This Is Falling (33 page)

“I like these,” I say, running my finger
along the bottom of an ornately carved frame.

“Thank you,” Cathy says, coming up behind me,
her hand on my shoulder in a way that feels nice—like acceptance.
“I painted them in college.”

“What about these?” I ask, motioning to the
ones I know are done by someone else.

“Those,” she starts, but pauses, her face
sliding into a large smile. “Those are Ty’s.”

“You’re kidding!” I’m unable to mask my
surprise. I get closer, and I can recognize the signature now, and
I’m blown away. The paintings are oils. Abstracts, but full of
color, the shapes almost making something recognizable, but always
not quite—they remind me of dreams.

“He still paints sometimes. For fun,” she
says, turning to look at Ty who is lost in some basketball game
playing out on the TV while he talks with his dad. “My boys are
full of surprises. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen everything
they’re capable of yet.” She watches him with pride in her eyes for
a few seconds before taking a quick deep breath and turning her
attention back to Nate and me. “Come on, let’s get you settled in
your room.”

The Preeter home is one big circle, with a
hallway that starts and ends in the family room, looping around to
four bedrooms—all with views of the big yard and giant trees that
surround the back of the house. My room is next to Nate’s, and I
can’t help but wonder if he’ll sneak in to see me at night. I sit
down on the full-size bed, and I can tell the lavender quilt was
washed recently, the smell of fabric softener still strong in
it.

“This is lovely,” I say, wondering where this
sudden formal version of myself is coming from. Nate mocks me
behind his mom, mouthing the word
lovely
and holding his
hands up to his face with wide eyes. I glare at him, and he laughs
silently.

“I’m glad you like it here,” she says,
reaching around me and hugging me to her side, filling my body with
even more warmth. I notice the stare she gives to Nate as she
leaves, like they have a silent conversation about me, but I look
away when Nate comes toward me.

“Oh, Mrs. Preeter, your home is simply
divine. I
must
have your decorator,” Nate jokes, putting on
his ridiculous, high-pitched girly voice.

“Oh my god! I do NOT sound like that,” I say,
shoving him into my bed.

He raises his hand and holds his thumb to his
index finger, measuring an inch. “You kinda do. But just a
little.”

“Shut up. I want your mom to like me. And
it’s really nice of your parents to have me here,” I say, actually
feeling a little bad that he made fun of me. Nate can tell, and he
grabs my hand, pulling me to his lap and hugging me tightly.

“I’m sorry. It was nice of you to gush. And
for the record, my parents freaking love you. Just like I do,” he
says, his smile warm against my cheek. Within seconds, he’s kissing
me, and he keeps kissing me until we hear Ty clear his throat in
the doorway.

“Yeah, you can’t do that shit at the
Thanksgiving table. I’ll get sick,” he says, pushing into the room
and lifting the corner of the blanket to his nose. “Damn. Mom
actually washed your blanket. Did she wash yours?”

Nate shrugs, and Ty backs out of the room,
heading to Nate’s. We follow him in there and he pulls Nate’s
blanket to his nose then quickly tosses it back down. “All right,
this is
bullshit
! Mom, what’s up with everyone getting
dryer-sheet bed but me?” He’s down the hall and moaning to his mom
within seconds.

“Dryer-sheet bed?” I ask Nate, laughing
lightly.

“It’s a Ty thing. He likes the way they
smell. It’s kind of like Cookie,” Nate says with a small shake of
his head. “Ty likes what he likes.”

“Oh! Speaking of…look what I brought,” I say,
leading Nate back to my room and unzipping my small travel bag and
pulling out my teddy bear hostage. “I thought maybe we’ve taken
this far enough.”

Nate nods, leaning against the doorframe and
grinning while I start to tuck it back into the zipper bag. “You
wanna win Ty over forever?” Nate asks, and I pause, pulling the
bear back out again. “Come with me.”

Nate leads me to a small door near the back
porch, and I realize quickly it’s the laundry room. We toss Cookie
into the dryer with a fabric softener sheet and let it spin for
about five minutes. When it’s done, we pull it out, and I write a
small note in all caps that says:
“NO MORE FUSSY
FUSS, OKAY?”
and we tuck the note and the bear in the top of
Ty’s blanket for him to find at bedtime.

