Break My Fall (No Limits) (3 page)

Chapter Three

The rest
aurant was still open, and the girl behind the bar said they were going to stay open as long as the power stayed on or unless they got flooded out. I left my board by the front door.

The place was a typical beachside restaurant,
with creaky wood floors and walls decorated with hanging nets, a mixture of dramatic seascape pictures along with sleepy beach scenes, and the obligatory plastic replicas of oversized crabs and fish.

A couple of the tables were occupied, but business was predictably slow on a day like this.
We sat at a booth near the bar—they wouldn’t seat us near a window because of the frequent strong gusts—so the only view I’d be enjoying was Drew sitting across from me.

He took off his soaked hat and
put it next to him on the seat.

After the waitress took our order, Drew broke the ice. “Some storm, huh?”

“Yep.”

“I hear it’s supposed to be gone by tomorrow and we’re supposed to have a nice, clear day.”

I looked at him as I nervously fiddled with the silverware that was still wrapped in the paper napkin.

He grinned
. “Hey, Leah, I’m just kidding. I didn’t bring you here to talk about the weather.”

I was grateful to hear that, because it was beginning to shape up to be the most boring lunch I’d ever had.

The waitress brought our glasses of sweet tea to the table and said the fish tacos would be out shortly.

Drew thanked her and then turned his attention back to me. “
How come you’re so isolated?”

“Isolated? I’m not isolated.”

“You don’t like letting people get too close to you.”

I sipped my tea. “That’s true, but it doesn’t mean I’m isola
ted. I have friends. You met one of my friends that day in the shop.”

He guzzled the tea, nearly finishing it off.
“I remember. But she’s a
she
. Maybe you’re just isolated from guys.”

I didn’t waste a second firing back.
“Why are you so nosey?”

He leaned back in the seat. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m asking too many questions and you don’t even know anything about me.
Ladies first. Ask away.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. Why?”

“It’s just a basic question.”

He rattled the ice around in his empty glass. “And you?”

“I thought I’m the one asking questions. But, for the record, I’m twenty.”
I watched for a reaction, but he didn’t give me one, so I proceeded. “Why me?”

“Why what?”

I gave him a sideways glance, as if to say,
You know what I’m talking about,
without having to say the actual words.

Just then the w
aitress brought our food, refilled Drew’s tea, topped mine off and told us to wave her over if we needed anything.

I watched Drew chew for a moment, wondering if he was always this brazen,
confident, loose.

I tore my gaze away from him.
I took my first bite and discovered he was right about how good they were.

“What do you think?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the napkin.

“I think you did a good job avoiding my question a few minutes ago.”

He sipped his ice tea,
then set the glass down perfectly on the ring of moisture it had left on the table as he reached for a taco. “You’re right. That was rude of me. But these tacos—”

“Right, the tacos, they’re great. I get it. Why are you so interested in me, Drew?”
I thought maybe adding his name to the question, along with some intense eye contact, would add a little seriousness and formality to it, forcing him to answer me.

“You interest me.”
The way he looked at me when he said it, it was almost as though the gaze of his blue-gray eyes bore a hole right through my head. I had to look away, so I shifted my eyes over his right shoulder, looking at the window, which by now was covered in a sheet of water and I couldn’t see beyond that.

There was silence between us. It was as though he wasn’t going to elaborate unless I asked him to.
“You’re waiting for me to ask why I interest you, right?”

The left corner of his mouth
arched up a little, the beginning of a smile that conveyed very clearly the fact that he was pleased that I wanted to know more. He took a quick sip of his tea, then let his tongue graze his upper lip before he spoke. “There’s something about you that reminds me of myself.”

Okay, that was a weird start to the explanation. It sounded like something an older person would say to a young person before imparting some kind
wisdom about life. Drew was only twenty-five, so I was quite sure he wasn’t in possession of any advice I couldn’t live without.

He left the sentence hanging there, so I said, “And what might that be?”

Drew’s facial expression became serious. “I went through a period of withdrawal, too.”

“
What makes you think I’m withdrawing?” I asked, with more than a little note of irritation in my voice.

“Hear me out, then you can object all you want.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, unsure whether I really wanted to hear what he was about to say. “Okay.” I took another bite, surprised at how much I liked this lunch.

As the rain picked up outside, so did the gusts. Drops of water battered the windows, sounding more like gravel, and a low hum filled the room as the wind
whipped around the building.

I tuned all of
that out, though, as Drew spoke. What he said next came out in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were telling me he’d just bought a new toaster. “I was in a plane crash three years ago.”

“Oh my God.” As soon as I said it, I regretted letting the words escape from my mouth
, and I just barely prevented some of the food from flying out, too.

Despite the
serious look on his face, there was still a part of me—that damaged trust part—that wondered if he might be bullshitting me. Again, the lingering distrust I had for virtually all members of the male contingent of our species.

“I’m fine.” He looked down at his chest and then
back up at me. “Obviously. I escaped without so much as a scratch.”

Our gazes locked and we stared at each other briefly. I examined his eyes for any shiftiness or other signs of deceit, but found nothing. He was giving me no reason to doubt him, and it also instantly occurred to me that this would be a pretty easy thing to check out. A few minutes on
Google would confirm his story, cast doubt on it, or prove him an outright liar. But that was something I’d do later, if at all. For now, all I had was Drew sitting across from me, recounting the terrifying event.

