The Rarity of Falling

by Leeann M. Shane

  “Can I ask you a few more questions?”

  I shrugged, wishing I’d said no. Her questions were hard. They went so deep, I just let my tears fall, baring my soul.

  She wrote down everything and then when she was all done, she gave me a kind look. “Do you mind if I call your mother in?”

  Uh-oh.

  I started to panic. I felt like I would plummet through the hole in my heart and never escape.

  “Depression?” Mom whispered, blinking at the psychiatrist. “That’s not what they said at the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” Sara repeated, a hitch in her tone.

  Mom explained and that only seemed to bolster her diagnosis.

  “Anxiety and depression are evil cousins. They both need the other to exist and it sounds like for your daughter, they do. It isn’t healthy to feel the way she does. Imagine feeling no control all day and all night, imagine feeling like you have no one to remind you who you are. Imagine what your daughter has felt like not understanding why she feels the way she does? We caught this early. Which is good. Now we need a plan of cognitive therapy and medicine to get it under control, but this may be a lifelong battle for you, Ava.”

  I remembered one winter when we were driving on the highway back home from visiting my dad’s brother for Thanksgiving. It was snowing bad and the roads were icy. Dad was being careful, but we hit a patch of black ice and I remembered the bottom falling out of me, slow motion taking control and grinding time to a halt where I saw everything with clarity as the world turned in circles. That’s how I felt now. Like I had hit a patch of black ice and would never stop spinning. Dad wasn’t there to right it that time, like he had the last.

  I had to right myself.

  I went home and went to bed.

  I think Mom did, too, because she didn’t bug me on Monday when I didn’t get up for school. School felt pointless. Grades, tests, GPA’s—that was a different me ago. I wondered if I had ever cared, or if I’d put so much focus on being perfect to cover up the feelings I felt.

  Like being sad for no good reason while all my friends smiled. I’d smile even bigger to cover the sadness up.

  Or feeling alone even though I never really was. I’d make even more friends to bury the emotion.

  Dating boys I didn’t like because I felt nothing when I was supposed to be like other girls, falling in love.

  I thought that was normal.

  But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t normal to lose my breath in panic and my happiness to the emptiness.

  “Ava, baby, please.” Mom sniffed. “Get up. Take a shower and go eat something. You can’t keep missing so much school,” she said, like that would motivate me.

  I burrowed deeper under my covers and pillow, where it was dark and quiet.

  Maybe it wasn’t right to want the dark and quiet either. But getting up and going into the light would only be me hiding the darkness in my heart, so I just stayed where I was, wondering if I’d ever figure out the right way again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bishop

  I thought it took a lot for me to be different.

  I thought it took a lot for me to smile.

  I thought it took a lot for me to hope.

  I thought it took everything for me to love.

  But I was wrong.

  Those things had been easy. I hadn’t seen it before. Ava made it so easy to want to be different, to smile, to hope, and to… love.

  What I hadn’t anticipated was how hard it would be when she betrayed those things. When she made it a bad thing to be different. When she made it a bad thing to smile. When she made it a bad thing to hope.

  When I did nothing wrong to her and she ignored me. Turned my worry into this incessant monster. Shut me out after she was the only person who let me in. I hadn’t done anything, but she’d acted like I had. And she knew how I worried. She knew how I cared. Yet, she turned her phone off and didn’t come to school and then when she did show up, she was apologizing for the wrong reasons and didn’t even see how wrong it was to push me away.

  Me.

  If she pushed me away now, then she’d keep doing it. I couldn’t deal. For all my reservations, they weren’t real. Not when I was faced with the real reality of her turning her back on me for some arbitrary reason.

  And being forced to live without her.

  “Bishop!” Coach shouted. “Mind on the puck!”

  I growled, my mouthguard crammed between my teeth. “Yes, Coach.”

  It was four days into my suspension. I’d had nothing to think about but every single thing wrong right now, instead of hockey. Each day that went by, I grew angrier. So angry I wasn’t sleeping or eating—which was how I knew my mood was genuinely messed up. I checked Ryles and then Ryles checked me, making my spine tingle with fury. My hand still ached from pounding that prick’s face in the hall, but I didn’t mind the pain. The pain reminded me of why I was angry to begin with and that it was worth it to bash the bastard who touched Ava.

  My anger had been a blank slate before the fight in the hall. The fact that she hadn’t told me he’d made her uncomfortable in the past, pissed me off. The fact that she would even confront a guy alone, who obviously didn’t mind confrontation with a girl, pissed me off further. But the ultimate problem was the fact that I knew we were both unhappy right now, and that nothing could fix this because neither of us had done anything wrong.

  Ava couldn’t help her emotions.

  But I couldn’t help mine.

  And my emotions missed her. So incredibly much it felt like some vital piece of me was missing, and every single day without seeing her made me lose myself further.

  After practice, I showered as fast as I could. I felt Coach bearing down on me, eager to scream some more. When I told him about my suspension, he was livid. The only reason he let me slide was because the reason I’d fought at all.

