Falling Under

by Jasinda Wilder

  SEVEN: Heaven Breaks Through

  Oz

  "Oh, my god, Oz!" Kylie shrieks as soon as we're outside. "That was amazing!"

  I set our gear down by the trunk of the car and then pick up Kylie by the waist, spinning her around. "We totally fucking killed it, didn't we?"

  "We did. We totally did." Kylie leans against me as I let her slide down to her feet. "I knew we would. But holy shit, does that feel good. I love performing. I want to do it all the time. We've got to get a gig, Oz!"

  "We will, sweetness. I've got no doubts."

  "I did, but not anymore." She lets out a long, happy sigh.

  I open the trunk of Kylie's car. It's her mom's, really, but they let Kylie drive it most of the time, unless both Colt and Nell have to go somewhere separately. As we put away our guitars--or my guitars, as Kylie keeps insisting I keep the acoustic--I ask a question that's been nagging at me since we met. "Why don't you have your own car, Kylie?"

  She slides in behind the wheel and starts the engine, which comes to life with a smooth purr. "It was a deal my parents and I made when I turned sixteen. They said I had two choices. They'd buy me something then, when I turned sixteen, but it would be, for all intents and purposes, a piece of shit. Older, used, and cheap. And most of my allowance would go to paying for gas and insurance. Or, alternatively, I could choose to wait to have my own car when I graduate. The payoff there was I'd keep all my allowance as spending money, I'd drive my mom's car, which is pretty fucking sweet, I have to say, and they'd help me buy a car when I graduate. The closer to a four-point-oh GPA I get, the more they'll spend on the car, especially if I don't get any tickets or get in any accidents. I chose the second option, obviously. I've been putting a third of my monthly allowance into a savings account, so I'll have money to put toward whatever I end up buying. It's a good deal. There's rarely a time when I can't take the car, and in those circumstances, either Dad'll take me where I need to go, or someone else comes to get me."

  I'm impressed. "I don't think most people would've gone for the delayed gratification."

  She just shrugs. "No, probably not, but when Mom and Dad said they'd spend at most five thousand dollars on my car, I did some online research as to what five grand can buy, and decided I'd rather wait."

  She's taking us toward downtown Nashville, but I don't know her exact destination. I decide to let it be a surprise.

  "Five grand can buy a really nice car, Ky." It comes out kind of judgmental.

  She doesn't miss it. "Yeah, well, maybe so. But...look. I'm privileged, okay? I know it. All my friends drive nice cars. Their parents bought them basically whatever they wanted, no conditions. That friend I told you about, the one whose house I got lost in? She drives a Mercedes-Benz. A G-class. It costs more than a lot people's houses. And she's already wrecked it once. My point is, yeah, I know I'm used to certain level of...luxury. It's what I know. My parents are trying to instill a sense of values in me, and that's a good thing. I mean, sometimes I get a little irritated, like, they could afford to buy me my own BMW if they wanted to, but it would be their car. Not mine. I haven't earned it. They've worked for what they have. I guess even the fact that I understand why my parents won't buy me a fancy car makes me weird, for a teenager."

  "I think it's awesome," I tell her. "For real. Most people don't appreciate shit. Like, the house they live in, the car they drive. They don't understand how much they have. You do, and that's...it's amazing."

  She glances at me. "Honestly, Oz, I didn't really appreciate it very much until I met you."

  I laugh, and it's not a little bitter. "Until you saw how I live, huh?" She doesn't answer right away, and I know I've gotten it right. "Hey, like you said, it's all I've ever known. It's not like I went from rich to poor, like I know what I'm missing by not living like you and Ben and your pals do. I've always been dirt poor."

  "Are you, like, resentful?"

  I have to think about that. "I don't know. Resentful? No. Mom's busted her ass to provide what we do have. We've always had to scrape to make ends meet. I've been working since I was fourteen to have my own money. And now I stay with her and help out with rent and whatever. It's why I'm still living with her. She works herself ragged, Kylie. It's a vicious cycle she's stuck in. She never went to college that I know of, and because she had me, she couldn't. She had to keep working to take care of me. She just kept working and couldn't ever seem to scrape together the time or money to go to college or anything. So she's been a cocktail waitress her whole life. For me. So am I resentful? No. I'm glad to have had what little we did. But do I wish we had more? Yeah. Do I wish for better for her and for myself? Yeah, obviously. I've seen how hard Mom's worked just to keep food in the house and a roof over our heads, and I want more than just the bare necessities, more than just paycheck to paycheck."

