me in the mood to watch that show.

  Ellie shakes her head. “Can’t you just admit that you got a really bad manicure? And so you had to do your own nails?”

  I shake my head. “It wasn’t a really bad manicure.”

  “Then why did you have to paint your nails a different color?” We’re walking down the hall now, toward my homeroom.

  “I just told you,” I say. “To offset the—”

  “Save it,” she says, holding her hand up. “Even if you were all worried about your contrasting nail colors or whatever it is you’re talking about, there’s no way you’d take off all your nail polish just because of that. That manicure cost you twenty dollars.”

  “Ellie,” I say, and sigh dramatically, “you can’t put a price on fashion.”

  She opens her mouth to say something else, but I don’t have to worry about coming up with another comeback, because Ellie’s boyfriend, Kyle, walks up to us then and grabs her around the waist from behind. He picks her up and twirls her around, then sets her gently back down. Ellie giggles and turns around. “Kyle!” she squeals. “Stop it!”

  I push down the wave of jealousy that rushes up inside me. Brandon has never picked me up like that in the hallway in front of everyone. What does that mean? Does he not want people to know we’re together? Are we even together? I wonder if I should just have that talk with him. You know, the one about whether or not he’s officially my boyfriend. I know Ellie thinks I should. But really, what would I say? I don’t want to come across as being all needy and insecure.

  “Hi, Kyle,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  But Kyle doesn’t answer. He just gazes past me down the hall.

  “Hello!” I say, snapping my fingers in front of his eyes. “Earth to Kyle! I said hello.”

  He purses his lips and ignores me.

  “What’s with you?” Ellie asks. “Kendall just said hi to you. Now you’re supposed to say hi back and then ask her how she’s doing.” She rolls her eyes at me, like she can’t believe how out of touch Kyle is with social norms. Ha. Her and me both.

  “Yeah, I heard her,” Kyle says. “I’m just choosing not to speak with her at this time.”

  “Choosing not to speak to me at this time?” I ask. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

  Kyle picks an imaginary piece of lint off his sweater and then flicks it into the air.

  “Kyle!” Ellie says. She moves a step away from him and crosses her arms over her chest. “Kendall’s my best friend, and you’re not allowed to just be rude to her for no reason.”

  “I’m not being rude to her,” Kyle says.

  “Yes, you are,” Ellie says.

  He tilts his head and thinks about it. “Okay, fine,” he says. “I’m being rude to her. But it’s not for no reason.”

  I frown, trying to remember if there’s anything I’ve done that could possibly make Kyle mad at me. Of course, it could be anything. Kyle is a total loose cannon. Maybe I’ve looked at him wrong. And then I remember something. “Is this about how I wouldn’t let you copy my science report?” I ask. “I told you, Kyle. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. We all got assigned different topics.”

  “You asked Kendall if you could copy her science report?” Ellie asks incredulously.

  “Just as a joke!” Kyle says. “I didn’t actually think she would let me. And besides, that’s not why I’m not talking to her.”

  “Then why aren’t you talking to her?” Ellie asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, “what’d I ever do to you?” I think about maybe bringing up the fact that if it weren’t for me, Kyle and Ellie might not even be together. I’m the one who was always encouraging Ellie not to be so hard on him.

  “It’s not my place to say,” Kyle says vaguely.

  “Then whose place is it?” I ask.

  “It’s Brandon’s.”

  “Brandon’s!” I say. “What did I do to Brandon?”

  “I told you,” Kyle says. “You’ll have to ask him about it.”

  I stick my hand back into my bag and start rummaging around for my cell phone. I have to text Brandon. Can he be mad at me for what happened over the weekend at the apple farm? He seemed so understanding about it at the time, but maybe he was just hiding his true feelings.

  I pull out my phone and start punching in a text. And then I have an awful thought. What if this has something to do with Mrs. Dunham? What if she somehow got to Brandon and warned him to stay away from me? What if she didn’t turn up last night because her work with me was done? What if she acquired some kind of super ghost strength and she was able to break through the ghost-human barrier and tell Brandon to stay away from me?

  And of course he would probably do it, because why wouldn’t he? If his poor dead mother shows up to give him a message from beyond the grave, of course he’s going to listen.

  I’m still fumbling around with my phone when Ellie puts her hand on my arm. “Kendall,” she says.

  “Just a second.”

  “Kendall, you don’t have to text Brandon. He’s right down the hall.”

  “Great,” Kyle says, sighing. “And I really wanted to make sure that I avoided any drama this morning. It’s definitely not good for me to get all uncentered.”

  I turn around. Brandon is walking down the hall toward us. He looks adorable, as usual. The only thing that would make him more good-looking would be if he was smiling. But he’s not. Not even close. In fact, he looks more like he’s scowling.

  I turn back around to Ellie. “I’m scared,” I say.

