This Is Falling (13 page)

“Yeah, I mean, it’s probably like a B. You
didn’t really talk about the pretty colors and choice of oil versus
acrylic, but it’s all right,” I tease, and she purses her lips,
fighting against her smile before finally smacking me in the chest
with her notebook.

“I can live with a B. I’m considering it done
then,” she says, standing and putting her folder and book into her
backpack. I notice she’s putting physical distance between us, and
it makes me uneasy.

“So, my parents are here this weekend.
They’re taking us to the football game tonight, and we, uh…we have
an extra ticket. Cass is coming. Maybe…you wanna come?” I ask her
when her back is to me, and I’m still a stuttering mess.

“You’re such a pussy,” Ty says, reminding me
he’s still in the room. “Rowe, Nate wants you to come with us. He’s
been a mopey douchebag all week because he was afraid you’d say
no
. Please, for the love of all that is holy, come with us
and meet my parents so I won’t live in hell for another day.”

I’m blinking and staring at my brother’s back
as he goes right back to whispering with his girlfriend. Once
again, I wish I had an ounce of his confidence. I shift my focus to
Rowe next, and catch her chewing on her lip, her hand on her hip.
Crap! A football game is a pretty big deal for her. I didn’t think,
and when she looks at me, I wince and mouth, “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll come,” she says, her smile tight, and
her arms hugging her body. I notice she does that a lot. I think
it’s her tell, her signal that she’s uncomfortable. She doesn’t
really want to do this, but she’s going for me. If I were a good
person, I’d let her off the hook. But I’m selfish, and I want her
with me.

“My parents have box seats, so we’ll be in a
suite,” I say, standing from her bed and leaning against her desk.
She relaxes at that news, and I’m glad it helps.

“What time?”

“We’ll walk over around six. Does that work?”
I say, checking my watch, which says three thirty.

“Ugh, I guess that’ll do. But you have to go
now. I mean, if I’m meeting parents, I need time to make myself all
glittery and shiny,” she smirks.

“Oh, and make sure you put a lot of shit in
your hair so it’s all crunchy and tangled,” I laugh. Cass and Ty
just stare at us like we’re insane, but we don’t break our
character and hold in our laughs.
This
is one of those jokes
just between us—something that’s
ours.
And I’ll take it,
however small and insignificant it may be.

Rowe walks me to the door, and I keep my
hands in my pockets, not able to look her directly in the eyes,
because every time I do, I feel like I should be kissing her. But
she’s made it clear that I can’t—at least not today. I’m pretty
sure I’ll keep trying though.

Rowe

“I blame you,” I say to Cass, who is sitting
on the edge of Paige’s bed, directing me into the closet to try on
a few of her outfits.

“Blame me for what? No, I hate that one. Go
try the blue one,” she says, shoving an orange sundress in my arms,
and turning me back to face the closet.

“For
this.
For me having to go to a
football game and meet parents.” I can hear her laughing behind the
door. Every dress I try on looks like I’m trying too hard. And
nothing covers me quite enough.

“This one looks ridiculous,” I say, as I open
the door. Cass studies me for a minute, and then nods in
agreement.

“Something’s not right. Why don’t you just
wear jeans and a shirt, like you always do?” I know she doesn’t
mean for that to sound the way it does, but what she says sort of
gets my own point across.
Jeans…
like I
always
wear.
I’m so tired of it all. Tired of wearing the same clothes that have
been in my closet since I was a sophomore. Time stood still the day
that gunman came into everyone’s life, and my clock never started
ticking again.

Letting my shoulders frump to my sides, I
sigh, and slouch down on the bed next to Cass. “I’m not good at
this,” I say.

“What do you mean? Paige would
kill
to
be the one to get Nate’s attention,” she says, just as Paige walks
in, and my gut twists wondering what she heard and what she’s going
to say.

“Paige would kill for what? For you two
chickadees to get your asses off my bed?” I stand immediately,
smoothing out the wrinkle left behind on her bedspread. But Cass
lies down, spreading her arms to the side, wallowing. She actually
wallows
.

“Your bed is always so much more comfortable
than mine,” she says, rolling to one side and smelling Paige’s
comforter. “And your sheets are softer. What the hell?”

