This Is Falling Page 6

  I click my message button and start to type:

  I’ve survived two days, but I don’t know about this college thing. To be fair, I haven’t gone to class yet. That part will probably be easy. But…

  I stop and stare at the screen, because I’m about to veer in a new direction with Josh. Closing my eyes, I hear Ross’s voice in my head—“write to him when you need it.”

  I need Josh. And I need him now.

  …there’s this boy. There, I said it. I know it’s weird for me to write this to you, but I don’t have anyone else. I think he likes me, but I don’t know. I think I like him, but…you know? I’ve only known him for about 48 hours, but I’ve thought about him for 47. He’s a baseball player, like you. Well, except he’s really good (no offense).

  I totally Googled him—I didn’t tell him this, but I’ve seen every tape of his games posted on his high school’s website. Dad would love him—he’s a catcher. You know how my dad feels about catchers. “They’re the heart and the soul of the team, Rowe.”

  I know, so what’s my problem, right? Well, I’m just not very good at this…this…boy-girl thing. I don’t even know what to call it. When I was with you, though, it was just easy. You wrote me a note in class one day, told me you liked me, and asked if I liked you back. I told you I did, and then boom! We were boyfriend-girlfriend. Up until we weren’t.

  With Nate (that’s his name), there’s no note. Yeah, he said I was hot. Or, he sort of said I was hot. He actually said the way I wear my shoes is hot, and I’m not sure that counts, but then he hung out with my roommate in his room all night. Not the cool one, he hung out with her too, but she was there for his brother. Long story. Anyhow, I could have gone, too. I was the one he invited, but then I just froze.

  I’m frozen, Josh. And I don’t know how to get unstuck. I know you won’t answer. I know you don’t have an answer to give me. But I wish you did.

  Oh, and I think Ross might be full of shit. Because I don’t feel any better. Like, at all.

  Love,

  Rowe

  What I need to do is be more like my friend Betsy. Betsy wouldn’t think—she would just act. Maybe that’s the new mantra I need to follow: “What would Betsy do?”

  I know what she would do right now. She would march over to Nate’s room and barge right in just like she belonged there. Be like Betsy. Be like Betsy. I tip my head over my knees and run my fingers through my wet hair, fluffing it out into waves.

  Be like Betsy. Be like Betsy. I stuff my feet into my sneakers, grab my wallet and keys, and shove them into my back pockets after I pull my door closed behind me. The hallway is quiet, because it’s still painfully early. I’m careful with my steps, like I’m sneaking up on someone. All I can hear is the thump of my pulse in my ears, and I’m worried it’s distracting me—keeping me from hearing someone coming.

  I lean against the wall next to Nate’s door, and for minutes I just listen. The less I hear, the more my heart races, until I’m either going to pass out or choose to be strong.

  More than a few times, I turn to walk away, but I keep pausing at the elevator and walking back. Finally, on my last trip, I shut my eyes at his door and turn the handle slowly, stepping carefully into his room, which looks like a smaller version of mine. It’s dark in here, so I leave the door slightly cracked to let my eyes adjust. At first, I don’t quite know what I’m staring at. But then the blonde curls of Paige’s hair register with me, and she rolls over, twisting her body into the blankets even more—unfortunately not enough to cover her underwear. Panties that are nothing like a single pair in my drawer. Victoria Secret panties, made of barely anything at all.

  “Hey,” someone whispers, and I just back to the door a little. “Hey, it’s Ty. Rowe? That you?”

  Ty is lifting his chest up from the other bed, and I blush when I recognize Cass is cradled next to him.

  “Oh god, I’m sorry. I was just…they didn’t come home. So, I…I don’t know. I’ll just go,” I fluster, hitting my knee with the door when I pull it open. God, could I be any louder?

  “If you’re looking for Nate, he had workouts this morning. He’s out on the fields,” he whispers, lying back down and moving the pillow over his face to block the little light I’m letting in.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I say, with no intention of doing anything with that information other than going back to my own bed to fume over Paige and where she slept last night.

