This Is Falling Read online

  “I’ll come,” she says, her smile tight, and her arms hugging her body. I notice she does that a lot. I think it’s her tell, her signal that she’s uncomfortable. She doesn’t really want to do this, but she’s going for me. If I were a good person, I’d let her off the hook. But I’m selfish, and I want her with me.

  “My parents have box seats, so we’ll be in a suite,” I say, standing from her bed and leaning against her desk. She relaxes at that news, and I’m glad it helps.

  “What time?”

  “We’ll walk over around six. Does that work?” I say, checking my watch, which says three thirty.

  “Ugh, I guess that’ll do. But you have to go now. I mean, if I’m meeting parents, I need time to make myself all glittery and shiny,” she smirks.

  “Oh, and make sure you put a lot of shit in your hair so it’s all crunchy and tangled,” I laugh. Cass and Ty just stare at us like we’re insane, but we don’t break our character and hold in our laughs. This is one of those jokes just between us—something that’s ours. And I’ll take it, however small and insignificant it may be.

  Rowe walks me to the door, and I keep my hands in my pockets, not able to look her directly in the eyes, because every time I do, I feel like I should be kissing her. But she’s made it clear that I can’t—at least not today. I’m pretty sure I’ll keep trying though.

  Rowe

  “I blame you,” I say to Cass, who is sitting on the edge of Paige’s bed, directing me into the closet to try on a few of her outfits.

  “Blame me for what? No, I hate that one. Go try the blue one,” she says, shoving an orange sundress in my arms, and turning me back to face the closet.

  “For this. For me having to go to a football game and meet parents.” I can hear her laughing behind the door. Every dress I try on looks like I’m trying too hard. And nothing covers me quite enough.

  “This one looks ridiculous,” I say, as I open the door. Cass studies me for a minute, and then nods in agreement.

  “Something’s not right. Why don’t you just wear jeans and a shirt, like you always do?” I know she doesn’t mean for that to sound the way it does, but what she says sort of gets my own point across. Jeans…like I always wear. I’m so tired of it all. Tired of wearing the same clothes that have been in my closet since I was a sophomore. Time stood still the day that gunman came into everyone’s life, and my clock never started ticking again.

  Letting my shoulders frump to my sides, I sigh, and slouch down on the bed next to Cass. “I’m not good at this,” I say.

  “What do you mean? Paige would kill to be the one to get Nate’s attention,” she says, just as Paige walks in, and my gut twists wondering what she heard and what she’s going to say.

  “Paige would kill for what? For you two chickadees to get your asses off my bed?” I stand immediately, smoothing out the wrinkle left behind on her bedspread. But Cass lies down, spreading her arms to the side, wallowing. She actually wallows.

  “Your bed is always so much more comfortable than mine,” she says, rolling to one side and smelling Paige’s comforter. “And your sheets are softer. What the hell?”

  “Mom and Dad like me better,” Paige says, sticking her tongue out. Normally, I would think someone was kidding when they did that, but for some reason when Paige does it, she seems serious.

  “Sure they do,” Cass says, rolling her eyes while she lifts herself back to sitting. She keeps her eyes on her sister, watching her touch-up her makeup, until finally Paige can’t stand her attention any longer.

  “What?” she says, twisting to face her sister with her hands on her hips.

  “Rowe, I’m afraid we’re going to need her help,” Cass says, looking at me. Oh god no!

  “My help with what?” Paige asks, turning her attention back to her own reflection.

  “First, you have to promise me you’re not going to get pissed,” Cass says, and I feel like I’m watching the world’s most cautious tennis match. And I’m the ball.

  Paige puts the lid back on her lip-gloss and slides her lips together, puckering closely to the mirror while her eyes move to look at Cass in the reflection. “Pretty sure I can’t promise that. Just a hunch,” she says, holding her sister’s gaze and gripping the edge of the sink.

  “Nate invited Rowe to come to the game with me and Ty tonight…to meet their parents. She doesn’t have anything nice to wear, and I’m not good at makeovers, so we’ve pretty much just been flailing in our attempts for the last two hours, and we have to leave in like thirty minutes,” Cass says, letting out an exhausted sigh when she’s done.

