Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1)

by Amy Vanessa Miller

  We simultaneously look to where Evan is sitting with Kelsie and Derrick. All three of them are turned around staring back at us. Evan must be having a field day with this. I know it's terrible, but it actually makes me happy. Maybe this will give him the incentive to finally talk to me.

  As if he’s reading my mind, I watch as he gets out of his seat, and moves toward us.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asks in a hiss and I can't be sure if the question is directed toward me or toward Adrienne.

  “I'm just sitting in a seat on the bus,” Adrienne replies to him sweetly, assuming the question was directed at her. It probably was, but I honestly can’t be sure.

  “There are a lot of places for you to sit, Adrienne, it doesn't have to be next to Bree.”

  She rolls her eyes, letting out an annoyed sigh, “Oh for God's sake Evan, calm down. My sluttiness isn't going to rub off on your new girlfriend. Relax.”

  I glance at Evan, not being able to hide my surprise at the tone she so casually takes on with him. I turn to Spencer to see his reaction. He's shaking his head and stifling a laugh. He pretends to not be paying attention to the exchange as he scrolls through his Facebook newsfeed on his phone. But I know better, this conversation is way too interesting for him to actually be ignoring it.

  “Can we talk?” Evan asks me, choosing to ignore Adrienne's snarky comment.

  “Now you want to talk to me,” I say, making my annoyance clear. I know I shouldn't be acting this way, all week I've been waiting for him to actually want to talk to me, but now that he's finally broken the silence, I’m bothered that it's only because Adrienne chose to sit down next to me.

  “Yes,” he says, quickly adding, “please.”

  “Fine. Where?”

  “There are two seats right over there,” he says, pointing toward Skylar and Parker. I see the empty seats a few rows ahead of them.

  I get up and start toward the seats.

  “See you guys!” Adrienne calls after us, cheerful as ever. Evan groans.

  We take our seats and I look over at Adrienne who's still watching us closely with a goofy grin on her face. Spencer nudges her to turn around and after another short moment, she does.

  “She's… different.” I say finally, turning to look at Evan.

  His face turns a shade of pink and he shakes his head in what I can only interpret as embarrassment. “She's something all right,” he says with no amount of humor in his reply.

  “I'm going to be honest, though, I can't picture you with her. She doesn't really seem like your type.”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, well, that's probably why it didn't work out.”

  I look down at my hands and fiddle around with my fingers nervously. After a few silent moments, I glance up at him once again. “Will we be working out?” I ask. I hold my breath in anticipation of his response.

  His face instantly softens. He pushes himself in closer to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder, “I want us to,” he replies just as quietly, and I finally exhale the breath I’ve been holding in.

  “But I'm not ok with you being friends with Skylar. I'm sorry… At least not right away.”

  “If you could just try to understand,” I say turning in the chair so that I can look him right in the eye.

  “There's nothing to understand. She's your ex and I'm not comfortable with you spending time with her alone.”

  “She's my best friend.”

  “Who you are in love with,” he returns pointedly.

  “I don't love her like that.”

  He shakes his head disappointedly. “See, you're already lying to me. I don’t want to worry about what you are doing with her when I'm not looking. I shouldn't have to. But I will because you can't even be honest with yourself about what she means to you.”

  “You're wrong. She's my friend. The only thing I'm missing about her is that part of our relationship. The physical aspect isn't there anymore.”

  “See that's the problem, though, I don't want to share the emotional aspect either, not with someone who knows you so intimately. I want you to be mine. Just mine. I know it's selfish, I know it's horrible, but I'm just not capable of sharing someone I love. And if you're not capable of letting her go, then you're going to have to let me go instead. That's the only solution I have.”

  “You can't be serious,” I say, deflated. I should have seen this coming and yet I didn't. Not really. I feel my heart sink in my chest.

  “This wasn't easy for me to decide to say to you, ok? I don't want to be the bad guy, here. I'm just trying to be honest with you about this. I don't want to lose you, God, you have no idea how much I hate even saying any of this.”

