Free How it Ends by Laura Wiess Page A

and my new pair of high-heeled black boots and headed down to her house.
    When I got there she had her dress on, too, so we took pictures and were being so loud that her parents and her brother down in the family room yelled back, wanting to know what was up, so of course we planned an entrance, with her going downstairs first and me following her down the four carpeted stairs to her family room.
    Except that when I stood at the top of the carpeted stairs, my boot sole slid over the edge of the step, my knees buckled, and I skied down on my shins, landing at the bottom in a humiliated heap.
    Her mother ran to help me up, but Crystal, her brother, and her father were laughing so hard they were crying, and her mother kept trying not to laugh, but these moist giggles kept bursting out of her until finally she gave in and fell back against the wall, roaring.
    Once I saw I was okay, I stood up, smoothed the dress, and started laughing, too. Crystal’s mom hugged me and I had just stopped dying of mortification when somebody knocked and Crystal staggered over to let them in.
    It was karate guy, who walked into the foyer without noticing me, shrugged off his leather jacket, and slung it over the coatrack. Shaking out his hair, he took one step into the room, spotted me, and went still.
    I really liked that reaction.
    “Whoa,” he said as a slow smile crept across his face. “So this is where Santa left my present.”
    “Merry Christmas,” I said. “You missed a great show. I just fell down the stairs.”
    But it was like he hadn’t even heard me. “Damn, woman.” He gave me a thorough up-and-down and shook his head. “Are you sure you’re only fifteen?”
    “Fifteen and a half,” I said, laughing. “Want to teach me how to flip somebody again?”
    His gaze met mine. “I’m pretty sure you already know.”
    And that flustered me because he was still smiling but his eyes were all dark and velvety and serious, and the room was hot and my knees were starting to sting from their downhill run, and the rest of me was tingling, and everyone was watching and—
    “Another one bites the dust,” Crystal’s father said and snorted. “Keep it in your pants, Jesse. She’s jailbait.”
    “Dad!” Crystal said, whacking the back of his head. “Don’t be disgusting.”
    “What’s disgusting about that?” he said, surprised. “I was young once, too, you know.”
    “Mom, will you make him stop?” Crystal said. “He’s grossing me out.”
    “Come on, handsome,” Crystal’s mom said, prodding her husband to his feet. “Let’s go into the kitchen and you can talk dirty to me while I spice the cider.”
    They left, the guys left for a party, and I followed Crystal back upstairs, where I found out that karate guy’s full name was Jesse Yennet and his mom had been our fifth-grade art teacher.
    I was like, “What’s his deal?” and Crystal gave me this interested look and said, “Why? Do you like him?”
    “No, he’s just always nice to me and I’m curious, okay?”
    “Mm-hmm,” she said and laughed. “What? I think you guys make a cute couple.”
    “Sure, especially since once my parents see his big ‘fuck’ tat, my father will tattoo his work boot against my butt. Are you kidding ?”
    And then she said Jesse got it from some hole-in-the-wall place after his mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and almost died, because that was pretty much how he felt about the world.
    “When was this?” I said.
    “When we were in sixth grade, don’t you remember?” Crystal said. “She left in the middle of the semester and took like a year’s leave of absence because she was so sick. Jesse was what, a freshman or a sophomore?”
    “But she made it, right?” I said.
    “Yeah, but he thought she was going to die and his dad was totally focused on her and Jesse just kind of got lost trying to deal with it. He started partying way too much and dropped out of school in junior year and got arrested for driving without