The Fading Trilogy: Fading, Freeing, Falling: Includes 2 BONUS short stories

by E. K. Blair

  She sits up and pulls her hand out from under mine—flustered—she grabs for the door handle, but it’s locked. I hit the switch when I see her panic.

  “Thanks,” she whispers before abruptly getting out of my car.

  I watch her and wonder what’s causing her to flip moods in a mere instant. Fumbling with her keys, she finally gets in the car and starts it up. She quickly glances over at me, embarrassed, and I hate that. All I can manage to make sense of is that her parents have fucked with her head so much that she’s become removed from feeling emotions. I get it. That’s been me my whole life, but now, with her, I find myself wanting to feel instead of running away from it.

  I was nervous about meeting up with Candace this morning to go running. I was a little unsure of how she would react to me after what happened yesterday in my car, but she didn’t seemed fazed by it, so I moved past it, and we spent a good hour running around campus and her neighborhood. She kept up with my pace, and I really enjoyed working out with her. I don’t even think she noticed how distracted I was though, trying to sneak a peek at her whenever I could. She’s small but there’s no doubt that this chick is in extreme shape. Her legs are insane, and in her tight running pants, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.

  And now, sitting up here in my office, I can’t keep my mind off of her. I start packing my things up to head out early. It’s Saturday night, but being the holiday weekend, the place is dead.

  “Hey, man,” Gavin says when he bursts into my office. “You leaving?”

  “Yep.”

  “We going out?”

  Standing up, I start heading out when I tell him, “No. I’m gonna go home and just chill.”

  “Are you serious? Dude, you avoiding me?” he asks as I make my way downstairs.

  “No. I just have other shit going on, that’s all,” I explain. He wouldn’t get it if I told him, so I don’t.

  He continues to follow me to the back door, but before I can open it, he steps in front of me and snaps, “Seriously. What the fuck is going on?”

  “Nothing, man. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Kinda hard when I’m the one you’re avoiding,” he says.

  Taking a moment, I explain without telling him too much. “Gav, I’m almost thirty. I’m sick of going out all the time to just fuck random chicks. I’m tired.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He’s the same age as me, and I know he’s perfectly happy doing the shit that he does, but it doesn’t make me happy anymore. It never did make me happy; it only made me numb. Stepping to the side, he walks away, throwing a, “See ya,” over his shoulder before I walk out to the parking lot.

  Heading home, I decide to stop and grab a pizza and some beer to take back to my place. When I get back into my jeep, I start driving home, but quickly find myself taking a few new turns. I’m not ready to go home just yet as the urge to see her again takes over, and I wind up pulling into her driveway behind her car.

  I wonder if she’s gonna be irritated that I’m just dropping by unannounced, but it’s too late now that I’ve rung her doorbell. She appeared to be less skittish about having me in her house when she invited me in after our run this morning, so I try and let that worry go.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, completely taken off guard.

  I don’t even let her see an ounce of my uncertainty when I give her a playful grin and step inside. “I ran out to grab some dinner and knew you weren’t doing anything tonight, so I drove here instead of back to my place.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “That a problem?” I ask as I head into her kitchen.

  “Ummm . . . no. I just . . .” she mumbles.

  “Just what?” I ask, looking at her, cute as hell in her pajamas.

  “Just surprised that’s all. Why didn’t you just text me?”

  “Because I figured you would probably tell me you were studying.” I start rummaging around, opening drawers, until I find a bottle opener. Popping the caps off the beer, I hand her one as she nods, agreeing with my last statement, and I shoot her a wink before taking a sip.

  “So, how was the rest of your day?” I ask as I move around her kitchen, grabbing plates and a few napkins.

  “Good. I got a lot done actually,” she says as she watches me.

  “Great, let’s eat then. Do you mind grabbing the beer?”

  “No problem.”

  Walking into her living room, we set everything down on the coffee table and make ourselves comfortable on the couch.

  She opens the pizza box to grab a slice, and then turns to me, asking, “How did you know I like pineapple on my pizza?”

  “I didn’t. Like I said, I got this for me before deciding to come over.”

  “Oh.”

  Leaning forward I take a slice and sit back to eat as I watch her do the same. The thought of being out with Gavin right now just doesn’t even compare to this—sitting here, with this girl I’m getting know. I’m enjoying it. It satisfies me in a way I never would have expected.

  “So, you know what I did with my day. What about you?” she asks.

  She told me this morning that she was spending the day studying then going to the studio to rehearse. “After our run, I went to the gym to do some lifting. Then later, I went to the bar to work. Had to sign off on a bunch of paperwork and inventory orders. That’s pretty much it,” I tell her.

  Nodding her head, we continue to eat our dinner when I suggest, “Wanna watch something on TV?”

  She picks up the remote and hands it to me. Flipping through the channels, I already know she’s a fan of MTV, so I decide to go for one of my channels. When I land on TCM and they’re playing one of my favorite movies, I set the remote down, get comfortable, and wait for it. Knowing she’s gonna tease me, I find myself already enjoying her reaction when she says, “What the heck is this?”

