The Fallen

by Liz Braswell

  Too late.

  The door opened and Paul was walking out, a dollar in his hand, probably going to the snack machines in the cafeteria.

  “Hey, Chloe,” he said, a little surprised, but not upset.

  “Hey,” she said, and stopped walking. But she didn’t say anything further, just stood there, looking at him, slightly bored and impatient.

  “I heard you and Amy were fighting.” He said it with faint surprise, like it was some other people he was talking about, like it was juicy school gossip. He was almost preppy today in khakis but with a slim, expensive-looking off-white shirt with red stripes along the seams and a tiny Puma insignia on the back.

  “Um, yeah “She tried to sound cool. “Amy was pissed because I didn’t want to go over to her place. She blew me off when I texted her about lunch and she didn’t even read it.”

  “Oh,” Paul said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “She didn’t tell me about that.”

  “Quelsurprise” Chloe muttered.

  “Does it bother you that we’re together?”

  That was so Paul. Guarded, guarded, silent, then… pow!The direct, emotional kicker.

  “It’s a little weird,” Chloe finally admitted. “But that doesn’t bother me as much as her—and your—complete disappearance from my life. I mean, she always gets a little caught up in her boyfriends, and you always had the ‘secret girlfriend’ thing going on…But this is different. We haven’t hung out since that weird double-date thing with Alyec. I don’t want to double date; I want to just hang with you guys like we used to.”

  Paul nodded, not saying anything.

  “A lot has been going on with me recendy and she hasn’t…. Neither one of you has been around to hear it. It’s like she doesn’t even care anymore.”

  “I think,” Paid said delicately, “she might be a little… concerned about your current choice of boyfriends.”

  Which one? Chloe almost asked.

  “Alyec? What the fuck, man? I wasn’t pissed or rude to her face about Ottavio or that loser Steve who brought fucking ecstasy into my mom’s house and tried to sell it at my Halloween party.”

  Paul nodded again, getting quieter as she got louder. He did not disagree.

  “Alyec is completely hot, doesn’t take himself seriously, and doesn’t deal drugs. Look, whatever,” Chloe said, calming down. She could feel her fingertips beginning to itch again. “/ think she’s acting like a real bitch about everything, and frankly, I don’t have time to deal with her shit right now. If she’s not going to be around to lend an ear, at least she can keep her distance and shut the fuck up.”

  Paul raised his eyebrows. The movement didn’t touch the rest of his face; he looked a Vulcan or something, with immobile, high cheekbones and eyes so dark you couldn’t tell the pupil from the iris.

  “I’m sorry about the ranting.” Chloe sighed. “I gotta go.”

  “Chloe—” Paul stopped. “I’m sorry. Don’t confuse me with her.”

  She softened a little. He sounded anxious, genuinely worried.

  “I won’t.” She kissed him on the cheek, amusedly remembering how she’d had the urge to suck face with him a couple of weeks ago. No such desire made itself known now; just warmth and friendliness. The way it should be.

  Paul smiled.

  “Okay, well, see you later?” It was a question, a promise.

  He continued on his way to the cafeteria—which was a relief; if he had gone back inside the newspaper office, Chloe would have suspected that he was going to call or text or e-mail Amy. Or worse, that she’d been in there the entire time. As Paul turned the corner, Chloe leaned forward and sniffed. She wasn’t sure exacdy what she was smelling for, if asked, she would never have been able to describe Amy’s scent beyond the Anna Sui perfume she sometimes wore. She just assumed there would be some warm, vaguely familiar smell.

  But there wasn’t. Just Paul, his masculine, slighdy acrid smell—not bad, just that he probably hadn’t washed the gel out of his hair from yesterday. And his skin—images flashed through her head, but none of them matched or described the smell exacdy. Ivory soap, sandalwood; something comforting and deep and good.

  Oh, and underneath it all, a package of Cheetos he must have consumed a few minutes ago.

  I could be a bloodhound, Chloe thought smugly. Then she thought about Paul: he only ate crappy snacks when he was nervous. Either it was trig or her and Amy.

