The Girl Who Fell

by S. M. Parker

  “That’s good. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

  She reaches for my hand, blankets it with hers. “I think I’m still trying to figure out what I want. Parents don’t have all the answers, you know. Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we’re always wiser.”

  “But you forgive him?”

  She leans back in her chair, contemplates. “I think forgiveness is a process. I’m not there yet. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with the way he left, that ridiculous letter and his disappearing.”

  “But you let him back in.”

  “I did. Because I love him, Zephyr. I always have. And we both made mistakes. Some big. Some smaller. I’m just trying to figure all this out, same as you.” She cascades her finger over the ridges of mine. “One thing you learn by the time you’re my age is that life is made in the mistakes. It’s impossible to get it right all of the time. And in a weird way, I admire your father for doing what needed to be done.”

  “How can you admire him?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. Believe me. But the split has allowed us to come together even stronger. Your dad and I let a lot of things get between us, push us apart. When he was here, I didn’t want to see it. When he was gone, it was all I could see.”

  Mom’s face softens as she talks, veils with peace. “I didn’t know.”

  “We haven’t enjoyed each other’s company like this in a long time.”

  “I think it’s great you’re happy, Mom.”

  “And I want that for you.”

  “I think maybe I have more questions than you did. I want to know everything. What he felt like before he left and for how long. How many years he’d been planning this.”

  Mom laughs. “I’m still not done asking him questions.”

  “Really?”

  “Your father spent our first few meet-ups like a witness on the stand.”

  I’m surprised by my laugh and the connection I feel with Mom after knowing she badgered him the way my mind’s been badgering me. “I’ve been thinking of calling him.” Since my fight with Alec showed me that forgiveness can be a gift.

  “I think I’ve made my argument clear on the subject of regret.” She taps my hand, stands. “And it’s okay to give him hell, Zephyr, if that’s what you need. Tear into him, yell at him. Whatever works. Just don’t keep it bottled up. That’s how your dad and I got here in the first place.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Mom pushes in her chair. “Clock’s tickin’.”

  “But no pressure, right?”

  “Not from me.”

  • • •

  Gregg doesn’t even appear an inch sick when Mom and I enter his room. His face glows. He’s embroiled in a game of NHL15 and his sister Courtney looks relieved to have the interruption. She throws down her defeated controller.

  “I’m going to get snacks,” Courtney tells him. “You cheat anyway.”

  Gregg laughs. “Six girls in this house and I get exactly zero sympathy.”

  Mom goes to his bedside, kisses him on the cheek. “It’s nice to see you looking so healthy.”

  “Don’t tell my mom, but she’s making a way bigger fuss about this than is necessary. I feel fine.”

  “I think your mother has the right to be scared about a concussion.”

  “Athletes get them all the time.”

  “Yes, and their moms worry all the time.”

  “Fair enough,” Gregg tells Mom.

  “Well, I’m glad I came. I can see you’re on the mend and I’m no good at video games, so I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

  When Mom leaves the room I climb onto the end of Gregg’s king-size bed and sit cross-legged.

  Gregg nods toward the bag in my hand. “That smells suspiciously awesome.”

  I hand it over and he sniffs deeply. “A hand-delivered Slice Special? Why Zephyr Doyle, whatever did I do to deserve your attentions?”

  I flick him in the leg. “When are they springing you?”

  “Doc says I can go back to school tomorrow, but no hockey for at least a week.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, I have these headaches that come and go. She tells me that’s normal.”

  “Still.”

  “I know. How will my adoring fans cope?”

  I flick him harder and he rubs the spot.

  “Seriously though. What’s with all the attention? Is your presence here Alec-sanctioned?”

  “Don’t.”

  “It’s not my fault the kid’s got issues.”

  “We all have issues.”

  “Too right. So I can’t bag on him for being a jealous ass?”

  “No, you most certainly cannot. You may have been too doped up to remember, but Alec was the one who brought me to the hospital.”

  “The last thing I want to hear is how he’s your knight in shining armor.”

  I blush. “No armor, just shining.”

  He studies me then. “What’s different? You’re looking very girlie in this moment.”

  My smile spreads until I think maybe he can see the sex on me.

  “Don’t tell me you really like this guy.”

  “Would that be so wrong?”

  “Yes. I thought you coming here to fawn over me was a sign that you were ready to declare your love for me.”

  “Funny.”

  He laughs. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

  “And yet here you are, being hilarious.”

  “Hmm. Deflection. Nice technique.” He nods toward his bedside table. “Rummy?”

  “Sure. If you can take an ass kicking in your condition.”

  “Hah! Now look who’s the funny one.”

  I hand Gregg the cards and he shows off with a fanning Vegas shuffle. “Have you had many visitors?”

  “A few. All girls, of course.”

  I smile. “Of course.”

  “Has Lani been around?”

  “Look at you all curious about my love life.”

  I roll my eyes. “Forget I asked.”

  “I will since there isn’t much to tell. So, gin rummy or five hundred?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “A vintage favorite.” He deals the cards. “Just like the old days.”

  And that’s exactly how this feels, being here with Gregg. Safe and simple and just like it’s always been.

