He cursed under his breath. It wasn’t the curse that caught my attention, but the way he said it the moment the entire class turned around to gawk at him. I sensed his uncomfortableness in the strangest way. I could physically see him shrink, which was a feat considering he was the tallest boy in class. His black hair was messy, and he ran a hand through it, something he probably did a million times a day without even realizing it.
He opened his mouth, but I beat him to it. “It’s my fault. I asked him to stop by my locker on the way here, and he was just being a good husband. It’s totally my fault.” I beamed at her.
I was well aware of how far a smile could get you. Miss Barter lasted approximately five seconds before she succumbed, giving me one of her own. “Well, okay, but being late isn’t something I tolerate. Next time you’ll need a tardy slip.” She fixed him with a stare, no smile, before returning to taking roll.
Everyone’s eyes shifted to me and then back to the front of the room. The moment no one was looking at him, Bishop sagged, letting out a heavy breath of air and running his hand through his thick, black hair again.
“Thank you,” he muttered after Miss Barter instructed us to get to work. He started pulling out his notebook and one number two pencil.
I was taken aback not by the apology, but the sincerity in it. “You owe me.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, reaching into his backpack and pulling out a pack of Skittles. He handed them to me. “These are cheaper than roses.”
I felt my lips rise and I took the pack in my hand, smoothing it out. “Are these the ones you bought at the library yesterday?”
He looked at me, a good seven inches taller. His brows were raised in surprise, probably because I’d mentioned that I remembered him. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
I didn’t know why I loved them so much. Maybe it was the same intuition that made me perfectly sure that he detested being the center of attention earlier. But he’d done something nice and hardly anyone did anymore. “Thank you, Bishop. Share them with me?”
He shot me a relieved look. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
I laughed a little and tore it open long ways, setting them between us. I took a handful and then picked up my lead pencil. Sensing eyes on me, I looked up to find Henny glaring at me. Laurie was rubbing her temples again. She pointed at her cell in her pocket and then to Bishop.
I sighed, taking the hint. “Can you do me a favor and text my friend back?”
He chewed on his candy, bent over his notebook. “No.”
“Why?” The way he said it was so unusual. A straight up no. No negotiation.
He peered at me, blue eyes startlingly glassy and deep. “She doesn’t actually like me. She doesn’t know me. If she spent five minutes with me, she’d determine what you already have.”
“Which is what?” Why was he so sad today? I could feel his negativity. I also had to wonder when the heck I became so sensitive to someone else’s emotions. I guessed it had to do with the fact that I didn’t typically hang out with people who were this broody.
“That I’m not worth her time.” He turned back to his work.
Ouch. Okay, I deserved that. I shouldn’t have been so short with him yesterday. “She’s a pretty good judge of character. Why don’t you give her a shot? She could end up being the love of your life.”
He laughed without humor and nudged the candy toward me. “Eat them before I do.”
I assumed that was the end of that. I didn’t want to push him. I took a handful more of candy. “How are we going to open our paper?”
He read me a few lines of our introduction and I was taken aback by how eloquent he’d introduced the opening of our paper. “I like that.”
“You sound surprised,” he muttered bitterly.
I didn’t take the bait. “Let’s add a few lines at the end that bridge the next paragraph. Something about how emotions alter our budget.”
He did, reading it back to me. Again, it sounded good. The hardest part of this project would be the paper. The chart and graph of money would be more technical. The paper was where we involved the emotional aspect of budgeting a new marriage. I started working on that, groaning. “Man, love is expensive.”
“Do you really need a date night every week?” He jabbed at my projections with a large calloused hand, which were drastically different to his.
His were simple. Food. Bills. Wi-Fi.
“Yes. So we don’t lose our spark.” I refused to budge. “Do you really need to eat out three days a week?”
He glared at his list. “I need to eat, and we can’t cook.”
“We could learn.”
“The threat of tossing it in the garbage negates saving money. Cheaper to just make the leap and order pizza.”
“If you think about it, buying a few cooking classes would be expensive at first, but in the long run they’d save us money.” I snapped my fingers. “That’s a good way to bridge the gap between points. Thinking ahead.”
He stared at his notebook for a long time. The put-out look on his face was so funny, I held it in for as long as I could before I lost it.
“Bishop,” I giggled. “Relax. You’d think you’d be a bigger team player, since you know, play for a team.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, “you’d think that.”
I gave him the rest of my candy. “Think about it?”
He nodded reluctantly, writing cooking classes down. When the bell rang, we hadn’t gotten much done. Between bickering and convincing him to go my way—which I thought was the real lesson at this marriage thing—we’d squandered the entire hour.
“We need to work on this outside of school. Will you be at the library tonight?”
He shoved his things in his worn black backpack and got to his feet. “After practice.”
“I’ll be there, too.”
“Alone?” he checked, pausing to look over his shoulder at me.