  “Oh, and hey. When you see him, make sure you ask him when his birthday is,” Ty says, and within an instant, I swear he’s sleeping again.

  I shut the door behind me, and before I can talk myself out of it, I go to the elevator and push the button for the first floor. What would Betsy do? Be like Betsy.

  It’s getting easier to leave the building on my own, which is promising for my first day of classes the day after tomorrow. But right now, I’m grateful for ulterior reasons. I keep telling myself that every act I’m doing is an amazing achievement in my own recovery. But really, it’s just an act of bitter jealousy—and so will be the embarrassing fit I throw in front of Nate after his practice, when I rip him apart for being predictable and hooking up with Paige for the night.

  Unless…unless it’s not just for the night? Maybe they hit it off? Maybe he decided he likes her after he got to know her. And maybe she’s more than just Katy Perry lyrics and G-strings.

  As much as the doubt is there now, I can’t convince myself wholly of the idea of Nate and Paige as a couple. Not that I want to be a couple with Nate. I just don’t want anyone else to be. I think I may need to write Josh again.

  The ball fields are easy to find. When I climb onto the bleachers, my back against the solid corner in the back, I’m transported to my life two years ago. The way the ball sounds when it’s struck by the bat—I think it’s a similar effect some people have with wind chimes. Over and over, that repetitive crack! The sounds of gloves catching balls, of boys shouting plays, random swear words, and laughing. It’s every practice my dad ever held. It’s every tryout I went to with him. It’s watching Josh play summer ball, and staying late to watch his practices after tennis would end.

  I’m so lost in my own nirvana, I almost forget why I came. And then I see him pull the mask from his face, propping it on top of his head. He’s standing next to another catcher, and Nate completely dwarfs him. I used to have a thing for the pitchers. That’s why I first had a crush on Josh. But seeing Nate stand there—his hair tussled in different directions, wet with sweat, and his face smudged with dirt from the field—has now become my favorite memory. And I’m finding it harder to hold on to that raging, jealous anger that got me here in the first place.

  When his eyes snap to me, I jolt. Crap! I really didn’t want him to see me, but I kind of thought he would have an equal look of panic when he did. Instead, he’s all dimples and teeth. He’s saying something to one of his coaches, and I can see his head nod in my direction, which suddenly has me on my feet, scrambling my way down the bleachers. I think I might just make it, when he pops out of the back of the dugout, cutting off my path.

  “Hey, how’s your head, Thirty-three?” Dimples. Accent. Damned irresistible charm. He’s looking at my eyes with concern still, worried about my head after last night’s faint.

  “Oh, it’s fine. I’m fine, I mean. I was just…tired last night?” I say it like a question, like I’m trying to sell myself on my excuse. I wasn’t tired at all. I took Ambien like I always do, and then I had messed-up dreams augmented by the drug that only left me feeling worse about everything this morning.

  “You didn’t miss much. Your roommates did a bunch of shots and passed out,” he says, kicking his feet into the dirt on the ground and swinging his catcher’s mask at his side.

  “Yeah, I saw them,” I say, gritting my teeth hard, forcing myself to smile and not delve into what else I saw. I don’t want to leap with my assumptions, because I still have hope that I’m wrong.

  “You…stopped by my room?” His he
ad is tilted when he asked, and I can tell he’s being guarded.

  “Yep. Saw Paige made herself nice and comfortable in your bed.” My mouth! Maybe I need to revise the what-would-Betsy-do campaign, because snarky and biting just doesn’t sit well with me.

  “Yeah,” he says, still looking down, his hand rubbing at his neck. “Made it kind of hard for me to sleep there. For the record, that couch in the lobby is miserable.”

  My heart is thumping again, and I think it’s actually jumping up and down in my chest, it’s so excited by his answer. Which is bad, because it’s only going to make it harder for me to tame my heart into stopping at friends.