  The conversation shifts to other topics as Kylie parks in a lot just off the main strip of downtown Nashville. I pay for parking, and she takes my hand. She leads me to Broadway, where the bars and the lights and the shops are, the famous stretch of Nashville. It's a busy night, despite the chill in the winter air. Couples stroll hand in hand, families, groups of guys and clusters of girls, everyone laughing and going from bar to bar and shop to shop. She's taking me somewhere specific, I realize, and I go along with her. She finds the door she's looking for, and I start to balk.

  "No, Kylie. Hell no."

  She grins at me. "Come on, Oz. Please? Just look?" She doesn't bother to wait for my response, just drags me by the hand into the boot and hat shop.

  The door is rickety, and an old-fashioned bell sounds as we open it. The floor is covered in old wood planks that squeak and dip as we walk over them, almost as if we might put our foot through a board at any moment. It smells of leather, and the walls are lined with a dizzying array of cowboy boots. There's a line of benches running through the middle of the store, with piles of boxes between the benches, single boots displayed on top. There are cowboy hats, fedoras, huge belt buckles, a glass case displaying spurs and string ties and expensive gold-and-silver belt buckles. I have never in my life felt more out of place. I'm wearing my beat-up combat boots, a pair of baggy black jeans, a black November's Doom T-shirt with a gray long-sleeved shirt beneath it. My hair is bound at the back of my neck, and for once I'm not wearing my hat, at Kylie's insistence. I look every inch the metal kid, and I'm getting looks of confusion from the guy behind the counter, an older man with an actual handlebar mustache and an enormous white cowboy hat, tight jeans, and a flannel shirt tucked behind a thick leather belt and shiny oval buckle.

  "Kylie, what are we doing here?" I ask, trying to inch away toward the door.

  She just laughs. "Oh, don't be a sissy, Oz. We're buying you a pair of cowboy boots."

  I snort. "The fuck we are. For one thing, I don't have the money for boots, and for another thing, hell, no. I'm not wearing cowboy boots. What about me says I would ever wear something like that?" I point at a pair of boots. They're black with orange and red flames, gaudy and dizzyingly bright. "Or those?" These are silver, actual snakeskin, with metal scrollwork at the toe and heel.

  Kylie just waves at me. "Of course you wouldn't wear those. We've got to find something that suits you."

  "Um, newsflash, sweetness: you ain't gonna find it here." I stuff my hands in my pockets and stop in place, refusing to follow her farther into the store.

  She keeps going, perusing the selection. At the far end of the store, she seems to find something, and hustles back to me, a box in hand. "Sit." She pushes me backward until a bench hits my knees, and I sit automatically. "Shoes off."

  I cross my arms over my chest. "No."

  She lifts an eyebrow. "Okay, be stubborn. But you know you can't say no to me."

  "No. No. No." I fake a glare. "See?"

  "Doesn't mean you're going to really say no. Now, boots off, or I'll take 'em off you for you."

  "What am I, three?"

  She lifts both shoulders. "Well, yeah. You are s
ort of acting like a three-year-old about this." I just stare at her, and she huffs in irritation. "Just look at them, would you?" She opens the box and hands me a boot.

  It is pretty cool, actually. It's more of a biker boot, square-toed, black, with a strap of black leather running over the top and around the heel, buckled at either side with chunky silver.

  "Goddamn it, Kylie." I glance at the small white price tag sticker with the $300 scrawled on it. "No way. No way I can afford those. They're not bad, but no."

  Kylie kneels in front of me, grabs my foot, and reaches for the laces. "Who said I was letting you buy them?" She tugs my combat boot off, and for some reason, I let her. "Oz, please. Just try the boots on."

  I sigh. "Fine. But you're not paying for them."

  "Yes, I am. We fucking killed it, Oz. I'm proud of you."

  I stop with my foot partway into the boot. "You're proud of me?" I'm not sure whether I'm pissed off at the implication of condescension, or pleased. A little of both.

  Kylie glances up at me; my mixed reaction must show on my face, because she says, "Not like...god, that sounds condescending, doesn't it? I'm just...I'm happy you did it. I had fun. And I know you were as nervous as me, and you did it anyway."