  “I hope she was worth it,” he’d growled after making me run drills for an extra hour after practice. That night, I’d passed out in my car outside of Ava’s house and every night since.

  I couldn’t sleep, hoping she’d look out her window and take one look at me and save me from myself. She hadn’t called since the day of the fight. Why couldn’t she just trust us? How many times had I promised her I’d be there; how many times had she promised me the same? All to toss it away.

  I sighed miserably and slipped out the back of the locker room. My stomach growled miserably too, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything more than a protein bar I grabbed from the vending machine on the way out of practice. As soon as I was in my car, my phone rang.

  It was Zara.

  I wished it was Ava.

  Just so I could see her name and know she was thinking about me. I didn’t answer her calls because she didn’t want me to. I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I sensed her calling wasn’t about me. It was like screaming into the abyss; she needed to hear herself hope.

  And maybe I needed her to hope, too.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, driving to Ava’s house. The neighbors across the street parked one on the street and the other in the driveway. It made it perfect for me to park with my view on Ava’s window.

  “Whatcha doin?” Zara asked casually.

  “Nothing.”

  “You haven’t stopped by for a couple days,” she said, entirely not casual. There was a faint tremor in her voice.

  I sat up straight. “Is the new guy giving you a hard time?” He was twelve also and Zara didn’t trust him, which meant I didn’t. Girls like Zara didn’t develop that sense because they wanted to. It was a defense mechanism to protect them. It wouldn’t lie to them.

  “Not really, he just thinks it’s funny how scared of him I am.”

  “He there right now?”

  “I think so. He ate all my cereal.” She said the last part really low.

  I hadn’t been picking her up, which meant more likely than not, she hadn’t been eating enough. That prick! “Hey, you wanna go
get burgers?”

  “Yeah!” she whisper-shouted, perking right up.

  Her excitement made me feel even more terrible. “I’ll be there in ten. Wait outside.”

  When I got there, Zara was sitting on the curb on her phone. I put my car in park and marched past her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Stay here,” I ordered when she started to get up. “Get in the car. So help me, Zara, if you come inside, I will not be happy.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded, going to my car. When she was inside, I continued. I opened the front door and jogged up the stairs, both flights of them, to the attic bedroom I’d lived in for so long but in the span of almost two weeks, the place was foreign to me. I kicked the door open to find my old roommate reading a comic book and a new guy. Some skinny twerp with acne all over his chin on my old bed.

  I rushed him, grabbing him up by the collar on his shirt and lifting him clean into the air.

  “What the hell, man!” he screeched, wriggling like a mouse in the claws of a hawk. “Put me down.”

  “Leave Zara alone. If you ever look at her, touch her, or make her feel uncomfortable again, I will come back and break your face, do you hear me?”

  He froze in the air. “Ye—yeah.”

  “She doesn’t exist when you’re in the same room.”

  I waited for his agreement, shaking him hard when he didn’t give it.

  “Okay!” he bellowed. “She doesn’t exist.”

  I tossed him back onto his bed, nodding at my old roommate who was watching the entire exchange with wide, amused eyes.

  Before I left the room, I turned back. The punk flinched into the corner of his bed. “And don’t touch her food again either. You greedy loser.” I slammed my old door shut, running into my foster parents on the way down.

  They were staring up the stairs.

  They didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t say anything to them. There was no love loss. I got into my car and pulled away, wishing I’d decked him at least once. What was it with boys hounding girls? The world would be a much better place if every single man on it realized that girls were meant to be protected, not hurt.

  “He won’t bother you again.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  The serious way she asked it, made me laugh. My negative energy came out with the laugh, and all I was left with was emptiness. “No.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed.

  “Zara.”

  “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t have been upset is all if you had. Can I get two fries? I’m super hungry.”

  I reached across the seat and ruffled her hair. “Sure, kid.”

  After she’d eaten, I dropped her back off with promises to pick her up from school tomorrow.

  Before she got out, she looked at me. Really looked at me. “You’re sad.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “You miss your girlfriend. I can feel how much. Plus, you didn’t eat. You never not eat.”

  “All right, fine. I miss her. Now get out.”

  “Is this all because her friends saw us at the library?”

  “No. It has nothing to do with that.”

  “Is she sad?”

  I sighed, looking at the clock on my dashboard. “Would it be sick of me to hope that she is?”

  Zara smiled. “No.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I wouldn’t be upset if you had doughnuts waiting for me tomorrow, just saying.”

  I gaped at her. “You little snot. Go inside.”

  She giggled. “Chocolate with rainbow sprinkles, please.”

  I grabbed for her, but she ducked out of my hold, laughing all the way back inside. After I saw her bedroom light click on, I left, returning to my spot in front of Ava’s place. Her bedroom light was still dark. Didn’t she ever turn her lights on anymore? What was going on with her?

  I was about an hour deep into my pathetic attempt at sleep when a figure showed up outside my window. I blinked, bending to see who it was. Ava’s mom stood there with her arms wrapped around her, the cold air steaming from her lips.

  I turned my key over and rolled my window down, embarrassed that she’d caught me.

  “Are you going to sit out here all night, or are you finally going to try knocking on the door this time?”