Nate

I like having her in my house. She
feels…permanent. But there’s this constant ache scratching at the
back of my mind every second. It’s the secret I’m keeping, and I
know if I tell her, she’ll leave. And I would understand. She
should leave—she should have known all along, and had her chance to
say goodbye. But she can never get that back. So I guess the only
decision now is what happens moving forward, and maybe her parents
are right. Maybe, to move forward, Rowe just needs to keep moving.
And maybe knowing this will hold her back, mess with her head
during finals, ruin her great start. But I can’t help but think it
might all just backfire, too.

Her parents haven’t sold their house yet. But
the last time she talked with them, right before we left for our
flight, they were mostly packed. I wonder if they really went
through with taking a trip—a vacation for just the two of them—or
if they’re just at home, pretending.

We spent the night curled up with one another
on the couch, watching the end of the Pacers and Miami game with Ty
and my dad. Mom busied herself in the kitchen, prepping for our
un-traditional Thanksgiving tomorrow. Mom made Lasagna and
eggrolls, and Rowe actually seemed excited by it, which only made
me love her more. Every little thing—sometimes the tiniest
things—makes me love her more, and I’m in so deep now, I know I
won’t make it back out whole.

Stretching out every moment, I hold her body
close to mine along the sofa. My dad, per tradition, has dozed off
in his chair, and Ty is busy dropping sunflower seeds in his hair,
one at a time, which makes Rowe giggle, and makes me hold her
tighter—
loving her more.

“All right, kids,” Ty says, brushing his
hands of the salt from the seeds while he backs away from my dad’s
chair. “This face needs its beauty sleep. And I told Cass I’d
call.”

“Good,” Rowe says, her voice a little
forceful, and it actually surprises Ty
and
me.

“I’m sorry, did I miss something?” Ty asks,
his eyebrows pinched as he scratches the darned-near full beard
he’s been growing for two weeks. Rowe looks up at me with her eyes
wide; clearly her tone surprised her as well.

“Sorry, that…that came out harsh,” she says,
pushing against my hip to sit up in front of me. “I just meant you
should call; she’s missing you.” Her words have a strange smile on
Ty’s face, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was
blushing. “You should have invited her to come too, you know. She
wanted to come.”

Ty just nods at her, his lips tight and his
face reverent. “Yeah, I probably should have. I’m…kind of new…at
this
?” Ty shrugs and we all sit still, sort of soaking in
what has suddenly become a strange serious environment for the
three of us, which Ty, of course, is the first to break.
“Anywho…gonna go see if she wants to have phone sex. So, goodnight
all.”

Ty is gone for about fifteen seconds before
he’s back, gently tossing Cookie in one hand, a sinister chuckle
crackling in his chest. “Well, look what we have here,” he says,
looking down at the small bear in his hand before he brings it up
to his nose to take in its scent. He laughs a little louder when he
does, and finally looks up at me, and then to Rowe, pointing at
her. “
You
…you just got lucky there, sister. The dryer
sheet…yeah. That was a nice touch. Might have just saved you a
world
of hurt,” he trails off, turning around and going back
in his room where he closes the door.

“Your brother’s weird,” she says, leaning
into me slowly.

“Yeah,” I say, kissing her cheek lightly.
“But he likes you. And that’s not easy to do.” She shoves me, kinda
hard, and I realize what I said. “I mean…getting
Ty
to like
you. No, liking
you
is easy. Ah, fuck…I hate grammar. It’s
always screwing me over.”

Rowe giggles, then slides to my lap and
kisses me, and soon her lips—and the rest of her—is all I’m
thinking about, and I’m pulling her from the couch, quietly
tiptoeing away from my father, and the murmur of the television, to
the lavender room—that she’s supposed to stay in alone, but to hell
with that.

Chapter
28

Rowe

Eggrolls for Thanksgiving are my new awesome.
Seriously. Awesome. I’m usually a sick kind of stuffed on this
holiday, and it’s normally from mashed potatoes. But today, it’s
eggrolls. The lasagna was good, too, but I think there’s a chance I
may try to marry those eggrolls.

