This Is Falling (11 page)

“Dude, I know you like that girl or whatever,
but this shit is unacceptable,” Ty says, flinging open our door and
heading down the hall to their room. I catch up with him, my smile
growing bigger with every step.

The door is shut, and Ty has his hand up
ready to pound, but I grab it to stop him. I hold up a finger and
tell him to stay quiet, then I go to the room two doors down and
ask the quiet girl who lives there to do us a favor. I bring her
back to the door, and she knocks while Ty and I hide to one side,
out of the view of the peephole.

“It’s Molly. I’m out of printer ink, and I
need to get this paper done. Can I borrow yours? It will only take
a few seconds,” Molly says, selling it so well that I think I may
have underestimated her too.

“Thank you soooo much,” I whisper back to
her. It’s scary how willing she was to help Ty and me out, but the
Preeter brothers have always been good at getting girls to do
things. Every girl but one, it seems.

“Hang on.” It’s Cass I hear, so I ready
myself low to sneak past her into the room so I can get to Rowe. I
can tell she’s looking through the hole, and Molly just stands
there, smiling. The door is barely open, and I push it the rest of
the way. Cass starts laughing hysterically and screaming just a
little.

“Rowe, run!” she says, and I see Rowe’s long
legs fly up from her bed and leap over Cass’s in an effort to lock
herself in the closet. Paige is standing on her bed, too, laughing
and pointing at Rowe.

“This was all her idea!” Paige screams.

“Oh, I know exactly whose idea this is,” I
say, my fingers reaching just enough of her shirt to tug her to a
stop and grip at her waist. She’s strong, and she’s wiggling and
laughing, and still trying to get away from me. But she’s no match.
I finally get my arms completely around her body, and I lift her
over my shoulder, locking her squirming arms and legs in before I
take off in a run.

“No! Nate, don’t you dare. What are you
doing? Where are you taking me!” She’s kicking like hell, but she’s
still laughing, so I keep going, all the way to the stairs.

“You tell me, Rowe. Elevator or stairs?”

“Huh?” she asks, her voice muffled from the
blood rushing to her head.

“I’m not letting go of you, but I’m taking
you outside. You’re lucky I’m giving you a choice—elevator or
stairs? Me? I’d pick elevator. Because I’m not so sure I can
balance down three flights with your long-ass legs kicking at
me.”

“Elevator,” she says, her body going
limp.

“Good choice,” I say, marching her over to
the button and waiting for the elevator to open. There are a few
people inside, and they all move out of the way when I get in with
her.

“Chick painted my room pink. Payback. You
know, they’re a bitch?” I say, hitting the button to close the
door.

“What do you mean payback?” Rowe asks, her
head behind me and still upside down.

“Oh, you’re going to find out sweetheart.
Just you wait,” I say, not really sure where I’m taking her, but
just out-of-my-mind excited to have her in my arms, even if it is a
bit like kidnapping.

“Nate? No…you’re making me nervous,” she
says, but she’s still giggling, so I push on. The elevator opens,
and I walk quickly to the main door. As soon as I get it open, I
take off in a sprint, and her arms and legs start kicking and
slapping at me again.

“You’re going to make me drop you!” She’s
lifting up the back of my shirt, and I swear I feel something wet.
“Did you…did you just
lick
me?”

And oh my god the mischievous laugh she lets
out when I ask her that. I know she thinks she’s being a badass and
sneaky, but fuck me! That laugh? Her tongue on my skin? She’s being
sexy as hell, and she doesn’t even have a clue. I slow to a walk,
but I keep carrying her. The ball fields are only a few hundred
yards away, which gives me an idea.

“Rowe, I feel I have to tell you this. We’re
close enough that I think you deserve honesty. Putting your tongue
on me is in no way, whatsoever torture. It’s pretty much the shit
I’ve been dreaming about since the night I ran into you in the
hallway. So unless you’re prepared to follow through with what your
tongue suggests in my mind, I’d encourage you to keep it in your
pretty little mouth.”

I feel her body stiffen a little when I
finish, and she’s no longer laughing. But I also don’t think she’s
mad. Her muscles finally relax when I cut through the back gate at
the ball field. I can hear it, but I don’t think she can because
she’s upside down. I probably only have a few more minutes to catch
it, so I tell her to hang on and I jog with her over my shoulder
into centerfield.

