“Can you pass me the blue streamers?” I ask from the top of the ladder.
He fetches the roll at a glacial pace.
“Make it snappy,” I say, holding myself steady on the ladder. My blistered feet are aching in my sneakers.
He rests an arm on one of the middle steps, causing it to wobble. Probably on purpose. Is Renner trying to kill me when I’m at my most vulnerable? “I don’t understand what makes Ollie future-husband material and not me,” he reflects, still miffed. “Not that I want that with Kassie. Not at all. She and Ollie are great together. I just don’t understand why others don’t see me that way . . .”
“I can’t understand what makes you think you’re deserving of the title,” I scoff. “Just look at it objectively. Ollie has been with Kassie for four whole years. Meanwhile, you’d already been through at least half of the female population of MHS by tenth grade.” I’m not exaggerating. Nearly every girl I know has dated Renner at some point in the past four years.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to settle down eventually. Besides, I have a lot to offer.”
“Like what?”
“For starters, I can drive, unlike some. And I make damned good Kraft Mac and Cheese,” he adds.
“Doubtful.”
He shakes his head, and I catch a mischievous tug at the right side of his lip. “Even the mac and cheese doesn’t intrigue you?”
A laugh comes from deep in my stomach, echoing around the gym. I clutch the sides of the ladder so I don’t topple off. “Hard pass.”
“Okay, but picture this. A zombie apocalypse. Everyone dies. Except us.”
“Jesus take me.” I close my eyes for a split second and press my hand to my chest at the thought. “Besides, women don’t require a husband to complete them in life,” I point out, yet again. “If anything, you’d weigh me down in an apocalypse. I wouldn’t have time to babysit.”
He trucks on like I haven’t spoken. “We’re the only two humans left on Earth. You’d rather carry on alone and get mauled by zombies than team up with me for survival?” His eyes pierce mine, awaiting a response.
Would I really rather go it alone? It’s hard to say. But my brain is a little too frazzled for ridiculous hypotheticals. So I settle for a simple, “Yes. Now hand me the streamers, please.”
He holds out the roll, expression stony, not bothering to stretch his arm any farther than necessary. Given I just went off about being a fiercely independent woman, I’m not about to ask him to bring it closer.
I take my left foot off the ladder to tilt my body weight just so. In that precise moment, one of the cardboard seaweeds falls off the wall across the gym.
It all happens so fast. Renner is startled and turns his body toward the noise, inadvertently moving the streamer roll farther out of my reach. I lean a smidge too far to make up the distance. Before I know it, everything is sideways.
The last thing I see is Renner’s horrified expression as I crash directly into his face.
NINE
A high-pitched, siren-like wail cuts the air, snapping me to consciousness.
There’s a jagged, throbbing ache threatening to slice straight through my eyes. I pinch them shut to minimize the pain, but the torment shifts to my eardrums. What is that sound? Maybe they’re testing the fire alarms. It’s getting louder and louder by the second, as if someone is precipitously turning up the volume on the school PA system.
Something faintly tickles my left cheek. When I try to scratch it, my hand brushes against something warm pressed into my shoulder. Another person, perhaps?
The memory of toppling off the ladder face-first into Renner blazes through my mind in high definition. I clench my jaw, remembering that moment of panic, bracing for impact, before it all went black.
When I find the strength to open my eyes, a beam of sunlight blinds me. Odd. There’s zero natural light in this dingy gym, which is why graduation is always held on the football field （weather permitting）。
Vision spotty, I accidentally dig my elbow into the floppy body underneath mine. I assume it’s Renner. For a millisecond, I feel bad for landing on top of him.
He lets out a strangled groan, confirming that he too is in pain.
We’re a tangle of arms and legs. His chest is bare for some strange reason. My eyes trace the swell of his tanned biceps. Sheesh. I knew Renner was lean and ripped for a seventeen-year-old. But I’ve never seen these thick, ropy muscles before. How has he been hiding these in his smedium T-shirts?