This Is Falling (15 page)

“All the time,” I say, thinking of the number
of times I wished those bullets hit me instead of Josh and Betsy.
“You?”

“Nah,” he says, and I start to laugh, but I
realize he isn’t. “I just made my first one in years.”

Breathe.

“Oh yeah? You want Barbie back?”

“No,” he smiles. “I wished you were over here
instead of there.”

Oh.

More seconds pass, and I let them slip into
minutes, my eyes unable to leave his. He didn’t ask. He didn’t come
up with some transparent scheme. He was just honest—perfectly,
beautifully, terrifyingly honest. We lie there for fifteen more
minutes just looking at one another, this new
feeling
swallowing us both up whole, until Nate finally rolls to his back
and then his other side, facing away from me.

More seconds. More minutes. I watch his body
rise and fall with every breath, and it’s constant and regular, but
I know he’s still awake. Being Cass’s friend, being Paige’s friend,
even being Ty’s friend—that’s all part of healing. But what I’m
about to do right now has nothing to do with my own personal growth
and overcoming my trauma. Being Nate’s friend was a level I left in
the dust the second I made his acquaintance. And
right now
is about me, and the pounding in my chest, and the voice in my head
telling me to take what I
want.

“Nate?” I speak, my eyes shut tightly.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come over?” I open my eyes as soon as
I speak—amazed the words left my lips.

He rolls back over to face me, lifting his
blanket open, and I somehow find my balance and tiptoe to the other
side of the room, lying down next to him, in the most amazingly
safe place I’ve ever felt.

He’s slow with his arm, pulling the top of
the blanket over my shoulder and then reaching around the front of
my body to pull me in close. He slides his other arm under my head
for a pillow, and my head rests heavily on his bicep. I reach up
and pull the tie from my hair, dropping it to the floor. Nate’s
hand reaches along my arm when I do, and then he runs his fingers
up my neck and into my hair, scooping my heavy strands into a pile
along my skin. He continues to run his fingers from my hairline to
behind my ear, each stroke like a wave crashing over me, making my
eyes feel heavy.

“Hey Nate?” I say, my voice barely a
whisper.

“Mmmmm,” he says, his nose pressed against
the back of my head while he pulls me in closer, continuing to wind
my hair through his fingers.

“You should make more wishes,” I say.

“I just made, like, about twenty. But don’t
worry. I’m patient.”

Every nerve in my body is tingling from
whatever it is we’re doing.
This
is no longer just flirting.
This is
levels
beyond flirting. And I am about to fall
asleep without the help of Ambien for the first time in months.

Chapter
14

Rowe

Even your favorite song in the entire world
gets old when it’s your ringtone and your mother keeps calling your
phone—over and over and over. The first time, I reached to the
floor and hit
ignore
. The next time I let it play through,
and just kept my eyes on Nate’s eyelids, waiting for him to wake
up. When she called again, this time waking him completely, I knew
I had to answer.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, my lips pressed together
tightly, and every nerve in my body firing with the realization
that I am now talking to my mother while lying in the arms of the
boy I met in college. I almost giggle because it’s such a typical,
normal thing to have happen. It’s also one of those things I never
thought would happen to me.

“Are you all right? You didn’t answer right
away,” she says, her voice delving into that tone that says “I’m
concerned about you, are you eating, should I book an appointment
with Ross?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I was just away from my
phone,” I say.

When I roll my head over on Nate’s arm to
look at him, he mouths to me, “Liar,” and starts to poke my ribs,
trying his best to make me lose control.

“I wanted to go through the flight details
with you for next weekend,” she says. Somehow, I’ve already been
away for three weeks. Those first few nights, I was obsessed with
this date, knowing it was my reward for a milestone—my first trip
home, a chance to back out of everything if I didn’t think I could
make it. Yet now, I don’t want to go.

“Dad will pick you up when your flight gets
in. I’ll try to sit up so I can see you, okay?”

“Sure, that’s fine.” Everything that was
seconds ago amazing and wonderful is now tense and uncomfortable
and sad. I force myself to keep up the appearance of happy for the
few minutes my phone conversation with my mom lasts, and I manage
to end it without her questioning me again.