When I hear it stop for a second, I pull her
back over my shoulder and let her feet touch the ground.
Immediately, she tries to run, so I pull her into my chest, her
face away from me, and I lock her arms in tightly.

“Uh uh. Time to face the music,” I say, and
on the perfect cue the outfield sprinklers kick on, soaking her
body, hair, and shorts with every pass. I’m soaking wet too, but I
don’t care. I would walk through fire to hold her in front of me
like this. And then, a remarkable thing happens.

I let my arms loosen their grip, and Rowe
slips away from me, but she doesn’t run. She just stretches her
arms out to her sides and looks up, her hair dripping wet, and her
face glistening from the water beading up on her skin. She starts
spinning slowly in a circle, laughing. And then it’s
there—
the
smile. The same look she had on her face in that
picture. It’s joy. And I just gave it to her.

My god, do I want to give it to her
again.

Rowe

The water is so cold that I start to shiver,
but I don’t care. I keep spinning and laughing. Maybe I’m having a
nervous breakdown. Whatever this is, I don’t care—I feel free and
honestly happy. A real moment of happiness, uninterrupted, and Nate
just stands there watching me and waiting.

His smile is spectacular. He’s like those
faces I see in my magazines, when I flip through ads of people in
love. The way the man looks at a woman in the perfume ads—that’s
his face, right now, for me. I don’t want it to go away, but I know
it has to, and the second I start to let my reality creep in, my
happiness fades.

I stop spinning, but I force my smile to stay
in place, because I don’t want to go back to those other feelings
just yet.

“You’re beautiful; you know that?” My breath
is gone with his words. Nate can’t think I’m beautiful. I’m not—I’m
scarred and ugly.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” I ask, my posture dipping,
and my hands coming back to that familiar place around my waist,
squeezing tightly.

“Don’t refuse to listen to me,” he says,
stepping closer. I step back, but with every two I take, he takes
three, until he’s touching me, his hands gripping my elbows.
“You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine,” I say, not wanting this moment to
end. I’m so terrified of it—so unbelievably afraid of this
conversation continuing. But I haven’t wanted anything in so long.
And right now, all I want is
this—
this time right now, alone
with Nate.

His hands slide up my arms to my neck, and
soon his hands are cradling my face. My teeth are chattering, but
I’m begging them to behave. I can feel Nate’s breath he’s so close
to me, and for a moment, I think he might kiss me. Instead, he
steps back and pulls his long-sleeved shirt over his body and slips
it around my head, holding it out for me to tuck my arms
inside.

“Thank you,” I say, my lips still quivering,
partly from the cold and partly from my desire to be kissed.

“Well, it is sort of my fault. I ran you
through the sprinklers,” he says, reaching his arm around me and
pulling me into his side. We walk through the field, our feet
squishing in the grass.

“Are we supposed to be out here?” I ask,
noticing the deep feet prints we’re leaving in our wake.

“Oh god no. I’m going to get my ass chewed,
too. There are cameras all over the place. I bet security is on
it’s way right now.”

I start to pick up my pace, my heart thumping
with panic now. But then his laugh registers, and I stop. “Not
nice,” I say.

“I know. I’m kidding. There are no cameras.
We’re probably not supposed to be here, but no one will know.”

We climb over a small pony wall into the dug
out, and Nate reaches for my hand to help me down. His hands are
somehow warm, despite everything on my body feeling so cold. I want
to hold his hand, feel my fingers intertwine with his, but his
touch leaves me as soon as my feet meet the ground. And I can’t
ignore the sharp pain it causes in my heart.

The dugout bench is wide; I sit sideways on
it, pulling my knees up to hug them closely to me. I tuck my legs
into his shirt for a bit, trying to warm the rest of my body. Nate
sits in front of me, crossing his legs and tugging at my
shoelaces.

“I meant what I said, you know,” he says,
looking up at me with one eyebrow raised. “That you’re
beautiful?”

Sucking in my bottom lip to hide the smile on
my face, I nod once and whisper “Thank you.”