  Paige doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t even blink. But her eyes slowly move from Cass to me in the mirror. I let her study me, lifting my shoulders into a tiny shrug and sucking my top lip in against my teeth. Paige and I are worlds apart, and I can’t say I’ve warmed to her. But I wasn’t trying to win some contest over Nate. I can’t even truly be with him.

  The longer she looks at me, the more uncomfortable I get, and I keep waiting for Cass to break the silence. But she doesn’t. Finally, after seconds that felt like minutes, Paige pushes back from the sink and spins around.

  “Stand up,” she says, her chin in her hand. “Jewel tones. You’re definitely jewel tones.”

  She spins around, and starts thumbing through the overstuffed hangers on her side of the closet. I look at Cass when she does and mouth “Jewel tones?” Cass just shrugs and nods toward Paige, telling me to pay attention. “She’s good at this,” she whispers.

  “How do you feel about jumpers?” She’s holding up a one-piece cotton…thing…that is like a tank top and shorts sewn together. I scrunch my nose at it, and she drops her posture with a heavy sigh. “Fine. No jumpers.”

  She works through several more hangers, but I notice there’s one she keeps coming back to. Finally, she just stops and looks down, her hand on a deep-blue cotton dress. “Come here,” she orders, so I slide my feet toward her. “Turn,” she says, flipping me so I’m now facing Cass, my back to her.

  If I weren’t so shell-shocked from her helping me, I might have seen it coming. But without warning, Paige unzips the back of the dress I’m wearing, and the garment falls to the floor. My mother, my doctor and the surgeons who fixed me are the only ones who have ever seen my scars. Cass and Paige are both seeing them now. They’re too big to conceal—running from my hip, up to my right ribcage: deep divots, where bullet fragments penetrated my skin and lodged themselves into my body, and cuts where emergency surgeons had to go in and remove them. I can’t bring myself to look Cass in the eyes, and their silence is making me start to shake.

  “Here,” Paige says, turning me to face her head on. My eyes are glued open, wide, as I turn; when I finally square myself with her, I’m expecting to see the disgust and judgment on her face. Paige is, perhaps, the last person I would ever want to see this. I try to keep my gaze focused on the clothes beyond her shoulder when I face her, but she reaches her hand up to my chin and tilts my eyes to meet hers.

  “This…” she swallows hard, and then her lips curl into a soft, tight smile—her eyes sympathetic, and, for the first time since I’ve met her, real, “this is my favorite dress. It’s long enough that you can sit at a game and not have to worry, but it will show off your shoulders and really accentuate your legs and the color of your eyes. Arms up.”

  She slides the dress along my arms and over my head, pulling the draping of the skirt down quickly over my scars without ever once mentioning them. There are a few small snaps along the back, and she pushes them in place before she reaches her hands into my hair and starts to gather the waves into her hands. She moves me closer to the mirror as she does this, and then she meets my eyes. “You should wear your hair up. Like this. It’s pretty,” she says, giving me a quiet but reassuring face. I’m unable to stop my eyes from watering, so I wipe the palm of my hand up both cheeks and sniffle.

  “Thanks,” I say, and she reaches for my hand with her free one, squeezing it o
nce before letting go.

  Chapter 13

  Nate

  “Yeah Mom, we’ll just meet you there. You’re already parked. It would take you and Dad a long time to walk over here…Okay, love you.” My parents wanted to come see our room, but it’s still pink. In fact, Ty and I decided just to leave it pink—and, just to show Cass and Rowe how much it doesn’t bother us, Ty went to the Target in the city and bought Barbie comforters and pillows for our beds.

  I am actually nervous about tonight…and Rowe. I can’t help but feel like maybe I bullied Rowe into going to the game tonight. Ty won’t let me talk about it anymore though. He says I’m turning into a girl, and I kinda am.

  September in Oklahoma is strange. It’s pretty damn hot all day—and then at night, it’s super cold. I’m usually okay with being cold, so I keep my shorts on with the black long-sleeved shirt Rowe wore the other night. It smells like her, and I may never wash it again. Fuck, I am a girl.

