This Is Falling Read online

  “Hey, Cal. Things are good. Good to see ya.” I raise my shoulders and hold up my hands when Rowe snaps her gaze to me. Her brow is lowered, and I can tell she’s suspicious.

  “So, whatcha having, the usual?”

  Goddamn. Of all things that man could have said. My brother and I are probably keeping him in business, and I’m pretty sure I ate every meal here for the two weeks I came for summer ball. I thought it was safe, because Cal doesn’t work days. Though, it seems I have that wrong now.

  “I’m not alone, Cal, so maybe give us a few minutes to look over the menu,” I say, sliding into the booth near the jukebox. I’m prepared for Rowe to look like she wants to kill me; I hold my breath when I turn to look at her. When I see the smirk on her face, I’m ecstatic.

  “You’ve been here before,” she says, her lips curling tightly like she’s trying to hold in laughter.

  “Yeah. I’m not even going to try to fix this one. This is sort of my place. Been coming here since summer ball, and Cal never works during the day, so kinda thought I could get away with it.”

  “Why not just tell me you wanted to come to your favorite place?” she asks, and I close my eyes I’m so embarrassed.

  “Because the cooks are extremely slow, and I wanted to act like I was surprised when it takes an hour for us to get our order.” I crack open a lid and she’s still smirking, so I open all the way, and grab the salt shaker, spilling a little of it on the table to swirl around and give my hands something to do. “Yeah, so…this was all one big ruse to spend a shitload of time with you. Hope you’re not too hungry.”

  Rowe’s smile never wavers, but for a few seconds I see worry flash across her eyes. There’s a story to her, but I know it’s going to take time for her to warm up enough to be willing to tell it. I think I’m alright with giving this some time, though.

  “So, how do you feel about burgers?”

  She finally breaks her eyes away from me and pulls the torn paper menu from the rack on the wall.

  “Burgers are good,” she says. “I don’t eat out much. I usually just eat something at home. I kind of like things that are plain. What do you suggest?”

  “Can’t go wrong with the classic cheeseburger,” I say, waiting for her to tell me she doesn’t eat bread or cheese, or to ask if they have a veggie burger instead. She never does though, and instead, refolds the menu and pushes it back against the wall.

  “Sounds good. I’ll have one of those,” she says, pushing her way out of the booth. “Mind ordering for me? I need to find the ladies’ room.”

  “You got it,” I wink and nod to the back, letting her know where the restrooms are. She doesn’t look back when she walks away, so I indulge and lean completely out of the booth, watching every inch of her long, golden legs walk down the aisle.

  “Looks like you’ve gone and made yourself a new friend, eh?” Cal teases.

  “Yes, sir. I believe I have. And she’ll have a cheeseburger.”

  Rowe

  Once I lock the bathroom door, I break down. I’m not sure where the tears are coming from, other than the sheer stress of this entire situation. Nate seems nice. He seems more than nice. And I think I trust him. I must, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to leave the safety of the gym and walk along the open road with him.

  Somewhere, deep inside, I know this is serious flirting. And maybe a little part of me hopes I’m more than just a distraction for Nate. I’m being so boring, though. One-word answers, surface questions—it’s like I don’t even know how to be real. Our conversation sounds like the dinner table with my parents.

  I think it’s because my back is to the door. I can’t think clearly, or even think at all, because I keep waiting to see who walks in next. Maybe we can move somewhere else. Would it be weird to ask him to move somewhere else?

  Someone’s knocking, so I run my hands in the hot water and then splash some of it against my neck, patting myself dry with a paper towel. I exit and trade places with an older woman, and our bodies touch when she passes. The exchange practically knocks the wind out of me because I’m so involved in my stupid panic attack—so I stay hidden in the darkness of the hallway, just staring at the back of Nate’s head.

  His arm is stretched along the top of the booth and his body is tilted slightly to one side while he talks to the man he called Cal when we walked in. Nate’s arms are long. Like, really long—I’d like to measure them. He has dents and lines that define muscles just like the guys I see on TV, and his T-shirt hugs tightly around his chest and biceps. His clothes don’t drape on his body like Josh’s always did—probably because he isn’t some skinny sixteen-year-old who hasn’t met the weight room yet.

