This Is Falling Read online

  “Sure. You can borrow a blanket. And I have some clothes.” This sucks.

  Rowe

  We walk back to his room, and the entire time I battle myself internally, trying to get the courage to ask if I can stay with him. My body wants to be there, and part of me was actually a little excited when Cass put me in this position. But the other part of me feels sick at the thought, unsure of what it means if I spend the night with a guy. And I wonder what Nate would expect.

  “Here, come on in. You can use my new blanket,” he says, flipping on the lights and reminding me that his room is still pink. It makes me smile. I round the corner and move to his bed, where he gathers up a sparkly Barbie blanket.

  “Ahhh, bling. I get it now,” I say, pretty damn impressed.

  “I told you. Preeters don’t do embarrassed. We embrace,” he says, reaching in the crack between his bed and wall to pull out a fluffy, purple, heart-pillow. I take it in my arms and hold it, and he smiles proudly. I keep waiting for his flaw, something to make me not want him. But everything he does has the opposite effect.

  “Here, you can wear this. You can change in our closet if you want. I promise, I won’t look.” He covers his eyes but leaves cracks between his fingers, which makes me laugh.

  I take the stack of clothes from him and flip on his closet light, shutting the door. He gave me a long-sleeved gray McConnell baseball shirt, which I slip over my head first, pulling the dress straps from my shoulders underneath. I was hoping the dress would slip down my waist, but the two snaps are holding it snug in place, and no matter how many ways I bend and stretch, I can’t reach them.

  “Everything okay?” I’ve been in here for several minutes now, and my pulse is racing so fast that I’m starting to sweat.

  “Uhhhhh,” I say, laying my forehead flat against the door. Breathe, just breathe.

  “Sweat pants throwing you for a loop?” he chuckles.

  My entire body is shaking and my fingers are numb as I twist the closet door handle and crack the door open. When I look out, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, but he gets up quickly and comes closer, putting his hand back over his eyes, not cheating this time.

  “It’s my dress. I can’t reach the snaps.”

  “Oh.” He stands still for a few seconds, still averting his eyes, and I love that he doesn’t want to take advantage of me. He’s like a straight-A student in the college of gentlemen.

  “It’s okay. I have your shirt on. If you can just…I don’t know, maybe lift up the back and pop the snaps?”

  I can hear him swallow, and then he slowly pulls his hand from his eyes, careful to keep his stare on my face. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  I turn around and move my ponytail over my neck. A few seconds later, I feel his hand carefully lift the bottom of the shirt, dragging it slowly upward. When he gets to the snaps, he stops, not pulling it any further. It’s impossible for his fingers not to touch my bare skin when he reaches in and tugs the fabric apart, and that small, gentle caress sends my heart into overdrive.

  The dress starts to slip; I try to catch it, but its weight brings it down my legs quickly. Nate backs away, moving his hands to his side; I turn to face him, pulling the bottom of his long shirt down to cover my upper thighs. He’s not looking at my eyes any more.

  “Thanks,” I say, kicking the dress back into the closet and shutting the door again. “I’ll be right out.”

  I pull the sweatpants on quickly when I shut the door, and I reach down to gather Paige’s dress, folding it as best as I can. Everything feels urgent. Getting out of this closet feels urgent. Getting out of this room feels urgent. Forcing my eyes to close…shit! I don’t have my Ambien.

  When I open the door, I do my best to put on a grateful face. But just having realized that—not only will I be lying for hours on a sofa out in the open near the place people come and go freely all night long—but any hope of falling asleep tonight is moot, because I haven’t slept without the aide of medicine for more than seven hundred days.

  I pick up the rolled comforter and small heart-pillow from his chair, stuffing them under one arm and Paige’s dress under the other. “Thanks. I’ll…just bring these back in the morning, I guess?”

  “Whenever. I mean, not sure how I’ll sleep without Barbie, but…I’ll manage,” he smirks just enough to show a dimple on his right cheek.

  I walk through his door and focus on putting one foot in front of the next, angry at myself for putting myself in this situation. The lounge door is closed, but not locked, so I slip inside, shutting it behind me again. The wall is completely windowed, but there is one sofa that is more in the corner, away from direct view. I breathe in deeply and head for it, first setting the pillow and dress on the study table, and then spreading the blanket out on the couch so I can climb inside and fold myself up—like a taco.

  The couch is hard, and even Barbie can’t soften it. There’s a TV hung on the wall, but I don’t see a remote sitting out anywhere, so eventually I give up and tuck myself in with the purple heart-pillow against my chest for protection. My eyes are wide, and my heart is miserable. Normally, when I feel like this, it’s because I’m remembering Josh and how he looked when he picked me up for homecoming, or when he ran out to the baseball field, or when he waited for me by my locker. But right now, I’m thinking about Nate, and the feather-light touch of his hand on my back—and how it lit my body on fire.

  “Come on,” Nate says, hanging on to the open lounge door.

  “Oh no, it’s okay. I’m fine,” I lie.

  “No, you’re not fine. You’re stubborn. Now pick up Barbie and follow me, Thirty-three.”

  It feels different when I walk into Nate’s room the second time. It’s dark in here, just a small light from the barely-opened closet. I notice that Ty’s blanket is now on his Nate’s bed, which makes me wonder if he planned to just go to sleep—or if his motive was to wait me out until he had to come and get me like he did.

  “You can sleep on Ty’s bed if you want. I took his blanket. You know, save you from his cooties?” Dimples.

  “Thanks,” I smile, spreading Barbie out on Ty’s mattress, and setting Paige’s dress down on Nate’s desk-chair. “Can I keep Hearty?”

  “Oh. My. God. You named the pillow. Yes, you can keep Hearty,” he says, rolling his eyes, but laughing enough that I know he’s teasing.

  “Says the man who calls his blanket Barbie,” I tease back.

  “If you’re going to make fun of Barbie, you can sleep without a blanket, missy,” he says, feigning to get up and pull the blanket from Ty’s bed. I leap on the bed and gather the blanket in my arms quickly.

  “No! No. I was kidding. I love Barbie. She and I are friends,” I say, giggling. Since when do I giggle?

  “Hmmmmm,” he grumbles, laying back down, and pulling Ty’s blanket up to his neck, his long legs hanging out of the bottom because it’s too short. “I don’t know how I feel about you and Barbie being friends.”

  It gets quiet after that, and I’m glad the room is as dark as it is. But I can still see his eyes. They’re open, and they’re watching me. I’m watching him. He’s wearing the short-sleeved version of the shirt I’m wearing, and a pair of black basketball shorts, and everything about him has me wanting to be touched by him, a feeling that I fight and ignore, albeit poorly. We lie here in silence for almost fifteen minutes, each taking turns closing our eyes, trying to trick the other one into thinking we’re asleep, and a few times we laugh quietly when we catch each other.

  “You ever make wishes?” he says, out of nowhere. His voice breaks the thick silence, and it makes my heart jump. I think it would have jumped at hearing him anyhow.

  “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?”
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br />   “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.”r />
  “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.