  “You don’t know this movie?” I ask, mocking a serious tone, playing right into her.

  “Does anyone know this movie?”

  Smiling, I say, “Candace, it’s a classic.” Seeing the blank look on her face, I continue, “It’s ‘Double Indemnity’ from the 1940’s. It’s a great movie.”

  “You watch a lot of these movies?”

  Shaking my head, I tell her, “Sit back and just watch. You’ll like it.”

  When she sits back with me, I start to explain the movie. “See that girl? Her name is Phyllis and that guy is an insurance agent that she is trying to seduce.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she wants him to murder her husband so she can collect the money from his policy.”

  “Oooh, I like her already,” she playfully says, and gets me laughing.

  “Just watch.”

  Kicking our feet up on the coffee table, we lean back and watch the movie. After a while I feel her head drop onto my shoulder. Looking down, her eyes are closed. I don’t move for a while, scared of how she’ll react. After what happened in my car yesterday, I make sure she’s sound asleep before I slip my hand under her head and lower her onto my lap.

  She curls up into a ball, and I take this moment to really look at her. Her skin is light and flawless. I gently run the back of my hand down her cheek and along her jaw. She’s soft. I knew she would be. My heart begins to beat faster at the subtle contact.

  I sink down into the couch, getting comfortable, and observe the stark contrast of her dark, thick lashes as they fan across the tops of her cheekbones. Leaning my head back, I relax with finally having her close to me. The warmth of her against me is something I’ve been craving. Even though she isn’t giving this to me—I’m taking it right now—it appeases me for the time being, hoping that one day she’ll want to give this to me. That simple thought alone is enough for me to know that I’m falling hard for this girl, and that worries me, because I know better than to allow myself to feel like this. But with her, all my logic seems to dissipate.

  I let her sleep for a while, but when I begin to grow tired myself, I know I ne
ed to wake her. She’s out cold when I lean over and whisper, “Candace.”

  When I run my hand down her arm, she starts to stir. “Candace . . . Candace, wake up.”

  Her eyes slowly flutter open and when she looks up at me, she locks them to mine. I can tell she isn’t fully awake as she continues to stare. Out of nowhere, she startles me when she lurches off of the couch, finally coherent and free from her haze.

  “Are you okay?” I ask when I stand up, and as soon as I step towards her, she shoots her hands out, wanting me to stay away. She’s scared of me, and I hate that. Whatever it is she’s dealing with, whatever is causing her to react this way, I just want to comfort her, but there’s no way she’d let me if I tried.

  “I’m sorry,” I say as calmly as I can, not wanting to freak her out any more than she is. “I didn’t want to leave you without you locking the door behind me. You fell asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you, so I let you sleep for a while.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathes out.

  “For what?”

  Lowering her hands, she looks a little mortified when she explains, “Startling easily. I didn’t know I fell asleep. I’m just . . . I was just disoriented.”

  “Candace,” I quietly say, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable with me. I step toward her, and when she doesn’t move away, I take my hand and brush aside a lock of her hair that’s fallen across her forehead. I feel her stiffen, and I quickly pull back.

  “I’ll lock the door behind you,” she says.

  “Let me help you clean this up.”

  She looks at the mess and tells me, “I’ll do it. It’s all trash anyway.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She follows me as I walk to the door. Before I leave, I turn back and she’s right next to me. She has to tilt her head to look up at me, and when I see her from this angle, she looks so fragile. When her eyes shift up to meet mine, I softly tell her, in all seriousness, “I want you to feel comfortable with me.”

  I notice her shallow breaths when she whispers, “I know.”

  “Okay. So, we’ll talk later?”

  When she softens her face and says, “Yeah,” I feel better about leaving.

  When I pull into the parking lot of the gym, I spot Jase’s 4Runner already here. He got back in town a couple days ago, and the three of them have been busy with school as the quarter is coming to an end, so the two of us arranged to get together to do some lifting.

  “Jase, hey,” I say as I walk in and see him mixing his Gatorade.

  “Hey, man,” he says as he turns around. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  We head over to the free weights and pick up our dumbbells to start our bicep workout.

  “So, how was Ohio?” I ask him, knowing it was the first time he met Mark’s family.

  “Better than I anticipated. Never had to meet parents in the past, so I was uneasy going there.”

  Jase told me that before Mark, he was a lot like me. Random hook-ups. But he seems to really love Mark, so I’m glad everything is working out for them.

  “His family cool?”

  “His sisters are a little wild,” he laughs. “But yeah, his parents are great. Much different than mine.”

  “How so?” I question.

  Taking his weights over to the bench, he sits down and says, “I’m pretty nonexistent to them. And when I told them I was gay . . . they were done.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  “Before Mark came along, all I really had was Candace. She’s been my family since I moved here.”

  “You guys seem really tight,” I respond as I set down the dumbbells and start racking the weights on a barbell to do some bench presses.

  “We’ve always been that way,” he tells me, walking over to spot.