  I stomp my foot into the boot, and then the other foot, and I hate the fact that they're the most comfortable boots I've ever worn. "I get what you mean. And thanks."

  "How do they feel?"

  I lift an eyebrow. "Expensive. Really fucking expensive."

  "But good, right?"

  I sigh. "Yeah. Comfortable as hell. But you're not--" I'm cut off by Kylie taking the box up to the counter and whipping out her debit card before I can blink twice.

  I watch helplessly as she signs away three hundred dollars and then returns to me, shoves my old battered boots into the box, and grins at me.

  "Am too," she says, with a shit-eating grin.

  "Kylie--"

  She takes me by the hand, and I let her lead me out of the store. The boots are really, really comfortable, and they look badass. When we're on the street, she shoves me against the wall between the store and a bar, and presses into me. "Just say thank you, Oz. It's a gift. It's me repaying you for giving me the best night of my life. Performing? With you? It was magical. It's not charity, it's not because you can't afford it. It's because I want to see you in a pair of badass biker boots. It's because I want to. Because I can. It's a thank-you. And it's a 'please, please will you gig with me again?' bribe."

  I can't help but let my hands wrap around her back, resting just above her hips. "Kylie." I let my forehead touch hers. "Fuck, you're impossible."

  She smiles at me, her lips nearing mine. "I know. It's a talent."

  "One of many." I kiss her, and even on a crowded city street, I feel my resolve wavering.

  I've refused to sleep with her thus far. I want to, and she wants to, but...I just won't. She's waited. She's still a few weeks from her eighteenth birthday, and she's a virgin. I'm...not. Decidedly not. Very much not. She thinks she wants her first time to be with me, but she deserves more. She deserves romance. Love. And I'm not sure I can give her that. I like her. I appreciate who she is. Her talents. Her beauty. Her innocence. And it's for all those reasons that I keep pushing her away, keep telling her no, keep ripping myself away from her when all I want to do is bury myself in her, kiss her and never stop, strip her naked and leave her limp and breathless and ruined for anyone else but me.

  But I can't. I'm not that guy. Not for her.

  Yet she perseveres, refuses to take no for an answer, thinks she can outwait me. Seduce me. And fuck, she just might be right.

  The kiss ends, and she's staring up at me, breathless, flushed, panting slightly. Each deep breath swells her amazing, enormous tits in her pale purple sweater, teasing me, tantalizing and tempting me. It's a low-cut sweater, fitted to hug her figure, scooped deep in the front to offer me a mouth-watering expanse of cleavage.

  "Oz. Take me to your apartment. Please." Her voice is a whisper, a plea.

  "No."

  She pouts. "Why not? What's wrong with me?"

  I groan. "Jesus fuck, Ky. We've been over this a thousand times."

  She slides her arms up around my neck, breathes in my ear. I can't take it, can't handle it. The heat of her breath and the scent of her skin are intoxicating, making me forget why I'm no good for her. "You say I'm impossible, but you're the idiot who's refusing to take what's offered. What belongs to him."

  "It doesn't belong--you don't belong to me. It's not--god. Why are we always talking about this?"

  "Because I want you." She nips at my earlobe. "And you're frustrating me. Making me mad."

  "Good. Get mad. Storm off. Walk away. I'm just doing what's best for you."

  She pushes away from me, genuinely pissed now. I follow her, and she ignores me. We near an alley, and she stops abruptly and shoves me into it, a nearly violent move. I stumble, catch my footing, and then she's on me, attacking me, arms like soft silken serpents around my neck, her legs leaving the ground and wrapping around my legs, and I'm hard as a rock in my jeans and holding her by the ass, feeling in my hands the supple muscle barely contained by her tight jeans, feeling her lips on mine, and I'm drunk with her. I can't help it. I'm not a saint. Not a good person. That's my point. I'm not nice and not good, and she's all over me, and I can't resist such a determined assault on my resolve.

  I hold her and press her back against the wall, kiss her back and pin her with my hips and let my palms soar over her ass and her hips and her thighs, and I'm breathing her in, sucking her breath into my lungs and devouring her tongue and sampling the wild innocence, the hunger of a virgin who has tasted sin. I'm the poison she thinks she wants, and I'm trying to summon the goodness to save her from me, from herself.

  I break away, let her slide to the ground. She's shaking, barely able to stand up, and I'm weak in the knees, too, but I step away from her.

