Catch My Fall: A Falling Novel

by Jessica Scott

  I press my lips into a flat line. "It's not like I put myself in the hospital on purpose. I got hit by a fucking driver who was texting. I'm lucky all I ended up with is a concussion and some cracked ribs."

  "It's a fuck of a lot more serious than that, shit-for-brains. Bleeding on the brain is a really big deal."

  "Ah, you're going to make me cry from all the love."

  He flips me off. Goddamn it's good to see him. "Sorry you had to come here on your trip. Where's your daughter?"

  "Talking to her mother about coming here. Looks like I'm staying in for thirty to pay for it."

  I frown. "You can't transfer your GI Bill to her?"

  "Already did. They cut the housing and book stipend for family members so I've got to keep some form of employment to help support her."

  My head is throbbing like a motherfucker from laughing. "Wow, that's a hell of a sacrifice. You really going to deploy to World War III to put your kid through college? Handing out stickers at Walmart might be a better option."

  "We all make sacrifices for the people we love." He makes a noise. "So what the hell happened between you and Ryder? It's only been a week; I didn't think you'd fuck things up this badly this fast."

  "Clearly you underestimate my ability," I say dryly. I hold my hand over my eyes, needing to block the light. Reading my mind, he dims the overhead lights as much as he can. "Thanks. I may have gotten a little upset when I found out that not only did she get really fucked up downrange, the Army threw her out over pissing hot for expired medication. And I was too selfish to even ask if she was okay."

  "Well, we all do stupid shit when we’re young. It’s amazing any women take chances on us."

  "She tried to kill herself, First Sarn't. The surgeries she had, everything, she needs medical treatment. She's doing yoga and while I think it's really fucking cool that it's helping as much as it is, she also needs modern fucking medicine and she can't get it because she doesn't have an honorable discharge."

  He says nothing for a while. "Sarn't Ryder has always been one of those people who does her best when she's deployed." He looks over at me. "She volunteered for the long runs between Mosul and Taji. Always willing to go on the roads. She's damn good at what she does." He looks up at me. "She's also stubborn as the day is long so the fact that she's willing to do anything to take care of herself is pretty fucking impressive. You should take a page or six from her book."

  "I know. I was there when she started to hit rock bottom. And I fucked it up then, too."

  "Well, how 'bout you stop fucking up? Tell her you love her and be a man about it. You can’t protect her from the world. You can't keep her from getting hurt. You can't block out the world and stop it from taking shots at her. All you can do is love her and be strong enough to face it with her."

  I narrow my eyes at him. "Why do I think we're not just talking about Kelsey?"

  "Because we're not. This place is a fucking dick assembly line. Do you know how many terrible news stories there are every week about what happens to women on college campuses?"

  "I guess this is what it feels like, then, loving someone and not being able to fix everything for them."

  He sighs again. "It never stops. I still get calls from guys I served with a decade ago. And when they call, I answer. I always will." He looks over at me. "And so will you. Always. Because that's what we do. We take care of our own. No matter what. And when they're the women we love, we still stand with them. Nothing changes."

  My eyes burn. My throat closes off and I try my damnedest to hide the tears slipping down my cheeks.

  A short dark-skinned nurse with bright, calm eyes pushes the curtain aside and steps to the machine near my shoulder that’s reporting on my blood pressure and a bunch of other shit. "Mr. Hunter, we've cleared Ms. Ryder if you'd like to see her?"

  First Sarn't stands up. It doesn’t matter that I’m a civilian now. I can’t call him by his first name. He’ll always be my first sarn’t. "Yes, he'd like to see her." He glares down at me. "I'll see you when you get out of here. Don't fuck this one up. She's got a finite amount of patience for your dumb ass."

  He stalks by the horrified nurse. "He's very loving," I tell her.

  I’ve never seen a look call bullshit more clearly.

  Kelsey

  I don't know how I feel, seeing him sitting there in a hospital gown, the needle sticking out of his arm, stark blue against his dark skin in the dim light.

  I’ve seen all of his tattoos before but seeing the electrodes pressed to his chest, breaking up the lines of the branches and the crow’s wings…it breaks something inside of me. Like a branch that snaps from too much pressure, the fear hits me in that moment.

  I almost lost him again.

  "Did you know First Sarn’t was coming to visit?" I ask, needing a neutral topic to start with. The hurt in my chest is a tight knot, aching and still raw.

  He's in a neck brace. I can see the outline of bandages beneath the hospital gown and one of his eyes is bruised and swollen. He plucks at the thin blanket covering his lap.

  I don't move into the room. My throat is tight, anger a knot in my chest.

  "Yeah. I may have called him last week," he admits quietly.

  I tip my chin. "Oh yeah?"

  "Needed some advice." He looks up at me. "On how to stop fucking everything up with you."

  The knot in my chest releases, just a little. "Well, you are exceptionally good at that."

  He looks down at the needle in his arm. "This is going to be really fucking expensive."

  "Getting hit by a car because you're not looking where you're going tends to be."

  He looks up at me, his eyes intense and wary. "It wasn't my fault the guy was texting and driving."

