How We Fall (28 page)

“Marcus, don’t—come back here.” I ran after him. What had he been doing outside my room to begin with? Looking for me? Why?

He was already halfway up the stairs. I took them two at a time, but he strode down the hall, his shoulders rigid, and slammed his door. “Marcus, come on. Open the door.”

Something crashed against the wall inside. I tried the handle, but he’d locked it. I knocked, and kept knocking. Something else crashed, and I heard the shatter of glass.

I couldn’t just start yelling about this in the hall. I pulled out 214

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my phone and my fingers hit the keys.

I’m not having sex with Will. I swear. Mom gave them to me
like 5 minutes ago.

He didn’t reply. Music beat from behind his door, and he cranked it louder.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and then hit his door with my open hand as hard as I could. Pain split through my palm and it hurt so badly I gripped my hand, leaned against the wall, and slid down until I was sitting on the carpet.

So this was why exes couldn’t be friends. Not because they couldn’t, but because they wouldn’t. I dug my fingers into the carpet.

This was what I’d done to him out on the road when he came after me. Except he was wrong. I wasn’t with Will. He was with Sylvia. And he liked her.

The music cut out in the room behind me. I sat there on the carpet, my head against the wall, the night silence of the house absolute and nothing inside me except the echo of what we used to be.

If I could not have Marcus, then I wouldn’t have anyone.

Not everyone fell in love or married the love of her life or even got married at all. I didn’t need that. And I wasn’t going to fill the space with something only good enough when what I wanted couldn’t be had.

Us breaking up had left me with jagged edges, and trying to fit with anyone else would always hurt.

Some things, some people, felt so much like fate had meant them so specifically for you that finding another one just wasn’t going to happen.

Now that his room was quiet, I knocked on the door again.

He didn’t answer.

I was reaching out, I was trying to make it better, and he wasn’t showing up.

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He was hurt, too, but somehow he could still move on without me. He could touch Sylvia and not be reminded of me. He did not love me the way I loved him.

Bitterness surged through me and for a moment I hated him as much as I loved him. I’d never felt both at once before, and I thought I would choke on it.

All we had left of us was an angry, bitter silence. Had I known this was what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have leaped.

If Marcus was going to do this to me, then forget him.

• • •

Marcus loaded soap, a garden hose, the plastic for the make-shift slip ‘n slide, and the spray nozzle into a box.

He was always mad now. Mad about the curfew, mad that I sat in the living room any time Sylvia was around, and mad at me for being mad at him.

I’d emailed Travis back and went on a minor rant about the whole stupid situation, leaving out my history with Marcus. It helped to come right out and say I was angry at him and he’d hurt me.

Oddly enough, Sylvia herself wasn’t so bad. Were it not for Marcus, I might actually like her.

I packed a dozen grocery bags of prizes into a large box.

“Could you hand me the tape?” He had it at the other end of the table.

He acted like he didn’t hear. I sighed. “Candace, would you hand me the tape?” She and Angie were curling long strands of 216

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ribbon to tie to the balloons.

Candace reached for the tape, but Marcus grabbed it and handed it to me. Candace raised an eyebrow. “Hi there, crabby.

Are you fighting with your girlfriend or what?” She sounded like a super sassy dose of Aunt Shelly.

“No. I’m not.” Marcus labeled the side of the box.

“I bet you are.”

“We’re not fighting. She’s coming over here right now, so you can see for yourself.”

I kept on taping down the flaps of my box. Sylvia could come over. I was getting used to it. My phone buzzed. Will.

How are you?

Between him and Kelsey, I was texting a lot more than I used to.

Rotten. Marcus is being a jerk and now Sylvia is coming over.

He’d probably think I was a needy whiner, but then maybe he’d be glad we were only friends. My phone buzzed again.

Want me to come over? We can pretend to be madly in love.

I rolled my eyes even though Will couldn’t see me.

“Who are you texting?” Marcus asked.

I looked up in surprise. I made a point to never ask him who he was texting. “Will.”