  Chapter 23

  The following night, I knock at Alec’s door. He opens it quickly, pulls me in with his smile. “It took you too long to get here.”

  His front room has stockings hung over the fireplace, complete with roaring fire.

  “Come upstairs.”

  My body warms. Remembers.

  Alec leads me to his bedroom with its dark blue walls and light wood furniture. He stops at the side of his bed, pecks at my neck.

  “You’re sure your parents aren’t coming home?”

  “Dad’s in the Far East. My mom’s at book club. Don’t worry.” He puts his hand to my hip, fingers the skin above my jeans. Anticipation floods my veins. “I’ll always watch out for you.”

  He could never know how deeply I need to believe his promise. “Always?”

  “And more.” His unwavering commitment flicks a switch somewhere deep inside of me, somewhere I didn’t know existed until Alec. A place where love can last an eternity. A place the two of us can protect if we love hard enough.

  He begins to undress me, taking care with every piece of clothing. When I wear nothing except my bra and underwear, he lays me across the bed and tsks. “When will you learn not to wear these silly things?”

  I smile, my body on fire. He pulls the underwear from my hips and slides them over my bare legs. His hand reaches for the drawer of the bedside table, drops my underwear inside. He drinks me in, inch by inch, and I let him. Though the shade is drawn, it’s still light in the large room and I watch his every expression, how his jaw tightens with longing. How his eyes survey me with need. My skin goosefleshes under his delicate touch. I
rise to him.

  He kisses my toes, his eyes cut to mine. He sees my body arch with pleasure. And then we are wrapped in his comforter, lost to civilization. We kiss with our bodies pressed into each other, me trying to crawl into him, him into me. When our tongues become violent, he pulls away, finds my gaze.

  He fumbles with something in the bedside drawer. The top of a cardboard box pops. The wrinkle of a condom follows. Alec lies next to me, touches me to him. He is hard in my hand and something else. Pulsing. Like a heartbeat.

  “I can’t think of being without you,” he tells me.

  My breath hitches. For him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He pulls away. “So you’ve changed your mind?”

  His sudden distance surprises me. I prop my head onto my elbow. “I’m lost.”

  “You said you’re not going anywhere. That means you’ll come with me to Michigan.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Seriousness draws over his features like a mask. “Are you playing with me?” He sits up, the blankets slipping. I can’t help the way my hand reaches for the middle of his chest, where his muscles slope together. That place just over his heart.

  “No, of course not. It’s just that I can’t.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  Can’t? Won’t? “Both, maybe . . . I don’t know.”

  He lifts away my hand and instantly my skin feels cold. “So then what are we doing?”

  I sit up, gathering the comforter to my chest. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s the point of this”—he gestures over our bodies entwined on the bed—“if it won’t last?”

  “Why can’t it last?”

  “Because you insist on going to Boston.”

  “Insist? That’s been my plan since—”

  “Since before you met me, I know. I’d go there too, Zephyr, I swear I would, but I’ve already accepted Michigan’s offer, or my mom has anyway. If I’d met you earlier it could all be different. But it can’t be, not for me.”

  “We can make it work.”

  “Everyone says that. I’ve seen guys from school try to keep girlfriends at home. Long distance never works.”

  The air turns colder, as if someone’s opened a window, as if a December breeze is taunting us. “Do we have to think about all this now? I don’t even know if I’ve gotten into Boston College yet, so I can’t really make plans.”

  “But you’ll consider it?” he asks hopefully.

  “If I don’t get into Boston College, I’ll have to consider it.”

  “Good. That makes me happy.” He leans in to kiss me and then quickly draws away. “Except I’m the asshole boyfriend now, aren’t I?”

  The word “boyfriend” still makes my heart dance. Even now. “How so?”

  “Because I know how important Boston College is to you and I’m wishing you don’t get accepted.”

  “That is shitty.” I raise my brows, teasing. “Supremely shitty.”

  “See? Told you.” He slides next to me. “If you’re not with me next year, I can’t do this.” He disappears under the covers and kisses me between my legs until my head spins and my skin boils, a screaming, screeching tea kettle for his touch. Then he kisses my stomach, looks up at me with pleading eyes. “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  My head shakes. My body trembles.

  “Or this.” His fingers explore me now. My breath is short, hitching. I want more of him, all of him. I want him to love me again and again. And in this fog of pleasure I can’t imagine being without him next year. Or ever.

  This time I’m the one who reaches for the condom in the drawer. My fingers search greedily for the coin.

  “So forward,” he teases. “I like the way you think.”

  His movements are hurried and powerful and beyond exhilarating. This is so not our first time. My body gives over to his pulses, begging him for more even as he gives me everything.

  When we separate, my body is still shaking. He finds my hand under the covers, lifts it to his mouth and kisses each finger. “Even your fingers turn me on.”

  I wiggle them playfully.

  That’s when I hear the metal crash. A pan dropping hard against a tile floor. I bolt upright. Alec dashes out of bed, throws me my clothes. “Go into the bathroom. Get dressed.” I scramble out of bed, clutching my clothes against my private bits, and tiptoe the few steps into the hall and then the bathroom. I lock the door and fumble my jeans over my legs, my shirt over my head. In the mirror, I see my hair is a mess. Bed head. Sex hair. Oh shit.