“Oh Nate, and by the way, I find you
incredibly handsome,” he says, putting on his best female voice to
imitate me. I laugh and stare down into my lap, not knowing what to
say next.

“You’re…
not bad,”
I say, shrugging for
emphasis. “I mean, you’re kind of big and gangly. And I bet your
knees crackle and pop from catching, so you’re probably going to
suffer from massive arthritis. But, you’re all right.”

He pushes up my feet without warning, tipping
me over on my back. “Damn, and here Ty and I thought Paige was the
bitchy one,” he jokes.

“Nope. It was I all along. In fact, this
isn’t even what I look like. If I ripped off this layer of skin,
underneath I would smell like sparkly body spray, and my skin would
glitter, and my hair would feel like wire from all of the product I
put in it.”

“Wow! Now
that’s
what I was
really
hoping you looked like. Go on, baby, rip it off. Show
me the real you,” he says, laughing and reaching for my hand to
pull me back up to sitting. This time, though, he leaves his
fingertips on mine, shifting his touch from one finger to the next,
like he’s not sure if it’s a good idea to hold onto me too
tightly.

“You don’t want to see the real me,” I
swallow, and look away.

“Sure I do,” he says, and I can feel his eyes
on me. They’re burning, and I know I can’t wait this one out.

“Tell me about Ty. How’d he get hurt?” His
hand drops from mine, and he grips both sides of the bench
underneath him, lifting his entire body up a few inches from the
seat, like a gymnast. He lets out a big breath when he rests his
arms again, folding his hands together in his lap. His gaze stays
there the entire time.

“Ty was sixteen. I was twelve. We were at
this big lake, near New Orleans. My grandparents owned some land
there. Ty taught me to swim in that lake when we were real little.
I mean, that place was like a second home.
So many
memories.”

Watching him remember his youth is
incredible. The way he talks about his brother just gushes with
affection, and I’m envious he has something in his life that feels
like that.

“Well, this one year, we were both feeling a
little adventurous. There was this big ledge that I had watched
some teenagers jump off of the year before, and the entire year
after, all I did was talk about that ledge to my brother, begging
him and making him promise to take me back there so we could jump
off together. Only, when we climbed up on the ledge, I got really
scared. I’m not really good at heights, and I started crying. Now,
keep in mind, while twelve sounds kind of young to you right now,
it’s not that young for a boy who’s crying. I felt like a loser,
and my brother felt bad for me, so he said he’d go first and show
me how easy it was. He, uh…he didn’t come back up.”

I’m covering my mouth because I don’t want
Nate to see the complete reaction on my face. I know I can’t mask
my eyes, and I can feel the tears pooling already, threatening to
fall down my face.

“He injured his L2 and L3. No, I’ll be
blunt—he smashed them to pieces. I ran down the hill and screamed
bloody murder. A few fishermen heard me and helped me pull him out.
Getting to the hospital is all one giant blur, and I remember my
thinking the entire time that my parents hated me. I hated me.
Because I made my brother do something so stupid.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” I say, reaching
for his hand on instinct. His breath pauses when my fingertips
touch him, and he hooks his fingers into mine a little more this
time.

“I know that now. Ty snapped me out of it
pretty quickly. You may have noticed, my brother doesn’t really do
pity,” he says, his eyes still watching our hands as they fight to
hold on harder to one another.

“You’re brother is pretty awesome,” I say,
waiting for his eyelashes to flick up and for his gaze to reach
mine. But he keeps his eyes down, at our hands.

“Yeah, he is. I’m good at baseball because of
him. He always wanted to play professionally, or at least in
college. When he couldn’t anymore, I made it my dream. I wanted to
get here for him,” he says, a faint smile pulling up at the corner
of his mouth.

“I can’t wait to see you play,” I say, and
his eyes finally meet mine, piercing my heart the second they
do.

“You can come to practice. You know…if you
want. Anytime,” he looks down again, biting at his lip. I can tell
he’s embarrassed about asking me to come.

“I will,” I say, and his smile grows bigger
and he nods.

“Good, that’s settled then.” Nate’s
expression starts to change after that; soon his brow furrows, and
he’s chewing at the inside of his cheek. “I have to ask you
something. But I’m scared of your answer.”