Fear of Falling

by S. L. Jennings

  We went hours without speaking, other than the occasional “excuse me” as we worked to avoid contact. Kami nearly sighed with relief when CJ came in after work, plopping down in his usual seat at the bar. She was so desperate to ignore me that she was actually happy for the distraction that my imbecile cousin brought. Un-fucking-believable.

  “She still not speaking to you?” he asked, once Kami was out of earshot.

  I shrugged. I wasn’t in the mood to humor him. If I answered, he would press for more, which would result in me itching to press my fist into his face. I didn’t understand it. How the hell could I? Kami had gone from scorching hot in my lap to as cold and awkward as a wet blanket. It was confusing and infuriating as fuck.

  By the time Angel and her band made it in for Dive’s first Open Mic Night, I was long overdue for a break. I needed a cigarette. Badly. I hadn’t felt that craving since the first time Kami came barreling through the parking lot and into my life. She replaced the intense need from that day on. But with her purposely shutting me out, the taste for nicotine was clouding every sense and thought.

  “Hi, Blaine!” a chorus of feminine voices greeted me when I returned to the bar. AngelDust had joined CJ at his usual spot at the bar and were chatting about the evening’s events. I noticed Kami shift uneasily on her feet when she realized I was back.

  I nodded and gave them a half-smirk before turning to a customer for an order. I was done being the nice guy. Chicks swore up and down that they wanted a good man, but when there was one right in front of them, they went for the douchebags and players instead. Maybe Kami was better off hooking up with Lidia’s friend. Maybe she was into the suit-and-tie types. That wasn’t me and never would be, no matter how badly I wanted to be her choice.

  The staff kept their distance from me for most of the night. Even CJ directed his crude jokes and stories to Dom when he arrived just as the first act took to the stage. My head ached at the sound of amateur singers and musicians butchering perfectly good songs. Normally, I would have been more forgiving, maybe even shot CJ an amused look as I stifled my laughter at some of the really bad performances. But, as it was, I just didn’t give a fuck. I just wanted them all to shut the hell up, drink their beer, and get the fuck out so I could take my pathetic ass home.

  By the time a young guy took the stage, I was two seconds from saying, “Fuck it” and bumming a smoke from a customer. He began strumming his guitar, bypassing AngelDust’s accompaniment, and I instantly picked up the tune. It was an older John Mayer song, speaking about the love between a father and daughter. His voice curled around the words as he sang of the girl who had been damaged due a broken relationship with her dad, too hurt and impaired to let anyone love her. It was a bit melodramatic for my tastes, but I liked it, and found the tension in my shoulders loosening a fraction with every profound note.

  As if being pulled by an unseen force that I couldn’t understand or resist, my gaze swept over to Kami who stood stock-still, her attention focused only on the man on stage. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing, though her mouth hung ajar just a bit. And, as if the same current pulled her to me, she slowly turned her head, giving me a full view of those big green eyes, shining with unshed tears.

  I didn’t even think about. I clapped CJ on the back, grabbing his attention and ordering him to take over. Then I scooped Kami into my arms and led her to the back office before anyone could get a glimpse of the beautiful girl who was crumbling before my eyes.

  Once we were alone, the closed door muffling the song that had obviously conjured a hidden pain, I led her to the couch. I held Kami like my life depended on it—like her life depended on it—because at that very moment, I wanted to be her lifeline. Whatever was eating her up inside, I needed to make it right. I needed to make it better.

  “Kami, baby,” I whispered into her hair just as the first round of sobs wracked her entire frame, shaking us both. The ache behind the sound both startled and scared me. I had seen her cry before, but that was after her near-attack. She was in shock then, almost paralyzed with fear. This was different. There was so much anguish in her cries that it seeped into my skin. Her tears served as translucent tattoos, marking us both with the evidence of her immeasurable pain. I felt it. I broke for her too. I refused to let her suffer alone.