He didn’t like my friends, obviously. Something about that irked me. My friends were awesome. But we only had to work together for a short while. I’d bite it until then. “Sure, if that’s the way you want it.”
He didn’t say anything else to me, ducking out of the classroom before anyone else. I brushed him from my forefront and met my friends, walking them to class before heading to the drama building. We were starting rehearsals today. This particular play wouldn’t be performed for anyone but Mr. Sherskey. Depending on how well we pleased him, this would determine whether we’d get lead roles or curtain duty.
I shuddered as I remembered the great curtain duty of freshman year after I’d fumbled my lines during a performance of Sense and Sensibility. My arms were still sore.
My ego, too.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bishop
My head was fuzzy with hunger.
We’d worked out in practice for over two hours. I shook the feeling off, craving loads and loads of protein. I started envisioning grilled chicken, steak, and shrimp. My stomach growled so loud, I turned the radio on in my car to drown it out. I scratched at my eyes, the cold seeping in through my windows making my wet hair from the shower feel like ice.
I drove past the library before I remembered I was actually supposed to stop there. I regretted buying those Skittles for Ava. I regretted giving them to her. I regretted not pocketing them for right now. Better yet, I regretted giving all the cookies to Zara. I was so hungry, I knew I’d have to do something. I couldn’t train on an empty stomach. I had to be fed or the hunger affected my muscles and performance.
By the time I dragged my things in the library and upstairs to the reading room, it was almost six-thirty. I focused for a moment, trying to see if Ava was even there yet. We never discussed a time and I hadn’t even realized how dumb that was until I stood there coming up empty.
I found my phone, almost drained, in my backpack to see ten texts. Nine from a number I didn’t know but assumed was Ava’s friend, and then one that was actually from her.
I rubbed the hunger headache pounding in the back of my skull and wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not. I should be. Not having to put up with her incessant talking would be a pro, but at the same time, her talking wasn’t as hard to deal with as everyone else’s. She was easy to talk to. Or at least not as hard to talk to as everyone else was.
Sighing, I texted back, grabbing an empty table where I normally sat.
Me: Everything okay?
I didn’t expect a text back. We weren’t friends. Her life wasn’t my business and I wasn’t even sure I cared. But she’d texted back before I could even pull out my homework.
Ava: Define okay.
The polite thing to do would be to ask what was wrong, but if I did that, then she’d keep texting. And if I detested talking, I detested texting ten times more. It was like admitting I sucked at life and compromising. I set my phone down without replying and started on my human anatomy and physiology homework. My phone buzzed a few minutes later.
Ava: You’re the worst husband ever. Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong? I wasn’t fishing for your concern. I didn’t even want it. But—
“But?” I repeated, wondering why she hadn’t finished but sent it anyway. Her jab was falling on deaf ears. She didn’t care if I cared but wanted me to care anyway? How was that possible?
I gritted my teeth and texted back.
Me: What’s wrong?
She texted back less than a second later.
Ava: Wow, Bishop. Your concern is melting my heart.
Me: I’m too hungry to play this game with you. Tell me what’s wrong or I’m turning my phone off.
Ava: Don’t threaten me, you Neanderthal.
I glared at her response. She was insane. I was so irritated, I didn’t even think before I hit her contact and pressed call. Half-way through the second ring, I realized what I was doing and removed the phone from my ear to end the call, but of course, Ava picked that precise time to answer.
Neither one of us said anything. I could hear her breathing on the other end. It was labored and soggy sounding, like she was crying, or she’d been crying.
I sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand down my face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” she said, like she wasn’t the one with the problem.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Something’s going on in my life that I can’t tell my friends about. So, you’re my emotional punching bag. Is that such a hard concept to understand? We are married after all. Are you even wearing your ring?”
I looked down, cringing. “Of course, I am.”
She blew out a small laugh. “Liar.”
“Fine, it’s still in my locker. I’ll get it tomorrow.”
She was quiet again. And I figured she was in a bad mood if she wanted to talk to me.
“Um, so… what’s going on in your life that you can tell me, but not your friends?”
“The truth,” she mumbled sadly. “You ever stop and think, wow, I might not know my parents as much as I thought I did?”
“No.”
“No? Oh. Well, then you’re lucky.”
“No, Ava, I don’t stop and think that because I never met mine.” I barely remembered a grandmother, but I’d been in foster care since I was a toddler, so I wasn’t sure I didn’t make her up.
She paused. “Really? Where are they?”
“I don’t know.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I never went backward with my memories. Never. “What’d your parents do?”
“They asked me to come home after school so we could talk.”
I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth.
“Yeah,” she said. “Exactly.”
“What’d they tell you?”
“You have to keep in mind that to them, I’m still a naïve child.”
“Got it. You’re a dumb kid.” The point, any time would be nice…
“So, things haven’t been good between them for a while. I’m not supposed to know that part. No one is, so please don’t tell anyone.” She waited.
“Ava. Who am I going to tell?”
