The Fragile Fall

by Love, Kristy

  “Late night?” he said, smirking.

  “After I carried her to bed, she begged me to stay. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I hated that I sounded defensive, but I was afraid of his reaction.

  “I’m jealous, man. She would kill me if I ever stayed over a girls’ house. I guess now I can give her a hard time about this.”

  “Nothing happened, Jax.”

  “Oh, I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t give her a hard time.” He walked down the hall to the bathroom. “You better get home. I’m sure Liv is wondering where you are.” Jax laughed as he walked by me and my heart sank, worried about Aunt Liv’s reaction.

  “I’m going.” I ran down the stairs and went home. I tried to sneak into the house, but Aunt Liv was waiting at the kitchen table. As soon as she saw me, she ran up to me and hugged me.

  “Oh, my God. I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ve been going out of my mind all night!” She grabbed my face and studied it, looking for something, though I wasn’t sure what. “Are you okay? Did you have a bad night? Did something trigger you?”

  “No, I’m fine. I was over Jax and Ryanne’s and the movie ran a little late. I ended up falling asleep.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m perfectly fine, Aunt Liv. I promise. I’m sorry I worried you.”

  She collapsed into my arms and clung to me. “I had horrible visions of you bleeding out in a ditch somewhere. I was so afraid that something happened to you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know, honey, but please text me next time. Even if it’s just that you are going to be out a little later, let me know.”

  “I promise.”

  She let me go. “Okay. Now that you’re home, I guess I can get ready for work. I’ve been calling and texting you all night. I was ready to form a search party.”

  Wondering why my phone didn’t wake me up, I pulled it from my pocket and saw that the battery had died. “I’m sorry, Aunt Liv. My phone died.”

  “It’s okay. Enough with the apologies, just don’t let it happen again, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  I went upstairs and flopped down in my beanbag chair, not sure what to do now. The bed had been cramped last night, but it had been the best sleep I’d ever had, so now I was completely awake. I was still amazed at the way everything had worked out. When I told Ry about what happened the night my parents died, I’d expected her to blame me for them being gone. I thought she would call me a murderer and want nothing else to do with me, but she surprised me by being amazing and understanding.

  Having Ryanne react the way she did had helped me so much. It was going to be a struggle to fully forgive myself, especially since my parents were never coming back, but I felt like I was taking several steps forward. While I still felt guilt, I was slowly letting it go. Ryanne had given me the gift of acceptance and I was so thankful. She now knew everything about me and was fine with who I was and the mistakes I’d made.

  I couldn’t ask for anything more.

  When I went back to therapy, we talked about Ryanne’s reaction and Dr. Thomas was happy I finally told someone. She said I was holding onto the secret and it brought about a sense of shame. Without the shame, I would be able to heal and grow even more than I already had. I felt like I had finally been able to break the surface and inhale fresh air for the first time since the night of the accident and I felt like I owed it to Ryanne.

  Everything I felt for her had intensified. I wanted her before, but I needed her now.

  I would do anything to keep her.

  Ryanne: I missed you when I woke up, but I slept really well last night.

  Will: I slept really well, too. Especially since I only left a little while ago.

  Ryanne: You stayed all night???

  Will: Yeah, I fell asleep.

  Ryanne: Now I’m sad that I missed you when I woke up :(

  Will: Do you work today? We could hang out if you don’t.

  Ryanne: I work today. Actually, I work all next week.

  Will: What about Valentine’s Day?

  Ryanne: I work, but I could see if I can switch shifts if you want.

  Will: Try to. We’ll hang out.

  Ryanne: Okay. I can’t wait to see you again.

  Will: See you later, sweet girl.

  Ryanne: :)

  I finished getting ready so I could go pick up Ryanne for our Valentine’s Day date. She couldn’t get actual Valentine’s Day off, so we were hanging out the next day instead.

  Grabbing my keys, I went to Aunt Liv’s car and drove it over to their driveway next door. Butterflies had taken up residence in my stomach and my heart pounded, not sure how she’d feel about what I had planned. Before I rang the doorbell, I took a deep breath, trying to collect myself. I cleared my throat and rang the doorbell. After a few seconds, Jax opened the door with a smirk on his face and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Hello there, Will,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

  “I’m here for Ry. You should know this since we talked about it yesterday. You don’t need to act like this.”

  “I’m not acting any way. If you’re here to pick up my sister, you will be treated just like any other guy. You aren’t my best friend tonight, you are a dick who’s trying to stick it in my sister.”

  Right then, I kind of wanted to punch him. I knew he was playing the protective brother role, but I didn’t think he’d have to play it for me since he was my friend. “I don’t want to stick it in your sister.”

  He rolled his eyes like he didn’t believe me. “What time will you have her back?”

  “What time does she need to be back?”

  “How the fuck should I know? She’s an adult. Have her back when she wants to be.” He grinned, knowing he was making this uncomfortable for me and enjoying every second.