  Cal notices me standing in the darkness, so I remind myself to breathe again and force myself forward. I’m not good at this. I’m not good at this. I’m not good at this. The closer I get, the more comfortable and convinced I become with the fact that Nate and I are just friends, so once I reach the edge of our table, I decide to test out honesty.

  “Do you mind if…if we moved to a booth in the corner?” I can tell he’s confused, but he doesn’t seem to be against my request because he’s sliding both of our water glasses forward and holding them in his enormous hands while he leaves the booth. I lead him over to the corner, the one seat that I think gives me a view of the entire restaurant, and I settle in, already breathing easier.

  Nate never asks why I need to move, and I never tell him. Instead, he picks up the conversation, and starts to tell me about his family and growing up in Louisiana, and I listen—at first, splitting my attention between my heart rate and breathing as well as Nate’s words, until eventually all of my focus is on him.

  “You and your brother are close,” I say, not really needing to ask it. He smiles and nods at my question.

  “Ty’s my best friend. Always has been. I had friends in high school when he was gone and at college. But Ty, he’s the only guy I ever share my secrets with.”

  For some reason, the second he says it, all I want to do is become the second person he shares secrets with. Maybe it’s because I don’t have anyone to share mine with, and the thought of getting some of this out is so inviting.

  “How about you. You have any brothers or sisters?” he asks.

  “Just me and my parents. I spend most of my time with my mom, because her office hours are at home. We live near the campus she works at—she teaches economics at State. She homeschooled me the last two years, so I guess that would make her my best friend.” And that would make me…pathetic.

  “It’s nice that you’re close to your mom,” he says, and I smile and look down into my lap. Am I close to my mom? I guess I am. I don’t really hide much from her, but I don’t really have much to hide either. She knows my issues. She’s more like my doctor—my live-in, enabling-and-disabling doctor. But Nate’s not ready to hear all of that yet. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to articulate it without telling him everything.

  “So, tell me something about yourself,” I say, wanting to get the focus away from me for a while. “Who is Nate—” I panic for a moment when I realize I don’t remember his last name. Instead of asking, I hold up a finger and pull my phone from my pocket to look up his Facebook message. “Preeter! Who is Nate Preeter?”

  The way he laughs sets me at ease, and at that moment I realize I can no longer hear my heartbeat rattling in my own head.

  “Ouch! I made like…no impression on you at all, did I?” he chuckles, and I flush a little, embarrassed that I forgot his last name.

  “That’s not true. You made an impression. We just met, though, so that’s not fair. I can’t be expected to remember everything. I know your room number! That one stuck! Besides, I bet you don’t remember my full name.”

  As soon as I issue that challenge, he leans forward on his elbows, and I get a good look into his eyes. They were mesmerizing in the dark, but here—in the full light of day—they are breathtaking. There’s a grayish hue to them, and when his brown
and golden hair drapes over his forehead while he talks, I can’t help but awe at the contrast of the light and dark. I could get lost in his features, but suddenly his voice captures my attention.

  “You’re Rowe Stanton, a freshman from Arizona, and you’re here with honors. You haven’t picked a major yet, though I can tell from the small things you said during our walk over here that you really like art. You should think about that. You used to play tennis, and I bet you could still kick my ass, and you don’t wear socks with your sneakers. I like that. It’s hot.”

  He sits back when he’s done, and takes a long sip of water, the smirk on his lips peeking out from the sides of the glass. I feel naked in front of him. Granted, he didn’t really pull out anything very personal—except for the art comment, that one was pretty intuitive—but the fact that he’s locked away every fact I’ve given him makes me feel…something. And my heartbeat is suddenly pounding again in my eardrums, but for an entirely different reason.

  “So, art, huh?” I say, trying to build a little distance from the fact that he just called me hot.

