The Harder the Fall

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “I’d love to,” I breathe.

  “Good.” He kisses me then, right there in the hall.

  And when he pulls back and squeezes my hand, I know everything’s going to be all right.

  • • •

  I’m in such a good mood that I don’t even care when I get in trouble for being late to English. A little lunch detention never hurt anyone, ha-ha.

  And besides, it gives me time to come up with a plan.

  All (well, most) of my problems are happening because of Micah. And the reason I keep having to hang out with Micah is because of Lyra. But if I can figure out how to get Lyra to move on, then poof ! I won’t have to see Micah anymore.

  The only problem is how I’m going to do that. Especially since I’m not supposed to be going to the salon anymore. I guess I could try to talk to Micah at school or something, but since he’s an eighth grader, we’re not going to be in any of the same classes. And if I try to talk to him in the hall, there’s a chance that Brandon might see us. Or even worse, that Madison will see us. And who knows what kind of story she’ll make up about how it looked? She’ll probably tell Brandon we were making out or something. Ugh.

  Fortunately, the solution to my problem presents itself that afternoon when I get on the bus. I’m the first one on, because I rushed out of school in an effort to avoid Ellie. Since I had lunch detention, I haven’t really seen her all day. Of course, she’s been texting me nonstop, things like Kendall! You can’t avoid me forever!

  Once I get on the bus, I pull out my phone and type back, Sorry! Phone was dying, so I shut it off for a bit. I’m not avoiding you!

  It’s horrible to lie. But what choice do I have? It’s so hard with Ellie, too, because she knows me probably better than anyone else, even my dad. The only person who even came close to knowing me as well as Ellie was my grandma. So Ellie obviously knows something’s up, and so I can’t just—

  “Can I sit here?” a deep voice asks.

  I look up in surprise, ready to tell whoever it is to find their own seat. We’re lucky in that our bus is usually pretty empty, and so no one has to sit together unless they really want to. And who wants to sit with someone they don’t know? Not me, that’s for sure.

  “There are tons of empty—,” I start to say, but then I stop. Because the voice belongs to Micah. Micah is on my bus! I had no idea. This is perfect! Now I can just talk to him on the bus! And no one will know! “Oh,” I say. “Yes, you can sit here.”

  He plops down next to me. A little too next to me, if you know what I mean. I move closer to the window, but there’s only so far I can go.

  “I didn’t know you took this bus,” I say.

  “Well, it’s my first day,” he reminds me. “And this morning my mom drove me to school.”

  “Oh.”

  “She wanted to meet with my guidance counselor. She’s so overprotective ever since my sister died.”

  “Yeah, boo,” Lyra says, appearing in the seat ahead of us. “You get to go to school and be alive and complain about how mom has to take you to the guidance counselor. Some people would kill to go to school.”

  I want to tell her that she’s forgetting that school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but (a) she wouldn’t listen, and (b) Micah would think I was crazy.

  “Oh, that sucks,” I say. “My dad is super-protective too.”

  “Really?” Micah says. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a bag of cheese popcorn. He opens it and offers me some. I take a handful. Since I had lunch detention and then hid out in the library, I didn’t really have time to eat a proper lunch. “Because he doesn’t seem like the type who would be overprotective.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask. “You’ve never met my dad.”

  “Yeah, but he lets you have a boyfriend. So he must be at least kind of cool.”

  “Not really,” I say. “You should see how he is with Brandon. He gives him a really hard time.” The bus has been filling up with kids, and the driver shuts the door and shifts into gear. As we turn out of the school parking lot, Micah gets jostled and his leg pushes up against mine.

  “So how come you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend?” he asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I say nonchalantly. “I guess it just never really came up.”

  “Right,” he says. But he says it like Riiiiight, you’re lying, not like Right, that makes sense. And he has a twinkle in his eye and a little bit of a knowing look on his face.

  I must look confused, because Lyra feels the need to explain things to me.