  Ryanne came up behind Jax and shoved passed him. “Stop giving him a hard time, Jax.” She kissed me on the cheek. “See you later,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Sorry about that. He thinks since we’re dating now that he can be a jerk to you,” she said as she climbed into the car.

  “It’s not a big deal. I understand. He doesn’t want me to be a jerk to you.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  I leaned over the console and kissed her. It had been a few days since we had seen each other because of our crazy schedules, and I got carried away in the feel of her lips on mine and the way her hair felt wrapped around my fingers. Pounding on the hood of the car caused us to jerk away from each other. Jax stood in front of the car with his arms across his chest and a giant smirk on his face. I put the car in reverse and backed out. Before we drove away, Jax waved.

  “He can be such an ass,” Ry said.

  “He cares about you and he likes to be a jerk, so the two combined make him like a mega jerk.”

  She laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes. “Mega jerk, I like it.”

  I grabbed her hand and held it as we drove, listening to her tell me about her week. We had texted a lot throughout the week, but it was different being able to hear her voice and touch her. I pulled into the parking lot of our first stop. An ice skating rink.

  “Have you ever been ice skating before?” I asked her.

  “Once or twice, but I suck.” She chewed her lip, and I could tell she was nervous, so I pulled her over to me and captured her lips with mine. After I thought she was sufficiently distracted, I pulled away.

  “It’s a good thing you are here with an excellent ice skater then.”

  “You ice skate?” She lifted an eyebrow, smiling in disbelief.

  “My mom loved ice skating when she was young, so we went every chance we got during the winter. I haven’t been skating since…” my voice trailed off and I looked out the windshield. I hadn’t been ice skating since two days before she died. She had pushed my school schedule around and we went skating in the morning as soon as my dad left for work. We had been so busy that
winter that we hadn’t been able to go out much and she said she missed it. She said the beauty of homeschooling was we could decide when I did my work and since I was already ahead of schedule, she didn’t see a problem with taking a few hours and getting out of the house. It was the last good memory I had with her. She had skated around the rink, laughing and smiling—a different person as soon as she was on the ice, so relaxed and fun loving. I missed her.

  Ryanne squeezed my hand and drew my attention back to her. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  I held the side of her face. “If I want to move forward with my life, I have to stop avoiding things that’ll hurt.” I brought her hand up to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “And if I’m facing this, I want it to be with you. Ice skating has always been something special to me and I wanted to share it with you.” Her eyes softened and she smiled at me.

  “Then this is perfect. Let’s go.”

  We climbed out of the car and made out way over to the skate rental, then Ry almost fell over as soon as we touched the ice. I moved so I was beside her and held her hips to help her move. Laughing, she put her hands out to the side and I skated both of us around the rink.

  As we skated, she gained more confidence and wanted to try skating on her own. I turned and skated backwards, watching her as she attempted to move. After a few seconds, she landed flat on her butt. Every time she tried to stand up, she slipped and fell down again. Once she was standing, she told me she needed a break. Her butt was freezing cold and so were her hands.

  “Do you want some hot chocolate or coffee?” I asked as I helped her to the side of the rink.

  “Hot chocolate would be perfect.” She sat on the bench and I went to grab her a drink. I brought it back and she sipped it. “That’s better.” She smiled at me and my heart jumped to my throat. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be used to the way she made me feel, but I hoped not. I liked how breathless she made me and how I reacted to her. “I want to watch you skate for a while.”

  “I don’t want to leave you by yourself, though.”

  “I’m not alone. You’ll still be here, you’ll just be showing off for your woman.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.” I kissed her forehead and went back onto the ice. Now that I didn’t have Ryanne distracting me, memories floated to the front of my mind. The times my mom and dad would skate and he would hold her like she was the most precious thing in the world to him. My dad was truly an amazing, loving man. God, I missed both of them so much. I wished they could be here now to see how much I had grown. Though they may not like the fact that I had a girlfriend, I was certain they’d be proud of me.

  As I skated around the rink, I realized that while the memories did make me sad because I missed them, I was also happy I had them at all. It was good to remember them as living, breathing, loving people instead of the way they had been in the car. I remembered the way my mom’s eyes lit up when she was happy and my dad’s deep belly laugh. I was relieved I had good memories to hold onto instead of the haunting ones. I smiled, feeling free. Skating faster, I enjoyed the lightness I experienced.

  After several laps around the rink, I caught Ryanne’s eye. She was leaning against the wall around the rink and smiling at me. I skated over to her and pulled her close, kissing her. Her gloved hand came up and touched my face and I felt her smiling against my lips. “You looked incredibly hot out there,” she said.

  “I’m glad you think so because I think you are incredibly hot all the time.”

  “You are too much sometimes.”

  “Only for you, Ry.” I kissed her again. “Thanks for coming here.”

  “I’m glad you brought me.” She brushed hair off my face. “You feel better now, don’t you? The longer you skated, the happier you looked. As if a weight had been lifted off you.”

  “I do feel better. I think I needed this.”

  “I’m glad I got to experience this with you.” She smiled.

  “Let’s move on to phase two of our date, shall we?”