“Mom and Dad like me better,” Paige says,
sticking her tongue out. Normally, I would think someone was
kidding when they did that, but for some reason when Paige does it,
she seems serious.

“Sure they do,” Cass says, rolling her eyes
while she lifts herself back to sitting. She keeps her eyes on her
sister, watching her touch-up her makeup, until finally Paige can’t
stand her attention any longer.

“What?” she says, twisting to face her sister
with her hands on her hips.

“Rowe, I’m afraid we’re going to need her
help,” Cass says, looking at me.
Oh god no!

“My help with what?” Paige asks, turning her
attention back to her own reflection.

“First, you have to promise me you’re not
going to get pissed,” Cass says, and I feel like I’m watching the
world’s most cautious tennis match. And I’m the ball.

Paige puts the lid back on her lip-gloss and
slides her lips together, puckering closely to the mirror while her
eyes move to look at Cass in the reflection. “Pretty sure I can’t
promise that. Just a hunch,” she says, holding her sister’s gaze
and gripping the edge of the sink.

“Nate invited Rowe to come to the game with
me and Ty tonight…to meet their parents. She doesn’t have anything
nice to wear, and I’m not good at makeovers, so we’ve pretty much
just been flailing in our attempts for the last two hours, and we
have to leave in like thirty minutes,” Cass says, letting out an
exhausted sigh when she’s done.

Paige doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t even
blink. But her eyes slowly move from Cass to me in the mirror. I
let her study me, lifting my shoulders into a tiny shrug and
sucking my top lip in against my teeth. Paige and I are worlds
apart, and I can’t say I’ve warmed to her. But I wasn’t trying to
win some contest over Nate. I can’t even
truly
be with
him.

The longer she looks at me, the more
uncomfortable I get, and I keep waiting for Cass to break the
silence. But she doesn’t. Finally, after seconds that felt like
minutes, Paige pushes back from the sink and spins around.

“Stand up,” she says, her chin in her hand.
“Jewel tones. You’re definitely jewel tones.”

She spins around, and starts thumbing through
the overstuffed hangers on her side of the closet. I look at Cass
when she does and mouth “Jewel tones?” Cass just shrugs and nods
toward Paige, telling me to pay attention. “She’s good at this,”
she whispers.

“How do you feel about jumpers?” She’s
holding up a one-piece cotton…
thing…
that is like a tank top
and shorts sewn together. I scrunch my nose at it, and she drops
her posture with a heavy sigh. “Fine. No jumpers.”

She works through several more hangers, but I
notice there’s one she keeps coming back to. Finally, she just
stops and looks down, her hand on a deep-blue cotton dress. “Come
here,” she orders, so I slide my feet toward her. “Turn,” she says,
flipping me so I’m now facing Cass, my back to her.

If I weren’t so shell-shocked from her
helping me, I might have seen it coming. But without warning, Paige
unzips the back of the dress I’m wearing, and the garment falls to
the floor. My mother, my doctor and the surgeons who fixed me are
the only ones who have ever seen my scars. Cass and Paige are both
seeing them now. They’re too big to conceal—running from my hip, up
to my right ribcage: deep divots, where bullet fragments penetrated
my skin and lodged themselves into my body, and cuts where
emergency surgeons had to go in and remove them. I can’t bring
myself to look Cass in the eyes, and their silence is making me
start to shake.

“Here,” Paige says, turning me to face her
head on. My eyes are glued open, wide, as I turn; when I finally
square myself with her, I’m expecting to see the disgust and
judgment on her face. Paige is, perhaps, the
last
person I
would ever want to see this. I try to keep my gaze focused on the
clothes beyond her shoulder when I face her, but she reaches her
hand up to my chin and tilts my eyes to meet hers.

“This…” she swallows hard, and then her lips
curl into a soft, tight smile—her eyes sympathetic, and, for the
first time since I’ve met her, real, “this is my favorite dress.
It’s long enough that you can sit at a game and not have to worry,
but it will show off your shoulders and really accentuate your legs
and the color of your eyes. Arms up.”