  “He thinks you didn’t tell him because you like him,” she says. “I mean, he thinks you like him, Micah. Not Brandon. He thinks every girl likes him.” She frowns. “Mostly because they usually do. He’s used to getting whatever girl he wants. So he just thinks everyone likes him.”

  Hmm. Well, she could have mentioned that before she sent me off to get my nails done by him. Here I was, sitting there totally innocent and completely clueless while he was giving me hand massages. And the whole time he was probably thinking that I was coming into the salon just to see him. Which I was, but not for the reason he thinks.

  I open my mouth to tell him I don’t like him like that, and that I’m sorry if he’s gotten the wrong idea. I don’t even feel bad about it. Someone as good-looking as Micah is going to have no problem finding other girls. Maybe I can hook him up with Madison Baker, get her out of my hair.

  “Micah—”

  “No!” Lyra screams. “You can’t tell him you don’t like him! If you do, he’s going to completely lose interest in you.”

  I frown. “And why would that be a bad thing?” I say out loud.

  “What?” Micah asks, confused.

  “Uh, nothing,” I say quickly. “Just, um, talking to myself.”

  He frowns.

  “It will be a bad thing because then he won’t want to hang out with you!” Lyra yells. “He doesn’t want to hang out with any girls that aren’t interested in him. He’s like a walking hormone.”

  “So,” Micah says. “What are you up to this weekend?”

  “Hanging out with my boyfriend,” I say quickly. I don’t want to lead the poor boy on. “What are you up to?”

  He shrugs. “Tomorrow I have this stupid family dinner thing,” he says. “I think I told you about it. My mom’s best friend is coming over with her daughter, Rachel. But after that I’m totally free.”

  “Tell him to invite you!” Lyra yells. She’s jumping all around in the seat ahead of me. She’s moving so fast that I’m afraid she’s going to actually move the seat, even though I know that’s impossible. “Pretend you like him!” she screams again. Her glasses almost fly off her nose, she’s bouncing so hard. Jeez. I’ve never seen someone so excited before.

  I sigh.

  “So, ah,” I say, “what if I wasn’t hanging out with my boyfriend this weekend?” I give Micah what I hope is a flirtatious look. “Would you have something planned for us?” Maybe I should wink at him. Winking is flirtatious, right? It’s what people do when they have a secret together. A secret that they don’t want anyone else to know about.

  “Then I would see if you wanted to hang out with me,” Micah says. He pushes closer to me on the seat, and now he raises his eyebrows, like he’s challenging me to say no or bring up my boyfriend again.

  And then I get it. Micah doesn’t like me. He just likes the idea that I might do something behind Brandon’s back because of him. He likes the idea that he might win and get me to hang out with him. Wow. He’s kind of a typical guy. Still, it’s for the greater good.

  “Well, maybe I could get out of hanging with my boyfriend,” I say.

  Or, you know, just make sure that Brandon doesn’t want to hang out tomorrow night.

  “Sounds good,” Micah says. “So maybe tomorrow, after my mom’s friend leaves, we could get together. We could go bowling or something. They have rock ’n’ bowl at the lanes in town. You know, late night.”

  Yikes
. Late night? That sounds serious. “Sure,” I say, “I can do late night.” As long as he’s not talking about too late. I mean, anything after ten and my dad is probably going to freak out.

  “No!” Lyra says, sighing in exasperation. “You can’t hang out with Micah late night! You need to get invited to the dinner so that you can see Rachel.”

  Oh. Right. I forgot about that part of it.

  “Ah, maybe we could hang out earlier,” I try. “My dad’s not really a fan of me being out late.”

  “But I just told you that I have a dinner thing earlier,” he says. He reaches back into his bag and pulls out another handful of popcorn. He stuffs it into his mouth.

  “Well, maybe I could come,” I say.

  He tilts his head and thinks about it, but then he shakes his head ever so slightly. “I don’t know,” he says doubtfully. “It’s not really going to be that fun.”

