Falling From the Sky (25 page)

“And I was telling him how cute he’d look with my friend Beth, but he says he’s already dating someone,” she says.

I look up from my mangled sandwich and stare at Micah more than Samantha. I can’t read his face. There’s not a single emotion in his eye – not even the victory he’s about to have as soon as she finds out he’s been dating me.

“He said if he loved someone, he’d ride the carousel with them, even if he looked ridiculous,” she says matter-of-factly.

Her attempts to make me feel shitty about myself aren’t working. I stick my fork into my mouth to keep from saying something I’ll regret. Samantha leans over and not so subtly tells Micah that I’m anti-social and to ignore my rude behavior. She even goes as far as to say, “He’s been through a lot,” like our old family therapist used to tell my mom as an explanation for why I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

My teeth clench down on the plastic, and I hope I break the fork so I’ll have to go get another one and relieve myself from my explosive love triangle. The small talk continues as I chew my fork, but I nearly choke on it when Samantha asks about Micah’s girlfriend. I hear my heart again. The same robotic clink-clunk sound from the river bridge. Micah mumbles something about a girl named Bridget. B-
ridge
-t. How fucking obvious.

“We’ve been together all summer,” he says clearly. “It’s been the best summer of my life.”

“Awww,” Samantha coos again in her baby voice. “Does she live here?”

Micah shakes his head. “She’s leaving next week, but it’s probably for the best.” He looks at me for a reaction.

“But it was a good summer,” Micah repeats. “We went swimming in the river and jumped off the bridge. And she went with me to my nieces’ dance recital. She played Xbox with me, and she came to the reservation for the Fourth of July. I took her to see my favorite band play at a local festival, and then we rode the ferris wheel and you could see all the lights from the city.”

He talks really fast like when he was trying to convince me to come to his house after leaving the Graffiti Kings’ warehouse that day, listing off all the things we could do. He’s talking with excitement. And he’s smiling…smiling at our memories.

“Do you hear this?” Samantha asks, slapping my knee. “This is what a real boyfriend does with his girlfriend. These are actual dates. You need to take notes.”

She looks back at Micah. “I wish he’d found you sooner. He could learn a lot.”

Micah shakes his head and bites into his candy. “Nah, I’m the minority. Bridget is leaving, and I was nothing more than summer entertainment to her.”

I hate the way he emphasizes the
ridge
in Bridget. I don’t know how Samantha hasn’t caught on yet. I jerk the tray off the table as soon as the last bite of sandwich enters Samantha’s mouth. Micah doesn’t seem to want to spill my secret. He just wants to make me as uncomfortable as possible. Yeah, he’s has jealousy issues, but this is overboard.

“You ready?” I ask Samantha as I walk up to the table.

She hesitates to answer, like she’s in the middle of a great conversation, but I pick up her shopping bags and don’t her any choice but to come with me.

“You’re such an ass,” she swears under her breath at me.

She apologizes to Micah yet again for my actions and tells him it was nice meeting him. She looks back as we leave and gives him a half-wave and then complains that he didn’t wave back. If she only knew why.

I stare at the damn flip phone yet again, debating on texting Micah. I’ve been here on this stone mattress for the last two hours hoping he’d text me first. There’s a piece of me that just wants to call him and fix this mess we’ve strewn around us. Another piece of me wants to poison his pancakes, though. Terrence said I should sleep on it before I say or do anything more that I’ll regret. Deep down, I know Terrence is right. He’s always right. I still feel the last remnants of this morning’s hangover. That feels like weeks ago – the recital, Toxic, the shot glasses. How did I let everything good in my life sour overnight?

A blank text message won’t get me anywhere. I type the words “I’m sorry” but then delete them. I try “Can we talk?” but delete it in fear of the answer. I picture that stone cold look in Micah’s eyes across the table while I dug around in my barbeque sandwich, and I text the only thing that even runs through my mind:
Thanks for buddying up with Samantha. That wasn’t awkward at all.
I regret the text as soon as “Message Sent” flashes across my screen. I know Micah. He has his phone right beside him. He’s read it.

But even thirty minutes later, there’s no reply.

Please call or text me. We need to talk about Micah.

