Rise (Excerpt)

Part 3

FALLON

Gloria arrives later, bringing this rush of Arctic air that sucks the heat straight from the apartment. I pull her mother's afghan tighter around my shoulders as she scrapes her work sneakers against the doormat, twists her red scarf away from her neck, hangs this and her coat on the metal stand by the door.

"The heat. It is working?" she asks.

Her accent is still thick—she spoke nothing but Spanish growing up—and I love how she phrases questions. Not a question at all, really.

"It hasn't shut off all day," Nick replies. It's the first thing he's said since we came inside.

Since he—God. Kissing me? Outside in the middle of an ice storm? Like we are the stars of some kind of romantic comedy? When he knows it's not like that between us, especially not when Michael and I are supposed to be . . . something.

"It is freezing out there. I am sure the emergency heat kicked on. Our bill will skyrocket," she mutters. I can almost see the numbers turning in her head—how many extra shifts she'll need to take on so the money coming in matches the money going out.

I know those looks.

Have lived them.

"Hey to you, too, Ma," Michael calls.

She smiles at him. "I'm sorry, mijo. Happy New Year." She moves into the kitchen, sets her purse on the table. "You found something to eat?"

"No one was delivering. We ate pizza," Nick tells her.

"What does the forecast say?"

Michael changes the channel from the music video countdown to the local news station, where a reporter quite literally stands on top of an image of our state, arms waving dramatically, showing us exactly how this ice storm managed to sweep in so quickly.

Blue patches move out of our area, but the damage is done.

Trees are down. Power lines. Cut to viewer-submitted photos of ice encasing branches and porch swings and Fido's dish bowl. Cars in ditches.

It's a dangerous world out there.

A beautiful, dangerous world.

A red bar scrolls along the bottom, announcing area closings and delays. Preschools. Government offices.

"You should stay the night here, Fallon," Gloria says. "I will call your mom so she will not worry."

"Okay. Thanks."

She pulls back the lid on a can of tomato soup, pours it into a pot warming on the stove, then calls my mother.

"That means I can see you off tomorrow morning," I tell Michael. "What time are you leaving?"

"Bus pulls out at eleven-thirty," he replies. "I need to be there by eleven at the latest."

"Is Mom driving you?" Nick asks.

"No. She has to work," he says, annoyed this seems lost on his brother. "And Jake doesn't have to be back until Wednesday, so I can't catch a ride with him."

Nick frowns, eyebrows pulling together, visibly agitated. "So I have to drive?"

"Unless you plan on letting me have the car," Michael says. "Trust me, I'd love a set of wheels on campus."

"Were you gonna ask me, or just assume?" Nick's voice grows louder, begging for a fight. In the kitchen, Gloria laughs at something my mom says.

"You don't have any other choice. You're the one with the car, and I have to get back."