  She wrinkles her face up into a confused look. “Of talking to Brandon? Don’t be crazy. Just figure out what he’s upset about, and then work it out.”

  Ha! I wonder what Ellie would think if she knew that I was seeing Brandon’s dead mother, who has pretty much told me to stay away from him. I wonder also what she’d think if she knew my mom had been friends with his mom when they were in high school, and I couldn’t even ask my mom about it because I don’t talk to my mom.

  There’s a tap on my shoulder.

  I take a deep breath and turn around.

  And then I scream.

  Because standing right there is Mrs. Dunham.

  “Oh,” Brandon says, looking startled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Girls are so crazy,” Kyle mutters from behind me. Then I hear him say, “Ow!” Probably because Ellie elbowed him in the stomach or something.

  “No, you didn’t scare me,” I say. It’s not a lie. Brandon’s not the one who scared me. It was his mom. Who’s still standing next to him, glaring. She really needs a new look, for real. I mean, her face is going to start staying all pinched up like that. Of course, I’m sure she doesn’
t really care, since I’m the only one who can see her. But if she ever moves on, other ghosts might be able to see her, and she’s definitely going to regret the fact that she spent a bunch of time wrinkling up her face at me.

  “I need to talk to you,” Brandon says. He looks a little . . . serious. Not mad, exactly, which is good. But still. Something is going on.

  “Oh, um, okay,” I say.

  “Somewhere private,” he says.

  “Okay.” I swallow. “Well, we have a few minutes before homeroom. Do you want to go outside to the swings?” Our school used to be an elementary school before everything got redistricted, and so there’s still an old swing set outside in the back. No one ever goes back there anymore, so we should have plenty of privacy.

  He nods and then turns and starts walking away.

  I feel Ellie squeeze my hand briefly before I take a deep breath and then follow Brandon outside.

  By the time we get to the swing set, Mrs. Dunham is gone. Normally I would be happy about this, but I can’t relax. I feel all jittery, like I’m going to jump out of my skin. Who knows when she’s going to just pop up again? Maybe she went away because whatever Brandon’s going to tell me would be too emotional for her. Ghosts are very fragile. Whenever things start to get serious, they tend to disappear.

  “Who are you looking for?” Brandon asks as he sits down on one of the swings.

  “Um, no one,” I say, taking the swing next to him. I push off the ground and let my swing move slowly back and forth. The cool morning air brushes against my cheeks and makes me feel better.

  We don’t say anything for a few seconds.

  Finally Brandon says, “So, what’d you do after school yesterday?”

  That’s what he wants to talk about? “Um, I hung out with Ellie for a while, then went home and did my homework.”

  “What did you and Ellie do?”

  I shrug. “Not much. Just went to get our nails done.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yup.” I look over at him. He’s not swinging anymore. He’s just sitting there, staring down at the ground.

  I stop my swing. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Look,” he says, “I need to ask you something, and I want you to just be honest with me.”

  My stomach does a flip. Whenever someone says they need to ask you something and they want you to just be honest with them, something horrible is about to happen. That’s because it usually means that whatever they’re about to ask you is going to have a very bad answer, especially if you’re honest about it.

  “Okay,” I say. I’m clenching the chains of my swing so hard that I’m probably going to have marks on my hands after this. He’s definitely going to ask me about his mom. About if I can see her or not. I don’t know how, but Mrs. Dunham has somehow gotten him a message from the other side of the grave.

  And now Brandon’s going to ask me about it, and he’s going to tell me that he doesn’t know how or why it’s happening, but of course he has to take it seriously, and that he’s really sorry, but he’s going to have to—

  “Do you like someone else?” Brandon asks.

  I’m so shocked that for a second I don’t think I’ve heard him right. “What?” I say dumbly.

  “Do you like someone else?” He looks down at the ground again. The early morning sun glints off his hair, showing the blond highlights he has. It’s so not fair that a boy is the one who ends up with natural highlights. I mean, women pay good money to get their hair to look like that.

  “No, I don’t like anyone else.” Why would he think that? Unless . . . “Why, do you like someone else?”

  “No.” He waits a beat. “Are you sure you don’t have anything you want to tell me?”

  “No.” I shrug.

  “Okay.” He sighs. “I just . . . I don’t want to sound like a jerk, or come across as being some super-jealous freak. It’s just that Madison Baker said that you were at the nail salon yesterday with Ellie, and that you were flirting with some guy.”

  I wrinkle up my nose. “There are no guys at the nail salon, Brandon. Trust me.”

  “That’s what I thought too. But she said he works there. Apparently he’s the owner’s son or something?”

  “Oh,” I say, my breath going out of me in one big relieved whoosh. “You mean Micah.”

  “You know his name?” Brandon frowns.

