Fall For Anything (11 page)

“Good call,” Milo says.

“Shut up, they taste awesome,” Jenna says.

I pass them and make my way into the living room.

“Where are you going?” Milo calls after me.

“Gotta pee,” I call back.

“That’s what the pool’s for,” he says.

Jenna and Missy break into a chorus of
ewwws
and giggles.

I walk up the stairs. My stomach is twisting and my palms are sweaty-nervous because I’m going to climb out that window and I am going to jump into the pool. I imagine this walk for my father. The way to Tarver’s. He probably wasn’t nervous. He was so ready. How do you get to a point where you’re that ready?

Will I reach it by the time I reach the window?

Jenna’s bedroom is all purple. It’s very Jenna. The window is wide open, and a feeble breeze is pushing the sheer white curtains my way. They’re hands, reaching out to me. I go to them. I have my foot on the sill. I’m halfway out. I can see the pool from here.

I can’t tell if I’m afraid I’ll jump or I’m afraid I won’t.

What if I’m that statistic that hits the concrete even though the water is so close?

“Don’t.” Milo’s voice is behind me, but I don’t turn around. “Eddie, if you do I’ll never speak to you again.”

“There’s water,” I say. “I’m not suicidal.”

“I mean it.”

“Aaron looked like he was having fun.” I stare out. It’s a longer drop than from my bedroom window. It’s the highest up I’ve ever been. “Do you think the answer is in the fall?”

“Eddie, shut up.”

I force myself through the window and stand straight up on the roof. It’s dizzying for a second. If I lost my footing, I would miss, maybe. Or not miss.

“Eddie.”

“I want to go up on the roof at Tarver’s,” I tell him, glancing back. He’s at the window and he looks mad. “But I’m too scared. I want you to go with me.”

“I won’t go there with you.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s nothing there,” he says impatiently. “Get back inside. You’ll get hurt.”

“Aaron jumped and he didn’t get hurt.”

“Aaron does it all the time and he’s just doing it for fun—”

I turn around. Too fast. I overbalance and grab on to the sill to steady myself. Milo grabs my arm. I’m bent over and our faces are close.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I ask.

“You play chicken with trucks and wander around condemnable buildings at night,” he says. “I have no idea what you’re trying to do.”

“Liar,” I say.

He stares at me for a long minute.

“None of this is going to tell you anything,” he finally says.

It’s like my heart dissolves into a million angry bubbles that find their way up my throat. He gets it, but he doesn’t, and that’s worse. I want to tell him I’ll know what it’s like to really fall and that’s something I wouldn’t have known yesterday. That’s important.

“I’m going to do it.”

His grip moves from my arm. He grabs my hand, wrapping his fingers around my fingers. He squeezes them.

“Your hand is cold,” he says.

I hesitate. “I told you.”

“Eddie, please come back inside.”

He looks at me in a way that breaks my heart, like I’m hurting him. He pulls me back into Jenna’s bedroom and I let him. He keeps his fingers around mine and we sit on the bed, holding hands.

“You were there, Milo,” I say. “Tell me.”

“Eddie, I don’t know why he killed himself.”

“You were still there,” I say, “and you won’t talk about it.”

“You were there too. I don’t need to.”

“You make me feel alone.”

I can’t believe I just say it like that.
You make me feel alone.
Maybe I confuse him. Maybe he doesn’t know when what happened stops being about my dad and starts being about us. It confuses me too.

“I’m sorry.” He says it so quietly. He squeezes my hand. “Feel that?”

“They’re not numb,” I mumble. “Just cold.”

He exhales slowly and then he stares at the ceiling.

“They’re not cold,” he says. “… They were cold.”

I look at him.

“I called your cell that night,” he says, and my breath catches in my throat. He looks at me and his eyes are completely defeated. “And you didn’t pick up. It felt different.”

Like the world changed. That’s what I want to say, but I don’t. The same thing that made him call me was the same thing that made me go to my father, when I’d never done that before.

It felt different.

