The Odds of Lightning by Jocelyn Davies Page B

palace.
    They stood on opposite ends of the hall, facing each other.
    â€œLuella.”
    â€œ Lu. ”
    There was an awkward pause.
    â€œI shouldn’t have said the thing about the bras yesterday.”
    â€œYou think ?”
    â€œGeez, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I—” Then, off Lu’s furious, blazing stare: “Okay, I shouldn’t have put it that way. Come on. What are you, the language police? I—”
    Lu had turned and was storming back down the hall in the direction she’d come from.
    â€œLuella. Lu!” He sprinted after her, coming up around her other side and standing in her way.
    â€œWhat do you want, Will?”
    â€œI just . . .” He didn’t actually look like he knew. “What are you doing here?”
    Lu shrugged.
    â€œThat’s not an answer. That’s like five-year-olds who answer you with because. ”
    â€œIt’s Stormpocalypse.” Lu looked away. “If the world’s going to end tonight, you know, I thought I’d give you one last chance to apologize.”
    â€œ Me apologize? I see you have lost none of your tactfulness in the years we haven’t spoken,” Will said.
    â€œOooh, sarcasm.”
    Lu looked at him. He looked right back.
    â€œI’m sorry. About the bra thing. And . . . other things.”
    â€œ What other things?”
    â€œUh-uh, Keebler,” he said, wagging his finger. “That’s all you’re gonna get from me tonight.”
    â€œTypical.”
    â€œWell, what about you?”
    â€œWhat about me?”
    â€œHow about you apologize to me?”
    â€œ Me apologize?” she said again.
    â€œIt only seems fair.”
    â€œHardly,” Lu snapped.
    â€œThen I guess we”—he gestured between them—“are at an impasse.”
    Lu’s breath hitched. She had never seen him look this way before. Like someone possessed. He didn’t look like himself, not like the Will she used to know at all. But then, that was years ago. Before . . . everything.
    â€œI hate you so, so much,” Lu said.
    Will sighed. “Wait—listen.”
    She felt tears spring to her eyes, and she forced them with all her might to stay deep down where they belonged. A deep rage began to bubble up inside her. At the tears, and at Will for making them come.
    And then she was running past him, down the hall, to the stairs.

Wil1
    Luella.
    They didn’t talk anymore, but that didn’t mean Will didn’t notice her. He’d seen every one of her plays, hunched in the back row to avoid someone seeing him and loudly calling his name. He laughed to himself sometimes, in the cafeteria, watching her fill her bowl with Rice Krispies and make a mess over by the cereal dispensers, earning her nickname all over again.
    She was some figment of the past who lived in his memory and did dorky things that reminded him of a different time. But she wasn’t, like, real. Sometimes he thought he had made her up to feel better about the asshole he’d become.
    Then she just showed up at his party like . . . like all that hard work pretending didn’t even matter. How could she do that? Get at the heart of it all, the truth of something, so quickly? So effortlessly?
    She could find the old Will just by looking at him across a stupid crowded room. In his own goddamn house.
    He’d fucked up again. Twice in two days. He was going for a new record. Maybe before the end of the night, he’d be three for three.
    He was suddenly dizzy. Luella was his last tie to his old self. If he snapped it for good, he’d be done for. He’d go floating off into the darkness of outer space, where he wouldn’t know anyone, least of all himself.
    And if he screamed for help, no one would hear him.
    â€œShit,” said Will. Without Lu, he really did have nothing left to lose. She made him crazy. And now, she was gone. “Lu, wait!”
    Gloriously crazy.
    He