  "He's spending the night in Durham County. Turns out the cops don't care that he was fighting with his girlfriend, too."

  His mouth relaxes a little. "Are you?"

  "What?

  "My girlfriend?"

  I give. I step into the room and lean my hip against the edge of his hospital bed. "Well, you got a little salty when I said we were fuck buddies so maybe we should go with a more polite term."

  He laughs then and winces. "Jesus, don't make me laugh."

  I tug the divider curtain closed behind me. I was going to yell at him. I was going to ask him what the fuck he was doing walking in the middle of the road during rush hour.

  But instead, I stand there, unable to push the words out over the intense gratitude squeezing my chest.

  "What did the docs say?"

  "They're keeping me for the weekend. Guess my head isn’t that hard after all because I fractured my skull when I hit the pavement. They're watching for bleeding on the brain."

  Fear is a powerful thing. "That sounds terrifying."

  "Mildly. If there is, they may have to drill in there to relieve the pressure. You know, outpatient surgery."

  I move to the edge of his bed, sitting near his hip. He threads his fingers with mine.

  "You're not allowed to die, you know. I just got you back."

  He shifts, then, and tugs me down. I sink into the bed next to him, careful of his bandaged ribs. The knot in my chest breaks apart, releasing into a thousand pieces all at once, a flood of emotion slamming into me.

  The tears bleed out onto his chest. "Don't cry. I'll be okay."

  "I'm supposed to be the fucking train wreck here, not you," I finally say.

  “I was coming to see you,” he says quietly. “I was coming to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never asked if you were okay. After Iraq. I’m sorry I just assumed we’d pick up where we left off.”

  He cups my chin and I don't resist him. "I fell for you a long time ago. Train wreck and all. There aren't too many people who can make me laugh when I'm getting shot at."

  "God, when you put it that way," I whisper. "You're an idiot. How the hell did you manage to get hit by a fucking car?"

  He closes his eyes. "I was texting Professor Blake on my way to s
ee you."

  "The only thing you have to apologize for is nearly dying. You scared the shit out of me."

  "Keep talking dirty. You're getting me hard," he whispers. "Maybe it's the universe’s way of slapping me upside the head and reminding both of us that life is too short." He lifts my face to his. "I don't have much. But I want to share everything with you. The good. The bad. I'll even do yoga with you because it's important to you, and maybe if I make myself look like a fucking asshole enough, you'll forgive me for being a selfish dickhead."

  "It's going to take a lot of yoga. Maybe even yoga man pants."

  He laughs then, rests his cheek against the top of my head. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

  "I was angry. Pissed that you were hurting. Pissed that I never once thought to see if you were okay." He presses his lips to the top of my head. "I don't like being an asshole."

  "It's not your job to protect me from the world. I think we had this argument once before."

  "I know."

  "But I'd very much like to walk with you. Through the good. And the bad. And everything in between."

  His fingers tighten in mine. "There is nothing I want more."

  Epilogue

  6 months later

  Washington, D.C.

  Deacon

  Kelsey is adorable when she’s nervous. She tugs at her crisp white blouse, the blouse we went to buy especially for this occasion.

  She may have sworn at me when I told her we were going to Brooks Brothers. Because she needed to be dressed for the part she’s going to play today and so did I.

  “Stop fidgeting,” I tell her.

  “I can’t get my shirt to stay tucked in. It keeps coming untucked.” She brushes her hair behind her ear where it’s escaped the neat bun she twisted it into that morning at the hotel.

  Professor Blake looks up from her laptop. “Tuck it into your Spanx,” she says before going back to whatever she’s working on.

  I frown over at Kelsey. I don’t remember this part of the shopping trip. “What the fuck are Spanx?”

  “Oh, I’ll show you tonight,” she says with a smile. But she does as Professor Blake suggests, tucking it into something tan she’s wearing beneath her pants.

  She finishes adjusting her blouse then tugs her jacket into place. “You look really great,” she says after a moment. “You clean up kind of nice.”

  “You do, too.” I tug her close to me, brushing my lips against hers. “Relax. You’re going to do fine. This isn’t a parole board.”

  “I know. It’s just not every day that you testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.” Her words are rushed. Breathless. Like the magnitude of what she’s about to do is finally hitting her.

  Professor Blake stands, tucking her laptop into her well-worn black bag. “They need to hear your story, Kelsey. They need to know the impact of their policy decisions.”

  She’s wearing a black pin-striped suit and looks more like a retired colonel than the professor I’ve grown to love even more in the last few months. When I emailed her about Kelsey and asked her if there was a way to use my thesis to get decision makers to reconsider their policy about bad discharges, she didn’t even blink.

  She told me that was what she’d had in mind the entire time. And would Kelsey be willing to testify in front of Congress? To tell her story?

  “I know,” Kelsey says softly. There’s no fear in her voice as she straightens her shoulders, releasing a hard breath.

  “You’ve got this. I’ll be with you the entire time.” I squeeze her hand as we stand in front of the closed door Professor Blake just went through. “I’m proud of you for doing this.”

