Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (47 page)

I look back to my phone, tuning out Ellie’s reply.

Me:
I’m sorry I flipped out on you.

Spencer:
I deserved it. I’ve been a terrible best friend.

Me:
I can’t argue with that…

Spencer:
So, I was wondering if you and Evan would like to join me at The Loft tonight?

Me:
Really?

Spencer:
I’d like to give Evan a real chance… If you’ll let me.

“—And that’s how it’s going to stay!” Ellie finishes. I didn’t catch the entire speech, but judging by the annoyed look on Evan’s face, I suspect that Ellie still isn’t budging on her opinion about Colton’s life and how dangerous it is to her safety.

“Evan,” I interrupt their dispute. “Spencer wants to meet us at The Loft tonight. Are you up for it?”

Evan groans, unable to hide his irritation. He looks at his sister and her boyfriend. “You guys feel like going to The Loft?”

“No,” Ellie replies at the exact same time Colton says, “I’m pretty hungry.”

Ellie hits Colton in the chest with the palm of her hand. “You can eat here,” she hisses.

“Tell Spencer we’ll be there,” he mumbles to me as Ellie lets out an exasperated grumble.

Me:
Can Evan’s sister and her boyfriend join us?

Spencer:
I guess.

Me:
We’ll be there in 30 mins. :)

Spencer:
K. See you then.

Skylar

Oddly enough, grabbing a bite to eat with Tris Gallagher proves to not be as bad as I had originally thought it would. I had imagined a number of awkward moments, followed by Tris making a crude comment of some sort and me having to storm off before I even get a chance to learn anything about who Ellie is.

In reality, it couldn’t have played out any better at all. He’s actually quite nice and incredibly easy to talk to.

We take a seat at a table near the billiard section of The Loft and after only a bit of awkward small talk, he opens up completely and begins telling me all about himself.

Tristan Gallagher has two older sisters, Trina, and Talia who are both married now and live hours away. Neither of them ever visit. He has an alcoholic father who beats him every chance he gets, and a passive mother who worships the ground his father walks on more than the well-being of her son. He struggles with addiction and has been in trouble with the law more times than he can count on two hands.

He tells me about falling into a drug lifestyle in the ninth grade in order to cope with his father’s relentless physical and mental abuse, and how drugs became his only way to make the internal torment go away. Something I know a lot about, actually.

After that, his stories drift into
‘The Adventures of Parker and Tris’
and I see an opening to ask him how it is that he and Parker became friends. I don’t say it out loud, but after hearing all about Tris’ past, I realize that Parker just isn’t cut from the same cloth as Tris and I are. He doesn’t seem to come from a dark background of abuse and drugs, so the fact that he’s even apart of this dark and depressing world that both Tris and I are forced to endure is confusing to me. How did it all begin?

“How did you and Parker meet anyway?” I ask as casually as possible, not wanting to seem as though I’m prying.

Tris smiles as he takes a fry off his plate and eats it. To my utter surprise, I find myself drawn to him. Not in a romantic sense, but he’s so open about his past and all the hurt he’s been through. I admire that. I wish it would be easy for me to tell people about my past and all of my demons. Maybe if it were, I wouldn’t feel the need to cut so badly. Maybe I wouldn’t even need to cut at all.

“We met in the ninth grade actually,” he says, breaking into my thoughts. “I had just started dealing, and he’d heard about me. He wanted to know if I could get my hands on some prescription painkillers for him.”

Now that’s a surprise. From the minute I met Parker he had made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with pills at all. He never did volunteer his reasons why, and being a fellow
Misfit
, I knew better than to ask.

“Prescription painkillers? Why?” I ask him, unable to hide my surprise.

“The car accident,” Tris says as if I should know all about it. When I look at him like I still don’t have a clue what he’s talking about, he shakes his head. “Jesus, Parker didn’t tell you much about his past did he?”

I think about the room in the pool house full of trophies and pictures of a life I knew nothing about. Parker’s told me very little about himself, and I’m only now realizing that everything he did tell me was only from the tenth grade and on. I don’t know anything about him from before that, other than the fact that he’d lost his mother.

“I’ve never pushed him to tell me,” I say defensively, “It seemed too painful for him back then. And now, well it’s only been a few days that we’ve been back together so it’s not like he’s had much of a chance.”

Tris shrugs. “Yeah, that makes sense. Well, he was in a car accident with his mom, coming home from a basketball game. He used to be the point guard on his team, in case he didn’t tell you that,” he adds.

“I knew that,” I say, narrowing my eyes in annoyance.

He continues on, not catching the look. “Anyway it was February, the roads were crazy icy. They hit a patch of ice and…well his mom didn’t make it. Parker broke his right arm in three different places and his shoulder and clavicle. He had to have a lot of surgeries and was given a lot of painkillers. Then the prescriptions all ran out… and that’s where I came in.”

“He used the drugs to numb the pain of losing his mom,” I say.

“He used the drugs to numb the pain till he met you, actually.”

I shake my head. “No, the night that he met me he said that he didn’t do pills. He had already cut them out of his life by then.”

Tris nods knowingly, “That was the thirty day detox he had been forced to take after he was expelled from school for getting caught stoned and dealing on school grounds. But I guarantee that if he hadn’t met you that night, he would have started right back up with the pills.”

