The Rarity of Falling

by Leeann M. Shane

  He took his time thinking his answer through. I could tell that he was having a hard time. His brows drew down and he squinted into the distance of his future. And he didn’t like what he saw. Or didn’t see.

  “A pro hockey player,” he finally answered.

  “You really enjoy hockey.”

  “I do,” he replied slowly, like his talking battery was draining. “You done?”

  “Uh, no. You have to ask me about my day now.”

  He grumbled under his breath. “You’re needy.”

  “So, indulge me. Please,” I begged, my voice wobbling because I just wanted someone to ask me that question and be able to give them an honest answer for once. If it were anyone else, I would have been too embarrassed to ever look at them again.

  But it wasn’t anyone else.

  It was Bishop.

  “How was your day, Ava?”

  “Lonely.”

  He blinked at the road. “Is it still?”

  “No.” It felt good to tell the truth.

  “Your night won’t be lonely. Know why?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to be there. Saying nothing and hating every second of it,” he added, making me giggle because he wasn’t kidding.

  He didn’t have time to kid.

  Not like everyone else in my life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bishop

  Ava was extra talkative tonight.

  If it weren’t for the constant rim of sadness tainting her honey brown eyes, I would have left as soon as we got to her place. She’d ran upstairs to change into comfortable clothes and put her hair up, and then she came back down, as I stood there awkwardly waiting for her, listening to her feet on the second story.

  She ran down the stairs and leapt off the second step, landing on her bare feet, and looked at me with a proud grin. “Top that.” She waved me on. “Let’s raid the kitchen.”

  I learned something about myself tonight. I had patience. Lots and lots of it. I followed her, my stomach cramping with hunger. Lunch hadn’t been enough, and practice had taken me to the edge. I didn’t want to think about what it would feel like trying to sleep all night without Ava helping me.

  “Help yourself,” she said, studying the inside of her pantry with a contemplative look on her face.

  She was trying so hard to be nonchalant about food and me, it was almost endearing. I opened her fridge, my eyes taking it apart in seconds. Eggs, cheese, milk, yogurt, condiments, vegetables, soda, and half a chocolate cake. I could eat it all and still be hungry.

  “See anything you like?” she called from inside the pantry.

  Was that a trick question? I grabbed a Greek yogurt. “Spoons?”

  “In the drawer by the stove.”

  I pulled it out and grabbed a spoon, ripping the foil lid off and tossing it in the trash. In two and a half bites, I was done with it, tossing that in the trash, too.

  Ava poked her head out of the pantry. “Where’d it go?”

  I looked at my stomach.

  She giggled, coming out with a box of cereal. Name brand cereal. Unopened. “Bowls are above the toaster.”

  I got two down and she got the milk. I joined her at the kitchen counter. First, she poured herself a dainty little bowl of apple-cinnamon cereal. I poured myself a bowl just as dainty. But only for show. I took a bite and she took a bite, and then I said forget it, and shoveled the entire bowl into my mouth in four bites. I poured another bowl as she got up. I watched her as I shoveled cereal into my mouth. She cracked half a dozen of eggs into a bowl and cooked them in butter.

  It was weird, but all those eggs and butter turned me on.

  I was so thankful, I left her a bite.

  She rolled her eyes when I offered it to her. “No, thanks.”

  When I was done, I felt better. Hunger clouded my mind. It made me positive it would always be that way. Starving inside.

  “Who do you live with?” her soft voice asked.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” I mumbled, high off my full stomach and not thinking clearly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because once you know, you’ll know.”

  “I want to know.”

  “Why?” I demanded bitterly. “So you can understand why I’m a bitter, starving loser better?”

  She flinched, like I’d been the one to call her that and not myself.

  “Don’t say that,” she shot back. “Of course, I want to understand you better. We’re friends.”

  She was naïve. Too sweet, too naïve, and too good. I should run away from her. Girls like that deserved so much a guy like me could never live up to.

  She touched my arm, her delicate fingers wrapping around my wrist. “Who do you live with?”

  Her nails were painted a soft peach color and her pinky finger was chipped. Her fake marriage ring glittered in the kitchen. “I have a foster family. For now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “When I turn eighteen at the end of December, they’ll kick me out.”

  “Where will you go?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.” Truth was, I didn’t know. I didn’t know where I’d go, all I knew was that hockey would suffer. “Now you know.” I didn’t look away from her hand. “You want me to leave?”

  Her grip tightened on my wrist. “No, Bishop. Gosh. I’m not going to push you out because you told me the truth. What kind of friend do you think I am?”

  A good one, I didn’t say. I cut my eyes to hers. Which, as I suspected, were glimmering. I didn’t have to deal with that. I pushed away from the counter, but she anticipated my reaction, tugging on my arm and pointing her finger at me. “Sit back down right now, or I’ll put you in a headlock and rip your eyes out.”

  I didn’t mention that achieving both of those at the same time was highly improbable. Something told me she wouldn’t like that. I sat back down and pried her touch off. “Offer me a piece of that cake in there.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Cake,” I grunted.

  She sighed, giving my shoulder a squeeze, and finally, giving me cake. “You’re bottomless.”