  As I lift the bar out of the rack, he stands over me, saying, “Thanks for checking in on her. I didn’t even know she had that blowup with her parents until I got back home.”

  Pushing out the last of my reps, he grabs the bar from me as I sit up.

  “Yeah, well, I was home with nothing to do, so it was nice to have someone around to hang out with,” I say, downplaying the whole situation. I’m not sure how Jase would react if he knew how I’m starting to feel about his best friend.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, it’s good to see her hanging out with someone else besides me and Mark.”

  “Is she really that closed off?” I ask. I know what I’ve seen, but it isn’t much.

  “Lately? Yeah.”

  That’s all he says when I lie back down to pump out another set, and I wonder what he means by ‘lately.’ Was she not always like this? Then I make the connect—I wasn’t always like this either. Never really. Not until her. But it was before that—it was that night that got me thinking so differently. That night that messed with my head so much that I started drifting away from old habits, old friends.

  My mind goes back to the alley, and I get a flash of Candace on that rainy night in the coffee shop. Fuck. Why am I thinking about that? I thought I let it go, but it’s back—the question. Ripping through my reps, I force that sick thought out of my head.

  There’s no connection there. It’s just your mind trying to put an end to what was left unresolved. I repeat this silently to myself a few times, knowing that my subconscious is just screwing with me. There’s no connection . . . is there?

  I spend the next hour distracting myself, talking with Jase about football and how the season is going so far for the Huskies. Anything to keep my mind away from that night. After we finish up and say our goodbyes, I head out.

  When I’m not around her, my mind seems to drift, so I selfishly pull out my phone and text her, knowing when we hang out, I’m too consumed with her to think about the other shit that tends to creep up in my head.

  You hungry?

  I start driving home, which is only about ten minutes from the gym, and it takes about that long for her to reply.

  Can’t eat. Have a 2-hour dance studio today.

  Well shouldn’t you fuel up?

  Not if you want me to barf. :-)

  I laugh at her text as I sit in my jeep that’s now parked in my driveway.

  I’d love to see that.

  That’s disgusting.

  More for having something to tease you about and less for the actual barf.

  Can we stop talking about barf? LOL

  You free for a run tomorrow morning?

  Yeah.

  Happy to spend more time with her, I type out my last text.

  Be at your place around 7.

  “You sure you wanna go?” I ask as we walk out to her front porch. She looks exhausted, and by her bloodshot eyes, I can tell she didn’t get any sleep last night.

  “I’m sure,” she says with her head down as she walks past me.

  We start with a light jog through the mist that fills the chilly morning. I look over at her as she stares straight ahead.

  “Bad night?”

  “What?” she questions when she looks over at me, and then responds, “I was up late catching up on school work. It’s the end of the quarter.”

  I don’t buy her lie. I know this chick wouldn’t be behind in school, but I don’t push it ‘cause if she’s choosing to give me an excuse, then she doesn’t want me to know what really kept her up last night.

  Going along with her, I ask, “You ready for the break?”

  “Mmm hmm,” she hums, and we’re back to closed-off Candace.

  I pick up the pace when we get close to campus, and she strides along with no problem right beside me. I wish she would talk to me, but even if I’m with her in silence, it’s better than not being with her at all.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear her say softly, and when I look over at her, I ask, “For what?”

  “I’m just tired, that’s all,” she explains.

  “Candace,” I say, and when she turns her head and catches my eye, I continue, “You don’t need
to be sorry.”

  I see the corner of her mouth turn up before she looks away.

  “So what did you do yesterday?” she asks, and I’m glad she’s talking now.

  “Not much. Hit the gym with Jase and that’s about all.”

  “I think he mentioned that to me,” she mumbles.

  “What about you?”

  “After studio, I had to work. Jase came up there and hung out for a little while,” she tells me. “It was pretty dead, and Roxy left early.”

  Because the curiosity is killing me, I go ahead and bring up Jase. “You guys seem really close.”

  She looks over at me and narrows her eyes, like she’s questioning what the real meaning is to that statement, but she goes ahead and gives me a response. “We’ve always been close. He’s like my family.”

  “It’s good that you have someone like that.”

  She doesn’t speak as we continue to make our way through campus, jogging up the stairs as we leave the quad. We take the rest of the run through the surrounding neighborhoods with nothing more than random small talk before I drop her off back at her house and head home.

  Something was clearly bothering Candace yesterday when we met up for our morning run, so when I call to see if she wants to grab a bite to eat before I head into work tonight, I’m surprised when she easily agrees.

  I meet up with her at the sushi-go-round restaurant close to my loft. She looks a lot better than she did yesterday morning, and I smile as we sit down.

  “You ever been here before?” I ask when we start picking our plates off of the carousel.

  “A couple times. Mark likes this place.”

  “You coming to see him tonight?” I ask, knowing that she’s never come to the bar to hear his band play.

  She shakes her head as she plucks her sushi up with her chopsticks and takes a bite. When she’s done, she says, “I’ll see him after.”

  “After?”

  “I’m staying with Jase tonight. So I’ll see Mark for a little while before he goes home.”