  We’re walking from our end of the hall to theirs when they walk out their door, and my god…

  “Pick up your chin, bro. Your girl is smokin’,” Ty says, and I just smile because yes, she is. She’s wearing this blue dress that hugs her body and sways around her legs when she walks. Her feet are in flip-flops, but her hair is up, drawing my eyes to her bare shoulders and neck. I want to be a vampire.

  The closer she gets to me, the more she blushes, and her hands are clinging to the wallet and thin sweater in her hands. She’s going to get cold later, and I should probably tell her to grab something a little warmer. But I don’t. This is a strategic move on my part.

  “Hi,” she says, almost a whisper, her eyes looking down. My heart is pounding so loudly—I’m convinced everyone around me can hear it. Rowe and I haven’t talked much since the night on the ball field, and it feels like we’re starting over a bit. I want to hold her hand in the elevator, so I make it my challenge.

  We step in, and Ty pulls Cass down on his lap; Rowe smiles when she watches the two of them. I wonder where Cass has been my brother’s whole life, because watching them just seems right. They’ve been dating for three weeks, but it feels like Cass has been a fixture with him for forever.

  As the door closes, I slide my hand along the bar in the back until it bumps into Rowe’s, and when she doesn’t move away, I loop my pinky in with hers. Sparing a glance at her, I see her lip twitch into a faint smile. That’s a relief, because I’m not letting go now until I have to.

  Rowe and Cass look more like sisters than Cass and Paige. Both are wearing their hair pulled high on their heads, and even though they’re both in dresses, they look like they just rolled in from the beach. “You look pretty,” I say, leaning closer to Rowe as we walk through the main lobby, and I take advantage of my nearness by threading my next finger through hers.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but this is Paige’s dress,” she says, grinning and pulling up the side of the dress to hold it out a little.

  “Wow. I didn’t think she had anything without bling.”

  “I can’t believe you know what bling is,” Rowe says, smirking at me and raising her eyebrows.

  “Oh, you haven’t seen what Ty and I have done to the place. We’ve gone full bling,” I say, making her laugh. I love it when she laughs—even her teeth are freakin’ hot. I bet she had braces growing up.

  “Full bling, huh? I’m gonna need to see this,” she says, and I tuck that to the back of my mind for later, reminding myself that Rowe wants to see my room.

  Other than the fact that their sons have decided to come to this school, my parents have no association with McConnell whatsoever, But looking at their tailgate set-up as we walk up—and the crowd that’s hanging out with them—you would think they were alumni super-boosters with buildings named after them.

  “What is all this?” I ask, tugging on the McConnell fold-up chairs, sitting under the McConnell canopy, and next to the McConnell plates and napkins.

  “We thought we’d leave the chairs and tent with you guys. Just something fun,” my mom says, leaning in to kiss me and noticeably eyeing the girl standing behind me.

  “Your mother just likes a reason to shop. We couldn’t even fit the tent in the damn rental car. I had to tie it to the roof,” my dad says, reaching over to shake my hand, and eyeing Cass and Rowe behind me just as mom did.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Rowe and Cass,” I say, reaching back to regain the fragile grip I had on Rowe’s hand. She grips me a little harder now, and I can tell she’s nervous.

  “Cass, we have heard absolutely nothing about you,” Dad says, pushing his sunglasses into the pocket on his shirt, and for a moment, Cass looks mortified. “That must mean you’re pretty special. We only hear the breakup stories, and we used to get one of those a week.”

  “It was touch-and-go there for a while,” Cass says, and Ty’s face looks panicked. “I painted his room pink.” And Ty’s smile is back quickly.

  Dad laughs, reaching over to shake Cass’s hand, our mom waiting her turn behind him. “Ah, so that explains why you didn’t want us to come up to the room.”

  “It was Rowe’s idea,” Cass says, shifting Dad’s attention to Rowe, who is manically snapping and unsnapping the button on her wallet she’s so nervous to meet my parents.