“I called your house and your mom told me you were at Tarver’s.” He falls silent for a minute. “I don’t know why I went…”

Downstairs, I can hear Missy and Jenna laughing. Aaron’s voice. It’s all so out of place. They are. We are. I don’t know anymore. Nothing is right in this moment, even though I think I’m finally getting what I want.

“I don’t remember hearing my phone,” I say suddenly. I can’t remember hearing my phone but I know it was with me. “At all…”

“I wish you had,” he says. “When I—”

He breaks off. Stops. I wait. Maybe he needs a minute and I’ll let him have the minute, but then the minute passes and he shakes his head and says, “I can’t,” and gets up from the bed, his hand free of my hand. It feels so empty.

“Just get it over with,” I tell him.

“No—”

“Milo—”

“Just fucking
stop,
Eddie!” he pleads. I close my eyes and then he says, “I’m sorry.” He clears his throat. “Look, I’m going back downstairs, so if you—”

“Whatever.”

“Eddie—”

“Forget it.”

I open my eyes.

He pauses. “You’re not going to—”

“Just
go.
” Asshole.

He goes. I stay in Jenna’s room for a really long time. No one bothers me, which is weird. I wonder what Milo told them. If Jenna was hanging out in my room while everyone else was having a great time downstairs, I wouldn’t be okay with that, even if you threw a recently deceased father into the mix. I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

And then I hear footsteps making their way down the hall.

I hope it’s Milo, but it’s not.

It’s that other person whose name starts with
M.

“Hey,” Missy says. Her hair doesn’t look that great post-pool. Stringy and dried out. It makes her face seem too round. This is one of those rare instances I look better than her.

“Hi,” I say.

She sits down beside me. I bet Jenna sent her.

“Where’s Milo?”

“Drinking in the garage with the guys,” she says. “Deacon and Jeff are here.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?” Missy asks. I roll my eyes and then I feel like a jerk for doing it. Luckily, she laughs and says, “Stupid question.”

“Yeah,” I say.

Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m being unfair. A cool breeze is coming in through the open window. I stare outside, past the sloping roof. From the bed, you can only see the edge of the pool, and my towel, where I left it. The lighter part of this afternoon already feels far away.

I make things so awkward.

“I’m not jealous of you,” I blurt out. She stares at me. “I mean, I’m not trying to make things really weird between all three of us. I don’t hate you guys together or anything—”

“What?”

I feel my face turn red. I don’t know how I can put it any more simply. Trust Marilyn Monroe to be stupid enough not to get it. Okay, that
is
unfair because I think I read somewhere Marilyn Monroe was smarter than anyone ever gave her credit for.

“Just…” I shrug. “That.”

“Eddie,” she says slowly, really uncomfortable now. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Why did I have to say that. “Eddie, Milo and I are totally not together like that.”

My mind goes blank. “Yes, you are.”

“No,” she says. “Did he tell you that?”

“I—”

I try to remember every conversation I’ve had with Milo that’s centered around Missy, but I can’t. Not word for word. But I also can’t remember him saying he was with her now.

But I also can’t remember him denying it.

“I thought…”

My stomach sinks.

He made me think.

“I have a boyfriend,” Missy says. “Milo and I are friends now. We just talk.”

I don’t know what to say. I feel so stupid and angry and worse, still jealous.
Milo and I are just friends.
What does he need Missy to be his
friend
for? They just talk—but he won’t talk to me. This is worse than when I thought they were together. At least then I could understand
why
Missy was between us, if they were getting each other off, but now it isn’t even that.

He goes to her. Not me.

“I’m his best friend,” I say, before I can stop myself.

She looks so sad for me, I want to die.

“I know. Of course you are.” Her voice is patronizing but her eyes are painfully sincere. “You mean, like, everything to him.” I snort, because I don’t believe that anymore. “No, I mean … when he told me about your dad and how he found you, it was like—”

Stop.

“He told you about that?”

“Yeah, but…”

That’s it. That is so it. I get up. She reaches for me.

“Eddie, wait—”

I can’t even look at her. I can’t do this right now. I leave the room. I leave the house. I’m always leaving, but I never have anywhere to go.

