What it Takes to Fall

by Ellis, C. R.

  I picked it up and turned it over, eyeing the sticky note attached over the middle of the front. ‘We weren’t sure what to do with this, but couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it away.’

  I peeled the note off and instantly felt my stomach fall to the floor.

  My name, alongside David and Louise’s home address, was written in delicate, feminine handwriting.

  Familiar handwriting.

  Bridgette’s handwriting.

  So many questions swirled in my mind. When was this written? When I was still in Seattle? Why the hell hadn’t Louise or David just given it to me instead of hiding it for an unknown length of time? Do I even want to know what the letter says?

  I was tempted to march straight to the trash without opening it, but I couldn’t do it.

  Instead, I walked to the couch and flipped on the lamp to my left. The wild beating of my heart and a loud ringing in my ears was almost enough to make me reconsider my decision. The mellow light from the lamp illuminated the paper in my hands, and I forced myself to read Bridgette’s words before I came to my senses and set the paper on fire.

  Bryce,

  I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness because I know I don’t deserve it. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself. I know you’ll probably hate me for all of eternity, and I don’t blame you. Just please, please know that I truly didn’t intend to hurt you by not telling you about the pregnancy. I wasn’t in a good place in my life during those months, and I was too scared to call you right after she was born. I’m not ready to be responsible for another human being. I’ve never wanted to have kids; you know that.

  I couldn’t bear the idea of having a daily reminder of how badly I’d screwed my life up. And hers.

  After the doctors explained everything about her condition, I just knew she’d be better off without me. I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from living so recklessly, but I can’t.

  I’m not sure you’ll ever read this letter, or if you’ll even get it. I guess I also don’t know what you decided to do. If you kept her or if you—

  My grip on the paper went from tight to obliterating; I’d officially had enough of Bridgette’s bullshit. The excuses were so fucking typical of her that I wasn’t even surprised. When we were together, she’d constantly find ways to explain away her bad behavior, and it was one of the reasons I finally ended things.

  I wasn’t sure what I'd expected to get from reading her letter, but the only thing I could focus on was how incredibly different Elliot and Bridgette were. I deserved a kick to the nuts for ever entertaining the possibility Elliot could be remotely like Bridgette.

  Bridgette had the gall to even think I’d turn my back on Peyton, that I wouldn’t want her. That her condition would make me consider giving her up. We’d dated for a year, but now I wondered if she ever even knew me at all.

  Elliot had known me for almost twenty years. Even with the gaps in our friendship, she just…got me. She knew me in a way that I couldn’t even fully explain. With her, everything just felt easy and right.

  She knew me well enough to understand that I’d only been trying to look out for her when I told her grandparents about Helen.

  That’s what I was counting on, anyway.

  Elliot’s husky, sleep-filled voice called out and snapped my head up. “Bryce? What are you doing? It’s like, not even five a.m.”

  She rubbed her eyes, and concern filled her features when she got close enough to register my expression.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting next to me on the couch and pulling my hand into hers.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Alarm flashed in her eyes, and she immediately turned toward Peyton’s door. “Is it about Peyton? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine, El. It’s not about Peyton.”

  Her shoulders slumped with relief, and she gave me a sleepy smile. “Oh. Okay, good.”

  “It’s about your mom.”

  “Helen? What about her? I don’t understand.” Her brows pulled down, and her shoulders tensed back up the second her mom’s name left her lips.

  “That night, when you told me about her contacting you…”

  “Yeah?” she prompted, confused.

  “Do you remember that I begged you to consider talking to Millie and George first before meeting up with her? That I thought you’d regret it if you didn’t?”

  “Yeah…” She tucked her feet under her body and crossed her arms. “Bryce, what are you getting at?”

  “I went to their office before my flight the next day. I told them that you were going to meet Helen.”

  “You. Told. Them.” She repeated the words like they were from a foreign language, as if she had no understanding of what I’d said.

  I quickly continued, “I was only trying to help, El. I told them because I was worried you weren’t thinking things through, and I needed to know you wouldn’t have to deal with it on your own once I was gone. I thought they’d talk to you, that you could come to a decision as a family. I had no idea things would fall apart like they did.”

  Elliot sat still, not saying a word. I wasn’t even sure she’d blinked since I started speaking.

  “I’m sorry. I never intended to hurt you. All these years, I thought they'd talked to you, and that you knew I'd gone to them. Until they told me recently that that wasn't the case, I had no idea…God, you have to know I’m so sorry.”

  “For what, exactly?” she snapped abruptly. “For striking the match, then walking away before you saw the way it burned my world to the ground? For being the reason I’ve spent the last five years wondering why Helen didn’t show up, thinking it had to be because she decided I wasn’t worth meeting after all? I spent that entire summer avoiding Nana and Pops because I was so ashamed I hadn’t taken your advice and gone to them first. I thought it was my fault that I ruined their chance for closure too. I couldn’t even tell Sophia because I hated myself for ruining her chance at meeting our mother. And then there was the fact that I had to deal with you waltzing back into my life only to vanish again. I almost convinced myself that I made up that night. That you were just a figment of my imagination, because if you had actually been there, you wouldn’t have just disappeared again. So, again, what exactly are you sorry for? Shattering my world back then, or for not telling me sooner?”