After our early dinner, Nate took me on a
tour of where he grew up—driving us by his little league field,
grade school, high school, and first girlfriend’s house. He even
showed me the tree where he first carved into the trunk
NATE LOVES STACY,
and then came back a few
weeks later and scratched it out with a pocketknife. Stacy,
apparently, did
not
love Nate. He was twelve, and
bitter.

After the tour, he gave me my first driving
lesson in three years. I wasn’t awful, but I wasn’t
good
either. I stayed a good fifteen miles per hour under the limit and
stuck to the side streets. At this rate, I should be driving by age
thirty-five.

We spent the rest of the night watching old
Christmas movies, like
White Christmas
and
It’s a
Wonderful Life.
I got excited when
Home Alone
came on,
and when Nate admitted he had never seen it, I forced him to watch
it with me. I caught him laughing a few times.

At almost midnight, we’re the only two left
awake in the living room, so Nate pulls a few logs from the pile in
the corner and builds us a nice fire. I snuggle in between his legs
as he sits on the floor with his back against the side of the sofa,
putting us right in line of the fire’s warmth.

“Thank you,” I whisper, reaching my hands
around his forearms, which are wrapped around me, and dipping my
head to kiss his skin.

“For what?” he whispers back.

“For letting me have this…today, this
trip—this time here with you. I don’t think I would have liked the
Bahamas over Thanksgiving, and being here has sort of made me
forget all about how my mom and dad are selling the house.”
Truthfully, I haven’t thought about it once, and even talking about
it now, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did when my parents first
told me.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Nate says, squeezing
me tightly to his chest, and resting his cheek on the top of my
head. He holds me there for several minutes while we both stare
blankly at the fire.

“Hey, guess what?”

“What’s that?” he asks, his lips brushing
against the side of my head in the sweetest way, I almost forget
what I wanted to say.

“I’m picking a major when we get back. I’m
meeting with my advisor,” I say, actually excited about my
future.

“Astrophysicist?” he asks, turning my chin to
look at him so I can see his serious face, just before half of his
mouth curls into a sarcastic smile and he winks.

“Yes, I totally want to work on rockets,
despite my absolute detestation for math. And science. And fear of
being lost in space,” I say, and Nate laughs but then stops
quickly.

“Fear…of…being…lost in space?” His eyebrows
pinch.

“Yeah, I can’t watch those movies. Like
Apollo 13
? I get all freaked out,” I say, and he laughs.
Hard.

“That’s…a strange fear,” he says, still
sporting his perfect grin—dimples and all. “And, you know
Apollo
13
, that…that really happened.”

“I know, but I like to pretend it was just a
movie. Swear to god, freaks me out. Lost in space?” I snuggle back
into his arms and relish the low rumble of the chuckle in his
chest.

“So what do you want to
be
then? When
you grow up,” he asks.

“A curator. Like in a museum. I’m going to be
one of those art-history nerds,” I say, the smile on my face one of
excitement. Nate is quiet for several long seconds, and I start to
wonder why, so I turn in his arms so I’m facing him, and he smiles,
fast. “What do you think?” I ask, really wanting his
acceptance.

“Sorry, was just thinking of funny
art-history jokes.” He looks proud of himself, so I nod my head
toward him, encouraging him to let me have it. “Okay, so…how do you
get an art-history major off your doorstep?”

“I don’t know. How?”

“Pay her for the pizza,” he says, with a loud
blurt of laughter afterward.

“Nice, Nate. Real nice.”

“Wait, I have one more. I was trying to
decide which is better,” he says, and I sigh into him. “What are
the first two Italian words an art-history major learns?”

I sigh again before I respond. “What?”

“Venti cappuccino,” he laughs, and I roll my
eyes in response. “Get it? You know, because you’ll be working at
Starbucks…”

“Yeah, got it. Thanks,” I say, not really
liking the jokes.

“Oh, come on Thirty-three…I was kidding.
Honestly? I think that’s the
perfect
thing for you to do.
You seem to really love art. And my mom would totally help you, you
know.”

I stare at him, then finally speak. “I love
it when you call me Thirty-three. You pretty much had my heart the
first time you called me that,” I admit.