  “Then don't say it.” The tears begin to well up in my eyes, but I swiftly wipe them away.

  “I can't do with you what I did with Adrienne. I just can’t,” he returns, his face looking pained, his eyes pleading.

  What do I say? What do I do? I just don't know, and I hate it!

  “I need time to think about it,” I decide finally. What I really mean is that I need time to talk to Skylar about it. This isn't a decision I should be making without her knowing that I'm thinking about making it. But should I even be considering it at all? Am I really ready to throw twelve years of friendship away for a guy?

  “How long do you need?”

  “I just need tonight,” I tell him.

  He nods. “You're going to talk to her about it aren't you?” he asks with a look of defeat in his eyes.

  “I love you,” I say instead, hoping it's enough to make him feel some sort of comfort from all of this. It’s the first time I say the words, but they don’t seem to fill him with any amount of happiness. My love for him is shadowed by confusion, and he knows it.

  “I love you too,” he says, leaning in and kissing my lips firmly. His hand is behind my head, grasping my hair as if it's the last bit of me he will ever get to hold.

  It feels like goodbye.

  He gets up and returns to his seat next to Derrick and Kelsie. I watch him walk away and once he's seated I steal a glance behind me to Skylar. Her head is leaning up against Parker's shoulder and her eyes are closed. She didn't see or hear my conversation with him and I'm grateful for that. But judging by the look on Parker's face and his narrowing eyes directed at me, I'd say that he did.

  My face flushes red and I quickly turn away.

  Evan

  The moment I break away from our kiss and return back to the front of the bus, I'm an emotional mess. Saying those things to Bree was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do and I hate how vulnerable it has made me. I especially hate that people are all around seeing it, knowing that my girlfriend is in love with someone else and that I'm the fool who thought I could change it. I know now that I was wrong. She will never be able to walk away from Skylar.

  I take my seat beside Kelsie. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it tight. I'm grateful for the comfort, but it feels like pity. Everyone seems to be giving me the pity look now. Even Adrienne gave me a forced smile as I walked back to my seat.

  I hate it.

  “What did she say?” Kelsie asks. Derrick scoots forward in his seat and looks beyond Kelsie so he can see me too.

  “She said she needs to think about it and she'll tell me her answer in the morning.”

  “That's not too bad then,” Derrick says, attempting to keep me positive.

  Kelsie nods. “You knew when you decided to ask this of her that she'd probably not be able to decide right away.”

  “She's sharing a room with her tonight. Asking this of her isn’t going to make a difference. She loves Skylar.”

  “I think she loves you too.”

  “Not like she loves her,” I say with a sigh, and the truth of the words feel like they are cutting me up into pieces. Why did I ever let myself get so invested in this girl?

  “Why didn't you stay over there and sit with her for the rest of the bus trip?” Derrick asks, breaking into my depressing thoug
hts.

  I shrug. “Everything is up in the air for us. Doesn't feel right pretending like it's not.”

  “So, we have six hours on a stuffy bus just the three of us then.” Kelsie attempts to change the mood of the moment with a change of subject.

  “Fun,” I mumble sarcastically, digging my phone out of my pocket. I've mastered exactly where to touch the broken screen so that it can pretty much do anything I need it to do. Other than texting, it's still functioning half decently and my music playlist still plays, which is a bonus.

  Kelsie shakes her head at the sight of the pitiful thing. “Are you ever going to replace that?”

  “It still works.”

  “You can't text!”

  “I can make calls.”

  “Who the hell makes calls anymore, really?” Kelsie points out with a chuckle.

  Derrick laughs, “Apparently Evan does,” he says, shooting me a discreet wink. I guess he still hasn't told Kelsie about The Misfit Mansion yet and how I called him to save Skylar that night. But she does know that Tris is the one who hurt Skylar, so I guess Derrick is good at telling stories and omitting anything having to do with the mansion while he does so.