Drew was flying from Chicago to
Charlottesville, Virginia. He was from Northbrook, Illinois, and he’d gone home for the holidays and was returning to the University of Virginia, where he was a junior.

One of the engines experienced a catastrophic
failure and needed to make an emergency landing at the Indianapolis International Airport.

“We didn’t quite make it to the runway. We crashed in the woods less than a mile away. When the plane hit, it cracked open right in the middle. I’ll never forget the sudden sunlight streaming into the plane, and then almost immediately it was blocked out by smoke.”

I found myself holding my breath as he spoke. It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever heard,
and I was amazed when he told me there were only two fatalities.

“Luckily,” he said, “with the plane cracked open, all the smoke had a way to get out. But I didn’t. Lots of us were trapped in there for almost an hour before we were rescued. I
n a way, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.” He grabbed another taco and bit it in half.

I felt my face twist into a look of disbelief
. “What? Did I hear that right?”

He chewed,
then took a sip of his drink. “While I was stuck in there, I decided I never wanted to be confined again. Not in the wreckage of an airplane, and not in any aspect of my life. It changed me. Opened my eyes to what matters and what doesn’t. People are always talking about what the meaning of life is. Well, I found the answer.”

I laughed
in disbelief. Here was this guy saying he had figured out the meaning of life. It was the most absurd thing I’d ever heard anyone say. “Really? And what’s the meaning of life?” I couldn’t wait to hear the answer. He was turning out to be quite entertaining.

He
shook his head slowly as he picked up a stray piece of fish that had fallen out of his taco. “It’s an easy answer.” He looked around the room, extended his arms, and with a sweeping gesture he said, “This is the meaning of life.” Then he popped the piece of fish into his mouth and chewed while smiling.

My glass was on the table and I was leaning over slightly, with the straw in my mouth.
I released it from my lips and straightened up in my seat. “This restaurant is the meaning of life?”

“Yep
.”

“And what kind of drugs are you on that make you say that?”

“Right now,” he said, “this restaurant is the meaning of life. You’re the meaning of life. The crumbs on this plate are the meaning of life. The sound of this storm…that’s the meaning of life.”

“I think I better go.” I started to slide off my seat. I wasn’t really going anywhere. I was actually intrigued by the bizarre comments coming out of him
, and I felt like toying with him. I stopped moving when he spoke.

“What I mean is, life is nothing more than what’s around you at any time, and what you choose your life to be.”

It sounded impossible, and I wasn’t buying it. I hadn’t been given the choice a few months ago to turn my life upside down. That decision was made by someone else.

He seemed to pick up my skepticism right away.
“Did you go to college? Or are you still going?”

“I’m still going.” I didn’t hesitate with my
answer, despite the fact that the thought of returning to school made my stomach sink.

“What are you studying?”

“Marine biology.”

He said, “And
you’ve always wanted to be a marine biologist, right?”

I nodded.
As long as I could remember, I’d always wanted to live my life close to the ocean and, if at all possible, make a living doing so.

Just
as Drew zeroed in on something about me and made me more interested in what he was saying, the waitress stopped by the table. Drew pulled his wallet out of his pocket, got his bank card out and handed it to her.

The wa
itress said she’d be right back and when she was gone, Drew said, “And what if it doesn’t work out?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

His eyes widened. “A million reasons. Take your pick.”

I didn’t like this. I had enough to
sort through in my life without having to listen to pessimism from a virtual stranger. “It’ll work out.”

“Maybe it will.” He took a sip of his drink. “All I’m saying is…things change. Things you have no control over.
That’s life. But you can control how you react to them, and that’s the meaning of life. You live how you want to live. Right after the crash, people were urging me to get counseling and figure out what was wrong with me. So I saw a shrink a few times, but skipped my fourth appointment and never went back. There was nothing wrong with me. I dropped out of school, started taking odd jobs when and where I wanted, and basically did whatever I felt like whenever I felt like it.”

“And you moved to the beach.”

He nodded.

“You’re a beach bum who doesn’t surf.”

He smiled, then the waitress came back, and as Drew added the tip and signed the slip, he continued his story.

“I’m not a beach bum. Well, maybe sometimes I bum around on the beach. I try to enjoy life every day. Everyone
’s always running around, frantically trying to finish school and land a great job with awesome benefits so they can afford a nice three-bedroom home where they can raise a family…it’s all bullshit, Leah. All of it. I mean, if someone’s really dedicated to their career, I respect that. And if someone’s goal in life is to have a family and raise a few kids, great, go ahead, I respect that, too. But you know what? I bet a lot of people do those things because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. And as soon as they convince themselves that they only want what’s expected of them—what someone else decides is good for them—then what kind of life is that? That’s not living; that’s just surviving. I already
survived
something. Now I just
live
.”

I thought about what he’d just said, trying to find a way to disagree with it. But I couldn’t. There had to be a flaw in it somewhere, though.

Drew tucked the receipt under the pen clip and placed it on the edge of the table. Then he looked at me.