This Is Falling (10 page)

Ty slides the top-drawer open and pulls out a
bra, holding it in front of him and squeezing the cups. “Yeah, this
is hers. I recognize this lovely little thing,” he says, and I roll
my eyes at him. “What? Just because you can’t close a deal like I
can, don’t give me shit.”

For some reason, what he says makes me start
to think about how I feel about Rowe. And yeah, I want to kiss her.
And yeah, I want to remind myself what those cotton panties look
like again. And there are probably a million other things that
involve her that I would never say no to. But I’m not in a hurry.
And for some reason, I feel like Rowe is holding back with me, sort
of glad I’m not pushing.

“Hey, you really like Cass, huh?” I say,
flipping over her bottom drawer and pressing my arms up to hold in
the heavy jeans.

Ty just sighs, never answering, which is
enough for me. He really likes her, and that’s kind of a first for
him. I just hope he doesn’t do something stupid to make it
impossible for me to come to this room again.

I’m about to push the last drawer in all the
way when I feel a pile of something slide out onto my foot. I push
the drawer in just enough so I can let go and feel my hands along
the floor. At first I think they’re playing cards, but then I pull
them out to look at them and realize they’re photos—photos of
Rowe…with the
boyfriend
. I slide the drawer in the rest of
the way and sit back on her bed to flip through them.

The first one is of her and him in what looks
like her parents’ driveway, and they’re dressed in formal wear,
like they’re going to some dance. Then there are a couple of
pictures of them at a swimming pool. He’s lifting her, and
threatening to jump into the water. She’s laughing in the photo,
and it strikes me that I’ve never seen her laugh like this.

“Hey, dude? Do you know if Rowe...does she…”
I’m almost afraid to ask, so I just flip the last picture over and
hand it to him. It’s a picture of the same guy, kissing her on the
cheek, and she’s literally squealing with happiness. “Does she have
a boyfriend?”

Ty takes the photo in, looking at it for a
long time before finally shrugging and handing it back to me. “No
idea. You should probably ask.”

It’s the last thing on the planet I want to
ask. Mostly because it’s the last answer on the planet I want to
hear…unless the answer is
no.

I help Ty with the last couple drawers, and
we lock their door from the inside to bring it back to a close.
When we pass the elevator, I hear Paige laughing while she talks on
her phone, and she holds a finger up to try to get our attention,
but we both keep moving, pretending not to see it. Ty’s eyes turn
sideways to catch mine, and we both laugh quietly.

“Dude, I can’t stand that chick! How is it
that I’m crazy about her sister?” Ty says, and I know he just
answered my question from earlier, but he doesn’t want me to make a
big deal out of it. So I don’t. And instead, I focus on the first
part.

“She has great tits!” I say, waiting for him
to respond.

“Ah, that’s a good point. Way to focus on the
positive. She does indeed have great tits,” Ty says, grabbing the
remote and turning the TV on to
Sports Center.

Rowe

I call my mom on my walk back from class. I
don’t like talking to her in front of other people, so I try to
time our conversations for my walks. That, and the distraction
helps me focus on something other than the wide-open spaces, and
cars, and people milling around.

After filling her in on my first day’s
schedule, and running through my list of professors to see if
there’s anyone she knows, which she knows two of them, I move on to
the regular litany of questions. Am I sleeping? How are my
roommates? Am I really making friends? Have I called Ross?

I called Ross right before I called my mom,
but I don’t tell her that. I slipped up once, telling her I called
Ross first for something and her feelings were hurt. I can’t handle
guilt trips—I have enough. So I just lie instead, and tell her I’m
calling Ross next. I feel like if I ever have to stand before some
supreme being who gets to decide if I get into heaven and he brings
up this lie—it was warranted. I’d like to think the ultimate judge
in this case would understand.

I never bring up Josh. My mom found my
messages to him once, so I told her they were old messages and that
I don’t write any more. I just changed my password though. Okay, so
two lies. This one might not be as easy to explain away.