Beth gives me the most disgusted look when I step through the door; I’m still in the bikini I borrowed from Jenna. That’s a crime, I guess. She has one of those nature CDs on. It sounds like a thunderstorm. That is probably not a coincidence.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s upstairs.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

I find a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water, my back to Beth. I hope she’s looking at me. I hope she’s seeing how young I am, how perfect I am in all the right places while her skin is turning into one giant problem area. Cellulite and stretch marks and wrinkles.

“And whose fault is that?”

“What do you
want
from me?” I face her. “You don’t want me here while you help her, so you tell me to leave. I leave. I come back and you give me shit—”

She slams her hand on the table and the sound makes me jump.

“I’ve had enough of your attitude! I’m not an idiot, Eddie. I know what you’re thinking when you give me those
looks
. You don’t want me here, that’s
fine.
But I
am
. You could cooperate more. You could say
thank you
—”

“
You
could leave me
alone
—”

“I am
trying
to keep this household together!” She actually shrieks it and then she pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to collect herself. Cleansing breaths. “And that requires a certain level of organization. I need you to be present in some ways and absent in others so I can pull your mother out of this and then we’ll deal with what’s left—”

“You mean me,” I interrupt.

“Your mother needs it
now
,” she snaps, and my heart stops because I think she just told me my pain was less than my mother’s, but I cannot get my mouth to move to ask her. “Don’t look at me like that, Eddie. I don’t understand where you’re coming from half of the time—”

“Side effect of aging,” I suggest.

“Why can’t you just be mature about—”

“Maybe your brain cells are dying.”

“You know, your father would hate that you’re talking to me like this.”

I see red. I
see
it. Everything goes red, a red door, and I throw the glass I’m holding into the sink. It breaks. It’s not some spectacular shatter into a thousand pieces, it just goes into two pieces. The cracking sound it makes is so fucked up—how loud it is.

The quiet it creates.

“Would he?” I ask her, my voice trembling. “You think? Really?”

Beth starts to cry, and as cutting as the sound is when it comes out of my mother, it’s so surprising, so awful coming from her. I want to ask her if she misses him too. But I can’t.

I don’t know what to do.

“Go,”
she says. “Get out of my sight.”

I go upstairs. I shut the door to my bedroom and sink down to the floor and my hands are shaking, cold. I pinch them. I can still feel them. Just cold. This is awful. This is so hopeless. We’re all lost in different ways, so how do we even help each other find our way out. We won’t. We can’t. We’ll just stay lost forever.

*   *   *

It’s eleven when
I get the text from Milo. This is the longest day of my life.

OUTSIDE. UNDER THE STREETLIGHT.

I text him back.

FUCK OFF.

I wait a minute, and then:

WALKED ALL THE WAY FROM J’S FOR YOU.

FUCK OFF.

YOU COULD’VE TOLD ME YOU WERE LEAVING.

I toss my phone on my bed. I’m wearing a tank top and underwear. I guess I should scale down the roof in more than that. I put on a pair of shorts, open the window, and climb over the sill. Déjà vu. It’s been too long since I’ve been to Tarver’s. Maybe I should try for the roof again. Maybe I’m strong enough to do it now, just from meeting Culler. The first time I went to Tarver’s, I imagined there was something real on that roof. A reason. Answers.

I haven’t been able to let that thought go.

I jump down. I land. I spot Milo under the streetlight across the road and feel really embarrassed about telling him to fuck off twice, about ditching him at Jenna’s, because I have a feeling Missy probably freaked at him about it. When I reach him, I can smell pot and booze and he seems a little far away, but he’s not wasted, though. I’ve seen Milo wasted.

“You could’ve told me you were leaving,” he repeats.

“You could’ve told me Missy had a boyfriend back in Pikesville,” I return. He has the decency to look embarrassed. “Why did you lie?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and I move to go back to the house but he grabs my arm. “I’m serious, Eddie. I don’t know why I let you think that.”

“And she said you told her what happened, that night at Tarver’s, but you don’t tell me.” My voice breaks, already. Embarrassing, but these words are hard to say to him. “But you told
her
about it—”

“I just told her once—”

“So tell
me
once—”

“
Stop fucking asking!
—” Explosion. He’s yelling at me. “Seriously. I don’t know how many times I can tell you I don’t want to talk about it before you get it!”