She slides the dress along my arms and over
my head, pulling the draping of the skirt down quickly over my
scars without ever once mentioning them. There are a few small
snaps along the back, and she pushes them in place before she
reaches her hands into my hair and starts to gather the waves into
her hands. She moves me closer to the mirror as she does this, and
then she meets my eyes. “You should wear your hair up. Like this.
It’s pretty,” she says, giving me a quiet but reassuring face. I’m
unable to stop my eyes from watering, so I wipe the palm of my hand
up both cheeks and sniffle.

“Thanks,” I say, and she reaches for my hand
with her free one, squeezing it once before letting go.

Chapter
13

Nate

“Yeah Mom, we’ll just meet you there. You’re
already parked. It would take you and Dad a long time to walk over
here…Okay, love you.” My parents wanted to come see our room, but
it’s still pink. In fact, Ty and I decided just to leave it
pink—and, just to show Cass and Rowe how much it
doesn’t
bother us, Ty went to the Target in the city and bought Barbie
comforters and pillows for our beds.

I am actually nervous about tonight…and Rowe.
I can’t help but feel like maybe I bullied Rowe into going to the
game tonight. Ty won’t let me talk about it anymore though. He says
I’m turning into a girl, and I kinda am.

September in Oklahoma is strange. It’s pretty
damn hot all day—and then at night, it’s super cold. I’m usually
okay with being cold, so I keep my shorts on with the black
long-sleeved shirt Rowe wore the other night. It smells like her,
and I may never wash it again. Fuck, I am a girl.

We’re walking from our end of the hall to
theirs when they walk out their door, and my god…

“Pick up your chin, bro. Your girl is
smokin’,” Ty says, and I just smile because yes, she is. She’s
wearing this blue dress that hugs her body and sways around her
legs when she walks. Her feet are in flip-flops, but her hair is
up, drawing my eyes to her bare shoulders and neck. I want to be a
vampire.

The closer she gets to me, the more she
blushes, and her hands are clinging to the wallet and thin sweater
in her hands. She’s going to get cold later, and I should probably
tell her to grab something a little warmer. But I don’t.
This
is a strategic move on my part.

“Hi,” she says, almost a whisper, her eyes
looking down. My heart is pounding so loudly—I’m convinced everyone
around me can hear it. Rowe and I haven’t talked much since the
night on the ball field, and it feels like we’re starting over a
bit. I want to hold her hand in the elevator, so I make it my
challenge.

We step in, and Ty pulls Cass down on his
lap; Rowe smiles when she watches the two of them. I wonder where
Cass has been my brother’s whole life, because watching them just
seems right. They’ve been dating for three weeks, but it feels like
Cass has been a fixture with him for forever.

As the door closes, I slide my hand along the
bar in the back until it bumps into Rowe’s, and when she doesn’t
move away, I loop my pinky in with hers. Sparing a glance at her, I
see her lip twitch into a faint smile. That’s a relief, because I’m
not letting go now until I have to.

Rowe and Cass look more like sisters than
Cass and Paige. Both are wearing their hair pulled high on their
heads, and even though they’re both in dresses, they look like they
just rolled in from the beach. “You look pretty,” I say, leaning
closer to Rowe as we walk through the main lobby, and I take
advantage of my nearness by threading my next finger through
hers.

“You’re not going to believe this, but this
is Paige’s dress,” she says, grinning and pulling up the side of
the dress to hold it out a little.

“Wow. I didn’t think she had anything without
bling.”

“I can’t believe you know what bling is,”
Rowe says, smirking at me and raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, you haven’t seen what Ty and I have done
to the place. We’ve gone full
bling,
” I say, making her
laugh. I love it when she laughs—even her teeth are freakin’ hot. I
bet she had braces growing up.

“Full bling, huh? I’m gonna need to see
this,” she says, and I tuck that to the back of my mind for later,
reminding myself that Rowe wants to see my room.

Other than the fact that their sons have
decided to come to this school, my parents have no association with
McConnell whatsoever, But looking at their tailgate set-up as we
walk up—and the crowd that’s hanging out with them—you would think
they were alumni super-boosters with buildings named after
them.

“What is all this?” I ask, tugging on the
McConnell fold-up chairs, sitting under the McConnell canopy, and
next to the McConnell plates and napkins.