The hallway is eerily empty when I exit the
elevator, which always makes me nervous. It’s the middle of the
afternoon, so I guess most students are in their classes by now.
I’ve learned there are only a few of us who prefer morning classes.
I happen to have a pretty full schedule—what with trying out a
little bit of everything—so my day starts at seven and goes until
three thirty.

After jiggling the door handle, I start to
feel silly. The door is locked, and I am safe. There’s a constant
string of reassurances running through my head at all times.

I make my way into my room and drop my book
bag to the floor. One drawback to having a back-to-back kind of
schedule is the pressure it puts on my spine. One philosophy class
and one art history class alone add up to fifteen pounds in books.
But those two were definitely my favorites, and I think Nate might
have pushed me in the right direction with art. Today was all about
looking at pictures of famous paintings, and everything I saw
inspired me.

When my socks and underwear spill onto my
feet, I immediately know that Nate was here. Son of a bitch! I pull
the next drawer out and the same thing happens. Again and again,
until all of my belongings are in a pile at my feet and my drawer
bottoms are staring me in the face.

“That mother…”

“Hey, watch what you’re about to call the guy
standing at your door,” Nate says, and my heart kicks.

“That motherly, wonderful, down-the-hall
neighbor of mine. What’s wrong with saying that?” I smile, flipping
my top drawer over and sliding it in. I get to my knees to start
picking up my delicates first, mostly because I don’t want them out
for display. Nate, though, is quickly by my side, helping me.

“Oh! Hey, don’t touch those,” I say, grabbing
the silky black pair of underwear from his hands. They’re the only
girly pair of panties I own, and I bought them with a Victoria
Secret gift card my aunt sent me. She wanted me to buy nice bras,
but I hate the foo-foo ones they have at that store, and I can’t
stand the idea of spending forty bucks on a bra. So I bought
underwear—six boy shorts and one fancy panty. I was saving those,
but lord knows for what.

Nate just sits back on my bed and watches me
piece back together my dresser. “Real funny there, Preeter. But you
better watch your back,” I say, my mind already spinning in a
million directions with what I can do to get back at him. I’m
reveling in the ideas when he brings everything to a screeching
halt.

“Oh, I also wanted to give you these. They,
uhhh,” he swallows hard handing me a stack of pictures that I
recognize instantly. “They fell out of one of the drawers. I didn’t
want them to get lost.”

I don’t turn them over to look at them, and
instead just shuffle them into a neat pile and tuck them back under
my jeans. I don’t like looking at the girl in those photos. It’s
hard to see Josh, but it’s even harder to see me—who I used to be.
“Rowe? Can I ask you something?” Nate says, and my pulse begins
that racing thing again, and my breath gets shorter and
shorter.

“Depends,” I say, not looking him in the eye
and just pushing on each drawer until they are all lined up and
shut neatly again. I sit on Cass’s bed when I’m finished, and keep
my eyes at his feet and then his hands. He’s nervous and fidgety,
and I know what he wants to ask, but I don’t know how to answer
it.

“That guy? The one in the pictures? You said
he was your boyfriend. Is he…
still
your boyfriend?”

Speechless. This is the same question I’ve
asked the universe a million times. I asked Ross just an hour ago.
I asked my mother before I left to come here. And I asked Josh’s
parents, too. But nobody gives me a goddamned answer when I ask. So
I’m not giving one to Nate.

“I have to go,” I say, grabbing my heavy bag
of books and racing through my door to the stairs so I don’t have
to wait for the elevator. I stop at the top of the first floor and
I sit down on the steps, tucking my head between my knees and
reminding myself to breathe.
Breathe deeply, Rowe.

I don’t know how long I hide there, but when
I come back upstairs, my door is open and Cass is home.

“Damn it, Rowe! I didn’t want to be a part of
this war, but looks like I’m in it now!” she’s kicking around the
pile of clothes at her feet and flipping over her own drawers.
“Tell me what you need me to do. I’m all in. You don’t mess with an
Owens sister!”

“Who’s messing with you?” Paige says, kicking
her shoes off under her bed and hooking her backpack over her desk
chair.