  “Yeah. Art…you seem to be interested in it. You should think about that. And yes, Rowe.”

  “Yes, what?” I gulp.

  “I think you’re hot. You made an impression.”

  Nate

  Something tells me that if I put a pencil in her hand, Rowe would draw me a picture, and it would probably be the prettiest damn sketch I’ve ever seen. I wish there was a fast-forward button somewhere I could hit to get to her secrets. She keeps everything so guarded, and I feel like we’re playing a game of chess, the way she detours our conversation away from herself.

  Our food is coming out—just my luck, the one time that kitchen is fast. Rowe doesn’t waste any time, and normally I’d love the fact that she doesn’t pick at her food. She wraps both hands around the bun of her burger and takes a bite that makes a serious dent. At this rate, she’ll be done and ready to go in about ten minutes.

  “Hey, you know that gallery building we walked by at the end of campus?”

  She shrugs, covering her mouth with her napkin while she chews, because her bite’s too big. She tries to get the word “yeah” out, but her speech is muffled by the fullness in her cheeks. She might be awesome.

  “Right,” I laugh lightly, smiling at her and taking a giant bite of my burger so I can talk with a full mouth too. “They hab a arrrr show neck weeeeek. Wah a go?”

  She completely stops chewing, shirks her shoulders up, and bunches her brow at me, staring. “Wha?”

  I finish chewing and laugh more—when I do, she blushes a little, finally getting that I’m teasing her. She’s turning so red I start to feel bad, but then she surprises me, grabbing a handful of fries and taking a giant drink of her soda, chewing with her mouth open and looking me squarely in the eyes.

  “Yah, arrr showwwww. I’ll gooooo,” she can’t quite finish her sentence without giggling uncontrollably and covering her mouth again with her napkin to keep her food from flying out. But I heard enough—just the right words. She’ll go. That means I’ve got her attention for at least another week.

  Chapter 6

  Rowe

  I managed to finish lunch without having another freak out. And the more we walked and talked, the more comfortable I became with Nate. He felt familiar, like we had known each other since we were kids or something and were just catching up.

  Maybe that’s because I kept the spotlight on him. I asked about his baseball playing, and I found out he started with tee-ball at three. His brother used to play, too. In a few of the stories he told, he mentioned his brother running and playing with him, and I know something must have happened to put him in the wheelchair, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask about that.

  He talked about his childhood home, and he asked about mine. Louisiana and Phoenix don’t sound so different, only his summers sound more humid. My past stayed on my childhood, talking about my embarrassing first-day meltdown in kindergarten where I protested the coloring exercise and made the teacher call my dad to take me home…and my first slow dance with a boy, where he blew a bubble with his gum and it got stuck in my hair, leading to my first short haircut.

  He seemed to soak up everything I said, and I found myself wanting to keep talking, telling him more. And a few times, I thought of stories I could share. But they were stories about Betsy and Josh. Nate doesn’t need to hear those, and I’m not ready to give them away.

  His brother was waiting for him at the elevator, so I came upstairs alone. All it took was a few seconds in my own head for me to second guess everything—promising myself I’d distance from him after today, making sure he didn’t have the wrong idea or think I could give him more than I can. I need to remember that Nate isn’t any different from Cass—a new friend. No matter how he makes my insides feel.

  Cass and I have been swapping music for the last two hours while Paige gets ready in the bathroom. The freshman mixer is tonight, and I saw them setting up for it in the gym when I left with Nate earlier. Cass is making me go, and I think if I refused she would throw me over her shoulder and carry me.

  I really like her. I think we have a lot in common, at least, the few things about me that are left. Our music libraries are almost identical, and she wants to go to Austin for South-by-Southwest this year. I’ve always wanted to go to a music festival, too, but that’s just not in my cards. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours talking myself out of dropping out of college. I don’t think a road trip will be possible until I can master a semester or two.

  “So, how was your…lunch,” Cass asks, making air quotes around the word lunch, which I don’t really understand.

  “It was fine. He seems nice,” I say, noticing Paige is paying attention to us now.