  The bus suddenly becomes unusually quiet, and the three of us simultaneously look up to see what has everyone’s attention.

  Tris.

  He steps up onto the last step and turns to face everyone. No one, other than Parker, has seen him since he left The Loft that night. He wasn't at school all last week and I'm not going to lie, I was beginning to think that Parker killed him and buried his body somewhere.

  But honestly, looking at him now, I bet he wishes Parker had. Even after a week to recuperate, Tris still looks like shit. It's obviously clear to everyone on this bus that he got his ass handed to him by someone who knows how to fight. I wonder how many people suspect that it's Parker? I wonder how many people will see Skylar and see Tris and put two and two together?

  Tris notices the three of us staring and shoots us a dirty look before scanning over the heads of everyone else already sitting on the bus.

  I turn around and watch Bree get up from where we were sitting together and return back to her seat between Spencer and Adrienne. I'm grateful for it, the last thing I want is for her to be anywhere near that piece of shit, even if that means she'll be spending the next six hours talking with Adrienne about God knows what.

  Tris stops in front of Adrienne just as Bree takes her seat. He leans into Adrienne and whispers something into her ear. She shakes her head and then I see her mouth distort into a frown. She's realized something. She looks back at Skylar and Parker and then turns to Bree. “It was him, wasn't it?” she asks loud enough for the whole bus to hear.

  Bree and Spencer don't say anything, but she isn’t waiting for an answer anyway. Adrienne is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. She knows.

  She stands up and without any warning, slaps her hand across Tris' face so hard that it leaves a hand-shaped red mark. Everyone on the bus gasps.

  “You sadistic, abusive asshole!” she hisses, giving him a quick shove.

  He raises his hand as if to strike her back and without thinking, I get up from my seat and dart toward them. Spencer, obviously having the same idea as me, yanks Adrienne away from Tris and then pushes himself in Tris' face instead.

  “We got a problem here?” he challenges in a much more intimidating manner than I would have ever imagined from him.

  Derrick and I are both on our feet waiting to see if we do, in fact, have a problem. At the back of the bus, I see Parker on his feet as well.

  Tris looks around, seeing the three of us ready to pounce. He smirks at Spencer. “No problem,” he says, taking a step back. He points a finger in Adrienne’s face. “You do that again, bitch, and you'll get to see just how sadistic I can be.”

  “Been there, done that,” she replies with a roll of her eyes. I cringe.

  He turns around, and without another word, takes an empty seat a few rows behind them, closest to the window.

  A few minutes later our chaperones and the driver finally decide to board the bus, conveniently having missed that entire ordeal. Finally, we are on our way to Madigan City and maybe it's just me, but I already can't wait for the damn trip to be over.

  Skylar

  “Piece of shit,” Parker mumbles as he sits back down in the seat next to me.

  He wraps his arm around me once again, pulling me in even closer to him than I had been before Tris stepped onto the bus. It’s as if Tris’ presence makes him more protective of me like he’s scared that he’ll try it again. And maybe he would, Parker doesn’t seem to scare him. He doesn’t have Tris under that type of control, at least not anymore.

  “I should have killed him the night he attacked you,” he says, seeming to be reading my thoughts.

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask quietly. I’m not saying it to be mean or to make him think that I’m upset that he didn’t avenge my attack to its full potential. I am honestly curious why he stopped himself because it seemed that, for a few minutes there, he was definitely going to.

  He sighs and leans into my forehead, kissing it. “I have a feeling you understand the concept of a best friend being your family. You probably get it even better than I do, actually, since you fell in love with yours.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” I admit.

  “Well, Tris was my family. He was like a brother, an extremely angry brother who hates me at times as much as he loves me at others. And he would do anything for me too, just like I would do anything for him. He’s had my back more times than I can remember, and I think it’s important for you to understand that he wasn’t always like this.”

  “I’m not judging you. I would never do that.”