  I move a little closer to him on the seat, letting my arm brush against his on purpose. “Oh, I’m sure it will be fun, being with you,” I say. “We can do both. I’ll come over early for dinner, and then later we can go out, um, late night. That way we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  Oh my God. I am shamelessly flirting. Like, completely over the top, throwing myself at him. There’s no way he’s buying this, is there? I hardly know him. And besides, I have a boyfriend. How can Micah possibly think that a girl with a boyfriend who has only known him for, like, five minutes can be so excited at the prospect of spending a whole Friday night with him?

  “Sounds good,” he says. “I’ll talk to my mom about it.”

  The bus pulls to a stop, and he stands up. “This is my stop,” he says. He carefully folds up the now empty popcorn bag and hands it to me. “Throw this out for me, okay?”

  And then he’s gone.

  Chapter

  10

  Friday passes by in a blur. I’m so nervous that I’m going to get caught talking to Micah that I totally ignore him at school.

  Of course this somehow just makes him more interested. He keeps following me around, trying to talk to me. When I come out of gym, he’s there. When I turn the corner by the library, he’s there. He’s always, you know, lurking around.

  “Who are you looking for?” Ellie asks me as we’re walking out of school at the end of the day.

  “No one,” I say, shrugging and trying to look innocent.

  “Then why were you looking around?”

  “No reason,” I say.

  “You better not be looking for that jerk Micah,” Kyle says, coming up behind Ellie and putting his arm around her.

  “I would never be looking for Micah,” I say, aghast.

  “Good,” Kyle says. He puffs his chest out. “Because I wouldn’t want to have to kick his butt.”

  Ellie giggles. I guess she thinks that Kyle getting into a fight is charming or something. Not that it would be much of a fight. I mean, Micah’s an eighth grader. He’s, like, twice the size of Kyle. It would be over in a second.

  “You wouldn’t fight him,” Ellie says.

  “Yes, I would,” Kyle says. “I’d meet him at the flagpole and everything.”

  The flagpole is where everyone meets when they say they’re going to fight. The sad thing is, it usually never happens. A big group of people will gather at the flagpole after school to watch whatever fight is rumored to be happening, and inevitably one of the participants ends up chickening out, and then everyone just stands there until a teacher comes and tells them all to move it along.

  Ellie giggles again.

  I’m not going to judge her for thinking it’s hilarious that Kyle is getting all macho. I mean, I’m just glad I was able to explain to her about me being at the salon every day. I told her that I just felt really bad for Micah about losing his sister. That it reminded me of how my grandma died, only worse, since Lyra was our age.

  But then I told her that it wasn’t worth losing Brandon over, and that I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that relationship, so I knew I had to stop. She was skeptical at first, but by the end I started crying, and she totally bought it. I felt guilty, but only for a short while. All I have to do is get through this weekend, and then this whole thing will be over. I’ll figure out what’s up with Rachel and solve it. Lyra will be gone, and therefore Micah will be gone.

  Well, not gone, exactly. But he’ll be out of my life, at least.

  “So what are you doing tonight?” Ellie asks me.

  “Oh, I have to do my homework,” I lie.

  She frowns. “On a Friday night?”

  “Yeah. I need to get it all done so that I have tomorrow free.”

  “Yeah,” Brandon says as he joins our group. He takes my hand, and I feel a rush of warmth. “She needs to have the whole day free tomorrow. We have a date.”

  “Oooh,” Ellie says. “How romantic. What are you guys doing?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Brandon says, grinning. “I’m not telling her.”

  “How come you never plan a surprise date for me?” Ellie asks Kyle.

  “I thought you said you didn’t like surprises,” Kyle says.

  “Usually I don’t,” Ellie says. “But I’d like a surprise if it was from you.”

  “Yo, woman, I’ll get you a surprise,” Kyle says. “Whatever Kyle’s woman wants, Kyle’s woman gets.”

  Brandon and I look at each other doubtfully. Then he pulls me a few feet away so that we’ll have some privacy.

  “So my dad’s going to pick you up tomorrow night at six,” he says.