  “Remind me to consult you when these two short-sheet my bed over the holidays. And fill my car with packing peanuts. And paint my fingernails with red Magic Marker while I’m napping.” Rowe laughs lightly when she shakes my dad’s hand, and I can see her relax just a little.

  “I’ll make you a manual on how to deal with them,” she says, and I can’t help but move closer to her and put my arm around her. At first, I’m afraid she’s going to shrug me away, but instead, she reaches for my fingertips with her hand and holds on.

  “Rowe, so nice to meet you,” my mom says, giving me a wink from the side, letting me know she approves. My mom likes my type too.

  “Thanks for inviting me, Mr. and Mrs. Preeter,” Rowe says when she shakes my mom’s hand, her voice wavering; I can actually hear her pulse racing through her vocal cords. My mom holds onto her hand and covers it with her other one, looking Rowe right in the eyes.

  “Please, it’s just Cathy and Dave. And it’s our pleasure,” Mom says. I see Rowe whisper my parents’ names to herself when they turn away, like she’s trying to memorize them, and I almost lean in to kiss her on the cheek when she does, but I catch myself.

  McConnell is more of a baseball school, it would seem. By the third quarter, the McConnell Bulls were trailing the Miller Pirates by four touchdowns, and the stadium was only a third of the way full. I sat next to Ty, and the girls sat in front of us. I was stuffed—one of the nice things about sitting in the box was free food, and good food, too. Not the cafeteria shit I’ve been eating.

  I can tell Cass and Rowe are arguing about something. Not a serious fight or anything, but Rowe definitely seems unhappy. I nudge Ty and nod toward them; he just shrugs. I’m trying not to eavesdrop, but I hear bits and pieces.

  “Where am I supposed to stay?” Rowe whispers. Cass says something back, but I can’t tell what it is.

  “Cass…pleeeeease? Can’t you go there?” More whispering, and Rowe turns to look behind her—just enough, that I jump and quickly pretend I’m intensely watching the blowout happening on the field.

  When the third quarter ends, Cass gets up from her seat and Rowe slumps down in hers. I watch carefully as Cass walks to the other side of Ty, whispering in his ear, and soon he’s backing up in his chair and Cass is grabbing her purse from a table.

  “We’re heading back. Mom, Dad—see you guys tomorrow at dinner?” My mom leans in and kisses Ty on the top of his head and shakes Cass’s hand again, walking them to the suite door before returning to her seat. Rowe is sitting alone directly in front of me, and she’s getting smaller with every second.

  “This seat taken?” I climb over the back of the seat Cass left open, feeling like an idiot, but just dying to get clo
ser to her. She just smiles and looks to the field. “We don’t have to stay you know. My parents don’t care. My dad’s firm has a branch here. That’s how they got the seats. They didn’t pay for them.”

  “I want to stay ‘til the end,” she says, her smile fake and stiff.

  “Sure,” I say, sliding my feet up to rest on the bar in front of us. I keep my hands in my own lap, because Rowe is hugging herself again. I’m pretty sure I know what she and Cass were fighting about, but I want her to say it. I don’t want to be the jerk who pushes her to spend the night in my room when she clearly doesn’t want to.

  “Paige called. She’s staying at the Delta house all weekend. She’s probably going to move out in a week or two. They like her.” Rowe keeps her eyes on the field when she talks. I try to keep mine there, too, but I slip every few seconds to catch a glimpse of her fidgeting hands and shaking leg.

  “Oh. Well…I guess I’m glad Paige has found her people?” I don’t know what to say, and I can’t even make a funny joke.

  “Ty is spending the night in our room.” I gathered this much, and I am doing cartwheels inside at the thought of Rowe coming home with me. But I want her to want to be there. This forced feeling emanating from her body feels really sucky.

  “Well, there’s always my friend the lounge sofa,” I say, finally turning to her so I can see how she reacts. When she doesn’t, I’m even more confused—either I’ve offended her by not offering my place or she’s genuinely indifferent about the lounge sofa.

  “Can I borrow a blanket? And maybe some sweat pants or something? I don’t think I want to go back to my room if I can help it,” she says, her lips twisting and her eyes still not quite on me but looking down.