I wake up to this text message from Zoey. It’s nearly noon, and she sent it three hours ago. I say a long, hard prayer before writing back. If it was really serious, she’d have called. If it was an emergency, I’d have gotten more than a text message. Then again, I am the guy who got drunk without explanation the other night and began this downward spiral in our relationship. Still, I pray Micah hasn’t done anything stupid or hurt himself. I couldn’t live with it. I’m too scared to call, so I text Zoey back and ask when she wants to talk. She wants me to come over to her house as soon as I can. She at least clarifies that nothing has happened, and Micah is safe, so now I don’t have to drive without brakes on the way to her house.

Abby and Jade are outside when I pull into the driveway. Jade ignores me and continues playing, but Abby runs over and hugs both of my legs as tightly as her little arms will let her. I pick her up and hug her back, just in case I never see her again. I love her innocence and how she stills sees me as that cool guy her Uncle Mike loves. She doesn’t know anything about night clubs or alcohol or ex-boyfriends or current girlfriends.

Zoey meets me at the door and tells the girls to play in the backyard instead while we talk. They hurry through the gate, and I follow Zoey into the living room.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t have to tell me anything. I didn’t text you to argue with you or make anything any worse than it already is. I just want you to be aware of something,” she says.

I’m thankful when she points to the couch because my legs are shaky again, and I don’t know if I could stand through this. “What’s up?”

She sits on the other end of her couch and chooses her words carefully in her head before speaking. “This is just a summer for you. You have a whole other life back home, and next week, you’re leaving. But you have to realize, this
is
Micah’s life. He’s still going to be here, just without you. Same house, same job, same school, same everything,” she says.

My eyes dart around the room. A collection of dreamcatchers hang on the wall, and there’s a picture of Micah with Abby and Jade on the end table. There’s another picture of Zoey with Kyle the Ripper.

“You’ve got something else. Micah doesn’t. I’ve stressed over it all summer, the day you’d leave, because I know I’m going to lose him again,” she says.

“What do you mean? You’re not going to lose your brother,” I tell her.

She chews on a fingernail, and I can visualize the scrolling marquee bar in her mind that’s pulling the right words for the situation. She looks over to me with that concerned mom look again.

“Micah’s been through hell. After Nanna died, he just shut down. Then Taylor happened, and God, Taylor really did him wrong – going back and outing him at school, turning everyone against him, telling the whole freaking town that Micah tried to turn him gay,” she explains, her voice losing its serenity with every word she speaks about Taylor.

I remember Micah saying how he didn’t really have any friends. And how Pax doesn’t hang out with him at school.

“And then this summer, that light in him turned back on. I haven’t seen it in so long, and it’s been so amazing having him back. I’ve missed him, and the girls have missed him. But Micah’s biggest problem is that he attaches himself to people who aren’t going to stick around,” she says.

“I can’t stay,” I tell her. “I don’t really have a choice.”

She nods. “I know that. You’re seventeen. I just don’t want you to make him promises that are going to fall through because I know with everything in me that he’ll hold on until the very end. That’s just Micah.”

I set my eyes on a tan dreamcatcher. It’s almost directly behind Zoey’s head, and if I stare at it, I can avoid eye contact but look engaged in the conversation.

“What promises?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Anything. I just don’t see you sticking to this lifestyle. You’re not going to want to be the basketball coach whose team calls him a queer. And you’re not going to feel okay with Micah coming to all your games as your support system,” she says, talking way too far into the future for my comfort level.

Micah and I haven’t really talked future-wise. He knows I want to coach basketball because I’ll never play pro, and I know he wants to do something with graphic design, like designing zombie Xbox games. We’ve talked about college and toyed around with the idea of how I could move to Bear Creek and go to college closer to him, but we’ve never made official plans.

“You’re the kind of guy who will move on, marry your pretty girlfriend, have a few kids, and your happy little family will come to your games to watch you coach. You’ll bounce back. Micah won’t. He is who he is. That’s not going to change, and he’d be completely fine with being with you forever and coming to watch you coach and being there a hundred percent for you,” she says. It sounds more like a warning than anything else.

“I’m not out to hurt him,” I argue.

“I didn’t say you were,” Zoey counters me. “It’s just…Micah loves you, and–”

“No,” I interrupt. “He doesn’t.”