  The semi-muted music shifted into an upbeat tempo, but I didn’t let Kami go. I couldn’t. Her tears had validated me. They gave me purpose, made me realize just how incredibly much I needed to be in this girl’s life. And just how much I needed her in mine, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. The past few days were a distant memory. Her coldness towards me was forgiven and forgotten. I didn’t give a damn about any of it. Only this girl in my arms mattered to me.

  Even after she emptied all her tears into my shirt, I still didn’t let go, murmuring soothing words as I kissed the crown of her head.

  Kami’s demons had somehow become mine without me even knowing them. And I swore on my life that I would fight every one of them. I would fight for her.

  Shit happens.

  I never really understood that saying. Yeah, there were certain situations in life that were shitty, but they were just that; they were life. So it really wasn’t the shit in life that was, well, so shitty. It was life itself.

  Life happens. That was much more appropriate.

  Unfortunately, many of us found that out earlier than some. We found out just how awful life could really be. We found out that monsters were, indeed, real. They walked among us. They looked just like you and me. They came in the form of the people that we loved and trusted the most. The people whose only job was to love and protect us.

  Funny thing about life is that it never turns out the way you want it to. It’s never fair. It’s harsh and brutal. It kicks you when you’re down. It makes you wish you could give up and part with it just to have a semblance of peace.

  I almost felt that peace unintentionally. And if I had known exactly what I was fighting against, I would have succumbed to it. I would have traded my young shitty life for the peace that came with death.

  I should have. I would have been free.

  My father took me to a party when I was barely five years old. He said there would be other children there for me to play with. I was excited because he never took me anywhere. I usually stayed at home with my mother, breathing a sigh of relief whenever he was away. I got to watch television then. We didn’t have to cower in my room whenever he was feeling “playful.” It was the only time I didn’t see my mother cry.

  Yet, for some strange reason, my father took me along this time. I remember the loud music and the different colored bottles of strong smelling alcohol burning my small nose. I remember people staggering around in an intoxicated haze and the half-naked women gyrating on men’s laps. And I remember the swimming pool. I had never seen one, and I was in awe.

  Many of the adults kept disappearing inside to a back room. Then they would come back out, their eyes glazed and movements sluggish. My father told me he needed to go back in that room to “talk” to someone. I told him I wanted him to take me swimming.

  “You wait here and I’ll be right back,” he told me. Then he dropped me into the pool, fully dressed, and told me to hang onto the side. I was too short to reach the bottom, and he said if I let go, I’d be in big trouble. I wanted to listen to him. I wanted to be good. I didn’t want to do anything to ruin this experience for me. I was actually happy.

  But I was five. And my 5-year-old intentions did not win out over my curiosity.

  I let go of the edge. And I nearly drowned, finding just a slice of that peace at the bottom of the swimming pool.

  I don’t remember being pulled to the surface. I have no clue how long I was submerged. But when I finally regained consciousness, vomiting on the concrete as oxygen tried to combat the water in my lungs, I stupidly fought for my life. I battled for every breath, thinking that my life had to be better than the alternative.

  I feared death whe
n all along I should have feared life.

  I sat on my bed cross-legged, dozens of tiny stars tickling my bare feet, as I put them back in the jar one by one. I had counted them over and over again since I broke down at Dive Thursday night. I could feel the cracks in my mask broadening into large fissures, splitting to reveal the little girl hidden underneath. The one that was so scared that it crippled her. The one that was afraid of someone finding out just how damaged and unlovable she really was.

  “Knock, knock.”

  I looked up to find Dom standing in my doorframe, smiling his usual boyish grin full of mischief. I was one of the few people who ever got to experience this smile. It was him. Unmasked, free and real. It wasn’t laced with pain or deceit. There was no anger in it.

  “Hey you. What are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning? I thought you had a date,” I said, scooping the stars in my hand to hide them away. Of course, Dom had seen them before, but this was a personal process for me. It was something I could never share with anyone. No one would fully understand why I needed to count every single one.