He frowned and went back to taping his box, but he wasn’t being careful and mangled the tape instead of getting it to cut neatly on the serrated edge. “Damn it, whatever. I’m done with this.” He threw the tape onto the table and strode across the kitchen and out the door.

Sylvia pulled up the drive. I texted Will back. At least having him over here would keep me from brooding about Marcus. He and Sylvia were standing in the driveway, and she didn’t look happy. She was holding something and kept gesturing to her car. Marcus bent to look at the passenger seat. He frowned, and then they both came inside.

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“What’s in the car?” Candace asked. “Someone put road kill in Dad’s truck bed once.”

Marcus was still frowning. “It’s not road kill.”

“Someone left a gift in my car,” Sylvia said. “A dress.” She held up a length of black cloth. The silky material unfurled to become a lace-backed, short-skirted dress with a low neckline.

Not the kind of dress someone gives to a friend.

“That’s strange.” I touched the slippery fabric. “You don’t know who left it?”

“No,” Marcus said. “But it’s weird. Flowers, a movie, and now a dress.”

“A date.” I said it without thinking.

“Yeah.” Marcus ran his hand through his hair. “Your ex wouldn’t do this?”

Sylvia shifted from one foot to another. She looked uncomfortable. “No. He didn’t buy me stuff like this when we were dating, and he certainly wouldn’t a year after we broke up.”

I raised an eyebrow at Marcus. Something wasn’t right with Sylvia, and he refused to admit it. He looked away.

A car sounded in the driveway. Will was here. Frustrated as I was, I almost grinned when he got out of the car. His longish hair had just enough gel in it to look intentionally messy, his tshirt was tight and the same light blue as his eyes, and his jeans were low-hung washed-out things that showed a good inch of striped boxer band. For Will, that was dressing up. I waved him inside before he had a chance to knock.

“Hey, all,” he said. “Wow, Sylvia. That dress.”

Marcus’s eyes turned steely and Sylvia blushed. “I don’t know if I like it,” she said.

“Just teasing her, babe.” Will stepped smoothly over to me and draped an arm around my shoulders. “I’d rather see you in it.”

I glared at him. He was too good at pretending. “No one is 218

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wearing the dress.” I wasn’t sure Will had ever felt awkward in his life.

“What’s going on here?” He looked over the mess layering the kitchen. “It’s like a birthday party orgy.” Sylvia giggled and Marcus crossed his arms.

“We’re packing up stuff for the carnival.” I picked up the marker and labeled my box before I forgot what was in it.

“Oh, your mom does that, doesn’t she? It always seems pretty fun, but they made me stop going in eighth grade.” Will picked up a stray bag of water balloons.

I took them from him and started sorting the giant pile into water balloons and normal balloons. “That’s because it’s for kids ten and younger. You can help if you want, but it’s not that exciting.”

Marcus stacked the finished boxes. “I don’t know how much more help we need. We were fine last year.”

I glared at him. Will didn’t seem to care. “I’ll just come along for the fun, then.”

Marcus carried the boxes outside to load in the truck and Sylvia followed him.

“You’re going to make him hate you,” I whispered. Candace and Angie still curled ribbon strands.

He shrugged. “He can hate me if he wants.”

The balloons didn’t need to be in boxes, so I shoved the separated piles into bags and tied them shut. Will was standing right behind me, and when I straightened up I bumped into him. I felt his lean stomach and structured abs on my back. I might not want to go out with him, but I wasn’t dead.

He winked at me. Surely I couldn’t be that obvious. I turned away so he couldn’t see my face.

“So, did you ask Marcus about the double date yet?” he asked.

“No.” I hadn’t found a good moment, and I wasn’t sure there was ever going to be one.

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Marcus and Sylvia came back inside, and was holding her hand and looking less irritated. I went back to tying bags, twisting the ties tighter than necessary.

“Mind if I get a drink or something?” Will asked.

“Go for it.” I gestured with the marker. “There’s iced tea in the fridge.”

“Want any?”

I straightened up again. “Sure. Thanks.”

“Sylvia? Any for you?”

