The Rarity of Falling

by Leeann M. Shane

  My thank you got lodged in my throat at her joke and I laughed breathlessly. “We’ll see.” I grabbed one and inhaled half of it in one bite.

  She watched me, honey brown eyes wide, like a kid watching a shark during feeding time at the zoo. You’re terrified, but you can’t look away. “Wowwwwww,” she muttered, stretching the word out.

  In two bites, I was one sandwich down. Her response, however, was so comical, I choked on my laugh. I tried to cough, but I couldn’t. Panic set in.

  She jumped into action. “Are you choking? Oh! Bishop!” She smacked me in my arm and then yelped when I set my plate down and grabbed for my throat. “Come here! I’ll Heimlich you.”

  I couldn’t swallow. The bite was too big. I couldn’t breathe. Fear blasted through me. I clutched at the counter, trying not to pass out. Ava hopped behind me and wrapped her arms around me, sending her joined hands upward in my abdomen. It wasn’t working. My eyes started to blur. She was screaming and shouting, but all I could really hear was my racing heartbeat and the strangled sound my nose was making.

  “Bishop!” she screeched, pushing me so hard into the counter my stomach took the impact.

  On reflex, I doubled over and the bite in my throat exploded out of my mouth and landed squarely in the middle of her island counter top. I sagged against it, breathing laboriously.

  She put her hands on either side of my face, hers streaked with panicked tears and anger. “What were you thinking? Chew your food, you caveman! Are you okay? Can you breathe now?”

  I nodded, still coughing. I pulled free of her grasp and stood up, pulling in a few deep breaths. I was still starving. I grabbed the plate and she grabbed it, too.

  “Drink some water first. Jeez.”

  I choked down a glass of water before she’d let that plate go. “And sit at the table.”

  I plopped down, taking a smaller bite. I could feel her watching me, but I was too hungry and so incredibly mortified I refused to acknowledge what happened. Or almost happened. She glared as she sat down next to me, wiping her eyes.

  “That was so scary.”

  “I’m fine,” I grunted.

  “Yeah, because I saved your freaking life. That’s got to earn me some extra credit for sure.”

  “I’ll be sure to let Miss Barter know.” I took another drink, picking up my last sandwich.

  When I’d finished, she slid her untouched plate over to me. I took it, wolfing that down. Only then, did the hunger ebb. In its place was shame and rage, but I could do nothing with either, so I shoved them down and looked anywhere but at her.

  The moment she changed the subject and didn’t berate me for being a foster kid reject, I promised myself I’d try harder not to be… myself.

  “Let’s go study in the living room,” she suggested after putting the dishes in the sink and wiping the counter down.

  I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck and forced myself to meet her eyes. “Thank you.”

  For some ridiculous reason, my eyes burned. I wanted to go home. I needed to get away from her. But she didn’t look embarrassed.

  Concerned maybe, but she was too nice to say anything.

  She shrugged with one shoulder. “Do my physics homework and maybe I’ll believe you.”

  “Okay.”

  She gave me a disbelieving frown. “No, come on. I was kidding.”

  “No, I want to.” I went to get my backpack where I dropped it by my shoes and joined her in her living room. She sat on the edge of the sofa, still watching me. “Where’s your textbook and what’s your assignment on?”

  She wrestled the book from her backpack and handed it off to me, along with her worksheet. I had taken this course last year. I was good with numbers and science. It was more of a memory game, unlike art and English. Which were more of a chance to interpret, to bend things to your intellect. I wasn’t an intellectual.

  I was barely human.

  Half-way through her worksheet, she slid close to me, resting her chin on my shoulder to peer over it. “You’re really good at that. You’re already a cute jock, you know? You don’t have to be smart, too. Overachiever.”

  I scowled at her worksheet, marking the right answer with a heavy hand. I had every intention of telling her not to do that. Not to pad me with empty compliments so I didn’t know how much of a raging loser she obviously knew I was. But her scent hit me like a truck, and I forgot. She smelled edible. Like peaches, sugar, and vanilla. Peach cobbler. She smelled like a freaking dessert.

