Risk the Fall

by Steph Campbell

  “I think if you told her, it’d be a step in the right direction.”

  “Which direction is that?”

  This time, she pecks a small kiss on my cheek. It’s a tease, and she’s good at it. I crave her touch almost more than I ever craved alcohol. I laugh and go to the pantry to grab some cereal.

  “The direction that maybe brings my bags back into your apartment,” she says.

  “Oh really?” I stop mid-step.

  “Maybe.”

  “Uh-uh. Maybe’s not really good enough,” I say. I lean in close to her and take a shot at being a little more bold than normal. I nip at her bottom lip and wait for her to pull away. She doesn’t. Instead, she parts her lips and lets me kiss her. Really kiss her for the first time since the meeting. It’s hot enough that she lets one, tiny moan slip out, but soft enough that it still feels intimate as hell.

  There’s nothing I miss more than being able to touch her.

  “I’m going to need some sort of security that if I tell my sister that you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Carter,” Shayna says. I step in closer to the counter and she puts her hands on my shoulders and lets her legs swing down around my hips. “I want you to tell Quinn because you think it’s the right thing to do. I think you need your family behind you on this.”

  “I’m not telling my family.”

  “Fine, not your mom and dad. But your sister? Come on. You saw her after her overdose—that was officially her worst, Carter. You can tell her about AA.”

  Shayna is right, of course. If anyone, I owe Quinn my honesty.

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay. I’ll tell her. And, Shay, I won’t hold you to moving in with me until you’re ready. You have a home here whenever you want.”

  “Good. Because classes start soon and I’m going to need a real bed. Quinn’s place is alright, but the couch isn’t as comfortable as that California King.” She lifts her chin to motion to my bedroom.

  “Classes?”

  Shayna smirks. “I’m a later register so I probably won’t get a single class I want this semester, but I got in.”

  “Got in where?”

  Shayna pulls her lips together, trying to conceal the big ass grin that is bursting underneath. “USC.”

  “What?” I pull her into my chest and squeeze her tiny frame until she’s yelping. “That’s incredible, doll!”

  “Thank you.” She lifts her chin and looks proud. Hell, I’m more than proud of her.

  “You’re doing it, Shayna. You’re doing all the things you wanted. On your own. I’m really proud of you.”

  She picks off a piece of the English muffin and chews thoughtfully for a minute before saying, “And you’ll be fine with me moving back in? I’m underemployed. I’m only racking up more and more student loans by the day. I’m really nothing more than a parasite.”

  “I’ll put you to work,” I say.

  “I bet you will,” she laughs.

  “Listen, there’s one more thing I want to talk to you about.”

  “I don’t do windows. Or toilets. Or cooking, come to think of it.”

  “Very funny. I want to throw you a party. A birthday party. And I guess a congratulatory party as well.”

  Shayna swallows hard and crooks and eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  I pick up her hand and kiss each of her knuckles before continuing. “I think you’ve earned a special night.”

  “Well, I never say no to a party!”

  “I’d like to invite your parents.” I say it quickly and her reply slips out just as fast.

  “No.” She tosses the plate into the sink next to her and hops down off of the counter. “You just killed a perfectly good moment, you know that Carter.”

  I rub the back of my head. “Well, wouldn’t be the first one. Just hear me out, though.” I grasp onto her forearm and pull her into my chest.

  “You’ve been through a lot. I get it. I’m coming out of something, too. But listen to me when I tell you that once you shed those secrets—your life will change for the better. I promise.”

  “I don’t have any secrets—”

  “Really?” I ask, kissing her hand again. “When do you plan on telling them that you know?”

  She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I promised myself I wouldn’t invite them out here until I had everything together. Until they could be proud of me.”

  “You don’t think they’d be proud of you? C’mon, Shay. Look at all you’ve done. You have a job, you’re about to be back in school. What more could they want for their kid?”

  “Why is this so important to you?”

  I answer without hesitation, but filter in a joke just in case my reply scares her off. “Because maybe I’m falling in love with you. And I think it’s important that I meet your parents. Maybe.”

  Shayna’s face explodes with a smile that I feel a sense of pride for putting there.

  “You’re what?”

  “You heard me. What do you think? Can I invite them?”

  “I’ll think about it,” she says. Her own hand smacks her forehead. “Oh, shit!”

  “What is it, doll?” I search her face in a panic.

  “My mom! She sent a gift to me. It’s in my car, has been for weeks!”

  “A gift? Wait, have you talked to her?”

  Shayna shakes her head and looks a little flustered.

  “No. I haven’t. I’ve got to go and get it.” She runs to grab her keys off of the kitchen counter. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Shay,” I say. “I’m going to head out for a bit.”

  Shayna slows her pace and turns to me.

  “Where are you going?” She says the words slowly, uneasily, as if she’s wondering if it’s okay if she asks them.

  “There’s something I have to do.”

  “Carter…”

  “It’s not a bad thing. I won’t be long.”

  “Okay. But you can tell me if you need to go to a meeting.”