  I waited for her to come to her senses. For her to kick me out and forget about me.

  “You want to study in my room? It’s too…” She looked around her house. “Lonely down here.”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  I grabbed my backpack and followed her upstairs. Along the wall tracing the staircase were more family pictures. There was one in particular that made me stop. Ava had to be no more than five in the picture and there was a swimming pool in the background. She had her blonde hair in pigtails. Her dad was holding her up, at least I assumed it was her dad. She had a huge, toothy smile on her face. So innocent. Her dad looked at her like she was everything.

  When she spotted me looking at that picture, her face fell.

  That’s what she probably wanted. Someone to look at her like she was their everything. Humans needed to matter. To their self, but mostly, we needed to matter to others as much as they mattered to us.

  She took my hand and tugged. “Let’s go.”

  Her bedroom wasn’t entirely how I suspected it to be, but it was still somehow her. White walls, tea lights strung up from her roof, a desk, a little corner with a small sofa beside a mini library. Her bed was against the same wall as the door and huge, overflowing with white blankets and sheets.

  And it smelled like she’d dunked the entire room in peaches and vanilla.

  I took a deep breath and held it in.

  She put her backpack on her bed and then grabbed a laptop off her desk, plopping down on her bed. “I typed up my rough draft last night. Want to do it too and then we can compare?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” She patted her bed. “Come sit down.”

  I did, entirely uncomfortable in her room. In her space. Her rough draft looked a
lot like mine. Eh. We hadn’t worked together enough for both papers to be congruent. I mentioned that and then we worked together for the first time, no arguing, no bickering, coming away with a solid rough draft.

  Our grades were one thing we did have in common.

  I needed mine to stay good and she wanted hers to.

  She smiled after she was done reading it. “I like it.” And then she checked the time. Her eyes bugged out of her head. “It’s already ten? When did that happen?”

  “Somewhere between the first paragraph and the last?”

  She ignored my joke. Which was well enough.

  “I guess that means you have to go home, doesn’t it?” She peered over at me, eyes uncharacteristically wide, bottom lip jutted out.

  “I can’t stay here,” I needlessly reminded her.

  She closed her laptop. “Bishop, I’m just going to come out and say this. I don’t want to sleep alone. Now if you were any sort of friend, you’d want to stay. Especially since I gave you cake.” She set her laptop down and stood in front of me, hands tangled in front of her.

  She was horrible at manipulation. If she were any other girl and I were any other guy, her invitation would be a bad idea.

  But she wasn’t kidding. She was lonely.

  And she was right. She’d done more for me in the past week than anyone else I’d ever known had.

  “And you hurt my feelings ignoring me,” she added.

  Stabbing me in the heart. “Ava.”

  She blinked at me, losing her cool. “You can sleep on my reading couch. Come on. There are some crazy people out there, Bishop.” She whispered the next part. “Like really insane.”

  I was immediately pissed off at her father and mother for leaving her alone. Even though Ava was being ridiculous, her fears weren’t entirely farfetched.

  “Fine, but on one condition,” I wagered.

  “Anything,” she promised.

  “I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch.”

  She sagged for a moment and then perked right back up. “Good thinking. Cut them off at the stairs. I’ll go get you a pillow and blanket.” She ran out of the room.

  “Cut who off?” I mumbled, shaking my head as I followed her downstairs.

  She fluffed my pillow and laid out my blanket, giving me a rundown of the house. Where the bathroom was and arming the alarm, but not giving me the code “unless you leave in the middle of the night.” She turned off the lights and then stood on the bottom step, watching me with her lip between her teeth.

  “Night, Bishop.”

  I lay down, exhaustion immediately wearing on me. My sore muscles ached, and my mind was already half-way to sleep. “Goodnight, Ava.”

  As soon as she was gone, my eyes opened.

  I focused on the sounds she made. Her feet moving to what I assumed was the bathroom before going back to her room.

  “I’m leaving my door open!” she shouted from upstairs. “You think that’s a good idea? Could you do me a favor? Scream really loud so I have time to lock my door.”

  I growled under my breath.

  “Bishop?” A second passed. “I’ll take your silence as a yes. Night!”

  Eventually, silence settled, and in the absence of her, it was louder than it usually was. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

  I’d been asleep for quite some time when I was awoken. I could tell by how dark it was and how comfortable my body was that I’d been deep asleep. I tried to find my bearings in the dark, sensing someone was watching me. I spotted movement near my feet and a second later, Ava was standing there with a bat in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She turned it on, so it lit up her face.

  “I think I heard something.”

  “What?” I whispered back.

  “I don’t know. But I heard it.”

  Deciding to humor her, I got to my feet. “Where?”

  “Um, outside.”

  I took her to the front window, nothing. To the patio in the back, nothing. Then there were the side windows in her dad’s office and then near the front door. Nothing.

  “Satisfied? Go back to sleep.” I took the bat from her, pointing at the stairs with it. “Go.”

  “If you slept in my room—”

  “No,” I cut her off.

  “It’s just that—”

  “Ava.”

  “What’s the big deal? It’s not like I’m going to try and seduce you,” she snapped.

