Burn for Burn

I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TIME TO GO TO MY LOCKER AND get my jacket. The teachers were freaking out, pushing us along through the hallways like the building was really on fire. It’s super-bright outside, but it’s freezing, especially for this early in September. I’m shivering, huddled close to Ashlin, who puts her arm around me.

PJ says, “You want my jacket, Cho?”

I nod. “Yes, please!” PJ shrugs it off and hands it over. I put it on, and Ashlin zips me up, hopping from foot to foot. It smells as mildewy as PJ’s basement, but it’s better than nothing.

“Do you think there’s a real fire?” she asks me hopefully. “Maybe we won’t have enough time left for the quiz.”

We had a fire drill last week. This doesn’t feel like a drill. The teachers didn’t seem to know anything about it. I wonder . . . could this be Kat’s doing? She said she’d get those posters up, but even for her this is gutsy.

“Maybe,” I say as the volunteer fire truck comes barreling into the parking lot. Some of the freshmen start clapping and chanting “Let it burn! Let it burn!”

So juvenile.

We’re in the parking lot for another half hour while the firemen check out the building. I can’t feel my toes. The firemen finally come out and give the all clear, and the teachers start ushering us back inside.

I’m walking down the senior hallway when I see them. Our posters, with Alex’s smiling face and his poem right next to it—on lockers, on walls. They’re everywhere.

Alex has seen them too. He’s stopped short in front of a whole cluster of them on a set of lockers. Slowly he says, “What the . . .”

Reeve tears a sheet down and starts reading it out loud, doubling over with laughter. “Winter stars fall so I keep wishing. . . . I love the way you look in sweaters. Can we Eskimo kiss all night long? ’Cause your red ribbon has me tied up in knots!”

That doesn’t sound like the poem Kat was reading in the car. “The Longest Hallway” one.

I take down a sheet and read it over.

Wait.

Red ribbon?

It was Christmastime, my freshman year. My whole family was at Alex Lind’s house for their annual holiday party. Since we’d moved to the island full-time, Alex’s mom and my mom had gotten to be pretty good friends. They went to lunch together, shopping off island, that kind of thing.

The parents were downstairs drinking and talking and mingling by the fireplace. Elvis Presley was playing on the stereo, and us kids could hear it upstairs in Alex’s room. This was before he moved into the pool house. He used to have the whole third floor to himself. It was basically one big rec room, with beanbag chairs and a foosball table and a dartboard. For the party Alex’s mom had set up a table of kid food, things like chicken fingers and popcorn shrimp and mini pizzas, probably so we wouldn’t come downstairs and bother them.

The little kids, my sister included, were fighting over who got to play darts next. Nadia nearly got into a scuffle with an eight-year-old boy, a cousin of Alex’s, I think, and I had to break it up. Since Alex and I were the oldest, we were in charge. I hadn’t even wanted to come, since Rennie wasn’t going to be there, but my mom had insisted we go as a family.

Alex put in a DVD for the kids, and they quieted down for the most part. I was sitting at Alex’s desk, doing stuff on his computer and eating a Christmas cookie. It was a reindeer with a Red Hot candy for a nose. Alex was lying in his hammock a few feet away, strumming on a guitar. He wasn’t too bad at it. Out of nowhere he said, “Hey, cool headband.”

I looked up, startled. “Oh, thanks,” I said, touching the crown of my head. “It’s actually a ribbon.” My mom had wanted me to wear a dress, but I would have felt dumb showing up at Alex Lind’s house dressed up. So I wore a kelly green sweater and a tartan skirt, plus the red ribbon, for a festive touch.

“Cool,” he said, looking back down at his guitar. “You look nice in red. Like, uh, that shirt you wear sometimes.”

“What shirt?”

“I don’t remember.” His freckly face turned the same color as his hair. He kept strumming the guitar. “I think you had it on last Monday or something?”

The only red I wore on Monday was during gym. “That was my PE uniform from my old school,” I told Alex.

“Nice,” he said. Now his face was as red as my ribbon. “Yeah, we don’t wear uniforms here.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

It was awkward for another second or two. Then Alex got up and went to the bathroom and I went back to the computer.

Oh my God.

That Christmas party was freshman year. He remembered? All this time? That can’t be.

I look at him, and he’s looking at me. He drops his eyes right away. So it is about me.

Next to me Ashlin covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my gosh,” she says, giggling. “I had no idea Alex was a poet!”

I feel dizzy.

“Who did this?” Alex demands. He’s all flushed; he’s definitely upset.

Reeve is practically falling on the ground, he’s laughing so hard. “Bro, this is that song you’ve been working on, isn’t it? Come on. Don’t be ashamed. This is good stuff. You’ve got talent.”

“Shut up, Reeve.” We watch as Alex starts taking down the posters. I wonder how Kat managed to get them up so high.

“Alex, man, can we Eskimo kiss all night long?” Reeve asks, sputtering into laughter again and throwing an arm around him.

Alex shoves him away. “Did you do this?”

Shaking his head, Reeve says, “No way! I swear on your red ribbon!”

Alex tears the rest of the posters down and stalks off in a huff, throwing them into the garbage on the way.

Reeve starts singing the poem, and everyone’s laughing. I walk up to him and snatch the poster out of his hand. “You’re such a jerk,” I say loudly. To Ashlin I say, “Let’s go back to class.”

Ashlin and I are walking away as Reeve calls out to me, “You need to work on your sense of humor, Cho.”

I don’t turn around. I just keep walking. Ashlin’s talking about Alex’s poem or song or whatever it is, but I’m barely even paying attention. I can’t stop thinking about the look on Alex’s face when our eyes met. Does he really like me that much? But if that’s true, what is he doing with my sister? It just doesn’t make sense.