Page 91 of Chaos

“He cornered Frankie once just like that. In a dark hallway. She said the same thing. She didn’t quite believe he’d actually do anything. But he still scared her.” He says it like scaring Frankie is the worst thing a person can do, and I wonder how it would be if he felt that way about me. “He’s a bad guy.”

“I know you think so.” I walk away from him into the lobby where there’s enough light and noise and commotion to effectively silence my thoughts.

“Where are you going now?” Shane asks, keeping time with me.

I pass throngs of soldiers standing all over the lobby carpet, which used to be covered in mud, but is clean again.

Nice. Cozy flames flicker in the fireplaces.

A couple days ago, Frankie stormed in here with her blind friend and Tani, and announced it was holiday season. They badgered soldiers into helping them strew pine boughs and magnolia blossoms on the mantles, up columns, and dangling off chandeliers.

They must have found every decoration the resort had in storage.

A blond soldier is playingI’ll Be Home for Christmason the piano, sad and longing.

“I’m going to my closet.”

“Can I come?” he asks, then wanders off to fistbump the old lady who’s always knitting by the fire, and the bald guy, Hank, who’s nipping into a whisky bottle.

“Why would you want to do that?” I ask when he jogs to catch up to me after finishing his politicking.

“There aren’t that many people my age around here.”

“You have options,” I say morosely. He does. There’s a girl named Isha with the fattest, glossiest braid I’ve ever seen and eyelashes to match who gazes at him when she thinks no one’s watching. Tani too, sometimes takes a second glance his way. And there’s another one, a pale girl with blue gray eyes who laughs too hard when he talks. He isn’t that funny.

His teeth flash in an easy grin. “I like you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “You know … Christmas is coming.”

“Yeah.” I turn left after the massive fake pine tree covered in white snowflakes and emerald green bows, leaving the noise of chatter and piano music behind, and enter the quieter halls of the shopping promenade. “It’s called White Winter now. Thornewood took a vote. Anyway, I’m part Jewish.”

“We can celebrate Hanukkah, if you’d rather.”

“It’s like one quarter. I’m also Greek, Nicaraguan, and Barbadian with a little dash of Japanese in there … distantly.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I also had a stepmom from Sweden, but she hated me. I can celebrate whatever.” I unlock the door to my tiny closet home. “But to answer your original question, I am aware that your people have rescheduled their fake holiday celebration.”

There’s barely enough room in there for both of us, so I duck down into a corner, my ass on the folded blanket that is my bed and angle a flashlight beam at the ceiling.

I should get rid of him. But the only way I can think of to get rid of him is by being mean, and it’s hard to be mean to him.

He settles down beside me without asking, his long legs stretching out several inches past mine. “So, what did you get me?”

“What?”

“For White Winter?”

“I’m supposed to give you a present?”

“Isn’t that what you do for a friend?” He points at the padlock on my closet door. “I got you a present.”

I lean my head back against the wall behind me. “You’re not my friend, Shane.”

“Ouch.” He slaps a hand over his heart and tips his head back, making his adam’s apple jut against the muscles of his throat. “I’m dying of a broken heart here. Dead,” he says dramatically. “I’m a sad sad ghost now.”

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