I’m not about to let her use that line on me when he’s never even used it on me.

“Yes, he does,” she demands. She’s speaking more firmly and matter-of-fact.

I avoid looking at her. I don’t want to have this conversation. “Then why hasn’t he said it?”

“He’s not going to,” she answers almost instantly.

Words don’t come out of my mouth, but she knows what I’m asking in my head – Why not?

“Taylor was the first guy Micah ever said it to, and Taylor said it back, and everything was great until school started. When all that went down, he confronted Micah one day when he was at work, and he straight up said, ‘I never loved you.’ It killed Micah, and he swore he’d never say it first again. He’ll never put his heart on the line like that again,” Zoey explains.

“Did he tell you that he loves me?” I hate asking, but I have to know.

She shakes her head. “No, but I know my brother. He loves you. And you’re not ready. You can’t handle Micah.”

The last words Zoey said have played in my head over and over and over since I got back to the dorm. I can’t handle Micah? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? So maybe we aren’t at protest rallies fighting for gay marriage rights. Maybe we don’t have everything figured out. But I know one thing – I can handle Micah.

No one has been able to deal with me since my dad died. My mom says I’m too distant, “too far gone.” Jordan only sees me as the evil older brother who doesn’t let him destroy my Xbox games, and Samantha only stays with me because she’d look like the bad guy for dumping the pathetic boy who fell apart and lost everything when tragedy struck his life.

Until Micah, no one could handle me. But Micah gets me. And I get him.

I grab my keys and head toward the mall before I can talk myself out of it. I need to see him in person, to see what kind of reaction I get when he sees me walk up to him. We can’t close the door on our summer like this.

My palms sweat against my keys as I walk toward the food court. I see him sitting inside the token booth, his head leaned back against the wooden wall. He sits up straight when he sees me, and he’s standing by the time I reach him.

“What are you doing here?” His eyes are red and swollen, like he’s either been crying or has a bad cold.

“I’m leaving Saturday,” I say. “I don’t want our summer to end like this.”

“So?” he asks, lingering on the word like he’s waiting for me to fill in the gap.

I avoid the obvious ‘We need to talk’ line. I can’t bring up Brittany, Taylor, Samantha, and all the drama surrounding us right now. Then I see Simple Gray Horse. He’s behind Micah, waiting for the next excited kid to jump onto his saddle.

He would’ve been our last horse, and my guesses for his adventure are probably way off. By simple and gray haired, I can only imagine visiting a nursing home, but I know Micah would have something way better planned than that.

“We still have a horse left,” I say, pointing behind him. “I can’t leave without knowing.”

My every hope that maybe Simple Gray Horse will save our relationship falls from the sky and bursts into flames with the look Micah gives me.

“You came here for the horse?” There’s a mix of anger and disgust in his voice. “The horse, really? The fucking horse?”

I wait for him to tear the token booth down and storm at me in a rampage. I’ve never seen him so mad. I’ve never heard him talk like this. This was a really bad idea. Damn hindsight.

“You know what? I’ll tell you something about my horses,” he says. He looks over his shoulder at the carousel and then shakes his head. “I lied.”

“What?”

“I lied,” he repeats. “I lied about the horses. All of them. They don’t mean a damn thing. I made the whole thing up. They’re just carousel horses – nothing special. No link to me, no link to my tribe, nothing. I lied.”

I don’t even know what this is that I’m feeling. Pissed. Hurt. Heartbroken. Sad. Betrayed. Embarrassed. There’s not one single emotion I can attribute. Every negative feeling in the world plagues me as I stand here staring at him and his un-special horses.

“Are you serious?” I whisper the words like a defeated child.

“Yeah,” he says much too proudly. “I only thought you were hot and lied to get you to hang out with me.”

My eyes fall to the tile flooring, and I walk away as fast as I can until I’m out of his view. Then I sprint down the mall, not bothering to apologize to anyone I bump into. I don’t slow down until I slam into the side of my car. I sit in the driver’s seat and cry like an idiot knowing my entire summer – every amazing moment, every amazing memory – was a lie. I jerk the unlucky rabbit’s foot from my rearview mirror and sling it into the backseat.