  “I know, baby,” he says, squeezing my hand. “I just feel like I owe you an explanation.”

  “You really don’t. I get it,” I say.

  I don’t want to tell him about how Tris made me feel that day at The Loft before everything got ugly, but I know that I felt connected to him. I understand his charismatic charm, and though I’ll never admit it to Parker, for a moment, I saw some good in him. “So what happened to make him change?”

  “I don’t know, the drugs maybe,” he replies. “Or maybe it was what happened with Adrienne… I’m not sure. He just became fucking crazy and after a while, things got really out of control between the three of us in that Misfit room. We did things with each other that I hate to even remember, let alone talk about. There’s a reason I don’t like to discuss any of that with you.”

  “I never expected you to tell me about it. I can tell it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “It does,” he confesses. “Ever wish you could erase parts of your past like they never happened?”

  I nod. “Every day,” I reply. “The Goddess haunts me. I’d love nothing more than to take all of those drug-induced nights with strangers and turn them into something meaningful. But what’s done is done, and we can’t go back. All we can do is recognize it, and move on as better people.”

  He smiles and slouches lower into his seat so his cheek is pressing against mine. The stubble of his facial hair tickles me as I inhale the scent of his skin. “You make me a better person,” he says with a sigh.

  “You don’t need me to make you a better person. You’re a good person.”

  “No, I’m serious, from the moment we first met, you made all the shit in my life feel better and you did it without even trying. You made me smile and laugh again, you made me want to care about people again.”

  Why does he give me so much credit? I didn’t do anything spectacular. I was actually pretty horrible to him for most of the time I knew him.

  “After the first night I met you, I told Tris and Adrienne I was out. I said I met someone and it didn’t feel right doing what I was doing with them anymore. Adrienne was ok with it, she knew she didn’t have much choice in the matter; she kind of owed me the pardon. But Tris… God, he flipped out on me and accused
me of just wanting to have a piece of The Goddess like everyone else. He said a lot of asshole shit and so I punched him, just once, to shut him up.”

  I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Tris seems to have always been a loose cannon when it came to Parker, but I think it’s safe to say that once I entered the picture, he became completely hostile.

  Is Parker so blind that he doesn’t see the connection here? Or does he see it but simply chooses to ignore it? He must because even though I’ve already brought it up to him, he still doesn’t let on that Tris’ behavior could possibly be connected to unrequited love.

  “What did he do after that?”

  “He took his anger out on Adrienne, is what he did,” He tells me angrily, his voice rising slightly. His body tenses at the memory that seems to be creeping into his mind. I trace my fingers on his arm in hopes to soothe the anger that’s visibly invading his thoughts.

  “I shouldn’t have just walked away like that,” he goes on. “I should have known better. I knew his sex preferences and I knew how much he liked to inflict pain on her. When I was there, I was able to keep him under control. But with him being so pissed at me for leaving—” his voice catches in his throat for a moment. “He had her all tied up and was whipping her, Sky,” he says, looking into my eyes with a pained expression. “When I finally busted into the room and got to her, she had gashes all over her body! I punched him out so fast he didn’t even see it coming. All I could see was red. I was so pissed at him and at myself for letting it happen. I wanted to kill him… but I couldn’t. I wanted to kill him, and what stopped me was my compassion. The thing that made me beat him the minute I saw what he did to her body, is the very same thing that stopped me from killing him. I didn’t actually have it in me. Not back then anyway.”

  “Oh my God. I had no idea. Was she ok? Did you have to bring her to the hospital?”

  “I wasn’t allowed. It happened under the mansion’s roof, they took care of her there,” he tells me. “Tris told everyone that it was the drugs that did it. He said they fucked him up so bad that he didn’t know what he was doing. He promised he wouldn’t do it to anyone ever again and I really wanted to believe him. He has a way about him, you know? You want to trust him, you want to be his friend, and you want to believe that he’s a good person. But that night was the first sign for me. After that night, I knew there was something very wrong with him.”