I take a step back and his eyes widen, like he can’t believe he did that, but I can and that just makes it worse.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean…”

But he did.

We stand apart from each other.

“I hate you,” I tell him.

“No, you don’t.”

But he’s so wrong. I hate him for this so much it hurts. I will hate him for this forever. It will fester between us until I can’t stand to be around him, and maybe he’ll finally tell me
then
, but it will be too late, because I’ll never be able to forget this feeling. I’ll never forget how he kept it from me and how bad that made me feel.

“You hate me,” I say.

“No,” he says. “Never…”

And then he stares past me, to my house.

“Remember that time I ran away?” he asks.

I do; instantly. It was the third grade. We can’t remember what he was so mad about that he decided he’d Leave Branford and Show Them All anymore, but we both think it must’ve been stupid because it was the third grade.

“I hid out at your place,” he says. “Your dad called my parents so they knew where I was. I told him I was leaving and I was taking you with me and he said it was fine, remember? And he asked you if that was okay, and you said it was and he said okay…”

I want to tell Milo the saddest part of remembering this is that I’m remembering my dad the way he looked now—older than he was then. In my head, his impending suicide shows over the face of the person he pretended to be. I think that means my memories of him are ruined.

“But later, when we were alone, you started bawling because you didn’t want to leave your parents. So I told you to stay, and then you got even more upset—like it was the end of the world. You said you wouldn’t let me go by myself. You wouldn’t. You didn’t.” He pauses. “In the second grade, I felt like I got stuck with you … but … after that it was different.”

I don’t know what to say.

“And … then your dad died and it was … it was different again.” He swallows. “Eddie, I don’t know how I…”

I don’t know what he’s saying.

And then he kisses me.

He kisses me.

He brings his hand to my face and he kisses me, his mouth on mine, and I feel a door closing, something locking me in my head so all I can do is think things while it’s happening. It’s like my lips are dead and my brain is on, but it’s short-circuiting.
My best friend mouth Missy hands cold dumb idiot second grade mouth Culler best friend Milo Milo Milo Milo Milo …

His lips press against my lips and his palms lie gently against the side of my face. His hands are warm. My hands are cold. His hands move to my hair. I kiss him back and regain the ability to think in full sentences and I regret it immediately:
What does this mean? How can he kiss me? How can he kiss me? How can he kiss me? Oh my God, he’s kissing me.

It’s too much.

I pull away at the same time I completely change my mind. I don’t want it to stop and I almost bring my hands to him, to make him close to me again, but I think the moment is really over.

Did that happen? It didn’t …

“Sorry,” I blurt out. Why am I apologizing? He’s the one who kissed me. I feel like I’m going to cry. Why does this make me want to cry. “I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay,” he says, and then he kisses me again and it is infinitely different from the first time, like all the years of our knowing each other are in this kiss and he would know how to kiss me just by knowing me … and I think
Culler
again but the thought is quieter—

But it’s not quiet enough.

“Milo,” I say against his mouth, and he kisses me again and gives me space enough to talk, but we’re still so close our foreheads are touching. And now that I have space enough to talk, I don’t know what to say. “I can’t. I really—I can’t—”

“It’s okay,” he says. “We can go back from this.”

It comes out of his mouth so kind—he means it—and it just makes me feel worse. That he can kiss me like this and change everything, but still promise me nothing has to change because I can’t promise him anything.

“It’s not you—” Except it is.
But it’s this other guy too.
But I’m smarter than saying that.
And oh, my father is dead. And you keep things from me that I need to know.

“I know. I mean I understand,” he says, and I start shaking my head and he says, “No really, I get it and it’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll see you…”

I press my lips together and nod.

“It’s okay,” he repeats. He grabs my hand and forces a smile at me. “Eddie, seriously. It’s okay. Nothing has to be different.”

I nod again, and then I stay there, under the streetlight, and watch him go.

I think Milo is becoming the biggest liar I know.