  “It’s nothing like that. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Carter—”

  “Listen to me,” I kiss her again and then say, “I’m going to go next door and talk to Quinn. That way, if you want some privacy after you open your gift… well, you’ve got it.”

  She raises a brow and asks, “You’re going to talk-to-Quinn, talk-to-Quinn?”

  “Yes, warden. I’m gonna take care of it. But you’d better be prepared to earn your keep when I get back.”

  She laughs and bolts for the door.

  And now I’ve got to go tell my kid sister I’m an addict.

  ***

  I race down to my car and pop the glove box open. I can’t believe I forgot it there all of these weeks. No matter what it was, I should have at least sent a thank you to my mom. That’s proper. That’s how she raised me.

  She raised me. I repeat in my head.

  She’s my mother.

  I’m glad that Carter is going to talk to Quinn—and I’m even happier about the little bit of quiet that I have to open the gift.

  I sink deep into the cushions of the sofa and set the box neatly on my lap. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Mostly I just feel scared. Scared that it’s some final tie being cut. I guess it would serve me right after dropping off the face of the earth all of these months. I think I suppressed the anger and betrayal I felt about them lying to me about my birth parents for so long that when it finally hit me, I didn’t know how to deal.

  So I left.

  I’m not going to say that I regret it. It brought me to Carter. But I regret cutting them off completely. I need to make things right. Maybe Carter is right. Maybe asking them to come out would be a good first step. And if Carter can tell Quinn the truth—I can confront my own parents about my adoption. Because one thing hasn’t changed in my mind—they are my parents.

  I slip the lavender ribbon off and open the lid of the box.

  Inside, resting on top of a white, cloud like pillow of tissue paper is a dainty n
ecklace. It’s a simple silver chain with a clear, resin orb on the end. I raise it up to the light to see what’s inside the glass ball. It’s a dandelion.

  My lips curl into a smile as I instantly remember all of the afternoons I spent picking dandelions behind the parsonage with my mom when I was little. I’d collect dozens of them and then sit on the back porch and insist on making a wish on every single one—blowing on the buds and sending those feather light petals floating into the air. It took me hours to collect them and then wish on each one, but Mom never lost patience with me.

  Inside the box is a tiny card with my mom’s familiar handwriting. The same cursive that is in every birthday card I’ve ever been given by her, every note about dinner, every Valentine in my lunch box, every inscription in each bible I was gifted. I run my finger over the familiar lettering.

  I feel my throat tighten with the emotion I can’t push down and bury deep inside me anymore. I am my mother’s daughter. And I miss her.

  I slide my phone out of my purse and tap on her name and hold my breath as it starts to ring.

  “Shayna!” Mom’s voice beams as soon as she answers. I pull the phone back and inspect it, surprised for a second that she knew it was me before my nerves remind me that I’m an idiot and of course her phone alerted her that it was me.

  “Mom,” I start. “I just—I opened the gift that you sent. I’m so sorry that I didn’t get to it sooner—”

  “That’s okay,” Mom says.

  “No, no it’s not. I meant to save it to open for a quiet moment and I just—I love it. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, Shayna. Are you okay?”

  I smile because I am. I so am. “I’m great.”

  “You have enough money? Your dad and I left your credit card on—we wanted to make sure you weren’t hungry—we’ve been so worried.”

  “I know. Nolan came to see me.”

  “He told us. He’s a good man.”

  “He is.” I say, tightly. “For someone else.”

  “We understand that now, Shayna. You being gone has been a learning experience for us, too. We didn’t mean to force anything on you. We only wanted to make sure you were okay, well taken care of. We just wanted you to be alright. I’m sorry if pushing you in his direction made you leave.”

  “Nolan didn’t make me leave, Mom.”

  “How are things over there? What are your plans? Am I allowed to ask that?” Her voice is full of trepidation. It reminds me of the way she speaks to the congregants that come to the church in need of some kind of assistance. Help with their electric bill, a gift to put under their tree for their child. Mom always wants to offer help without asking any questions that might offend. She needs details in order to help, but she’s always thoughtful, each word selected with care. That is not how she should have to talk to her own daughter.

  I clear my throat and suddenly feel a wave of nausea wash over me as I prepare to speak the next words.

  “I know.” Even though I’m alone in the apartment, I still have the immediate urge to hide after uttering the words. To pull a blanket over my head and my heart.

  “You know what?”

  “I heard you and Dad talking last Christmas. I know that… I know that you adopted me.”

  I count the breaths on the other end of the line.

  I can almost see my mom jingling her gold bracelets with clammy hands, her shoulders tight, breath bursting in and out of her sharp and fast.

  “Mom?” I don’t know what I’ll do if she denies it. I can’t handle anymore secrets in my life.

  “I don’t—I don’t know what to say, Shayna.”

  “I thought—I mean, I was angry for the longest time that you hid it from me, even if I understood your reasons—at least the ones I heard you and Dad talking about that night. How you wanted to protect me from the image of who my real parents were.”

  “And that’s why you left?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When I heard you—something clicked inside of me. All of the years of feeling like I didn’t fit in within my own family suddenly made sense to me,” I say. I take a deep breath before speaking again. “I was determined to try to fit that mold once and for all. But I couldn’t. I tried with Nolan, but it just never felt right. Nothing felt right. And that’s why I left.”