  She smiles over at me. “Thanks for coming with me. And suffering through suit shopping.”

  “Oh, that was no sacrifice at all.” There may have been some dressing room shenanigans that I desperately hope were not caught on any security cameras.

  She’s sleeping better these days. So am I.

  It’s a combination of things. There’s no magic bullet. No single thing that will put all the pieces back together. There are still nights I can’t sleep. Nights she can’t either. Those will still happen. We both know that.

  But it’s easier, knowing someone is there. In the darkness. Asking if you’re okay.

  Being there, even if you’re not.

  Knowing that she loves me, despite my past. Despite everything. I kiss her gently, then urge her to open the door, then follow her through.

  No matter what, I’ll be there with her.

  It’s a powerful promise.

  One I intend to keep every day. For the rest of our lives.

  <<<<>>>>

  Sneak Peek at UNTIL WE FALL

  Keep reading for an uncorrected sneak peek at UNTIL WE FALL, Caleb & Nalini’s book, coming early 2018.

  UNTIL WE FALL

  Nalini

  “There isn’t enough coffee for me to deal with this shit this morning.”

  I swear I’m not usually a violent person. I’ve worked a lot of my rage and trauma issues out on my yoga mat.

  Except when I forget that I’m practicing nonviolence.

  The smell of burning animal flesh at five in the morning is a quick way to make me regress to violence and shabbiness.

  Especially since I’m running a yoga studio and it’s rather disconcerting to walk in first thing in the morning to find yourself inhaling charred meat.

  I breathe in deeply, needing to remind myself that I can’t evict the new barbecue place next door because I don’t own the damn building. And people don’t take animal cruelty protests seriously any more unless it involves kittens.

  Americans just love their steak too much to care about factory farming.

  So my yoga studio is now conveniently located half a building away from a barbecue restaurant.

  Because the universe is fucking with me.

  I have the early morning class arriving in the next fifteen minutes. While I’m confident they are not going to be bothered by the smell of cooking meat, I am not going to be able to focus.

  I light some incense and too many candles, then sink onto my mat, jotting down my plan for this morning’s flow sequence. I breathe deeply.

  And inhale the smoke from next door.

  The panic wraps around my lungs, the coppery stench of burned blood filling my nose and cutting off my oxygen.

  I double over, needing cool fresh air by the floor.

  “Okay that’s it.”

  I slap my notebook down and damn near rip open the door, stalking down the cool pavement to Logan’s All American Barbecue.

  The master key to the building works in his back door, too.

  I stalk to the back and stop short.

  I’m not one to admire anything when surrounded by the smell of cooking meat but standing in the middle of the kitchen is a man sporting the greatest set of shoulders I’ve ever seen on a man.

  Broad and cut, watching him do whatever he’s doing causes the smooth muscle to ripple across his back. His arms flex, glistening with sweat. The American flag logo on the back of his T-shirt clings to his frame, highlighting all the glorious details that leave nothing to the imagination.

  And after two tours in Iraq, I can assure you I have one hell of an imagination.

  He turns abruptly and drops the slab of meat with a shout. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to give someone a heart attack?”

  Okay, I might feel a teeny bit bad about scaring the shit out of him. “Are you Logan?”

  He frowns, swiping the massive butcher knife on a towel. “Who the fuck is Logan?”

  “The owner?” I am now thoroughly confused.

  “The owner’s name is Sam.”

  “And you’re not Sam, I assume?” This is getting mildly awkward. Nothing like stalking down to someone’s place of business and not finding the right person to yell at.

  “Do you always walk into restaurants without shoes on?” he asks, pointing to my bare feet with the knife.

/>   “If you’re not the owner, who are you? And when will the owner be back?”

  He stabs the knife into the slab of meat and wipes his hands. “Sam’s out of town for a few weeks.”

  “And you are?”

  He folds his arms over his chest and leans back against a griddle that I assume isn’t on because if it was, it would have burned him on the ass. “Who wants to know?”

  “The owner of the yoga studio that you’re blowing the smell of cooking meat into at five in the morning.”

  He tips his chin and offers the kind of smirk that tempts me to reach for the knife. “What, you can’t downward dog with the smell of barbecue distracting you?”

  “Yeah, actually, that is the fucking problem. You need to get ahold of the building owners and make them reroute the vents or something. It’s incredibly disrespectful to our practice.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? And no, I’m not calling the building owner to make them rewire shit. You’ve lost your goddamned mind, honey.”

  My spine stiffens. “Don’t call me fucking honey.”

  “Then don’t come barging into someone’s business being an asshole at five in the morning.” He looks down at my shoeless feet again. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

  “Building master key.”

  “Why the hell do you have one of those?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Are you going to at least stop cooking whatever it is you’re cooking?”

  He looks at me like I’ve got a dick growing out of my forehead. “Honey, I don’t know what the hell you’re smoking down at the other end of the building but I’m not calling anyone, I’m not changing up anything that Sam directed and I’m not going to stand here and entertain any more demands from some barefoot hippy psycho.”

  “So that’s it then?”

  He frowns. “Pretty sure I didn’t fucking stutter.”