  “Hey, Preeter! Ass back on the field, son!” one of the coaches yells. I don’t want him to get into trouble because of me, so I just nod him on.

  “You’ll stick around? Yeah?” he asks, pushing his mask back over his head. I don’t believe in signs. If signs were real, then surely I would have gotten a few of them to stop my life from crumbling. But for whatever reason, my eyes center on the small scratched letters etched on the side of his metal mask—N.J.P. And Ty’s voice runs through my head.

  “That depends,” I say, still looking at the letters on his mask.

  “On what?” he asks, his feet starting to shuffle backward toward the field.

  “What does N.J.P. stand for, and when’s your birthday?” I ask, my heart now in my stomach, begging and hoping for the right answer.

  Nate’s lip pulls up on one side, and he tucks his lower lip under his teeth as he backs away, and inside I’m willing him—“Say it, just say it,” I’m thinking.

  “My birthday’s in October, and the J is for Jackson. What can I say, beautiful girls turn me into a complete and utter fraud.”

  I turn back to the bleachers without saying a word, and I can feel Nate’s eyes on me the entire way—watching me climb back up to my seat, lean back, and cross my legs, making myself comfortable.

  This is still flirting, and it’s going to make being just friends damned near impossible. But right now, I don’t give a shit.

  Chapter 8

  Nate

  She stayed for the entire practice. She even walked with me through campus, back to the workout room. It’s fall, so we only have a few tournaments to play—exhibitions. The real work starts in a month or two, but I still have a pretty full schedule. It makes it hard to squeeze in extra things…Rowe.

  The weekend is free, though. The dorms are all full, because classes start on Monday, and everything about this place feels exactly like I thought college would feel.

  “Hey, douchebag!” Ty yells when he comes through the door, throwing his rolled up dirty socks at me. “Think fast!”

  “You are such an asshole sometimes,” I say, brushing them from my lap to the floor. Seriously, Ty’s feet stink.

  “Yeah, well. Tell Mom,” he laughs. “Speaking of, I talked to them this morning. They’re coming to visit in a couple weeks. Taking us to dinner, and all that. I’m bringing Cass.”

  My brother’s infatuation with Cass fascinates me. He has never held onto a girl longer than a week, but she seems to have found his weakness. What’s more amazing is how absolutely normal she is. Girls have never been a problem for Ty. He was homecoming king in high school, and that was after his accident. The local paper thought it was this cool story, about how our student body elected a guy in a wheelchair. Then the reporter interviewed Ty, and his quote pretty much summed it up.

  “The chair might make people notice. But this face is so pretty, girls just can’t help themselves,” he said, right there in print. Mom told him he shouldn’t be so cocky, and Dad just high-fived him. That’s Ty. I wish I had an ounce of his confidence.

  “You should ask Rowe,” he says, his back to me. That’s how I know he’s being serious, and not just teasing. If he were giving me crap, he’d be in my face, relentless and crude about her. But he likes her; he likes the idea of her and me. And I like that.

  “Yeah? You think she’d go?”

  “Bro, I know she’d go,” he says, turning around and throwing his dirty boxers at me now.

  “Fucking asshole!” I get him back when I stand up and push his underwear on his own head as I leave the room.

  “That’s right, you better run!” he yells as I swing through the door.

  Their door is open, and for some reason that makes me nervous. I can hear music blaring as I get closer. It’s not the kind of stuff I’d expect to hear from a girl’s room. I knock on the door, but I know they can’t hear it, so I step slowly around the corner. Rowe’s back is to me, but Cass sees me right away and winks. Rowe is singing “Sex Is On Fire” by the Kings of Leon, standing on a chair in the middle of her room, her arms pumping in the air as if she were actually on stage. It’s the single cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I quietly slip all the way into the room and slide my back along the wall, pulling my knees up so I can sit and just look at her for a little longer.

  When the chorus comes around, Cass jumps onto the bed and sings along with her. They sound terrible, but I’d watch an entire concert of this just to look at Rowe. She spins around once, but her eyes are closed, so she doesn’t notice I’m here, and it gives me such a good idea.