  "How dare you tell me what's best for me?" She's furious; the kiss was an angry one. She puts her fingers to her lips, as if to feel the imprint of my mouth on hers. "You make your own decisions in life, Oz. You're your own person. No one tells you what to do. Well, what if I want that same freedom? I've always done what my parents want. What I know is good and safe and right. I've been a good girl because I love them and want them to be proud of me. And yeah, that's still true. But you want to know something? I didn't stay a virgin for them. I didn't save my virginity for their sake. I waited for my own reasons. I've waited for the right guy for me. Because I've heard stories and watched my friends pair off and get laid. Some of them regret it, some don't. Some felt pressured, some didn't. And I knew I wanted to choose my own time, with someone I cared about. Someone who cared about me. It doesn't have to be love. I'm young. I'll be eighteen in two weeks. I have my whole life to find the kind of love Mom and Dad have, or their friends, Jason and Becca, have. I don't expect that of you. If you feel that way about me, I would--I would be so happy. So happy. Because I think you're amazing, and I could see us having that together. I really could, Oz. But it doesn't have to be that. Not yet, or not ever. I know you have your own plans. I know you're gonna leave Nashville eventually, and I won't ever try to keep you here, no matter what. But I still want my first time to be with you. That's what I want. And you know something?" She wraps her arms around her middle and stares at me from three feet away. People pass by on the sidewalk just beyond us, and cars rush by honking their horns, and from everywhere there's the sound of music playing, a cacophony of competing bands. "I think you're scared. Of me. I think you're telling yourself you're protecting me from yourself, but in reality, you're just scared because I make you feel things you don't understand."

  "Kylie--"

  "NO! I'm not done." She steps forward, eyes so hot and blazing that I can't look away. She's hypnotic when she's mad. "You and I? It may end badly. I may get hurt. But guess what? I don't care! I've never had my heart broken. Maybe I'm fine with risking it, because it's bett
er than being afraid and going through life bored. I have friends. I have Ben. I have my parents. But none of them have ever challenged me to feel new things. I've never had to risk anything. I've never risked being hurt. I'm going into this with you, knowing you're bad for me, according to you. Yeah, Oz, I get it, you're a bad boy. You're a drifter. You kick ass and take names and ride a hog. You're all those stereotypes. Got it. I'm not trying to change you. I just want a piece of you."

  I lean back against the wall behind me, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to say. I'm a stereotype? That bugs me a little.

  The fact remains, though, that I don't want to hurt her. She doesn't know about heartbreak, or she wouldn't be talking about it so casually.

  "All right, you know what?" I take a step toward her. "I don't want to talk about this here. You want to talk about this? Then let's go. Take us to my place."

  She doesn't speak, just whirls on her heel and storms back to the car. I follow her, watching her ass move in her jeans and watching the tense set to her shoulders, and wondering what the hell I'm going to say when we get there, because I have no idea. She's right. So right. It should be her choice. And I am afraid.

  The ride to my apartment is silent. The radio is off, and Kylie is chewing on the inside of her cheek, mad and tense and I don't even know what else. I'm confused, and nervous, and trying to figure out what I think, and what I really want, and what I'm afraid of, and why she makes me feel things I've never felt before, and what to do about it.

  I keep her close to me as we go in, and I lock my bedroom door and sit down, dig a cigarette out and light it, and wait for Kylie to clear a space on my bed, shoving dirty jeans and T-shirts aside. It's a mess in here, but she doesn't seem to care.

  I blow a smoke ring, and then bat my hand through it. "Ky, look. You're right about a lot of things. About me. About how I'm scared of what you make me feel. Yeah, I am. Maybe I'm being a fucking sissy about this, but...it's more than that. Being scared of how much and how intensely I feel for you. I've never been as close to anyone as I am to you. And it's more than that. You want some truth? I'll give it to you." This is going to be cruel. "I'm not a virgin, okay? I think you know that. My first time was in ninth grade. Biloxi, Mississippi. A Cuban girl named Nina. She was two years older than me, and she was...experienced. She wanted me, so she made sure I wanted her back. It wasn't hard. We got blazed, and she kissed me, and started touching me, and that was that. She was my first, but she wasn't my last. And since then sex, for me, is just....a girl who knows what's up. We smoke a joint or two, we bang, and go our separate ways. Nothing else."