“Ty! And Nate! They flipped our dresser
drawers,” Cass says with a huff, stuffing her clothes back into her
drawers without folding. Paige rushes to her dresser next, biting
her lip and waiting for her clothes to spill out. When her drawers
are fine, I see the disappointment flood her body, and I feel sad
for her.

“Okay, tell me what you girls need me to do.
Let’s get those assholes back,” Paige says. I don’t know if she’s
just mad that they left her out of the practical joke war or if
she’s just trying to put on a brave face, but for the first time
since I’ve met her, I feel a connection with her, so I hold onto
it.

“Okay, I have an idea. We’re gonna need a
hardware store,” I start, and they both pull up their chairs to
listen.

Chapter
10

Nate

Staying away from her room was harder than I
thought it would be. I never brought up going to the art gallery,
and I avoided accidental run-ins when I could. I didn’t have
workouts during the first week of school, but I found myself in the
gym anyhow. Coaches liked seeing me there, but I wasn’t there for
them. I didn’t need to make an impression—I was their guy, and I
knew it. With me on the roster, McConnell was in the mix. Without
me, they were a decent team but not good enough to make the
series.

Whatever, though—me being here on a
non-workout day made me look like a team leader, and I did want to
fill that role for the other guys. Even if the only reason I was
here was to keep myself busy and away from Rowe.

Ty was with Cass every night. She came over
to watch
Sports Center
with us after dinner, and she’d drop
these totally obvious stories about Rowe, taking extra care to say
her name nice and clear for me to hear.

It’s not like I was angry with her. Damn, I’d
have to
understand
her for that to be a part of the
equation. I guess I was angrier with myself for being so
intimidated by her, and those pictures. She couldn’t even look at
them, and the way she ran out of her room when I asked her about
them made me start to think that she might just have some emotional
baggage I’m not equipped for.

“Hey, you about ready to head back?” Ty says,
popping his head in while I finish up my last set. Ty does personal
training at the campus—he was hired on to work with some of the
disabled students initially, but he’s so disciplined that others
started requesting him, too. My brother took his rehab seriously
when he got out of the hospital, and the dude is probably in better
shape than I am.

“One more set. I’ll meet you out front,” I
say.

He just nods and leaves me to finish my
workout, alone with my thoughts. I could lift a thousand pounds and
it still wouldn’t be enough to distract me from thinking about
Rowe.

She takes her showers late at night. I heard
her in there yesterday while I was taking mine, and I thought about
running into her again. But she’d see right through that. Instead,
I sat on the locker bench quietly, listening to her sing lightly
under her breath. She was putting on an act when she was singing
with Cass in her room the other day because I can tell she has the
voice of an angel. I bet if she really let herself go, she would
surprise the hell out of a lot of people with her voice—she’d
probably surprise herself a little, too.

It’s late by the time Ty and I get back to
the dorm, and I can hear both of our stomachs rumbling. “Dinner?” I
say, turning my key in our lock.

“Yeah. Let me just text Cass. She wanted to
come. You mind?”

“Nah,” I say. Honestly, I don’t mind. I like
Cass’s company, and I like having the small connection to Rowe. I
still want to invite her out with my parents next weekend, but I
just feel strange talking to her after the whole
picture
incident. I think I just need to know what the guy in that picture
is
to her first.

“What. The. Fuck!” Ty sees it first. It takes
me a few minutes to make sure my eyes aren’t tricking me. Our
entire bedroom, every square inch of the walls, is pink. The back
of the door—pink. The ceiling—pink. And it’s not a subtle pastel.
No, our dorm room is Barbie-princess pink!

I have to hand it to her. Rowe is good. I
mean, like,
really
good. This took effort and time, and I
know she had help—Ty’s fault for flipping Cass’s dresser. Ty is
fuming, but I just start laughing, tossing my gym bag on my
bed.

“Dude, this isn’t funny! I fucking
hate
pink!” My brother is more worked up over his room color
than he was about losing a grand in a Super-Bowl bet last year.

“Rowe.” I say, sitting down on my bed and
taking everything in. This must have taken three gallons to get it
covered so well, and they must have worked on this
all day.
The paint smell was still fresh. I have to admit, I am pretty
damned impressed.