  “Yeah. I mean, he was doing my nails.”

  “He was doing your nails?” Brandon repeats.

  This conversation isn’t going so well. And I can’t figure out why, exactly. I shake my head. “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” I say.

  “What’s going on is that I don’t like when Madison Baker calls me and tells me that some other man is giving you a hand massage.”

  Whoa. Madison Baker is calling him? And what is he talking about, some other man? Brandon’s totally gorgeous, and Micah’s in eighth grade, but I wouldn’t exactly call either one of them a man. I don’t think you can really be a man until you get really old. Like twenty at least.

  “How does Madison Baker have your phone number?” I ask. I try to sound nonchalant, but even I can hear the edge that pops into my voice. But I don’t really care. If he’s going to be all upset about me going to the nail salon, then I can certainly be upset that he’s getting calls from other women. I mean, girls.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I think she got it off the class list.” Okay. Well, that’s not so bad. At least he didn’t give it to her. “But don’t try to change the subject.”

  “What subject?”

  “Micah!” He pushes his feet off the ground, and his swing moves back and forth.

  “I told you,” I say. “He was doing my nails.” And then I realize something. “Wait a minute,” I say, shaking my head. “I think you’ve forgotten something very important about this whole conversation.”

  “What?”

  “The fact that you have no right to be angry.” It’s true. Brandon has never asked me to be his girlfriend. He’s never told me we’re exclusive. And yes, it’s true that we’ve kissed, and held hands, and that we text every day and sit together at lunch, but still. I don’t have a commitment. Even Kyle, who might be the craziest guy at our school, realizes that you need to have a commitment. And so he did the right thing and asked Ellie to be his girlfriend.

  I’m beginning to see why Cindy was so mad at my dad. Guys are clueless when it comes to things like this. I guess it doesn’t really matter if you’re a boy or a man.

  “Don’t have a right to be angry?” Brandon asks. “Of course I do. We kissed on Sunday!”

  “Yeah, but you’ve never said that you wanted to be my boyfriend. And besides, if you have a right to be angry about Micah, then I have a right to be angry about Madison calling you.”

  “I told you, she got my number off the class list. She just called me out of the blue. I didn’t recognize the number, so I answered it.”

  I jump off the swing and turn around to face him. “Well, all I was doing was getting my nails done. And I would like to think that you would trust me a little more than that. And if you don’t, well then, I have nothing else to talk to you about, Brandon Dunham.”

  I start to walk back toward the school, but he calls after me.

  “Kendall!”

  I take an extra step before I turn around, just to make him nervous. “Yes?”

  He gets up off his own swing and comes over to me. He sighs. “Look, I’m sorry.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and raise my eyebrows at him. I give him a skeptical look and hope that he gets the message. The message being that I’m willing to listen to whatever he has to say, but that he better make it good.

  “I just didn’t like hearing that you were flirting with someone else,” he says. “If I’m being totally honest, I guess I was jealous.”

  I grin. Brandon Dunham was jealous? Over me? I have to admit that I’m a little bit flattered.


  “And you’re right when you say that I don’t really have a reason to be mad,” he says. He looks down at the ground, and the sun glints off his hair again. God, he is so cute. “Because you’re not technically my girlfriend.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “I’m not.” Butterflies are taking off in my stomach, seemingly multiplying as they fly around inside me. I feel an electricity in the air, like something really exciting is about to happen. My heart is beating fast in my chest, and I’m afraid that if Brandon gets any closer, he’s going to be able to hear it.

  Brandon reaches down and takes both my hands in his. His fingers are warm, and a wonderful little shiver slides through my body. “Kendall,” Brandon says, “will you be my girlfriend?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I will.”

  He grins, then leans down and kisses me.

  Fireworks explode behind my eyes, and my knees get all weak.

  My first boyfriend! I cannot wait to tell Ellie.

  Chapter

  7

  “So how did he say it, exactly?” Ellie asks as we walk home from school. It’s kind of a far walk to my house, but today Ellie and I really need to talk. It would have been perfect if Ellie could have just taken my bus home with me, but last year there was a big scandal with this girl running away from home by manipulating the bus pass system. So now you totally have to have a bus pass that’s signed by, like, the president or something. It’s all very ridiculous and unnecessary.

  “He just said ‘Kendall, will you be my girlfriend?’ ”

  “And then you said yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you say it?”

  I tilt my head and think about it. “Like, kind of happy but not too eager, you know? I didn’t want him to think he was doing me any favors or anything.”

  Ellie nods, then moves her backpack to her other shoulder. “And then how was the kiss?”

  “Good.”

  “Just good?”

  “Great. Amazing, even.”

  Ellie squeals.

  This is why she’s my best friend. Who else would go through all these details with me? No one. But Ellie will because she knows that I’m all jazzed up about it and that I really need to talk.