  Fuck.

  As much as this conversation was killing me, I knew I deserved every morsel of the pain slicing through my heart right now. Even so, I would’ve given anything to absorb all the hurt I saw in Elliot’s tear-filled eyes.

  “I’m sorry for all of it, Elliot. For being a part of something that caused you so much pain. For betraying your trust back then. For waiting this long to tell you the truth. I know it doesn’t make things better, but I swear I thought I was doing what was best for you. I thought I was protecting you.”

  “I didn’t need your protection, Bryce! I needed my friend. I trusted you.”

  The words she left unsaid were the loudest ones inside my head—I trusted you, but now I don’t know if I can.

  “El…”

  “I wish I could say your good intention is all that matters, but it’s not.” She shot off the couch and started pacing, swatting angrily at her cheek. “I know you couldn’t have known the domino effect your actions would have. But you know what you could’ve done? Picked up the fucking phone and called me. Checked in to see how everything played out. You could’ve at least attempted to survey the damage your shit-storm caused.”

  “That’s not fair. I thought we both agreed—”

  “Agreed that we sucked at keeping in touch? You’re right, we did. But that was before I knew what you did. I get that you thought you were doing the right thing, but I don’t get how you could just walk away without giving it a second thought.”

  “I was an angry, conflicted twenty-two year old with my own impossible decision to make! I had to choose between following my dreams and causing a giant rift with
my parents or giving up the only thing I’d ever wanted to do with my life to make them happy. It wasn’t exactly a picture perfect summer for me either.”

  The loudest, most painful silence of my life fell over us for a few seconds while she considered what I’d said.

  “What about now?” she asked softly, taking me by surprise.

  “Now?”

  “Five years ago, you made those decisions as an angry twenty-two year old. What about now? If you could go back in time, knowing everything you know now—as a parent, as my…friend. Not as an angry twenty-two year old with his own life-changing decisions to make—would you still have tried to interfere? To protect me?”

  It was a question I’d already asked myself time and time again the last few weeks.

  It was a fair question. A logical one.

  But it was also one that I was pretty sure she wouldn’t like the answer to.

  “If I could go back in time, I’d do a lot of things differently.” I paused and forced my jaw to unclench, knowing there was a chance I was about to put the last nail in the coffin of our relationship. She looked at me expectantly, her blue eyes brimming with cautious optimism. “But knowing what I know now—as a parent and as someone who cares deeply for you—there’s no way I would’ve let you handle that situation on your own. Not telling you what I did was a mistake, but I still wouldn’t have let you go through with it by yourself. I meant what I said back then—sharing DNA doesn’t merit automatic trust. All the best monsters can hide their appetite for destruction until it’s too late.”

  For a second, I could’ve sworn I saw something a lot like understanding in her eyes. But then it was gone, making me think it was just the dim lighting casting a shadow across her pretty face.

  “But, El, there’s more you should know—”

  “I, uh, I have to go.”

  “Elliot, don’t,” I pleaded, not even caring if desperation seeped into my voice. “Don’t go.”

  “I just…I can’t do this, Bryce. I need you to respect that.”

  And just like that, I watched the woman I loved walk out of my house.

  I only hoped she wasn’t walking out of my life too.

  Chapter 22

  Elliot

  My grandparents had always been early risers, but apparently they’d adopted sleeping in as part of their (almost) retired lifestyle. I paced around their kitchen, trying not to fall apart while I waited for them to wake up. I’d always loved this kitchen—the marble countertops, the industrial fridge, the way it always smelled like a bakery. All the memories of cooking together as a family.

  Right now I wanted to bulldoze the entire place.

  The hurt and anger I felt toward Helen was manageable; I’d carried it around for so long now that it was like a second skin. It lived in a compartment all its own, contained by the force of the love I had for my grandparents.

  This pain was different. Like a trojan horse, it snuck in and destroyed me from the inside out. There was no compartment for this hurt, no force capable of reining it in. I couldn’t reconcile my love for them with the sting of betrayal.

  “Elliebelly? What in the world brought you out here this early?” Pops called, crossing the room to come to me. He stopped when he saw my face. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  An angry laugh popped out of my mouth, and I stopped pacing to meet his alarmed stare. “Is there something you and Nana want to tell me? Something you’ve forgotten to mention for, oh, I don’t know, the last five years?”

  Growing up, people would comment on how much I resembled my grandfather, with our matching eyes and identical smiles. I used to think sharing attributes gave me the ability to read him like a book. This moment definitively disproved that notion. I watched his pupils grow and his jaw clench as he took a tentative step in my direction, but I had no idea what emotion it was that I saw on his face. “Elliot, you’ve got to understand something. Back then she was—”

  “My mother!” I wailed, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “She’s my mother, and you had no right to go behind my back. If you and Nana don’t want her in your life, that’s your decision to make. But whether or not I want the same is my decision. I can almost understand if you had reservations about Sophia meeting her at the time, but I was nineteen and perfectly capable of making that decision for myself.”