“He still did other drugs with me. We smoked pot all the time together. It’s not like I kept him clean or anything. I mean, I was strung out on Molly every night for months after we met.”

“Did he ask you to stop?”

I shrug. “Not really. He just asked me to stop with my persona.”

Tris nods but doesn’t say anything more which is good because I don’t really want to get into my persona with him anyway. To be honest, I’m actually scared to talk to him about that. I’m worried that I might have slept with him before. The numbers are so high, and I was always so out of it, I just don’t know for sure. Of course, if I had, it wouldn’t have been after I met Parker. I know he never stopped anyone else from getting their fix with me, until we became official that is, but I have a feeling if it would have been Tris trying, he would have kicked his ass without remorse.

I force a smile, attempting to deter the subject into a happier zone. “So are you going to take me on in a game of pool or what?” I ask, wiping my face with my napkin and tossing it in my empty plate.

Tris grins from ear to ear. “Think you can take me?”

“Oh, I know I can take you,” I say with a confident laugh.

We get up from our table and start over to the billiards bar to pay for a game. I get to the bar first and playfully shove Tris away once he joins me. “I’m paying,” I say.

He shoves me back. “Like hell you are.”

We keep pushing each other aside, trying to give our money to the guy overtop of each other’s outstretched arms. Tris grabs my midsection, making me pull my hand away and burst out into a hysterical fit of laughter.

“Stop!” I screech, still laughing. I collapse to the floor, and he finally stops tickling me, using my downtime as a chance to pay for the game. The billiard guy takes the money and hands us a tray filled with the balls already all stacked into the triangle.

“Table 8,” he tells us, and we head in that direction.

And then I stop in my tracks when I see who just walked through the door.

Evan has his arm draped over Bree and they are laughing with another couple walking in behind them. When Evan sees Tris and me, however, his smile fades instantly.

Bree, noticing that he stopped laughing, looks up. Our eyes meet and her smile fades too. I press my lips together uneasily, wishing I hadn’t agreed to come here. I should have known that something like this would happen.

“Hey Skylar,” Bree says quietly, giving me a small wave. She looks Tris over uneasily, “What are you doing here?”

I look at Tris and see that he’s smiling at Evan in that same condescending way that Parker always smiles at Bree. He’s trying to torment him. And then the smile fades and is replaced with a look of annoyance. “Ellie,” he says giving the girl behind Evan a quick nod.

Ellie. Parker’s friend Ellie? I look her over curiously. I don’t understand how he could possibly know this girl. She’s not our age, she doesn’t look like a
Misfit
… who is she?

“What the fuck, Tris?” she says. “Does Parker know you’re here with her?”

I’m instantly put on the defensive by the way she’s sticking her nose into our business. Who the hell does she think she is anyway? “I’m pretty sure Parker won’t mind me playing some pool with his friend,” I say coolly.

Ellie laughs and my fists clench tightly at the sound of it. “Then apparently you don’t know Parker,” is her harsh reply. And it feels like a kick in the gut. Even Bree gives her a dirty look for that one.

“Excuse me?” I say, arching an eyebrow, challenging her to continue.

She ignores the look and stares Tris down instead. “What are you doing? I know what happened today with Parker, he told me everything. You have no business being here with her.”

Everything? Why isn’t Parker telling
me
everything? Why does Ellie get to know that part of him and I don’t? I hate this!

Tris sneers at her. “Figures he’d call you right afterward. That has nothing to do with what’s going on right now. I’m just getting to know Skylar, that’s all.”

“Oh, what a load of shit!” She turns to me, “Don’t trust him, Skylar.”

Really, who does this girl think she is? “I don’t even know who you are,” I reply. “So maybe you should mind your own business.”

Spencer walks into The Loft just then, his hands crammed into his pockets. He stops in his tracks when he sees our little confrontation. “What’s going on?” He asks, motioning his eyes toward Tris.

“Skylar and Tris are friends now,” Bree says with distaste.

Spencer’s lips draw together in a tight and disapproving line. He tilts his head and looks at me questioningly, “Babygirl?”

Why is he here with Bree? Why is it that she’s the one who cheated and yet I’m the outcast in this scenario? What the hell did I do to deserve that?

I storm toward the door angrily. Spencer grabs my wrist to stop me as I push passed him. “Fuck off!” I hiss, yanking my arm back. “You’ve made your choice.”

“Skylar,” he begins, but I’m already out the door and storming down the street before he can say anything more.

Evan

As soon as Skylar’s out the door of The Loft, I shoot Tris the dirtiest look I can muster. I don’t particularly care about Skylar, but I know I can’t stand Tris, and if Ellie believes he’s up to no good, then she’s probably right.

“Got a problem, Daniels?” he snarls, apparently irritated with how we’ve ruined his plans with Skylar. He slams the pool tray onto the table and takes a threatening step toward me.

“No problem,” I say with a casual shrug. I’m so tired of getting myself into this predicament; I’m not about to get punched in the face over my girlfriend’s ex. Not again.

“Tris, just leave Skylar alone, man,” Colton says in a loud and abrupt tone that actually impresses me. I didn’t think he could pull something like that off, judging from how he acted when I kicked his ass earlier, but I was obviously wrong. “Your problem is with Parker, not her.”

Tris narrows his eyes. “No one asked you, Colt,” he says. He points an accusing finger at Ellie. “You better keep what you know to yourself, little bitch, or I swear you’ll be next.”