  We turned in our skates and rushed back to the car. We were at the rink longer than I thought we would be, but I was glad we went. It had gone better than I hoped, which seemed to be a common occurrence when I was with Ryanne.

  I pulled up to a small coffee shop and turned the car off. “I know how much you love coffee, especially fancy coffee. I found this place and it’s supposed to have the best coffee ever, so I thought you’d like to check it out.”

  Her face lit up and she bounced in her seat. “Oh, this is perfect, Will.” We got out of the car and I grabbed her hand.

  I loved everything about her.

  The way she smiled.

  How easy it was to get her to laugh.

  How much she loved those she cared about.

  How she could be silly one second and serious the next.

  How she accepted and supported everyone, even if she didn’t totally agree with them.

  She was smart and beautiful…

  And perfect.

  As I watched her study the menu board, I realized I was in love with Ryanne. I think I had fallen for her the moment I first saw her, but I had completed the fall.

  She caught me staring at her and bumped into my shoulder. “What do you want to get?” she asked me.

  I pulled her close to me, resting my hands on her hips. “I have no idea, I was too busy staring at you.”

  She smiled and laid her head on my chest. “This is nice.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  We stood like that as the coffee shop around us buzzed. Orders were called out and people came and left. Eventually, we pulled away from each other and ordered coffees. She wanted to stay and drink her coffee since it was the perfect, quaint coffee shop—her words—so we sat at a table and sipped our drinks. Her eyes darted around, trying to absorb all the details.

  “How’d you hear about this place?” she asked.

  “I may or may not have bugged everyone in school for awesome coffee shop recommendations. This one was the most frequently recommended one.” I had picked the one coffee shop that I had never heard her talk about, hoping she didn’t know about it. It was a little out of the way and new, so I’d lucked out.

  “This coffee is heavenly. I’m glad you found it.” She drank her coffee slowly and I watched her. That was all I needed, just to be near her. When she finished, she looked into the cup and pouted. “That was so good. I’m upset that it’s gone.”

  “You could get another one if you want.”

  “No, I’ll be up until next week if I have another one now.”

  “If you’re ready to go, I have dinner reservations.” I grabbed both of our empty cups and carried them to the garbage.

  “No one has ever done all this for me,” she said as she came up behind me.

  I took her face in my hands and smiled at her. “I would do this and so much more for you, Ry. You have no idea what you mean to me, but I hope you’ll give me the chance to show you.”

  Her eyes teared up and she blinked hard. “You have got to stop being so sweet. You’re turning me into a mushy girl.”

  “I’ll take you anyway I can get you.” I put my arm around her waist and we went out to the car.

  I drove us to The Grinning Banana Leaf, a fancy Thai place. She said her favorite kind of food was Thai, but it was hard to find a good place to get it from. Again, I had bugged everyone I knew about where would be a good place to take her and this one had won out. I hoped it lived up to her expectations because I had no idea. I had never had Thai food before and I hoped my friends hadn’t steered me wrong.

  As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, Ry started laughing.

  “What?” I asked, pulling into a parking spot.

  “The Grinning Banana Leaf? Seriously?” She wiped tears from her eyes.

  “I figured it was fitting since you make my banana leaf grin,” I joked, smirking.

  She slapped my arm and laughed harder. “Will!”

  We went into the
restaurant and Ry was again pulled into the décor, saying it was perfect. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

  Dinner ended up being amazing. The food was delicious and the atmosphere inside was awesome. They had authentic Thai decorations and music playing. Ryanne had been incredibly impressed. She kept stealing food off my plate and pretending like she wasn’t doing it, even though I had seen her do it several times.

  After dinner, I could tell she was tired because she kept yawning, so I drove us home. I pulled into her driveway and parked the car, hating that our day was over. She took her seatbelt off and turned in her seat until she faced me. The smile on her face told me she was up to something.

  “I’m assuming you’ve never made out in a car before, have you?”

  “That’s a very fair assumption.”

  She leaned closer to me, hooked a finger in my collar, and pulled me closer to her. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  Her breath moved over my lips and my heart raced. As she brought her lips to mine, one of my hands went into her hair and the other went around her back, pulling her closer. When I brushed my tongue over her lips, she sighed. Her hands wrapped around my neck and she toyed with the hair touching the collar of my shirt, gently pulling on it.

  I took my free hand and brushed it against her back before slipping it up the back of her shirt so I could feel her smooth skin. As my fingers danced over her lower back, she gasped and more goose bumps popped up on her skin. I smiled against her lips.

  She pulled me in closer and deepened the kiss. I reached higher up her shirt until I felt the lace of her bra, which drove me crazy. I kissed my way over her cheek, down her neck and to her shoulder. She giggled softly.

  “That tickles,” she said, her voice raspy. I smiled and kissed my way back up to her ear. She grabbed my face and pulled my lips back to hers. We were lost in a world where it was only us and I loved it. She was the only person I needed.

  Suddenly, she pulled away from me. “I should head inside.” She cleared her throat.