  She continued on to the guidance counselor’s office and began to look at the pamphlets, raising her lip at the army, ROTC, and other military ones. These she took and surreptitiously tipped into the recycling bin. Paul’s cousin had been killed in Baghdad—he had joined the army because his father wouldn’t send him to an American college and he didn’t want to go back to Korea. Just like Brian, except he didn’t mind guns.

  “Ms. King. You die the last person I expected to see hoe.”

  Chloe tried not to look up with sneering surprise at Mr. McCaffety. He was such a guidance counselor, with visible dandruff and really ugly loafers.

  “As opposed to, say, the kids who smoke up in the parking lot at lunch?”

  “Good point,” he allowed. He took a sip of coffee out of a mug that said World’s Best Dad. A blurry shot of his twin daughters was framed beneath the words, an indistinct clue to his humanity, a life beyond these walls. “I meant to say I didn’t really expect you to come here of your own volition.”

  Chloe shrugged, pointing at the rack of booklets. “I don’t know what to do.” With my life, my boyfriends, my best friend, the threat on my life…

  Mr. McCaffety’s eyes lit up.

  “Well, I want to get out of here,” he said frankly, “but why don’t we make an appointment?”

  “Okay,” Chloe said, a little guardedly. She hoped no one else heard about this. “I’e got second period free Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays….”

  “Great. How’s Friday?”

  “Uh, okay, I guess.”

  “Anything I should research, know about before you come in?”

  Research? He’s actually going to look up stuff for me? Chloe blushed. “I’m kind of interested in the fashion industry….”

  “Ah. Design or corporate?”

  “Corporate.” This was really weird. He was taking her seriously. What she wanted to do with her life, seriously. Like she wasn’t a dreaming little sixteen-year-old with delusions of grandeur.

  “Excellent! Well, we’ll see what we can find. I’ll see you on Friday, then.”

  “Yeah, right,” Chloe agreed in a daze.

  “Hey.” Alyec caught up to her as she was just about to board the bus back toward Inner Sunset. “Want to come with me across the street? I have to go to the comic store. We can hang out.”

  Wednesday is comic day. Alyec read comic books? Chloe couldn’t help noticing that every new detail about the boy’s personality and life revealed him to be—well, more boyish. If it wasn’t for the accent and the looks, he could just as well be an Alex having grown up in the Valley or Idaho or something.

  “I have to work today,” she answered, looking at her watch and trying not to smile. “If it’s on the way and we’re less than a half hour, I can walk with you.”

  “Oh, they have them bagged and up at the counter for me,” Alyec said easily. He didn’t look like a comic book reader, like the pale-fleshed males and females who were already hurrying together in a protective band out of the school. Paul was one of them, distinguishable by his slighdy healthier skin tone. He waved to her as the group walked by. They were all laughing and arguing and loudly quoting movies and books and television shows. Chloe felt a quick pang of sadness as she watched them go. They were a little clan where everyone was accepted; if one was acting all bitchy—like, say, Amy—there were at least five others with whom one could take solace. Plus they would probably think my daws were really cool.

  “I would be their goddess,” she mused aloud.

  “You would be anyone’s goddess,” A
lyec said without really listening. “Come on. I want to beat the rush.” He took her by the hand and led her away. He was wearing a brown turdeneck sweater, precisely fitting jeans, and European-looking leather shoes and looked exacdy like a model or a pouty-lipped god listening to the coolest new music on a Virgin ad.

  “Do any of the other popular kids know you do this?”

  “They accept it.” He shrugged. “You and your friends talk about ‘popular’ a lot,” he added, but didn’t make a comment or conclusion.

  Chloe waited outside the store, less from embarrassment than claustrophobia; the tiny shop was packed with people. She also felt a little strange: here she was, an actual person with actual weird abilities. She worried that the comic readers could sniff her out or tell that she was different

  “Ach,” Alyec said, emerging. “Superman looks like it totally sucks this week. Thank goodness for The Punisher”

  “Well, that’s what you get for reading kid stuff,” Paul said, coming out the door behind him. To Chloe’s surprise, Alyec didn’t get upset.

