Freefall (28 page)

11:20
P.M.

“I should have called sooner,” Daniel muttered. “It’s probably too late now.”

“
What’s
too late?” I asked.

For the past five minutes, I’d been following Daniel through the main level at Eric’s house while he tried to find whomever it was that he’d called me here to see, but he still wasn’t telling me anything. Now we were in the second floor hallway—the last area we had left to scope out—where every single door was closed. I was getting so irritated I wanted to throw him against one of them.

Daniel didn’t answer my question. He just opened the first door, stuck his head in for a few seconds, and
then ducked out, shutting it again. “Nope. Not in there.”

“How could you tell with the lights off?”

“Oh, I could tell. Trust me.”

I shook my head. This was kind of sick. “How would you like it if someone busted in on
you
at a party?”

“Are you kidding? Happens to me all the time. I get over it.” He moved to the next door and twisted the knob. This time, before he had a chance to look, some guy inside was yelling, “Hey! This room’s in use!”

“Sorry, dude.” Daniel slammed the door, laughing.

I wasn’t finding it funny at all. By now I was sure we weren’t looking for Rosetta, and the whole thing—me coming to this party—was a huge letdown. I’d gotten my hopes up that Rosetta and I could fix things tonight, but doubt was taking over and I was realizing she might really be done with me.

“You know what?” I said. “This is ridiculous. If you don’t tell me what the point of this is, I’m out of here.”

“Oh,
fine
,” Daniel said. “Carr Goodwin was going around earlier, blaming you for his suspension and everything else, and it was pissing me off. I was going to take him down, but from what I’ve heard about your fight with him, you need a shot at redeeming yourself. So,
you’re
going to do it. As soon as we find him.”

God. Could Daniel
be
a bigger dumbass?

“You had me come here so Carr can kick my ass again?” I asked.

“No. That’s not how it’s going to happen. I’ve got your back, okay? We’re
not going to let him get away with it.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “You and me fighting him two against one is going to change things?”

“Probably not. But it’ll make
me
feel better,” Daniel said, grinning. “And you too, right?”

The thought of Carr ending up with bruised ribs and a black eye like I had did improve my mood, no doubt about it, but I couldn’t go along with this plan. It just wasn’t worth it.

But before I could say so, Daniel was pushing the third door open. “Jackpot!” he said, reaching in to flip the light switch. “Well, sort of.”

11:22
P.M.

From the doorway of Eric’s parents’ room, I spotted Carr right away. He was passed out on the floor next to the huge bed.

Daniel and I stared down at him. Looked at each other. And burst out laughing.

It wasn’t funny. Not really. But at the same time, it kind of
was
. After the effort Daniel had put into making this happen, Carr couldn’t fight. Or move. Or do anything except lie there on his back, snoring with his mouth hanging open.

Lucky for me, I guess.

“That’s one way to get out of a beating,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “What a bastard. You should take a leak on him or something.”

“No way.”

He reached for his belt buckle. “I’ll do it, then.”

“Daniel, no.”

I shoved Daniel into the hall, where we started cracking up again even harder than before. It felt good—all the laughing—except for the fact that it also hurt.

“No one’s going to take a leak on anyone,” I said, when I was able to speak again about a minute later. “Well, no one except Carr. All over himself.”

Daniel leaned against the wall to finish catching his breath. “You know. For being named Dick, you don’t do nearly enough dicklike things.”

“Maybe because my name’s Seth?” I suggested.

“Maybe.” He started for the stairs. “This party blows. I’m getting out of here. You?”

“Definitely.”

But when I reached the first step, I changed my mind. I wasn’t ready to leave quite yet.

I headed back to the bedroom and glanced at Carr one more time.

Then, using my foot, I rolled him onto his side.

All right. Now I was ready.

11:49
P.M.

In my imagination, stopping by Rosetta’s house after Daniel and I split up paid off hugely. Rosetta was staring out a
second floor window when I drove up. She ran out to see me. We sat in her front yard and used all our IC skills. It was as cold as hell, but it was okay because after we’d finished with the apologizing and forgiving, we held each other close and kissed all over the place and it was
mind-blowing
.