  “My reasons for not wanting to sleep in your room have nothing to do with that.”

  “Then why not?”

  “It’s disrespectful,” I snapped back.

  “To whom?”

  “To you.” I set the bat beside the couch. “I’m too tired for this crap.”

  “Laurie and Henny sleep in the bed with me. Are they disrespecting me? We’re friends.”

  Her naivety was startling. And unfortunately, I’d lost my patience. I grabbed my pillow off the couch. “All right, let’s go.”

  “Really?”

  I glowered as I took the stairs. “Yup.”

  “You sound mad. Are you mad?”

  “Nope.”

  She closed her bedroom door and locked it. The clock on her nightstand said it was one in the morning. I threw my pillow onto her bed. “Where do you want me?”

  She bounded onto her bed and burrowed under her covers, patting the space behind her. “Right there.”

  Of course, she did. In the worst place to be. I crawled over her and lay on my side behind her, her back to my chest, but not touching. I rested my head on my pillow.

  And with the scent of peaches in every breath I took, her body heat emanating onto me, and her quick and sudden gentle snoring, I passed out easier than I had in months.

  At exactly seven in the morning, her first alarm went off. She hit the snooze and I rolled away from her. And then the next alarm went off just as I’d gotten back to sleep. My eyes sprang open. Her hand flew out of the covers and hit the snooze button again. I waited for the next alarm.

  “Ava!”

  She blinked tiredly at me. “Sorry, I love hitting the snooze button. Those extra five minutes of sleep are the best.”

  I buried my head in my pillow. She yawned beside me like a bear. Smacked her lips together, and then fell back asleep. Before another alarm could go off, I crawled over her body and turned it off entirely.

  I was still exhausted. If missing a day wouldn’t hurt my grades, I’d crawl right back in bed with her and pass out. But I had revenge to get. I leaned over her sleeping face, my lips pulling up at the sight of her. Her eyes were puffy, and her lips blubbered as she snored. I settled my hands on her shoulders, and then I shook her.

  Her eyes popped open, comically wide with terror as I screamed, “Ava, get up!” in her face.

  She broke out in a tearless sob and rolled away from me and onto her stomach.

  I sat down, reaching over to rub her back. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” came her muffled reply.

  “You mind if I take your car and run home to get ready and then come right back?”

  She shook her head, popping up to peer at me. “You’re so warm.”

  “Warm?”

  She blinked. “You don’t snore.”

  I got up. “I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed her keys off the counter and sped to my foster parent’s place. The shower had no hot water left and there wasn’t a single item of food. I felt guilty when I thought of all I’d eaten last night, but I shoved it down and was almost out the door before I spotted Zara heading out, too.

  “Whose car is that?” she asked softly, no longer afraid of me but still not willing to get close.

  “My friend’s.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yes…” I replied, wondering why she was looking at me like that. “What?”

  She smiled a little. “Nothing.”

  “Did you eat?”

  She nodded, sending a thumb toward her backpack. “They had
turnovers yesterday. You want some?”

  “Nah, you keep them.”

  “Okay.” She took off for the bus stop, backpack full of turnovers.

  When I made it back to Ava’s house, she was just coming down the stairs, showered and dressed. She had on jeans and a red and white flannel shirt that tied in the front. She opened a closet under the stairs and pulled out a black zip-up hoodie, throwing it on.

  “Coffee?” she mumbled.

  She was monotone this morning. “I’ll make it, if you point in the right direction.”

  She immediately obliged, sinking tiredly at a stool and watching me. “A bagel?” she asked when I handed her a cup with creamer I got from the fridge.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I made us both a bagel, slathered them with cream cheese, and then sat beside her. I was on my second half when the front door opened and her mother stumbled in, hungover and shielding her eyes from the light.

  She stopped in the kitchen, looked at us both like we were far too much for her this morning, and then stumbled for the stairs.

  Ava hopped off her stool and refilled her cup. “Be right back.” She took the coffee with her upstairs, coming back empty handed, eyes that same shade of sad again. “Let’s go.”

  I drove to school. She hadn’t made a move for her keys on her way out, so I assumed that meant she wasn’t up for it. She dragged her feet to her car and was quiet the entire drive. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t know how to say what I was thinking. That she was too quiet after she’d been so loud yesterday. And it was strange, but her silence felt unbearably loud. I almost asked her what was wrong a dozen times, but her eyes were low-lidded, and she wrung her fingers together in the front seat, staring numbly out her window.

  When we got to school, I refrained from asking if I could hitch another ride to practice. I wasn’t her problem, but I did walk beside her all the way to her class. Right before she went inside, she glanced up, seeming to remember I was there. She gave me a small smile and then reached out to touch my wrist.

  Her fingertips kissed my pulse, gently rubbed me there twice, and then dropped her hand before going inside.

  I barely made it to my class just as the late bell rang, sliding into my seat seconds before the teacher turned around. Slipping into a stupor of my own, I absorbed the teacher’s lessons, ignoring the way Ava’s friend kept sneaking glances at me. She wasn’t giving me googly eyes, so I assumed she was trying to get my attention for a different reason. I glanced at her two seats up and to the right of me.