  Dom flopped back onto my bed, folding his hands behind his head. “Yeah. But I sent her home last night. Felt like sleeping alone.”

  I detected the affliction in his voice, prompting me to abandon my task. “Nightmare?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Same as always?”

  He nodded. “Yup.”

  I let my hand cup his cheek, hoping my warmth would soothe him. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Nope.”

  I wasn’t offended. I knew he would decline; he always did. If I had to battle that caliber of pain and anger daily, I’d want to keep it bottled up too.

  Dominic divulged his level of fucked-up-ness to me soon after we met. He was a known man-whore on our campus, and once we had established that we liked being around each other, he tried to sleep with me. I turned him down, and it wounded him. Deeply. He cared for me, and he thought that sex signified affection, both friendly and romantic.

  “It’s just… you’re my best friend, Kam,” he said to me, betrayal written on his handsome face after my rejection. “I love you more than anything else in this world. And this is the only way I know how to show how much you mean to me.”

  “Dom, do you love me like that? Like more than a friend?” I asked, grasping his hand. It was our thing. Dom needed constant affection, and I only found it acceptable with him.

  “Well…no. I mean, I know I love you, but honestly, no. Not like that.”

  “Then you don’t want to sleep with me.”

  Genuine confusion flashed across his features. “I don’t get it.”

  I knew something dark and ugly had happened to Dom, but that moment solidified it for me. I would never, ever leave him. He was a smart, witty man, but emotionally, he was an infant. He honestly had no idea that sex and love were two totally different things.

  Then he broke down and told me what happened to him, his inhibitions numbed after sharing a few bottles of wine. I cried for him. And when my sobs had grown out of control, stealing my breath, I wanted to vomit from the sheer repulsion of his account. My beautiful, dear friend deserved every one of those anguished tears.

  “I didn’t understand, Kam,” he cried, his face buried in my neck as I held him tight. “He was my uncle, and he said he loved me. He said that if I loved him that I would show it. That I would be a good boy and show him my love. And when he invited his friends to come over and… and… fuck! When he let his friends fucking rape me over and over, he said it was because he loved me so much that he had to share it. He had to share his love for his nephew by letting them fuck me!”

  He went on to tell me how it continued for years and didn’t stop until Dominic was hospitalized for severe damage to his rectum. His uncle had been his caretaker since a car crash claimed the lives of Dom’s parents when he was just a toddler. The police investigated and arrested all the sick-fucks involved, including his uncle, the only family that Dom had ever known.

  After his body had healed, Dom was sent to live with a relative in North Carolina when he was 14. The relative, a distant older cousin, was a stranger to him and only took him in out of obligation. She never helped him heal emotionally from the trauma or cared enough to get him help. So Dom coped in the only way he knew how—with sex. He slept with any girl that would have him, desperately trying to prove to himself that he was straight, that he hated everything his uncle had done to him. But he couldn’t deny that he still loved him. He was the only parent he had ever known. The conflicting feelings, the abuse, it fucked with everything he thought he knew about love and sex, right or wrong.

  The man that laid beside me today was still confused and outraged but he had begun to heal. He knew that intimacy wasn’t a substitute for affection, but he sought it out anyway. He needed that constant reassurance. He needed the physical reminder that he was a man, that no amount of abuse could strip him of his masculinity. I still hurt for him deeply, but I was honored to love him. He of all people deserved it.

  “Kam?” he said, pinching my thigh and breaking me from my morbid account. “Wanna tell me why you’ve been missing Dr. Cole’s appointments?”

  I shook my head and resumed putting the tiny origami stars back in the glass jar. “Because I’m not going back. It doesn’t help. And she thinks I’m being irrational.”

  Dom let out an exasperated sigh. “You have to talk to somebody, Kam. I’m serious.”