  “Okay.” I feel the butterflies start up in my stomach. Ever since Brandon told me he was planning a date for us, I’ve been looking forward to it. And now it’s happening tomorrow. “Should I wear anything special?”

  “You should dress up a little,” he says. “But nothing too crazy.”

  “Like a dress?”

  “Yeah, you could wear a dress. Nothing too fancy, though.”

  “Okay,” I say, already planning to text Ellie as soon as I get on the bus and ask her to come over on Saturday and help me get ready.

  “I should go,” Brandon says, and then he leans down and kisses me. “But I’ll text you later.”

  “Okay,” I say. Hopefully, he doesn’t text me while I’m over at Micah’s house. That could be a little awkward. I mean, I’m going to be having dinner with Micah’s family and everything. I doubt I’ll be able to text. “If I don’t text you back right away, it just means that I’m getting my homework done so that we can have our date tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Brandon squeezes my hand, and then he’s gone.

  I watch him make his way through the crowd of kids toward his bus. His navy blue backpack bounces behind him, and I get a little giddy watching him. How lucky am I that he’s my boyfriend?

  I turn around and start heading for my bus. As I do, I catch Madison Baker watching me from the other side of the parking lot.

  Too bad for you, Madison, I think with a smile. Everything’s going great with me and Brandon, and you can’t do anything about it.

  “You have to wear something cute,” Lyra tells me later that night. We’re in my room, and I’m getting ready to go over to her family’s house.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I ask. I have on jeans and a light gray Henley shirt printed with purple butterflies. It’s one of my favorite shirts. It’s really pretty, and it has been washed so many times that it’s super-soft.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it,” she says. “But it’s not exactly what you’d wear out on a date.”

  “It’s not a date,” I remind her.

  “Not to you,” she says. “But to Micah it is. And he’s not going to want to keep you around if you don’t at least make a little effort.”

  “Lyra,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I am not going to get all done up for your brother. If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then that’s too bad for him.” Honestly, it doesn’t matter what I look like. I mean, once I get ther
e, he can’t just kick me out of his house, can he? I can’t imagine he’d take one look at me and then be like, Um, you’re not as cute as I wanted you to be, so you’re not invited anymore.

  Although with boys you never know. They do crazy things all the time.

  “Fine,” Lyra grumbles. “But if you don’t get the information that you need, then don’t blame me.”

  “Whatever.” It doesn’t even matter what Micah thinks anyway, I tell myself as I pull my sparkly butterfly necklace out of my jewelry box and fasten it around my neck. What really matters is what Rachel thinks. Will she trust me enough to tell me why she’s so upset about Lyra? That’s going to be the big test. And she’s going to be far more likely to talk to me if she thinks I look trustworthy and friendly and approachable.

  I check the clock. Ten minutes to seven.

  Micah and his mom should be here to pick me up any minute. Micah lives on the other side of the cemetery, and it would only take me about five minutes to walk there, but my dad doesn’t like me walking through the cemetery after dark. Actually, he doesn’t like me walking anywhere after dark.

  So Micah’s mom is coming to pick me up.

  Of course, my dad doesn’t know Micah’s mom is coming to get me. He thinks Ellie’s mom is coming to get me. And the reason he thinks that is because I told him I was going to Ellie’s.

  There’s no way I could tell my dad I was going over to a boy’s house, especially a boy who wasn’t Brandon. First, he probably wouldn’t let me go. Second, he would ask me all kinds of questions, like who the boy was and who else was going to be there, and could he meet the boy’s parents, and what happened to Brandon, and blah, blah, blah.

  So I just decided to tell him I was going to Ellie’s house. Yes, it’s a lie. And yes, I feel bad about it. But it’s part of my job. Otherwise I’m going to be stuck with Lyra forever.

  I grab my purse and throw my lip gloss into it.

  “I thought you didn’t care what you looked like,” Lyra says as we head downstairs.

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why are you packing your lip gloss?”

  “Just because I packed my lip gloss doesn’t mean that I care about what I look like,” I say. “I always wear lip gloss.”