  I grab a hair tie from my back pocket and rake my curls into a ponytail. I run water, splash it over my face in an attempt to erase the red splotches on my cheeks. Then a voice from the lower hall, calling up the stairs.

  “Alec?” His mother. Oh shit, shit! I press my ear to the door.

  “Up here!”

  Her footsteps sound impossibly loud as she climbs the carpeted stairs. “Whose car is out front?”

  “I thought you were at your book club.”

  “Becky got sick. We decided to try again next week.” A beat of dead air. “Who’s here with you?”

  “Zephyr.” Alec’s voice is calm, casual. My ear melts into the door. My heart is about to pound out of my chest and he’s as cool as if he were answering a question in French class.

  More silence. I imagine Mrs. Lord at the entrance to his room, peering in, surveying. “Just Zephyr?”

  “Yup.”

  “What were you two doing in your room?”

  “She’s helping me with French. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

  “Where is she?”

  Oh shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Mom, relax. She went to the bathroom. Please don’t embarrass her. She’ll be out in, like, a minute. Can we just come down when she’s done? She can probably hear you, you know.”

  Another drum of silence. I expect she’s looking at the disheveled bed, but then she says. “Yes, of course, I just thought because of . . . Just come down. I’d feel better about you studying in the living room.”

  “Yeah, okay. No problem.”

  When I’m sure she’s gone, I return to his room. The bed is meticulous, the shiny condom coin nowhere in sight. Alec’s at his desk with his laptop open, Mrs. Sarter’s Google page on the screen. He doesn’t look fazed. At all.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper. “Is she going to kill you?” Hate me?

  He looks at his laptop, at his bed, at the extra study buddy chair he has pulled up to his desk. It all looks perfectly innocent. “Everything’s fine. I told you I’d always look out for you.”

  Relief feels like oxygen refilling my lungs. “What if we’d gotten caught? That was way too close.”

  Alec stands, strokes my ponytail. “It wouldn’t matter to me. I want the whole world to know you’re mine.”

  “But your mom? That’s creepy.”

  “Then prepare to be creeped out. She wants us downstairs.” Alec takes my hand, leads me to the door. My feet can hardly move. How can I meet his mother knowing what we were really doing? When she might know what we were really doing.

  As if he knows what I’m thinking, Alec says, “You’ll be fine. Take this.” He plucks his French text from his shelf, hands it to me. “Props always make for good storytelling. Adds authenticity.”

  “Right.” God, he’s good.

  Almost too good.

  Mrs. Lord is filling a pot at the sink in the island when we come down. My nerves rattle as I white-knuckle the textbook that grounds me in the lie.

  “Mom, this is Zephyr. Zephyr, my mom, Ellen.”

  I force eye contact, feign innocence. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lord.”

  “Please, call me Ellen.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I want to kick myself. Where did ma’am come from? My brain is completely fried.

  She laughs. “And you definitely are not allowed to call me ma’am.” She transfers the full pot to the stove, wipes her manicured
hands on a dish towel. She has kind eyes and an easy smile. It’s hard to believe she’s the same controlling woman Alec’s described.

  “I’m going to walk Zephyr out, Mom.”

  “So soon?” A silent language exchanges between them before Mrs. Lord forces cheer. “Well, it’s too bad you can’t stay. Will we see you again, Zephyr?”

  Alec squeezes my hand, too hard.

  “I look forward to it,” I say.

  Her gentle smile widens. “Merry Christmas, Zephyr.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Alec walks me to my car. “You okay?”

  “Hardly. That was beyond awkward.” I peer around him, looking for Ellen’s face in one of the gatrillion windows.

  “But nothing happened. Everything’s so okay.” He kisses me gently and my mouth responds obediently. “I wish you didn’t have to go, though. I wish I could lie in bed with you forever.”

  “Me too. Without your mom home, of course.”

  “We could have that next year.” When he opens my door, I slide onto the cold seat. He pulls a paper tube from his back pocket. When did he pick that up? He hands it to me. A booklet? A magazine? “I’m glad you’ll think about it.” He extends my seat belt over my front, clipping me in safely. I place the roll onto the passenger seat and it spreads open. A lapis blue brochure for University of Michigan. “Go Blue,” Alec says.

  I can’t help but smile. “Subtle.”

  “Just hopeful.”

  He shuts my door and flattens his palm to the window. I reach up and mirror his touch, our good-bye that allows us to avoid saying the actual word.

  Alec is my bridge across limbo. Protecting me no matter what. Loving me for me.

  At the stoplight on Main, I glance over at the University of Michigan brochure and let myself wonder, what if?

  But after only a few minutes, my mind attaches to the college catalog with the solitary girl on the cover. Is that student alone because her boyfriend is at another school? In another state? Does she miss his touch the way I know I will miss Alec?

  I’m no closer to an answer when I arrive home and empty our mailbox of useless bills. The silence from Boston College is deafening.

  Chapter 24

  I’m at my locker the next morning when there’s a tap on my shoulder. I twist to find Lizzie, hands on her hips.