“Figured if I wanted to make a good
impression on your mom when I meet her, I should probably not make
sex jokes in the background of your phone call,” Nate teases. All I
hear is the word
sex.

“Oh, you probably won’t ever get to meet
her,” I say, trying to hide my reddening cheeks. I notice Nate’s
arms fall flat along his sides, and his smile fades. His
playfulness suddenly is gone as he turns away from me, his jaw
muscles flexing.

“I need to get my workout in. You can hang
out here as long as you want,” he says, pushing himself to the end
of his bed and standing at the foot of it, his eyes never once
landing on me.

“Something wrong?” My question comes out soft
and timid, and I’m desperate to know what suddenly thrust so much
distance between us.

Nate just stops at his closet door, his hand
holding at the frame while his back is to me, and he takes a deep
breath. “Nothing’s wrong, Rowe. Really,” he says, turning back to
smile, but his lips not quite stretching the full distance of his
face, and his eyes still not quite meeting mine. “My parents are
taking me and my brother out to dinner tonight. You can come if you
want. I’m sure Cass will be there.”

The way he asks has me confused on how to
answer. It almost sounds as if he feels obligated to invite me, and
I don’t want that. Maybe he’s just worried about how I’ll cope with
a new restaurant.

While he’s in his closet, I pull the blanket
over his bed, smiling at the way it looks—pink frills and rainbows
everywhere. I gather up the rest of my belongings and sit at the
end of his bed, waiting for him. I don’t mean to be looking, but
when his body passes in front of the slightly open door, I can’t
help but see more of him than I’m probably supposed to—his abs just
as defined as I remembered them from the first night I ran into
him, and the muscular line of his torso diving deeper into a
low-riding pair of sliding shorts that leave very little to the
imagination. Seeing him—so much of him—is intimidating and has my
pulse quickening.

“So, see ya later?” he says, finally standing
at the door, his workout shorts on and a gray T-shirt in his hand.
I blink, probably longer than I should, and the longer it takes me
to respond, the more nervous I become. “Unless you’re not up to
it…”

“No, I’d love to. Sorry, I was…” I was just
putting the finishing touches on my mental portrait of your body,
like a pervert, that’s what I was doing. Nate just smiles, but
still not the complete smile from before. He comes closer, and when
his feet are almost directly in front of me, I close my eyes,
expecting the kiss that never comes. Instead he pats my head, like
a little sister, and heads out for his morning workout.

Cass and Ty finally woke up around noon. I
was hungry, and Nate didn’t have anything to eat in his room, so I
forced myself to visit the cafeteria alone. My body didn’t react
nearly as badly as I thought it would, but I still had to sit in
the far corner, with my back pressed to the wall. I ate cereal, the
box kind that you fold into a bowl, and I saved the box when I was
done—my trophy for taking such a big step.

When I got back, my room was finally open, so
I walked in and put my cereal bowl on the shelf by my desk.

“Saving up to win the prize?” Cass asks,
pointing to the empty Sugar Loops box.

“Something like that,” I smile.

“So, how was
your
night?” Cass wants
details, and I know she’s expecting my night to have been similar
to hers. But I know it wasn’t. It probably wasn’t even close. But
in many ways, I think it was probably a million times better. “Does
that smile on your face mean what I think it means?”

“Noooooo,” I say, tossing Paige’s dress at
her. “We just…
slept.
But it was really, really,
really
nice.”

“Hmmmmmm, sounds really, really,
really
boring,” she says, over exaggerating her frown to
emphasize her disappointment. “Wanna hear about my night?”

“Oh god no!” I must be completely distracted
by this new experience of having a girlfriend, because for some
reason I start to change out of Nate’s clothes right in front of
her, not even attempting to hide the hideous marks on my body. It’s
not until I work my own pair of shorts up my hips and button them
that I turn to face her and notice her staring. It would only make
it worse to grab Nate’s shirt or my blanket and cover myself
quickly, so I don’t. Instead, I just freeze, letting my arms drop
to my side and turning even more so she can truly see.

