While staffers file in and out of the room for classroom deliveries, I’m in my office working on the reunion slideshow, catching up on the work I neglected this week. I hear my door fly open, and I know it’s him without looking up. He drops a copy of the issue on my desk, the paper hitting the keys of my computer harshly.
“What,” he seethes, “is this?”
The replacement story I wrote headlines the front page. “Eight Years Out and Living Back Home: Three Fairview Alums ‘Figuring It Out.’” I’m proud of the piece. It took me nonstop effort on Wednesday, not to mention four coffee runs with Dylan in which we both dutifully avoided the topic of her and Olivia’s relationship. I interviewed Jamie and her friends Tuesday night, slept for six hours, then worked the entirety of Wednesday—including a second nightlong effort—writing the fiteen-hundred-word story to replace Ethan’s. It was five in the morning on Thursday when I submitted the issue with my story to the printer.
The only good thing about the accelerated pace is I’ve managed to keep the drama from the staff. I passed off his and my fight the other night as a personal one, offered the news editors a vague excuse regarding unprintable flaws in his reporting, and assured them I would handle their pages. The last thing I needed was one of the editors taking this issue to Ms. Heyward, who would have forced me to syndicate the story and robbed us of the slimmest chance of major awards. As it is, we probably won’t win publication of the year, but we won’t be humiliated, either. And Ethan has lost.
His expression at this very moment easily makes it all worth it. “You knew I needed my story in this issue to be eligible for the NSPC reporting award,” he says, his face redder than I’ve ever seen it. His hair sticks up a little in the front, like he ran his hands through it in shock and didn’t remember to flatten the light golden waves back down. It’s perfect.
I hold in my grin, maintaining an unaffected expression. “Oh, whoops.” I widen my eyes, the picture of facetious innocence. “I guess you should have thought of that before trying to screw me over. It really was a nice effort, though. Next time, maybe.” I get up and walk past him, knowing he’ll follow. I plan to wring this moment for everything it’s worth, including gloating in public.
He speeds ahead, rounding on me. “I deserved to win that award, Alison.” It’s weird hearing him use my first name. I enjoy the uncommonness of it, the way it shows how obviously flustered he is. Like we’ve left behind schoolyard games and entered something real. I wouldn’t mind hearing it from him more often.
“You know,” I reply, “you did deserve it. Your piece was probably the finest high school reporting I’ve read. Pity the judges won’t ever see it.”
The staffers sorting papers have fallen silent. Some pretend they’re not listening, while others watch with unhidden interest. When two sophomores return from delivering papers, they notice us and their conversation dies instantly. It’s exactly what I wanted. Ethan provoked me into making a scene on Monday—now I’m returning the favor.
Meeting Ethan’s eyes, I reach past his waist for the stacks of papers on the desk behind him. When I lift them, the folded newspaper edges brush his belt. He watches me heatedly. I head into campus and immediately hear his footsteps following me.
“Where did you even get this half-assed replacement?” he asks, quickening his pace and coming up next to me as I cross the hallway outside the Chronicle. I duck into the first classroom, where I drop a pile of the papers on Miss Cho’s desk. When I come out, Ethan’s right in front of the doorway, perilously close. I sidestep him.
“Check the byline,” I tell him.
There’s a pause while he does. I don’t need to be looking at him to imagine his grimace.
“It’s sloppy,” he says. “I should’ve—”
“No.” I pivot to face him, and he stops abruptly right when he’s about to collide with me. I abandon my indifference and finally let my anger fly. “No, what you should’ve done is remembered I’m your editor. The Chronicle is my paper, and I always have the final say on every story on every page.”
Without waiting for him to reply, I leave him in the hallway and drop off another stack of papers. When I walk into the next hall, it’s empty until Ethan joins me. The sharp sound of him pushing open the door resounds down the rows of lockers. He cuts me off, planting himself in my path.
“Is beating me really that important to you? That you would jeopardize your own newspaper?” he asks.
He’s close to me now, inches separating us. Hatred rolls off him in waves, but I don’t step back. It’s exactly what I feel coursing through me. I’m fully in the grip of what Ethan does to me, the consuming drive that makes me reckless.
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
His eyes harden. “Are you enjoying this?” he asks, a dangerous edge in his voice.
“Isn’t it obvious? Don’t be a sore loser, Ethan.” I throw his words back at him and am rewarded by a scowl.
“Four years of seeing your face every day,” he says like it’s a prison sentence. “Of hearing your voice in every class. Graduation can’t come soon enough.”
“I fantasize about it frequently,” I fire back.
“Just imagining the day I never again have to look upon your endless array of pretentious blazers—”
“Your obnoxious shoulder bag,” I interject, standing my ground as he steps closer.
“Your ridiculously narrow handwriting.”
“Your grating laugh.”
“Your noxious perfume.”
We’re fully in each other’s faces now. My gaze roams over every inch of the features I’ve learned to loathe. I could draw Ethan from memory, if only to light the portrait on fire when I’d finished and watch his long jaw and cheekbones go up in flames. “Your eyes,” I say contemptuously, nearly under my breath.
His green irises drop to my lips. “Your mouth.” It comes out in a rasp.
Within heartbeats, I’m conscious of the distance closing between our faces. I don’t know what to do with this knowledge. Everything I remember, every rational thought in my head feels far out of reach. I’m picking up velocity, brakes cut, heading for collision. Without thinking, I drop the newspapers and reach for his waist at the precise moment his hands find my face.
Our lips crash together.
Thirty-Five
I SINK INTO THE kiss for an incinerating moment. The rush is overwhelming, high-altitude dizziness in the middle of this empty locker hall. Ethan’s lips are hurried, frantic almost, his hands frenzied in my hair. My hands aren’t conducting themselves any more respectably. They clutch him desperately, without reason.