  “Yeah, I know.” He sighed. “But you know, Superman is a symbol of America, so when I was in Russia, he used to mean everything to me. Rock music. Television. Money.”

  “Don’t you mean truth, justice, and the American way?” Paul asked, a very faint smile on his lips.

  “Yeah, whatever. Same thing.” Chloe looked back and forth between them, her best friend and her boyfriend, who were really as different as the sun and Pluto, talking easily.

  “I guess geekdom is the great leveler,” she observed.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” Paid answered, grinning. “Just wait until a convention. Well, I gotta go …” He faltered. Pick up Amy, Chloe realized. “Pick up Amy,” he finally said, determined to keep things normal between everyone. Chloe was glad; at least the two of them could still communicate.

  “C’mon.” Chloe dragged Alyec, who had begun to flip through his brown paper bag of goodies. “I’ll buy you some fries.” He brightened up and went with her. like a lot of the popular kids, he never seemed to have a book bag or backpack or anything, not even one of those messenger bags. Chloe wondered where they put all their stuff.

  They stopped at the McDonald’s a block from Pateena’s and she kept her word, although she wouldn’t let him eat any that she didn’t hold in her lips.

  “That’s no fair,” Alyec said, biting one and kissing her. “You get half.”

  She stuck a finger in the ketchup and licked it suggestively. “Hey, are you complaining?”

  “No.” He kissed her again, without a fry to entice him.

  Chloe stopped, feeling someone watching her. There was a stopped footstep, a familiar smell….

  Brian, she realized.

  He stood across the street, staring at the two of them. Hurt was plainly painted across his face.

  “Hang on a sec,” she told Alyec, who comfortably grabbed the fries and began tossing them down his gullet as fast as he could. She ran across the street.

  “What’s going on?” Brian asked heatedly, indicating Alyec. Once again, he was all in black, and his eyes were molten and focused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With him? What are you doing? With him?” He tried keep quiet, but his voice grew louder and louder.

  “Brian, you said you couldn’t”—she winced at the clinical, grown-up-sounding words—”engage in a physical relationship with me.”

  He looked at her, uncomprehending.

  “You won’t kiss me!” she finally said, exasperated. “What are you? A friend? Then you shouldn’t mind me dating someone. A boyfriend?” She let the last word drop, not needing to add anything after it.

  “I didn’t realize it was so important to you—,” he began haughtily.

  “Don’t give me that crap,” Chloe retorted angrily. “It’s the twenty-first century, I’m a sixteen-year-old girl, and wanting to kiss my boyfriend good night is not weird or homy!”

  Brian let his head hang.

  “I like you,” she said, sighing. “I really do. But I asked you before—what now? What do you want us to be?”

  Brian shook his head and walked away, eyes glassy.

  Chloe watched him sadly but didn’t chase after him. Alyec wandered over to her, seeming to not mind the incident. He was using the last fry to scoop up the last bit of ketchup. “Who’s that, another boyfriend?” he asked, unconcerned.

  “Uh, sort of,” Chloe said, taken aback by his honesty.

  “You haven’t done anything with him.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah? How would you know?”

  “He’s still alive.” Alyec grinned at her. “You would tear a boy like that up and spit him back out when you were done.”

  Chloe smiled weakly back.

  Fourteen

  Chloe Spent the entire afternoon at Pateena’s going over and over her and Brian’s conversation. She thought she had been extremely mature and handled it surprisingly well, saying all the right things for once. But it had still been ugly and awful, and it had ended poorly.

  Marisol noticed her gloom.

  “Hey, what’s the matter? You usually get this stuff sorted in the first hour,” she said, indicating a pile of blouses.

  “Remember when I had no one, and you told me to get someone?” Chloe asked, smiling wryly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Now I have two. One barely touches me and the other—well, he’s not exacdy Mr. Sensitive Man/Rocket Scientist.”