“They’ve gotten better,” I say, the strength
in my voice surprising even me.

“What happened?” she asks, folding up her
legs to sit comfortably on her own bed. I think that’s one of the
things I like most about Cass, the little I know of her so far.
She’s blunt—in a way that cuts through the bullshit in life. Most
people would dance around the questions, not wanting to hurt my
feelings. But I’m starting to realize all of the hiding in the
shadows does far more damage to my feelings than just showing the
world who I really am.

I run my fingers over the deep divots a few
times, sucking in my lips to keep myself together while I let the
memories flood through me. Picking up my tank top, I slide it over
my head slowly, pulling the bottom down to meet my shorts and
hiding the proof of my story again.

“Two years ago, there was a shooting at my
school. You ever hear of Hallman High?” This marks the second time
I’ve told this story
ever
. With Nate, I was more cautious
and emotional. But things are different with Cass. With her, I’m
seeking an ally, someone who can explain away my weirdness when it
comes unexpectedly—and it will come. It will come in droves.

“I think so. This sounds awful—but there are
so many school shootings, I sort of get them mixed up,” she says,
her face showing an apology that she doesn’t remember every detail
of mine.

“It’s okay. Mine wasn’t one of the remarkable
ones. I mean, it was to me of course, but not the rest of the
world.”

I reach into my bottom drawer and grab the
photos I hid there the other day, then join Cass on her bed. Just
as I did with Nate, I recant the basics—mental illness, man with a
gun, our cafeteria, Josh and Betsy.

“This is Josh and me at the winter formal,” I
say, showing her my favorite picture of the both of us. I like this
one because we look so much older than 16. Maybe I like pretending
we got to grow up together after all.

I have fewer pictures of Betsy, but I show
her the few I’ve kept. Betsy was my other half, the girl who
really
knew me. We met in kindergarten and were inseparable
ever since.

“So Betsy didn’t make it?” Cass asks, handing
the small stack of photographs back to me. I shake my head
no
and look down at them in my lap—all that’s left of the
two most important people in my life summed up in seven
pictures.

“Wow. Well that’s…” she pauses for a few
seconds, bobbing her head side to side while thinking of the
perfect word. “Sucky. That’s just sucky.”

Her choice makes me laugh, and laugh hard.
Because yeah, it is sucky, and that’s really the only perfect word
there is for my story. “Oh my god, it is
soooooo
sucky!” I
say, putting on a Valley-Girl tone. Mocking my own tragedy feels
good, and I wish I had done it sooner.

“Riiiight? I mean, like, oh my god, what a
lame way to start your summer!” Cass is speaking Valley Girl with
me, and I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts.

“Totes!” I say back to her in between laughs.
We’re rolling on our backs, tears falling from the creases of our
eyes when Paige comes in.

“Oh my god, so like, Paige, do you totally
want to hear my sucky story?” I say, barely able to finish my
sentence, I’m laughing so hard.

“Uhm, I guess?” Paige says, moving to the
closet to hang her sweater on the hook on the back of the door.

“Like, when I was sixteen, this guy came to
my school and shot my boyfriend and best friend. I mean, right?
Who does that
?” Cass is holding her stomach she’s laughing
so hard, her face turning red, and I’m almost gurgling in between
my speech.

Paige steps out from the closet, her eyes
wide and centered on me; I realize she’s not really
in
on
the same joke Cass and I are, and then I realize that yeah, I’m
probably being really insensitive and maybe a little bit crazy
right now. But I don’t fucking care.

“Rowe, if you’re making this up, I swear to
god I will smack you. That’s not nice, and it isn’t funny,” she
says, her hand on her hip, which only makes my laugh break through
again.

“Oh, Paige. If only this were a joke,” I say,
my tears half from laughing and half from the truth, and the escape
feels euphoric.

Once I calmed myself down, I shared the
photos with Paige, too. She was a lot more serious in her response
than Cass, more like my parents and others from my hometown. She
was sympathetic and kind, but I think I kind of liked Cass’s
response better. I need more people to treat me like
that—
normal.