  “You’re right, Elliot. You deserved more from us,” Nana called, crossing the room until she reached Pops’ side. Her fluid movements starkly juxtaposed with the jagged edges resonating in her voice, and it would’ve riddled me with guilt if not for the armor of anger encasing my heart. “We should’ve been more forthcoming about a lot of things regarding your mother. When you girls first came to live with us, we talked and talked about how to handle the day Helen came back, if she came back. The truth is…”

  My grandparents turned toward each other to share a look, and I folded my arms over my chest, bracing myself for another blow.

  “The truth is,” Pops repeated, turning back to me. “Your mother wanted to see you and Sophia several times over the years. But each time she came to us, she was…on something. Not in her right mind. So that day, when she showed up, we had no reason to believe anything she said. We had no reason to trust her.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re nine or nineteen or thirty-nine, Elliot; your grandfather and I will always do what we think is best for you. That’s all we’ve ever tried to do since the day you came into our lives. It was never our intention to hurt you, and I’m so sorry that we did.”

  In the last five minutes, I was pretty sure Nana had aged a whole decade. Like the full weight of this secret had finally caught up with her.

  “I get that, Nana. I do. But what I need you two and Bryce to understand is that just because your intentions were good does nothing to change how it makes me feel. If there’s a hurricane forming in the middle of the ocean, would you tear your house down just because there’s a possibility you’re in its potential path of destruction? No. You’d keep a close eye on it and wait to make a rational, informed decision. You were so consumed by the possibility that Helen would hurt me that you failed to realize your actions are what caused the most destruction of all.”

  Without waiting for a response, I practically sprinted for the door.

  “Elliot,” Pops called in a tone that conveyed that this conversation wasn’t over.

  I turned to look at them, but kept my hand firmly around the door knob and my feet planted. “I’m going to meet her. I realize you might still think that’s a mistake, but it’s my mistake to make. I know y’all were doing what you thought was best, but this isn’t the kind of thing I can just magically get over. It’s gonna take some time.”

  They both called after me, but I didn’t stop. Not this time.

  I had somewhere else to be.

  * * *

  “Milo, wake up,” I said, leaning down to shake his shoulder for good measure. There was a fair chance he’d just gone to bed a few hours ago, but I didn’t care. The rules of friendship clearly state that it’s perfectly acceptable to wake a friend in times of crisis.

  “What the hell?” he groaned, not even bothering to open his eyes or brush the shaggy brown locks out of his face. “You realize I usually sleep naked, right? You’re lucky I was too tired to finish stripping down last night.” He paused and squinted in the semi-darkness. “Wait. It’s not even light outside. What the fuck?”

  “Milo, get your head out of your ass. This is important. Please.”

  He must’ve heard the panic in my voice because he flipped over and immediately zeroed in on my face. “El, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  It was a fair question since I’d just busted into his room at the crack of dawn like a psycho, but as soon as I opened my mouth to answer, tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t get the words out. Milo scooted into a sitting position and pulled me down to the edge of his bed.

  “Just breathe.”

  “I need to…does your dad still have a
billion frequent flyer miles?”

  “I think so. Why? Oh, shit. Did you kill somebody? Are we about to go on the lam?” he asked with way too much sincerity.

  “Are you high? No! My god, you and Sophia really need to stop watching the Investigation Discovery channel. And who the hell even uses that phrase?”

  “People who were pulled out of a deep sleep. What’s wrong, Elliot?”

  “I’m pulling the best friend card and going to need you to trust me. You’re off work today, right? I am too. I need you to see if your dad can get us on the next flight to Denver. Sophia too.”

  “Okay, now I’m actually concerned. You’re not the impulsive jet-setter type. You know I’m with you in whatever this is, but what the fuck is going on?”

  “It’s Helen. I have to see her, Milo. Today. I had a huge fight with Bryce and with my grandparents about her, and I just…it can’t wait.” My resolution was absolute, but my voice still quivered.

  “Shit,” he muttered, throwing the blanket off and wrapping his arms around me. “Okay. Go wake Sophia up and I’ll call my dad. We’ll get to Denver, El.”

  “Thanks, Mi. I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re my best friend, Elliot. I know ninety percent of our friendship is joking around with each other, but you know I’d do anything for you, right? You and Soph are the sisters I never knew I wanted, and I’ve got your back. Always.”

  “You really are the best, you know that?”

  He gave me a wink and reached for his phone.

  I crossed the hall and stopped outside Sophia’s door, searching my brain for the right words.

  Do the right words even exist to gently tilt someone’s entire world on its axis?

  * * *

  Eight hours later, I stared out the window of the Uber driver’s SUV, studying the sights of Denver as I tried to decipher exactly what emotion gripped my heart. Twenty-four hours ago I would’ve sworn it wasn’t possible to experience this range of emotions in a single day.