“Right,” she said, seeming to realize I barely opened my mouth. “Anyway, my dad told me he was going to take some time apart from my mom. To clear his head.”
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. Her breathing was slightly heavier. “You mean they’re getting a divorce?”
She sighed. “Is that what they’re not saying? I mean, I can hear it in their words, but I don’t know, it just seems so messed up. Like, try a little harder. What’s the point in getting married if you’re just going to quit when things are crappy?”
For some reason, her question made me smile. Not because it was funny. It wasn’t. But she was so normal. I wasn’t the kind of person who asked for advice. I’d never had my life together, but I guess that was why she’d told me. I wouldn’t hold it against her. It made me wonder if her bubbly act was in fact just an act. If there was a real, normal girl under the perfect smiles and blasé attitude.
“Why are they separating?” She told me about how her mom tried forever to get pregnant, and then they suffered a loss of the baby and her dad put all the blame on her mom. It was a dynamic I wasn’t used to and did not understand. At all. But she seemed so sad. Confused. She wasn’t used to being let down. Something about that made my chest hurt the same way it had this morning with Zara. I didn’t like it. I tried to think of something to say but all that came to mind was: “That sucks.”
I cringed. Loser.
She let out a breathy chuckle. “Yeah, it does.” There was a rustling sound on the other end and then a chomping noise.
I listened intently to her. “Are you eating something?”
“Yeah…”
“What?”
“Popcorn… why?”
“I’m hungry,” I whispered, like it was a huge embarrassing secret.
Because it was.
Only, Ava didn’t know that. She giggled. “Hey, do you want to come over? My mom’s at her sister’s and my dad already bailed. She won’t be back for a while, knowing her, and knowing him, who knows. We have lots of food…” she tempted. “And we could work on our assignment.”
I felt, for some stupid reason, that if I said no, she’d feel it. She was being ignored by two people she obviously loved. So, as much as I wanted to tell her I’d rather not go to her place, I didn’t. Plus, I needed to eat. “Text me your address.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Thank you, Bishop. I could really use the company. As pathetic as that sounds.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She laughed. “See you soon?”
“Yeah, sure.” I hung up, not giving myself time to think. My phone dinged with a text and I plugged her address into my maps app. She lived in the middle area of town. Her house was on a street with a dozen others that looked just like it. Homey and frankly, for me, unattainable. I wanted a house like it one day, though.
I parked in the street and dragged my backpack after me, knocking on her front door with a heavy fist.
“Coming!” I heard her holler.
Half a minute later, the door opened. Ava smiled shyly at me, wearing a blue and gray shirt from gym class and black yoga pants. Her blonde hair was in a twisted bun and her eyes were also puffy and pink, like she’d been crying but not for a while. One thing was for sure, she looked nothing like the girl at school. That girl was put-together and shining. Like a star in the middle of her own galaxy.
It looked like her galaxy had imploded and she was desperately seeking a new sun to orbit.
“Isn’t this weird?” She gave me a crazed smile that made me smirk.
“It’s a little weird,” I agreed. “Want me to leave?”
Her crazed smile exploded. “No!” s
he bellowed. “No,” she said calmer. “Get in here.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. “But take your shoes off. Mom may be losing it, I’m not.”
I slid my Converse’s off by her door and took her house in. Family pictures of a woman who looked like her and a guy who didn’t look like the kind of man she was saying he was. One look at her house and I realized why she was keeping her life a secret. She probably needed the pretense more than everyone else.
She took my hand and pulled me after her. I didn’t hold her hand back. In fact, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her crossing boundaries without care. She was either lonelier than me or didn’t realize it yet. Her hand was warm, and her fingers were strong, even with my own hanging limply in hers. She didn’t let my hand go until we were in her kitchen.
“Still hungry?” She opened the fridge. “I could make us some sandwiches. We have roasted chicken and stuff.”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“Everything. Lots of chicken. You know, since you made me drive all the way over here.”
She made a face. “Sorry.”
As soon as I said that, I realized how insensitive what I’d said sounded. My head lolled back, and I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. “Ava, I didn’t mean it like that, okay?”
She nodded, not saying anything more as she dumped things on the island counter and reached over to grab a loaf of white bread. She looked so small and beaten down. I hurt her feelings, but all I cared about was the sandwich. My stomach growled disgustingly loud and she looked over at it in shock.
“Was that your stomach or do you have a demon hidden in your hoodie?”
The heat of mortification spread through me. I tried to laugh it off. “There goes my cover.”
She gave my lame joke an eye roll and grabbed another stack of bread. “I’d better make you two.”
“Or three,” I mumbled. “Since you’re already there.”
She made me three roasted chicken sandwiches stacked high with pickles, cheese, and mayonnaise. I felt… thankful. So thankful. I wouldn’t have lasted until lunch time tomorrow. But I also felt like a raging loser. She handed me the plate with a proud smile. “If my acting career never takes off, there’s always Subway.”
The Rarity of Falling Page 3