In real life, though, none of it was going down like that. I was driving past super-slowly for the fourth time, and Rosetta still wasn’t looking out any window. She wasn’t coming outside. Her house was all curtained up and dark, and, most likely, she was in there fast asleep.

This drive-by routine wasn’t going to lead to anything good, so I left Rosetta’s block and took a few turns to get to the main road leading down the Hill. That’s when an all-too-familiar blue MINI Cooper caught my eye. Kendall’s car. Parked in front of Kendall’s house.

I thought about that thing Brittany had said about me being Kendall’s hero. And about the fact that I
wasn’t
.

I needed to get home. I needed sleep. Much more than that, though, I needed to talk to Kendall. When she saw me at her door, she’d probably scream some more, maybe even throw things, but it needed to happen. It was the only way I’d be able to look at myself straight again.

I flipped a U-ey, parked in her driveway, and headed up the walkway. There were lights on in the house, which meant someone was awake.

About half a minute after I knocked, Kendall opened the door. She didn’t
say anything at first, just stood there in her tank top and pink pajama pants, staring at me. “Right,” she said. “You want your keys.”

It wasn’t that big a deal; I was using a spare set. “Actually, no—”

But she closed the door before I could finish.

Letting out a loud breath, I leaned against the handrail, waiting. Was she going to come back with them or was she really not going to talk to me tonight?

A minute later, there was a noise above me: Kendall had opened a window. After a second, something dropped from it and hit the ground next to me with a clang. My keys.

At least she hadn’t thrown them
at
me.

I snagged the keys and knocked on the door again. This time when Kendall opened up, she immediately crossed her arms over her chest.

“So, thanks,” I said. “That isn’t really why I’m here, though. I was kind of hoping to talk to you about what happened the other day. You know, in the parking lot?”

“I’d rather we didn’t.”

“Look, Kendall, I’m really sor—”

“Don’t,” she said, putting up her hand. “We’re not doing this. I screwed you over. You got back at me. We’re even and that’s the end of it.”

“We’re
not
even, okay? And one thing I’ve been figuring out is that there are times when talking through crap is the only way to resolve it. So . . . I think we should.”

Kendall pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes like she’d never heard anything as annoying as me trying to use IC stuff. It was probably true, but I kept talking anyway. “You don’t have to forgive me. I’m not even sure if I want to forgive you. But I want you to know that
I
know I fucked up big-time. I shouldn’t have pushed you down like that. I was out of line and I’m sorry. That isn’t me and I don’t want it to be.”

She waited a few seconds before softly saying, “Understood.” Then she flipped her black-and-blue hair over her shoulder and said in her regular voice, “I’m freezing. You should come in.”

I stepped inside and followed her as she walked in a stiff, hobbling way back to the home-theater room. At first, I wondered if she’d busted up her feet or something, but then I noticed sparkly gold separators wedged between her pink painted toes.

We each took a seat on the largest of the poufy dark leather couches facing the huge TV. I’d been here a few times to watch movies and hang out. That had always been with Isaac, too, though.

Kendall aimed the remote to turn down the
Gilmore Girls
rerun on the screen. Then she grabbed a bottle of clear nail polish from her plastic toolbox-looking makeup holder and set one of her feet on the coffee table. “Did you really drive all the way up here in the middle of the night just to talk to me?” she asked.

“Well, that’s why I drove ‘here’ to your house. But I’m ‘here’
on the Hill because Daniel tricked me into it. He had a plan to kick Carr’s ass, but Carr was passed out by the time I got there.”

“Figures,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t know if she meant me, Daniel, or Carr. Probably all three.

She twisted open her nail polish, leaned way forward, and started in on another paint layer on her toes. The fumes started stinking up the place, covering up the vanillay smell of the room. I wasn’t too stoked about sitting around and watching Kendall give herself a pedicure, but I didn’t want to leave yet; things didn’t feel finished.