  Man, I wanted dessert.

  “What is that?” I turned my head toward her on instinct, inhaling her shoulder and hair. I found the culprit. It was her hair. I leaned closer, inhaling the strands close to my face.

  She was frozen. “Uh, what is what?”

  Realizing I was sniffing her like a dog, I leaned back, wondering if it were possible to entirely annihilate her opinion of me more than once in a day. “Nothing. Here. All done.” I slid her textbook and worksheet onto her lap and sat back, glaring at her television, which was playing on low.

  There was only one TV at my foster parent’s place, and it was almost always claimed by someone. On the rare chance I actually got to watch it, it was hockey games or reruns. I let out the breath I was holding, still thick of peaches and vanilla.

  She tucked her paper in her folder carefully and then peered at me. Our eyes locked. I blinked the horribleness away, but it was still there. The night had taken a nosedive and she wasn’t even mentioning it.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. “If you want, I can talk to Miss Barter. Maybe she’ll rethink us as partners if I tell her what happened tonight.”

  She gaped at me, recovering poorly. “Bishop, shut up.”

  “I almost choked in your kitchen!” I growled.

  She nodded. “I know, I was there. It was an accident. I saved your life. Get over it.”

  “Get over it? Get over embarrassing the ever-loving crap out of myself? How am I supposed to do that, Ava? Huh?”

  “Easy. You just did something even more embarrassing?”

  “What?” I groaned.

  “You totally smelled me. And you liked it enough to go in for a second sniff.” She giggled, biting her lip like an imp.

  I tried to get up, but she grabbed for me, pulling on my arm until I sat back down. “I was kidding. Gosh, can’t you take a joke?”

  “No.”

  “Obviously. Look, relax. It’s fine. You’re fine.” She leaned close and met my eyes. “‘kay?” she murmured softly.

  I glared at her. “Let’s do our homework.”

  She sighed but did what I wanted. Let it go. We didn’t work well together, that much was obvious, but during the rare moments that we agreed, we got a little bit done. It was close to nine-thirty by the time she shook her head and tossed everything onto the floor, curling up on the couch. “Let’s watch a movie. My brain hurts.”

  “It’s getting late,” I pointed out needlessly. It was dark out, had been for hours.

  Her face fell. “Oh. Do you have to go home?”

  Her response wasn’t what I expected. She didn’t want to be alone, but what sort of company was I? I could hardly stand my own self. “I don’t have to, but won’t your mom get pissed if I stay late?”

  “A year ago? Sure. She’d ground me for having a boy over when she wasn’t home. Now? Doubt it.”

  At least we’d gotten to the real reason I’d come over. Because she was sad and confused. “Got anymore popcorn?”

  She gave me a small smile. “Extra butter.”

  That sounded good. “All right. One movie and then I’m out of here.”

  Her honey eyes twinkled. “You are literally charming the pants off me.”

  I glanced down at her yoga pants. “Am I supposed to be?”

  She laughed, and I impatiently waited for her laugh to fade. “I’m not sure.” She patted my thigh and then got up. “Popcorn with extra butter coming right up. Do you want a soda, too?”

  Did I
want a soda, too? I snorted.

  She laughed again. “Pick a movie.”

  It was moments like that where my anxiety reared its head. Pick a movie? How? She didn’t like what I liked, which was somewhere between absolutely nothing and sports. I pressed down on the movie app button already on her remote and picked her profile. She’d chosen an image of a smiley face. “Shocker,” I mumbled under my breath, scrolling through the new releases. “Horror?” I called.

  “Sure.”

  “Really?” I’d expected her to say no.

  “Really.”

  The house filled with the scent of butter. She came back a few minutes later with a bowl filled to the top with popcorn and soda. She walked over to the wall and turned the lights off. The living room was immediately drenched in black. “But we have to watch it in the dark. Let me know if you get too afraid.”