  “Riiiiight. Nice,” Cass teases, and I just shake my head.

  “We’re friends. That’s all.”

  “Hmmmmm, yeah. Same with Ty and me. Of course, I still kissed him,” she says, standing to her feet the second she speaks and covering her mouth while it hangs open in a big O, her eyes wide.

  “You slut,” Paige butts in, “I knew you liked that guy. But he’s in a wheelchair?”

  Cass shrugs a so what, but I kind of want to kick Paige. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to understand how she and Cass are sisters.

  “Yeah, well, you can have that guy. Just keep your hands off his brother,” Paige says. My body fires up defensively, but I keep my eyes down, thumbing through my music on my iPod. I can feel Cass looking at me, and I’m forcing myself to control my breathing.

  “Maybe Rowe can help you out there,” Cass says. “She and Nate are friends.”

  My stomach is thumping with my own pulse, and I feel heat roll over my spine. I decide to keep my eyes down, because I know looking up will give something away. This is jealousy. I remember this emotion, too.

  “Oh. My. God! You’re friends with Nate Preeter? He is so fucking hot! How can you even stand it?” Paige continues to gush about Nate, his perfect abs, his eyes, his ass—she’s the female version of a Hooter’s patron. The more she talks about him, the more I wish I never met him at all, because then I wouldn’t have to be in this situation, feeling…gah! I don’t know what this is I’m feeling, and that’s part of the problem.

  “I don’t know him that well,” I say, trying to get her to drop it.

  “That’s okay. Just introduce us. He’ll remember me from the party when you do, and I can take it from there.”

  I don’t answer her, but it doesn’t matter. She goes back to the closet, stripping out of the short dress she had on and opting for an even shorter one. Cass is looking at me again, but I can’t tell if she’s smiling or showing sympathy, because I won’t bring my eyes back up to deal with anything else that happens in this room tonight. Putting my headphones on, I turn up the volume on my iPod and close my eyes, lying back, and pretending to rest while my mind conjures up pictures of my fist in Paige’s face. And I hate that I feel this way.r />
  Katy Perry is blasting from the speakers in the gym, and Paige is singing along loudly. Check—one more assumption confirmed. Nothing against Katy—she’s on my iPod, too. She’s just followed up by the Kings of Leon and The National. Maybe I’m a music snob, and it’s probably from two years of social isolation, but I just feel like a person who sings along with Katy Perry…in public, for attention…doesn’t have much else to offer.

  Of course, the fact that I can see Paige’s nipples through the fabric of her dress begs to differ. Yes, she has two more things to offer, and she’s serving them up tonight. I just hope Nate’s not interested. Or maybe I don’t care. Maybe I hope he is interested so that way I can sum him up nicely too, and go back to putting my life back together.

  “Thirty-three.” Nope, I definitely hope he’s not interested in Paige. His voice is deep and perfect; I couldn’t make his southern accent up if I tried.

  “Heinz,” I say, instantly wishing I owned a dress like Paige’s. Not that I could ever fill it out like she does. Once again, I’m in denim shorts and a tank top. I pull the bottom of my shirt down to my pockets, making sure it covers my scars underneath.

  “Heinz?”

  “You know, Heinz Fifty-Seven?” My joke doesn’t feel as clever now, and I can see Paige rolling her eyes next to me, just waiting to steal the spotlight. Nate smirks and chuckles quietly; I feel pretty confident it was a pity laugh.

  “So, this is my roommate Cass, you met her yesterday?” Nate smiles and nods toward her, quickly moving his eyes back to me. I can feel Paige kicking at my feet just waiting for her turn. “Oh, and this is my other roommate, Paige. They’re sisters.”

  “By blood, but really, we’re nothing alike,” Paige says, stepping in front of both Cass and me to make sure she’s the first thing Nate sees. And I know he sees her breasts, because I watch both his and Ty’s bodies tense as their eyes zero in exactly where Paige wants them to go. She’s like a bloody hypnotist! She may be a genius.