“I looked for Rosetta at Eric’s party tonight,” I said. “She wasn’t there. What was she like at school?”

“I don’t know. Why? Haven’t you two made up yet?”

“She hasn’t called me back.”

Still not looking at me, Kendall brought up her other foot to get started on it. “She thinks you had sex with me, so she won’t even talk to you? Talk about insecure.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “She isn’t talking to me because she thinks I lied to her. Big difference.”

I kind of expected that she might apologize again—it
was
her fault, after all—but she just said, “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. I’m definitely not going to drive slowly past her house all night.”

“Good call. Girls don’t like being stalked. Except, I guess Rosetta isn’t
what anyone would call normal, so maybe
she
does.”

A flash of irritation shot through me. If I let this conversation go any further, I’d probably get pissed off all over again. “So why weren’t
you
at Eric’s?” I asked.

Replacing the brush, she set her bottle on the table and put both her feet back on the floor. “Because I’m too busy moping around here and feeling humiliated, obviously.”

“Well, you don’t have to be. Seems to me that everybody hates Carr and is taking your side in what happened.”

“That makes it worse,” she said, sighing. “Like, the whole world already knew the truth and I just was being stupid. It’s Isaac all over again, except this time I
really
should have known better.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Well,
I
didn’t know. About Isaac, I mean. After all the stuff you’ve been telling me, I’ve only just figured out that you were right.”

“I was right about what, exactly?” she asked, tilting her head.

“That Isaac was reckless. And an ass a lot of the time. He pulled a lot of shit that I blamed you for.”

She shrugged. “I’m sure he left out all the parts that were his fault.”

“Yeah. And if he was always doing that, how good of friends could we actually have been, you know?”

All this time, I’d assumed she’d be glad if I started seeing things her way, but instead she frowned and threw a
small pillow at me. As I caught it, she snapped, “You were
best
friends, Seth. He was on your side and you were on his. That’s how it should have been.”

“It doesn’t make the stuff he did okay.”

“Of course it doesn’t! But don’t start thinking you were stupid or wrong to care about him. You weren’t.
We
weren’t. No person is all good or all bad, Isaac included. He was really sweet most often and a really,
really
big asshole the rest of the time.”

I held the pillow against my chest and slouched deep into the cushions, not sure why I’d missed seeing that for so long.

Kendall went on. “Isn’t it weird that I ever went out with Isaac? Back when you first started hanging out, I couldn’t stand him. But I still clearly remember the first time I ever noticed he was cute. It was in seventh grade when he beat up that high school kid at the arcade who tried to steal your money. Do you remember?”

I nodded. Isaac had gotten himself—and all the rest of us—banned from the place for six months after that. It wasn’t one of
my
best Isaac memories ever.

“And then,” Kendall said, “I went to your first gig after you and Isaac joined Jared’s band freshman year. Oh my God, the way Isaac played guitar! So hot. Afterward, some guy tried to start a fight with you and Mikey in the parking lot, and Isaac just walked up and decked him. Right at that very second, I was completely in love.”

Another not-the-best Isaac memory. “It really turned you on when he hit people, huh?”

At that she burst out laughing. “I think what I liked was that he was fearless. And when he wasn’t screwing everything up, he was loyal. He would have punched anyone in the face for you, Seth. No questions asked.”

Kendall was right about all of it. Isaac: fearless, loyal, impulsive, reckless. Not all good things, not all bad. Just . . . Isaac.

“He’d have done that for you, too,” I said. “Taken down anyone who messed with you.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I guess that makes us the only two members of the People Isaac Would Have Punched Everyone Else in the Face For club?”

I wrinkled my nose, and Kendall and I exchanged small smiles.

“Doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?” she asked.

“Not so much,” I said.

2:07
P.M.

Whenever it wasn’t raining, Saturdays were crazy at the car wash. Today was no exception; vehicles had been lined up all the way to the street for five hours straight. Say what you will about Kenburn, but we do like us some clean cars.