  I paused, my hand half-way to my mouth. Was she teasing me? She sank down next to me, tucking her legs underneath her. I half expected her to give up five minutes into the movie after the doll was already leaving notes written in blood on the wall. But she sat there, her side pressed against mine, blindly reaching into the popcorn bowl, her supple lips in a constant O-shape.

  Partway into the movie, I realized I was watching her more than the movie itself. But she kept distracting me. She’d gasp, or jerk, or hide parts of her eyes with her hands, and she screamed twice, bloodcurdling, and then laughed like a crazy person.

  Also, she was eating all my popcorn.

  My eyes started to droop. I relaxed on her couch, stretching out.

  “Isn’t this fun?” she whispered after she was done screaming.

  I nodded, fighting a yawn.

  She slid even closer to me, tucking her feet under my thigh and using my shoulder to hide her eyes. The scent of peaches and sugar wrapped around me. I fought to keep my eyes open, but I lost the battle.

  I was awoken out of nowhere.

  I blinked awake, groaning when the lights burned my eyes. Beside me, Ava was passed out, hands wrapped around my bicep, face pressed to my shoulder. She’d drooled all over me. I glowered at the drool puddle before realizing that if she were sleeping, who turned the lights on?

  I glanced over to find a woman watching us. Her mother. Catching my eyes, she gave me the strangest look. It wasn’t angry or even judgmental. The look in her eyes was exhaustion.

  I grabbed Ava’s knee and shook her. “Wake up.”

  She moaned and snuggled closer. “I like your muscles.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s big.”

  “What’s big?” I asked, finding her sleepy, unthinking words amusing.

  “Your heart,” she whispered.

  Oh brother.

  “Be careful. She’ll tell you about her soul in her sleep if you’re not careful.” Her mother grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over both of us. “You can’t wake her once she falls asleep. It’s almost impossible. Guess you’re stuck here.”

  “What?” I was too tired for the should I, shouldn’t I? game. I knew I should get up, but I was also warm and sleeping with a full stomach was an anomaly I wasn’t used to.

  Her mother waved my words away and walked over to the light switch, blanketing us in the dark once again. “Just sleep. Only sleep,” she added menacingly, but her threat was too weak to be terrifying.

  I sat there, a stranger in a stranger’s house with a stranger curled up against me and another one upstairs. I knew one thing for certain, if I came home and my daughter had a prick like me on the couch, I’d pound his face in. But, I’m not her father, so I slid down lower, using her peach cobbler hair as a pillow.

  Before I fell back asleep, her grip on me tightened and she mumbled, “Oh, Bishop,” in the saddest tone, I could have sworn she’d reached into my own soul and got a glimpse.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ava

  I’d never been more confused in my entire life than I was right now.

  I sat up, blinking rapidly to clear my mind. The sun bled into the living room and I was on the couch. Things had been one way before I slept, and now they were another. I touched the cushions beside me; they were still warm. I smelled like cinnamon and fresh air; Bishop’s scent was all over me. Drool crusted on my cheek.

  There was a blanket over me.

  “Better hurry up. School starts in fifteen minutes.”

  I yelped, whirling around to find my mother drinking coffee behind me. Her eyes were strange. They didn’t look like her eyes anymore.

  I blushed and got up. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t move. “We had the sex talk.”

  I groaned. “We sure did. No need for a second one. I gotta get ready.”

  “How old is he?” she asked coolly.

  “Uh, seventeen, I think.”

  “He doesn’t look seventeen.”

  “I don’t look like someone who drools, and yet I am. Crazy. Gotta go!” I reached the stairs.

  “You’re grounded, you know that, right?”

  I stomped my feet up the stairs. Normally, I’d throw a fit. When my parents grounded me, it wasn’t a joke. No phone, no internet, no friends and enough chores every day to give me a blister. But lately, their idea of grounding was simply saying the words. My mother probably already forgot that I’d broken the worse rule. No boys allowed. And my father didn’t even know.