  She knew I’d been out here? “I’m pretty comfortable just watching.”

  “Bishop, come inside. I want to talk to you about Ava.”

  “Ava doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  Her humorless laugh puffed out hot air between us. “I think you’re the only person Ava wants to talk to. Please. If you care about her, you’ll want to have this conversation. I’ll even throw in some cocoa.” Her eyes darted to my backseat and away so fast, I’d almost think she was afraid to look.

  What did I have back there? A body? “What’s she doing?” I glanced up at her window.

  “She’s in bed. The same place she’s been for days. Come inside. Please,” she added, her voice wobbling.

  Something about the wobble in her voice made my blood chill. I rolled up my window and got out, following her across the street and inside. There was a new couch and TV in the living room. The couch was cream-colored and comfortable looking. It was much more appropriate for the space than the couch her father had taken. I wondered if that was the point.

  Her mother wrapped the gray sweater she was wearing around her and tied it around the middle, flipping on the kitchen light. “Do you want marshmallows?”

  I couldn’t stop staring at the stairs. I could walk up them and knock on Ava’s door and fall to my knees and beg her to help me understand how to do this love thing. I was horrible at it and I couldn’t afford to be. Not with her. I had to get it right.

  “Bishop?”

  I turned to her mother. “What?”

  “Marshmallows?”

  “Oh, uh, sure. Thanks.”

  “Have a seat. I’ll join you in a minute. Did you eat dinner? I ordered a pizza, but Ava wouldn’t help me eat it, so I only ate a few slices.” She rubbed her belly. “I think it’s my craving.”

  If I were going to sit here talking to her, I needed something to keep my mouth busy. “Pizza sounds good. Thanks, Mrs. Mackson.”

  “You’re so polite all the time. Call me Sammy, please. Not to mention I can’t stand hearing my married name.”

  “Are you going to change it?”

  “I don’t like the idea of having a different last name as Ava, and I suspect the new baby will have his last name, too, so I’ll probably keep it for them.”

  She took the mug of heated milk out of the microwave and poured a packet of milk chocolate cocoa mix into it, stirring the contents slowly. Silence settled in the kitchen and I shifted uncomfortably until she put a plate of pizza in front of me. Four slices of meat lovers pizza. Maybe it was being in the same house as Ava, but my appetite returned as soon as I got a whiff.

  Sammy settled in the stool beside me, her cocoa clutched between her hands. “Ava told me a little bit about what’s going on.”

  I groaned. “No, she didn’t. She told you what she thought was going on. She told you the parts where she’s the bad guy and it’s all her fault.”

  Her mother nodded, her eyes never leaving my face. I looked at my pizza.

  “Is that why you’re mad at her? Because she’s not the bad guy and she keeps acting like it?”

  “I’m not mad at her. I’m mad with her, if that makes sense.” I rubbed my temple and chewed, hoping the food would stave off the headache I felt coming. “I’m mad that I can’t trust her to always be there.”

  Sammy set her mug down and wrapped her arms around herself again. “I had to take her to see someone.”

  My eyes flashed to hers. “Why?”

  Her eyes filled with worried tears and I was struck by how much she did love her daughter. I could see it, how much she cared, but I also saw how much her mother was hurting, too, and maybe things just got mud
dled.

  “This is not normal.” She pointed upstairs. “It’s not good for her to close herself in her room for days, not talking, not moving, not eating. It’s not healthy to push away the people she loves in exchange for nothing.”

  “Did I do that?” I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “No,” she said strongly. “No, Bishop. If anyone did that, it was her father and me. I think you were the only person in her life who staved off the inevitable. The doctor thinks she has depression and anxiety. Whether it’s situational or an imbalance is yet to be seen, but right now, she’s not feeling well. She’s drowning,” she revealed, her words choking off. She put her face in her hands. “My daughter is drowning, and I don’t know how to save her.”

  I thought back to the beginning. The times Ava asked me to stay, when she didn’t want to be alone, the panic attacks, the days she’d show up to school tired and quiet or the nights she couldn’t fall asleep—how could I not see those things for what they were? Clues that my girl was hurting. Some boyfriend I was. Some friend.

  “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Her father’s a selfish jerk. I never knew how selfish he was until he blamed me for losing a pregnancy. It was like I saw him clearly and I think Ava did, too. He’s no help. I mean, should I send her away?”

  “No! Don’t do that.” I glared. “That’d make things worse.”

  “How? When her father and I are the problem? Maybe it would do her some good to get away from home.”

  My entire body was too cold and hot to function. “Is that what you want?”

  “No. Of course not. I want her home. I want her out of bed and smiling again. I want my family back. However I can have it.”

  I shoved my plate away, no longer hungry. I felt a strange kind of fear. Sick and hot. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like the idea of Ava’s mind not being under her control. It made my eyes sting. It made me want to go upstairs and spend the next ten years apologizing. No wonder she was making herself the bad guy. Her mind was forcing her to.

  It was terrifying how crossed our wires could get. I wanted to take a pair of scissors to them and untangle them. To show her, and myself, that we could get it right.