Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1)

by Amy Vanessa Miller

  “A lot of things,” he tells me finally. “My fights at the mansion, those aren’t for fun. He sets them up and makes big bucks off of me if I win. If I lose, he has his people do to me what they did to me the night I killed one of his guys. If I win, I rack in my own share of the wealth and live to see another day. I distribute for him in this district now too. The guy I killed, it was his job before, and he needed a replacement. I guess, for whatever reason, he thought I was good enough for the job. Markson Grove is mine now, and I have my own dealers that answer only to me. If any of them do wrong, it’s me that they have to answer to. If their clients don’t pay up or they cause problems, it’s me they have to worry about.”

  “So people must hate you,” I say in a small voice, a hint of worry simmering through.

  “People fear me,” he returns, sensing the worry and giving me the only comfort that he can. Comfort that isn’t really comfort at all, but it’s all he has.

  I take in a deep an unsteady breath. This is a lot.

  “Does this change things?” he asks. “For us.”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m not going anywhere, Parker. I’ve already told you.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, though. You know that, right?”

  “I know,” I say to him reassuringly. “But I’m not.”

  He kisses me softly on the cheek. “I love you,” he barely whispers.

  I bring my lips to his and kiss him with a mixture of love and comfort so that he knows that what we have, what we’ve always had, is deep and I’m not going to take off running again. But I don’t tell him that I love him. I’ve never told Parker that I loved him before.

  But he is so patient when it comes to us. He met me and fell for me the minute he looked my way, yet he never made a move until he was sure that I wanted him to. He needed me to know his intentions before he acted on them, for whatever reason that was important to him.

  He even waited well over a year after our falling out before trying to make things right between us again. Not that I really know why that is. I’m sure it was horrible for him to have gone from being perfectly in love to suddenly being shunned by a heartless bitch. But I still can’t be sure why he didn’t try harder to get me to see the truth.

  “After all this time, you come back into my life and your feelings for me haven’t changed. Why did you wait a year and a half before you tried to fix us?”

  “Honestly?”

  “No lie to me,” I say with a sarcastic smile.

  He chuckles for a moment and then his voice gets serious once again. “When you didn’t answer my calls or texts the week after I woke up I already knew that we were done. What happened scared the shit out of you and I didn’t blame you for running, not even then. It scared the shit out of me too. But I figured I could fix it as soon as I got to talk to you in person, so I tried not to let it bother me.

  “Then when I got back to school a month later, Bree nearly assaulted me when I confronted you. That’s when I knew that everything we had was completely gone for good. I wasn’t sure what you had told her, but whatever it was made me the enemy, and I knew I didn’t have a chance after that.

  “Eventually, I talked myself into thinking it was better that way. I was even deeper in the drug world than I had been when we first met. My life was scarier, even to me. At least away from me you were safe. I knew you weren’t dating any new guys because I was checking, and you weren’t going to the mansion anymore either. I honestly felt like I’d be able to live without you as long as no one else had you, you know?”

  I don’t reply because I know where this is going and I feel horrible about it.

  He continues on, “So, when I saw you two at school last month holding hands, I actually panicked. I didn't even consider Bree as someone you’d fall into. And then your kiss in the hallway with her… I’m not going to lie, it fucking hurt like hell. Even after all of this time, it killed me to see it.

  “After that day I knew I shouldn’t have stayed away. I knew I fucked up. I never stopped loving you, not for a second.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say moving away slightly in order to look up into his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it. I fixed us now,” he says with a weak smile. I see the relief in his eyes knowing that I’ve finally come back to him. It’s like he’s been holding his breath this whole time and can finally breathe once again.

  I drink up the last of the water in the glass he filled for me and put it down on the table again. He grabs the glass and heads over to the sink in the kitchen to fill it up once more. As soon as he turns on the tap, the apartment door opens and in walks Cecelia.

  Parker stops what he’s doing and turns to face her, still holding the glass. He doesn’t say a word, just stands there looking like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I hold back a smile. He’s just too adorable for words. It occurs to me in this moment, that I can’t even understand why I had been running from him for all of this time. It’s clear to me now, there is nothing that this guy wouldn’t do for me.

  Cecelia’s eyebrows raise and she looks over at me on the couch. “I’m seeing an awful lot of him these days.”

  I roll my eyes. “Cecelia, you remember Parker.”

  “Oh, how can I forget? Finding him in your bedroom early one morning was a pleasant surprise. And then, of course, our little visit this afternoon. Parker and I are old friends now, aren’t we, Parker?”

  He smiles, unfreezing himself from where he’s standing in front of the sink and regaining his composure. “Always a pleasure, Cecelia,” he says, walking over to me and handing me the glass. He sits back down on the couch, draping his arm around my shoulder once again. He does it with such ease, as if it’s something he’s been doing with me every day for years even though tonight is the first night in a long time that we’ve sat together like this.

  Cecelia smirks. “I take it she finally saw things your way?”

  “More or less,” he replies and I hit his shoulder playfully.

  “Don’t think you get to take all the credit for this. I kissed you tonight, not the other way around,” I say.

