The ladder creaked in protest as I leaned to reach a bare branch of the thirty-five-foot artificial Fraser fir at the center of the mall’s “Santa’s Wonderland” display. The pre-lit, pre-decorated, expensive-ass tree came wrapped in miles of plastic, and it was one problem I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving dealing with. Almost all of the ornaments at the top of the tree had fallen off as Eddie, one of the other decorators, and I unpacked it. I didn’t understand why the dumbasses that made the tree didn’t attach the ornaments with glue or something like they did for the strings of white Christmas lights.
My aunt Melissa worked as the mall’s property manager, which should have counted for something, but didn’t, especially since Mel was off until midnight when she had to come in to unlock for Black Friday. If she’d been working she’d have told my stupid coworkers that, despite the forty-foot extension ladder having hooks at the top to secure it to the decorative crossbeam below the mall’s sloping skylights, it was possible for Alex, the six-foot-tall skinny guy that nobody fucking listened to, to fall and die. So—they left me totally alone to go throw tinsel on other shit before taking a four-hour smoke break.
At least this year I’d gotten to keep my piercings in during prep day and I wouldn’t have to bleach the black dye out of or cut my hair. Every previous year that asshole, whose real name was Rob, made me take out the snakebites on my lip and my tongue stud, and then he’d whine because instead of looking emo my new buzz cut and naturally blond hair made me look like a skinhead. There was no pleasing that dickface and I was ecstatic when Mel told me he’d quit in October.
The new guy, Eddie, was the laxest manager ever and I’d been cool with him up until about ten minutes ago when he left to “take five.”
I wasn’t looking forward to having to dress like an elf this year. Our uniform shirts were red and green color-block T-shirts with those weird fabric strip collars with bells sewn on—the kind of collar worn by court jesters in not-so-historically-accurate medieval movies. Where Eddie found Christmas-green skinny jeans to go with the shirts was a mystery to me, but I’d put my money on cheap foreign import because when I tried a pair on, I wound up with moose knuckles, one ball on either side of the crotch seam. Thankfully, Eddie had had the foresight to buy three sizes larger and the seam in those seemed to fit fine. The dude had even bought a box of Vulcan ears—a picture of Spock on every pack—and a vat of spirit gum.
“Need any help with that?”
I almost dropped the bucket of ornaments as I jerked forward on the rung I was holding onto. My body slammed against the ladder with a resounding clang and my heart pounded from the rush of adrenaline brought on by the terrifying sense of sudden weightlessness.
“Christ. Are you trying to kill me?” I looked down and a different kind of weightless swept over me.
Corin Perry peered up at me from base of the ladder. He looked almost the same as when he’d given his Valedictorian speech at graduation back in June. His honey blond hair had gotten a bit longer and his natural wave made the ends curl. He wore a gray hoodie—the name of the university he went to was emblazoned in large white letters across his chest. A pair of ludicrously cobalt blue running shoes peeked out from beneath the torn hems of his faded straight-leg jeans.
From forty feet up I could see his full lips, slightly parted. He smiled that thousand-megawatt grin that had made me fall stupidly in love with him in eighth grade. I’d spent the last five years crushing on him and back in June I thought I’d reconciled myself to the fact I would probably never see him again. Shit, I’d planned on not seeing anyone from school for at least the next ten years. The whole point of me graduating was to get away from all those assholes, even if it meant not seeing the guy I desperately wished were not straight.
Staring down at Corin, it dawned on me that in the course of those years, outside of asking to borrow a pen or some paper—because jocks never carry school supplies—he’d never actually talked to me. Except that one time in eleventh grade.
* * * *
When the weather was decent, the gym teacher, Mr. Keaton, liked to hold class outside on the football field. Most of the guys in my grade had been stupidly vocal about not wanting to change in the locker room in front of the gay kid, so I saved myself the torment by never bothering to buy a gym uniform. Every class, I sat on the bleachers with the rest of the slackers. That particular day I parked my ass a section over from the stoners and pretended I didn’t see them passing around a lit cigarette when they thought Keaton wasn’t looking. Advanced Art was my next period, so with nothing else to do, I took out my sketchbook and pencil kit.