  I put my finger to my mouth, motioning to Cass while I sneak up behind Rowe; Cass grins and nods. I wait for a few seconds for them to get to the chorus again, and when Rowe lifts her arms up, I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up from the chair into my arms.

  Rowe has a hell of a right hook. It’s amazing how fast my nose is bleeding. I’ve been hit in the face by ninety-mile-per-hour pitches, and I’ve never bled like this. “Ohhhhh fuck!” I say, embarrassed that my eyes are tearing up as much as they are.

  “Oh my god! I’m so sorry. Hold on, I have a towel,” Rowe says, running to her closet and pulling out a giant bath towel and handing it to me. I hold it to my nose quickly because the last thing I want to do is bleed all over their floor.

  “My fault,” I say, raising a hand and sitting down on the chair Rowe was just dancing on.

  “No…oh god! I’m so sorry. I just…I scare really easily.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  Cass turns the music down so we can hear better, and Rowe kneels next to me, putting her hand on mine to pull the towel away from my face. It’s the smallest gesture in the world, but for some reason, the way she’s looking at me takes my breath away. Her eyes are so concerned, and her hand is trembling against mine. I’m unable to stop myself from reaching up to hold her hand with my other one. As soon as I do, her gaze jumps to our hands and she jerks away.

  “I should get you ice,” she says, standing and hugging herself.

  “No, really. I’ll be fine. I have a brother, and I’ve been punched…a lot! It will stop in a minute.”

  Rowe keeps her arms around her stomach and moves backward until she sits on the edge of her bed. Cass reaches under her own bed for a duffle bag, pulls it out and goes into the closet to fill it with laundry. “I’m going to go do a load. Rowe, you need me to wash anything?” she asks.

  “No, I’m good. Thanks,” Rowe says, her eyes watching her friend walk out the door, and her breath stops the second the door closes behind her. Cass may just be my new best friend, because I know she did this so Rowe and I could be alone. But for some reason, her leaving has Rowe acting even more nervous and uncomfortable; she stands and walks over to the small corkboard by her bed, arranging some photos, and pushing in a few pins.

  “So, you ready for Monday?” I say, pulling the towel away from my nose to check that the bleeding has stopped.

  “Yeah, I guess,” she says. Her voice is distant, and she doesn’t sound sure.

  “Ty says the first week is always easy. Just syllabus review and expectations…all that,” I say, getting back up to my feet and walking over to stand behind her. Rowe’s entire body gets tense as soon as I get close. She’s moving the same picture to different spots on her board, like she’s not quite sure wh
ere this picture fits or belongs. “May I?” I ask, reaching my hand out to look at the photo more closely.

  She hands it over and makes a tight smile. The picture looks like it’s a year or two old, because Rowe looks younger. I’d guess she’s maybe sixteen in the photo. She’s sitting on some guy’s lap, her arms around him, and her nose tucked into his neck. He’s smiling one of those genuinely happy smiles, and I’d make the same damned face if I were in his position. He’s wearing a baseball hat, and I can tell he’s just left practice or something because he has baseball pants on and they’re covered in dirt.

  “Boyfriend?” I ask, just getting right to the point. Not really ready to know if that word is in the past or present tense.

  She nods yes and takes the picture back from me, pinning it to the bottom of the board and leaving it there.

  “One of your dad’s players?” I ask that, hoping she’ll answer the rest without me asking. But she doesn’t. She just nods again. The silence in the room is suffocating now, and I feel like an intruder, so I hold my towel up and suck in my bottom lip, giving myself some time to think.

  “I’m gonna wash this for you. I’ll bring it back, okay?” I say, my feet slowly backing out of her room.

  “You can keep it,” she says, but there’s something about the way her lips move that makes me feel like she wants to say more, so I pause. I’m standing here, in the middle of her room, looking into her eyes, and they make me want to cry. After a few long seconds, when she doesn’t speak, I turn and leave.