  They weren’t bad parents. They were there. Always had been. But right now, they had bigger problems, I guessed. I sucked it up and decided to worry about myself. I showered quickly, scrubbing my brown sugar and peach shampoo all over me in my haste to hurry. I shaved my legs and then jumped out, throwing on jeans and a shirt. I balled my wet hair into a bun and then frantically gathered my homework downstairs, blushing hot when I realized that Bishop had put my things back in my backpack.

  I grabbed a banana off the bowl on the counter, and then last night came back to me. My heart hurt all over again. When Bishop had inhaled his food, he hadn’t done it to be greedy. He’d done it because he was hungry. I walked over to the cupboard and then pulled down a box of granola bars. I tossed it all in my bag and then waited for Mom to say goodbye.

  Too late, I remembered she had bigger problems.

  I said goodbye to myself. “Have a good day at school, Ava. Okay, I will. Do you need lunch money? Nope, still good. Okay, be home right after school, you’re grounded. Aww man, this sucks. Your problem. I love you,” I added under my breath, and then ran out to my car.

  I drove as fast as I could without breaking the speed limit. I had one minute to spare before my first class, but I had to do something. I found Henny’s classroom and poked my head in. The teacher hadn’t started yet, and a few people were still trickling in. Henny spotted me and waved, giving me hands that said—

  “What are you doing here?”

  I whirled around at the deep voice. Bishop stood there, face impassive, eyes hard. He looked tired, like sleeping under my drooling carcass hadn’t been as comfortable as I pretended it was. He was wearing a Minnesota Loons hoodie and blue jeans. I pulled the granola bars from my backpack.

  He stared down at them as the late bell rang overhead. His eyes shot to mine. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Judging by his tone, he wished I hadn’t done it. He looked pissed, but I could still see the hungry boy in my kitchen willing to choke for a bite and I didn’t care if people saw. I shoved it against his chest. “I know I didn’t.” I took off, not looking back, but I felt his eyes on me until I rounded the corner.

  I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but after the fourth time, I had no choice. My mind was full of Bishop Manfield. How did that happen? Memories, like tiny movie clips, popped up in my mind. I couldn’t get the image of his blue eyes shimmering with panic as he tried and failed to swallow out of my mind. Nor could I forget what it felt like for him to lean close and glide his nose along my shoulder. I’d played it off at the time because what else could I do?

  It d
idn’t even feel like he’d made the conscious decision to sniff me. It was like he had to.

  Something about that made me squirm in my seat.

  It would help a lot if he weren’t so stupid cute. He’s a broody jerk, but he’s also not, but he’s enough of one to deter these strange thoughts of mine. I’d never had them before. Not just about Bishop, but about any boy.

  I dated because that’s what I was supposed to do. Girls dated boys that asked them. My ex, Josh, and I had been together for six months, but we broke up because I got tired of him trying to stick his hand up my shirt. Just thinking about it pissed me off. When I said no, I meant no, dang it. Get your hand away from me! Boys not responding to the word no made my skin crawl, so I broke up with him, and now he shot me evil looks every time we passed in the halls.

  I didn’t see my friends until lunch time. The moment I saw them saving me a seat at our usual table, last night came back to me. The look on my father’s face when he told me he was taking some time away to “collect himself.” He’d looked heartbroken and angry, the two emotions warring in him. He’d never do the right thing because his anger wouldn’t let him. And then my mother sitting there like a zombie, nodding along. “It’s for the best,” she’d said, like I was two and wouldn’t understand that my family was falling apart.

  I immediately felt unlike myself.

  I didn’t know the me who didn’t have a home.

  I didn’t know the me who didn’t have a family.

  It was so strange to miss something that wasn’t entirely over yet.

  For all I knew, my dad would come home and beg Mom for forgiveness. She would sob and say she still loved him, and I could leave for college knowing I wasn’t leaving her alone and I’d also know that he came back.

  But deep down inside, I could still see the look in Mom’s eyes when Dad blamed her, and I knew there was no coming back from that. I was seventeen, and I’d gotten that long with them together. I needed to get used to the idea of them being divorced, because that’s what it felt like was happening.