  “Yeah, but I kissed you last week and this afternoon. It was all a part of my master plan and you fell for it.”

  “I’ve missed this,” I say, hugging close to him and laying my head on his shoulder. Cecelia is still watching us, confusion present on her face, but she doesn’t pry. And for whatever reason I wouldn’t care if she would. It’s like Parker’s presence calms me.

  “Me too,” he sighs happily.

  Cecelia just shakes her head and walks away to her room.

  Evan

  Parker is an asshole. It’s official, as of right now, I hate him more than I hate Tris Gallagher. I am pissed and annoyed, and feeling like a complete idiot for even going to the mansion to try to ‘save’ Skylar from Parker in the first place. I knew better. Derrick told me everything and I knew there was no way it was going down the way Spencer thought it was going down. But I’m an idiot and I went anyway.

  “That was a mistake,” I say finally, voicing my angry thoughts out loud. I open the passenger door for Bree and wait till she gets in before slamming it behind her. I walk over to the driver’s side and get in beside her, not allowing myself to look in her direction at all. I’m more mad at myself than at her, I know this, but I’m an idiot and I’m taking it out on her anyway.

  “What was a mistake?” she asks in a confused mumble. She can’t figure out why I’m so pissed and that makes me even angrier.

  “Going to The Misfit Mansion to rescue your ex from Parker!” I say, putting emphasis on the word ‘ex’. “I’m not doing it again, Bree. I should have told you the minute you got the call that there was nothing to worry about, but I would have never forgiven myself if something did happen to her and we hadn’t done anything. But after tonight, after actually seeing her with him, there’s no way we are going to pretend that he raped her anymore, ok? Whatever you think happened that night is obv
iously completely wrong. I don’t know what happened, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to know. But you must see that they have a history with one another. She’s in love with him, Bree!”

  “You’re wrong,” she replies, but I can tell by the look on her face that she’s unsure now. She knows what she saw in there and it kills me that she’s so affected by it.

  “So what did she tell you then? What do you know about the two of them?” I ask pointedly. A part of me wishes she’d just figure it out already! Why can’t she see that all she was to Skylar this whole time was a rebound?

  “I don’t know much. We never talk about him,” she says, shooting me an annoyed look. My anger is irritating her but her refusal to see the truth is irritating me too, so I guess we’re even. “She told me he asked her out and that she said yes. She was really excited, and I could tell that she really liked him.”

  “And you’re sure it was only a first date?” I ask, attempting to lead her into the truth I already know without having to shock her with it. I really don’t want to have to do that.

  “Well, yes, she had just met him.”

  I shake my head sadly and sigh. I’m going to have to shock her with it. “I’m sorry,” I say. “She didn’t just meet him. She had been seeing him for a long time at the mansion, she just didn’t tell you about it.”

  Bree doesn’t say anything for a while as she stares off into the distance. I can tell she’s going through conversations and memories in her head trying to decide if what I’m telling her makes sense. “How would you even know that?” she asks finally.

  “Derrick told me. Skylar and Parker were a pretty tight item for months before that night. She was exclusively his and he was hers. I’m not lying. He cares about her, Bree.”

  “You’re full of shit. If that were true, then Spencer wouldn’t have called me.”

  “I don’t think Spencer knows what happened that night either. I think he’s just as confused about Parker as you are. But you saw it for yourself in there! How do you explain what it is we just walked in on?”

  “I can’t explain it,” she says.

  “Because you know what it is you saw. It’s no coincidence that only hours after she confronted us she ended up there. She went back to him. And while we’re on that subject, you want to know how she even knew about us to begin with? Parker told her! Yep, that someone ‘she trusts’, that’s him!”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  I shoot her an irritated look. “Come on Bree, he’s the only person who saw us.”

  “So you knew all of this and you didn’t bother to tell me?”

  “I couldn’t. Derrick made me promise not to break his Misfit code or whatever. I wanted to, believe me, I wish I could have. My nose might not be so broken if I had,” I say bitterly.

  She turns away from me and sits in complete silence for a long while. I start up the car and begin to drive to her house, because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t be sure if she’s finally accepting it or if she’s coming up with more arguments to dispute it.

  “This is a lot,” she says finally. I think she’s accepting it.

  “I’m sorry it all had to come out this way,” I say. I can feel myself calming down. My initial anger toward her is subsiding and I start to feel sorry for her instead. Skylar’s been lying to her for a long time, about everything. I know a little bit about that myself.

  She seems to sense my thoughts drifting over to Adrienne somehow. “He’s one of the guys who was sleeping with your ex-girlfriend. Why didn’t you tell me that?” she asks.

  “I didn’t think it mattered,” I say with a careless shrug.

  “Who was the other guy?”

  I don’t reply. Do I even want to get into this right now, or ever, with her? Does a new girlfriend need to know everything about your past before she decides she wants to take you on permanently?

  “Full disclosure, huh?” I ask, turning to look at her for a quick moment before bringing my eyes back to the road.

  She laughs. “I’ve already slept with you Evan, I think it’s a little late for a full disclosure contract.”

