Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,25

want to be around people who knew me.

“Need any help?” Astrid asked. She’d taken off her hood, and I could see she was pretty, auburn hair and cheeks flushed pink from the cold.

I didn’t really need help, but it was probably better not to be a recluse. Someone had turned on music, loud stuff like Nikki used to like, gothic metal, and someone else was complaining about the music choice, trying to push their own stuff. So I couldn’t have heard an outside noise, even if it did exist.

Which it probably didn’t.

But Astrid was hot, so I handed her Josh’s lighter. “Can you hold this, maybe? And could you see if there are newspapers or anything.”

“You mean like these?” She pointed to a pile underneath all the logs.

“Oh, exactly like that. Sorry.”

She reached for the papers. “Any particular section you like? Local? Sports? Looks like the Adirondack Phantoms were having a good season in 2011. Sorry, they’re a little old.”

“That’s okay.” I took the paper and started rolling it up.

“What I said before, I’d be perfectly happy to ski with you even if you completely suck at it.”

“I wouldn’t say suck.”

“In fact, if I can be totally honest here, there are, like, seventy-five people in my class at school, and we’ve all been together since kindergarten. It’s nice to have a new face in town. We get so few.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So, basically.” She put her hand on her hip. “Any guy shows up with all his limbs or maybe even missing one or two, and he doesn’t actually pick his nose in public, he’s going to get a lot of attention.”

“That’s flattering.” I laughed and stuffed the rolled-up newspaper between the logs. “How do you know I don’t pick my nose in public?” I held out my hand for the lighter.

“Do you?” She shrugged. “You haven’t so far.”

Instead of handing me the lighter, she leaned down across me and lit the paper herself. Her hair, brushing against my nose, smelled familiar, and I remembered last year at midnight. Even though I hadn’t told anyone, Nikki and I had kissed at midnight. Would I be kissing this girl tonight? Would something bad happen to her?

Stupid thought. She was hot. She was coming on to me, and I was choosing to be in bed every night, reading a dead girl’s diary all alone.

The paper caught, and the flames warmed my face, and she was still there, standing there beside me, warming the other side. “Um, can you hand me the poker?”

When she did, our hands brushed for an instant. I didn’t feel the spark I wanted. She was pretty and she was nice, but she wasn’t Nikki. I didn’t even know what I wanted, maybe Nikki, maybe no one. But I didn’t want to live with my ghosts forever.

“Hey, City Boy.” Josh threw a corn chip at me. “I don’t know how you make a fire on Lawn Guyland where you’re from, but here in the freezing north, we do it a little faster.”

“Yes, sir.” I seized the poker and began moving the logs around until something caught and suddenly there was a good blaze going.

Now, people were splitting off into couples. Astrid and I moved to a chair by the window, far from the fire and everyone, where she said we could talk. But in ten minutes, we were making out, and I had my tongue in her mouth, my hand up her shirt, and she was pressing against me in a way that could have felt really good if there weren’t all these people here. And if I didn’t feel so dead inside.

I kissed her again. Around me, everyone else was making out too, like it was required. I kissed her, long and hard to get all the voices in my head to stop. I fumbled with her clothes and tried to just go with it. Be normal. Maybe if you acted normal, if you pretended everything was normal, it would be again.

Soon, Josh announced that it was almost midnight. We stood to do the countdown, and I kissed Astrid’s bruised lips even though at that point, it was a little redundant. Then, a little while later, someone said we should get going.

I agreed and put on my coat, then helped Astrid with hers.

Then, as the door opened, I heard it again. The voice. A girl’s voice. I didn’t say anything, though. I knew not to, in case I was crazy. But I glanced in the direction it had come from,