Sylvia looked surprised and pleased. I couldn’t blame her.

Attention from a guy like Will was enough to make any girl forget who she was. Marcus huffed.

Will brought us glasses while Candace and Angie argued over whether it was better to make the ribbon into longer curls or short, tight curls.

“So I hear you’re from St. Joseph.” Will leaned against the counter and kept his attention on Sylvia. I frowned, not sure how him flirting with Marcus’s girlfriend was supposed to help me get a double-date. She nodded.

“Where’d you go to school?” he asked.

“Edison High.” She sipped her tea.

“You like it around here so far? You’ll be the hot new girl once school starts. I hope you’re ready to start breaking hearts.”

Marcus’s eyebrows lowered and he crossed his arms.

“Not—not really. But I like it, yeah.” Sylvia looked flattered but unsettled. She swirled her iced tea in the glass.

Will shoved off the counter and came over to me. “Did you still want to go see a movie this weekend, babe?”

We hadn’t talked about going to a movie, but I played along.

“Um, sure. I guess so.”

Will turned to Sylvia. “You guys want to come? We’ll make it a double date.”

Sylvia glanced at Marcus, and he didn’t look happy. “Sure,”

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she said. “Sunday afternoon?”

“Great. We can do pizza after.”

We had our double date. Clever, asking Sylvia instead of Marcus. Will winked at me again and I shook my head.

Candace and Angie were apparently bored with curling ribbon, because they wandered out of the kitchen, arguing about whether Angie’s shirt was actually Candace’s. For all their bick-ering, they were rarely more than ten feet from each other.

Marcus gathered up the packaging on the table. I picked up the bags of balloons and set them aside so he could get the rubber bands and other litter from around them. He brushed by me without saying a word, and I couldn’t help just watching him.He walked outside with Sylvia again, and it didn’t look like they’d be coming back. I must have looked upset, because Will came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders. We stood there for a moment, and I expected him to just let me sulk, but instead he pulled me back against his chest and fake-whispered, “Any chance you want to go make out?”

I laughed in surprise and slapped his arm. “No.”

Marcus came back after dinner, heated a bowl of leftovers, and went straight up to his room. He left his phone on the kitchen counter, which wasn’t like him. It rang an hour later, but I wasn’t going to touch it. Not with the way he’d been acting. Instead, I lounged on the couch and watched the evening news with Mom and Dad.

The reporter was talking with Ellie’s father, who looked hag-gard and exhausted. It had been less than a year since I’d seen Mr. Wallace last, but he looked a lot older.
Viewers are asked to
report anything that may be of help in locating Ellie Wallace’s killer
scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

Mom shook her head. “That poor family.”

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Strangled. Dumped in the woods. Her family dealing with not knowing, then finally knowing.

No more regrets.

Marcus’s phone rang again, and the blinking display told me Sylvia was the caller. Of course she was. I sighed, picked up his phone from the counter, and carried it upstairs.

I walked down the carpeted hallway and stopped at his door. He’d left it open about a foot. I lifted a hand to knock, but stopped. Marcus sat on his bed, his head in his hands. He looked so miserable I stopped with my hand in the air. Fingers in his hair, forehead on his palms, he was oblivious to me.

I lowered my hand. In front of him on the bed lay the photo of us sledding. I could see the white of the snow from the doorway. From here, we were just a blur of color going by.

He was sitting there motionless, staring at the photo. I swallowed. His shoulders were slumped and he didn’t move the whole time I stood in the doorway.

Marcus was quiet. So different from his hectic, opinionated family. And he didn’t wear muscle shirts or show his boxer band or flirt outrageously. He was moody sometimes and he’d get angry when he was hurt, but last winter, he’d dragged the sled up that hill as many times as I wanted, trudging through a foot and a half of ice-topped snow, his boots punching through the surface with every step.

I reached in, set his phone on the dresser, and turned away before I could see whether or not he looked up.

• • •

Marcus, Claire, Sylvia, and I were filling water balloons at the hydrant in the park. Water soaked my tank top. All of us had 222