  “You’re our daughter,” Mom says. Her voice sounds weepy and it makes me choke up. “No matter what you do. No matter who you date. You’ve been our daughter since the day we brought you home. We’ve loved you since the second we saw you. Never doubt that Shayna. We are your real parents, Shayna, in every way that matters.”

  I swallow hard. “I know that.”

  We both sit in silence for several minutes before my mom finally speaks again.

  “We can give you all of the information that we have on them—your birth mother and your biological father. It isn’t much, but if you want it—”

  “I don’t,” I say. Maybe someday that will change, but right now, I’ve never felt more sure of anything. I am the daughter of Pastor David and Trish Gillan.

  “We owed you honesty, my girl,” Mom says, regret hanging heavily in her words.

  I feel my throat pinch with the tightness that comes from holding in your tears. “I owed you and Dad a lot of honesty—a lot of things, too.”

  In the end, we don’t solve everything with one phone call. But it’s a start. We talk about Dad. We talk about school and we even talk about Carter. Mostly, the conversation is just full of truth. I’m slowly learning that that’s all that really matters when you love someone.

  ***

  “Hey, wasn’t expecting you,” Quinn says, pulling the door open and peering around me. “Where’s Shayna?”

  “She’s back at my place. I think she may be calling home,” I say.

  Quinn raises her eyebrows. “Oh, finally! Nice job, bro. Come in.”

  “Ben around?”

  “Not yet, he’ll be home soon. You need him for something?”

  “Nah, I just… I needed to talk to you about something.”

  Quinn taps her fingers together and grins. “I’m intrigued.”

  “It’s actually a couple of things.”

  “Alright, now you’re just getting greedy,” Quinn jokes. “Shoot, what do you need?”

  “I want to throw Shayna a birthday party—and a congratulatory party.”

  “Congrats for what?”

  “She got into USC.”

  “What?” Quinn beams. “What didn’t that little assface come and tell me herself?”

  “I’m gonna guess it’s because you refer to her as an assface?”

  “Whatever, that’s not even close to as bad as the stuff she calls me,” Quinn says, smiling. “Okay, so what? You need help planning?”

  I nod. “I do. I don’t know shit about decorations or napkins. I do have a contact at work that may be able to help with the space, but what I really need help with… is the food. You up for it?”

  “Obviously, Carter. I’d kick your ass if you hired someone else. I’d love to. You ready to talk menu now?”

  “Not quite,” I say. “You may not want to help me after I tell you what I need to.”

  “Alright, color me officially freaked out. Are you okay? Is Shayna okay?”

  For not being friends for long, Quinn and Shayna have this inexplicable loyalty to each other—whether they want to admit it or not. I probably won’t ever understand the friendship that my sister and Shayna have, but I’m damn grateful that they have it. It isn’t perfect—it isn’t typical, but it works for them, and they are lucky to have found each other. All of us—this weird little family foursome of me, Shay, Ben and Quinn we’re all damn lucky to have found each other.

  “So listen, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but I don’t drink a whole lot,” I say. It sounds stupid. It’s not how I strung together the confession in my head, but that’s what flies out.

  Q
uinn purses her lips and nods. “I have.”

  “There’s sort of a reason for that.”

  “Carter, are you okay?” Her voice is serious. Sincere.

  “I am. I really am. But I’m also…”

  “Seriously, Carter, you’re freaking me out.”

  There’s no way to sugar coat something that is already dripping in acid so I count to three in my head before spitting the words out. “I’m an alcoholic. I have been for… a long time.”

  Quinn leans back in her chair and blows out a long breath. “Okay. So, that’s not exactly what I thought you were going to say.”

  “I don’t mean to dump that on you. And you don’t have to worry about me.” I start rambling. “I promise, I’m okay. I just thought maybe it was time that you knew.”

  “Do you like… go to meetings? Is that a stupid question?”

  “It’s not a stupid question. And I do.”

  “There have been so many times that I’ve poured you a drink with dinner Carter and you left it full. Some damn good wine and you’d sit with it there in front of you and not take a sip. Why would you do that? Why would you torture yourself? Masochist much?”

  “I didn’t want to make a big deal.”

  “Come on, Carter, that’s bullshit. You just didn’t want people to know.”

  “That’s part of it,” I say. Quinn raises her eyebrows and glares. She knows all about hiding problems, and what happens when you do it for too long.

  “Ben even had his suspicions and I shot him down. You could have just said something.”

  I rub my hands together and say, “I wish I did. I wish it had felt that easy.”

  “But it’s me. If anyone would get it…”

  This is also part of the reason I couldn’t tell my sister. She looks damn hurt. I hate seeing her like that, especially knowing I caused it. But I think part of what kept Quinn together after the bad year that she had was knowing that I at least managed to come from our crappy home and be okay. If I killed that perception, I worried about what it would do to her self-esteem. I worried that she’d see it as: “if Carter screwed up, there’s no hope for me staying on the right track.”