  I force a smile. “It was Tris Gallagher,” I tell her. “He was my friend. I mean, we had drifted apart by the time it happened, but it was still a slap in the face, you know?”

  “You used to be friends with Tristan Gallagher?”

  “He was the first friend I made when I moved here to Markson Grove,” I confess. “He started hanging out with Parker around the same time he and I stopped hanging out, so I never really got to know Parker.”

  “And then they started sleeping with Adrienne,” she says, attempting to lead me through all of the details. Why she even needs to know, though, is beyond me.

  I sigh loudly, raising my right brow in her direction. “Basically,” I decide to reply because it’s the only thing I can think to say. “Look,” I add, feeling as though I should be defending myself for having been involved with a girl like Adrienne, “when she and I met, she was in a really dark place. Her brother had committed suicide only a few months before and she was a mess. I thought I could fix her. I wanted to fix her because I cared about her a lot. But she couldn’t be fixed, at least not by me.”

  Bree’s eyes open wide and she turns to me in disbelief. “She’s Mark’s sister?”

  I shoot her a quizzical look. “Twin sister. You knew Mark?” I ask, confused.

  She shakes her head. “No, but Spencer did.”

  “Oh,” I say and then I realize what she’s telling me. “Oh! Spencer was the guy!”

  She nods sadly. “He loved him very much.”

  “Wow. I didn’t know. Adrienne never spoke about Spencer. He must have been devastated.” I think about how I would feel if Bree were to kill herself. I think I would want to die too. The thought is depressing.

  “He’s doing better now… most of the time,” She says just as I pull up into her driveway and shut off the engine. After a moment, she goes on, “How did you find out about Adrienne being with Tris and Parker? Did she eventually tell you or something?”

  I wish.

  “Nope. I got a video sent to my phone. I don’t know who sent it. I never found out,” I say. I’ll never go into detail about what I saw on that video. I shouldn’t have seen it. Some things just shouldn’t ever be seen, and that video was one of those things.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “Oh, I’m dead serious.”

  “And it was happening at the mansion?”

  “Probably. The room we were in tonight looked…similar. But there were a lot of differences,” I say with distaste. An image of what I saw on my phone creeps into my mind for a moment and I cringe.

  Bree notices the look on my face and smiles apologetically. “That bad huh?”

  “Yeah.” I grimace. “That bad.”

  “I’m sorry I made you think about it,” she says, leaning over and kissing me softly on the lips.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and push my lips firmly onto hers, suddenly needing her lips on mine as though my life depends on it. I take in the warmth of her kiss as I attempt to calm the fear that’s been slowly building up inside of me since the moment I realized that I love her.

  She could hurt me as much as Adrienne did. She could hurt me even more so because she’s still in love with someone else. I know this, even though I refuse to admit it out loud. What happened tonight made it crystal clear.

  “It’s ok,” I say once the kiss ends and I’ve managed to gather my emotions, “I’m glad there won’t be secrets between us. I think that’s important.”

  She looks thoughtful for a moment before finally nodding and I wonder if she knows just how much need came from me in that one simple statement.

  “I think so too,” she says and the words are comforting.

  Skylar’s a liar, and now that Bree finally knows it, maybe she really can just be mine.

  Maybe.

  Skylar

  Parker didn’t end up slee
ping over last night although I did ask him to a number of times. Not that I wanted to sleep with him, I just wanted to sleep next to him. But being the chivalrous guy that he is, he thought it would be best for us to pick up where we left off first thing in the morning, and promised that he’d be over to see me as soon as he woke up.

  Which is good, because from the minute my eyes opened this morning, I’ve been filled with drinker’s remorse. Should I have done what I did? Was it only because Bree broke me into pieces that I went back to him? Or is there a bigger force at play here? I just don’t know.

  I shower and make my way to the kitchen. I need Tylenol and coffee immediately. I’m wearing only my bathrobe and my long hair is still in a mess of wet knots when a knock comes at the door. I panic and run to my bedroom, shutting the door behind me before whoever it is sees me looking like death run over twice.

  “Come in,” I call out as soon as my bedroom door is closed. I really hope it isn’t Parker just yet. I need time to process last night’s events before confronting him.

  “Babygirl?”

  It’s Spencer. Thank God. I rush over to my closet to find something hangover friendly to wear, and end up settling on a pair of black yoga pants and a purple tank top.

  “I’ll just be a second,” I call out to Spencer as I slip the clothes on.

  “You want a coffee?” I ask him once I enter the kitchen a few minutes later. I take two Tylenol with a glass of water to wash them down.

  “Yeah, I could go for a coffee,” Spencer replies. I can tell by the look on his face that there’s something bothering him. Which makes sense because, after everything that’s happened last night, he’s probably really pissed at me.

  I sigh. “Ok, Spencer. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  He laughs. “What’s not on my mind is more like it.”

  “She cheated on me,” I say defensively.

  “I know that.”

  “Do you think I did what I did last night because she cheated? Was it just payback?”

  “You’re asking me?”