  Marisol whistled. “Ah, the tragedies and troubles of high school. Two boyfriends. My, my. Well, I tell you what: if you get this stuff done in the next twenty minutes, FU buy you un café to ease your troubled mind.”

  Chloe couldn’t help smiling; her boss was right. From an outside perspective, Chloe was bitching about an excess of good things, too many choices. Too bad Icouldn’t combine them. I’d either have a neutered idiot or onehell of a sexy Mr. Right. That didn’t make the way Brian felt any less awful, though. But if he didn’t want to see her with another guy, why didn’t he say or do something? Was she coming on too strong? Was this new, confident, sexy Chloe too much for him? Did Brian feel he had to make the next move? And more importandy, did Chloe care about him enough to adjust for him? On the one hand, they’d only gone on two dates. On the other hand, she really liked him. Maybe it had something to do with him being another cat person….

  The coffee Marisol got her sped up her thoughts but didn’t make the afternoon go any faster. Neither did “Torn Between Two Lovers,” which somehow got played on the speakers at least three times over the course of the afternoon. It was weird how many customers could actually whisde or sing along to it.

  Finally the sun began to go down and it was time to close up shop. Chloe called her mom to let her know she would be coming straight home after helping Marisol with the gate. Mrs. King thanked her for letting her know and said that she would be home a little later— they were taking out one of the other lawyers who’d just found out she was pregnant. Chloe didn’t feel it was necessary to specifically mention getting fries with Alyec; that had been officially on the way to work from school, more of a detour than a destination.

  Chloe steadfastedly refused Marisoi’s proffered taxi money this time, claiming she was just going down the street to the deli to wait for her mom to pick her up. As soon as Marisol was safely out of her line of sight, however, Chloe leapt up a bench, then a tree, and then onto a roof, determined to make it as close to home as she could without coming down.

  One! she counted, making a running leap onto the roof of a nice, long attached condo. It was good for about a hundred feet. Two! She leapt off the side onto another house, which was much shorter and farther down than she expected, causing her to roll to break her momentum and keep her legs from breaking. She sprang up at the end, though, making an Olympic-style landing— except for the crouching, cadike, all-fours aspect.

  Three! With barely a pause she straight jumped onto th
e garage of the next house…

  … when she felt a sting on her left leg and felt something rip. She pitched forward, but instinct took over and she cradled her leg as she fell, missing the roof completely and landing on the sidewalk. She looked down and saw ropes of blood stream along her skin to the ground and a cold, sharp metal object with a tip buried in her flesh. She pulled it out, biting her lip at the pain, and held it up to the moonlight.

  A throwing star, she realized with disbelief. Like in ninja movies. This one had ten points, five large ones, one of which was covered in blood and bits of skin, and five smaller ones in between these, either for decoration or to help it spin. There was something written on it, but before she could get a good look, Chloe heard a faint whir. She dropped her head to the ground against her arms—if she’d had ears like a cat, Chloe would have flattened them. Another shuriken flew by and embedded itself in a tire. Sssssssht went the air as it slowly deflated.

  Chloe leapt up, flipped, and landed on top of the car.

  “Excellent moves,” said a voice from the shadows. “I can see someone has finally been training you.”

  “Who are you? Come out!” Streetlight glittered on glass and metal pebbles in the road. All the houses were dark or the shades pulled so tighdy they might as well have been empty. Holes that might have once had trees and bushes in them were filled with beer cans and old toys. This was, as her mother would say, a bad area. A figure hid behind a car so rusted and old, it probably could just have been torn out of the boot that was locked to its right front tire.

  A breeze stirred and Chloe sniffed it; this was not the cat person from the other night. For some reason she shivered. What was going on?

  There was another, near-silent whoosh. Chloe crouched just in time to avoid another throwing star, this one aimed at her neck. She wondered wildly how many he had and turned to run.

  Then she realized something: He’s using weapons that he has to throw—I’m only in danger as long as I’m for from him…. Chloe turned back and ran along the tops of the cars toward him. She leapt down to where she thought he was hiding, yowling and screaming to scare him out into the open.