  “I talk to you.” I got up and put the jar in its spot on my windowsill before walking over to grab my guitar. I needed a distraction.

  “Bullshit. You don’t talk to me. And I’m afraid that I won’t be around when you finally need to talk to me. Please, Kam, give Dr. Cole another chance.”

  “Why the hell is she calling you about me anyway? You aren’t my father. Doesn’t that break some kinda patient-doctor confidentiality?”

  “She didn’t tell me what you two talk about,” he replied, rolling his beautiful eyes. “Her office called to find out what’s been going on.”

  “Mmm hmm,” I said, lightly strumming the strings. I was done talking. Nothing Dom could say would make me go back to therapy. It was a waste of time and money.

  Dom got the hint and sat up with a huff. He knew I wouldn’t budge. “Fine. But the moment you feel yourself losing control, you come to me. Ok? Don’t give me that “I’m fine” bullshit. Next week, we look for another therapist.”

  I nodded and just kept thrumming, getting lost in the melody that had been stuck on a continuous loop in my head for days. I hadn’t played for weeks but, for some reason, I felt the need to let my emotions trickle out in song. It flowed easily, and before I even realized it, I was humming, and the story was slowly coming into focus.

  It was a song about hope and longing. About wanting something so bad but feeling too afraid to admit it. About fighting against fear and denial and letting in the unknown. The song swelled and flourished, the picture behind my closed eyelids becoming brighter and clearer. Hums turned into lyrics and the tune took on a life of its own, only using me as the vessel. And once it began to climax, the anticipation building deliciously, the picture came into focus, and I nearly broke into a sob.

  Blaine. All I could see was Blaine. He was the muse for every song, every painting, every dream. He occupied my deepest, most intimate desires, and hindered my past pains from consuming me with his touch.

  It had always been Blaine. I just wasn’t ready to see it.

  I wasn’t sure what I would tell him, but I knew it was time. I couldn’t keep fighting what my soul so desperately needed. Him. His presence, his smile, his words. They were all necessary. It was the thought of not having those things that sent me into a panic. It was even stronger than the anxiety I felt at the decision to let him in.

  But of course, life had different plans. It always did. It never stuck to the script that you had rehearsed in your head a dozen times. It didn’t give a shit about crushing your expectations,
causing you to second guess what you were so certain about just moments ago.

  We had been at work for a couple hours when life decided to remind me just what a bitch it could be. Things had been better since Thursday. Pleasant. Blaine insisted I take Friday off after my meltdown, and I was too humiliated to argue with him. It’s not that he made me feel embarrassed for losing it behind the bar. It was the total opposite, actually. He was sweet, gentle, patient. He was exactly what I needed. What I wanted.

  AngelDust had just kicked off their set with one of their newer up-tempo songs, when Kenneth approached the bar with some of his buddies. I was shaking my hips as I flitted behind the bar, serving customers with an easy smile, as I sang along to the provocative tune. The moment his eyes locked with mine, I froze, nearly sending the highball glass in my hand crashing to the ground. Kenneth looked just as surprised before his mouth turned up into a smug smile.

  “So I see you landed on your feet, Kamilla,” he said coolly. He refused to call me Kami, no matter how many times I corrected him.

  “Yeah,” I rasped, my throat tight. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I was certain he could see it through my thin, snug tee.

  “I have to say, I’m disappointed. A woman with your…skill set, working at a bar? Hmph.”

  I was furious. At him for being such a pretentious prick, and at myself for choosing not to see that he had always been one. Kenneth Walters was a partner at one of the most successful law firms in Charlotte. His father started the firm from the ground up decades ago, and their family was known as modern day royalty.

  When a temp agency had assigned me to his office, I had hoped to reevaluate my life goals. Once upon a time, I wanted to pursue a career in law. I had majored in criminal justice and had hoped to focus on family law. But as the saying goes, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” Robert Burns got the memo on just how shitty life could be.