Don't Fall

by K. S. Thomas

  Drea bites her lip and I catch Scott frown at her, reminding her to keep that lip tucked in.

  It’s not easy, but I do the same. For now.

  Things stay awkward and silent for a while until I pay the check and Scott makes everyone laugh again, this time at his own expense. I like him. The more I get to know him the more I see how he puts both of these women at the forefront of everything he does. One because he loves her, and the other because his woman does. He doesn’t show it in the most conventional of ways, but he’s a good dude. Better than most of the men I’ve known.

  “Are you guys in a hurry to get home?” I ask as we’re getting up to leave.

  “What did you have in mind?” Tess asks, and I’m pleased to see she’s curious. It’ll make this that much easier.

  “Remember the new gig I was telling you about? It’s just a few houses down the beach from here. I thought maybe we could take a walk down there and I could show you.”

  Her brow crinkles and I can only imagine the things she’s thinking now. “Are you trying to trick us into going to group therapy at your beachfront practice?”

  I laugh. “I’m not going to lie, you could all use it, but no. This is something different. Something I haven’t done in a while.”

  “I’m game,” Scott announces. “I’ll even go along with the group therapy thing if you want.”

  “The only reason you want to go to therapy is because you think he’ll tell you that you’re the sane one,” Drea jabs.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ve got news for you, buddy. A sane guy wouldn’t come anywhere near me.”

  I place my hand on Tessa’s back and gently lead her ahead. “She’s not wrong,” I tell him, hearing Tess chuckle to herself in front of me.

  This time of night, we’re almost alone out here on the sand.

  “I can never decide if being around Drea and Scott reinforces my desires to be single or makes me a little sad I don’t have someone who makes me act like a lunatic twenty-four seven,” she jokes, listening to those two squabble on behind us while we walk.

  “I used to think people who fought a lot were super dysfunctional,” I confess. “But, I was in a relationship with someone for over seven years, and the whole time we were together we only ever fought twice. Big fights. Little disagreements here and there always faded before they grew into anything. Someone would express a dislike, the other would either accommodate it or we’d agree to disagree. That was the end of it.” I apply pressure to her waist, letting her know to step right when a big wave washes toward us. “Truth is, we were the dysfunctional ones. We couldn’t communicate. We weren’t honest. We weren’t real with each other at all.”

  She nods thoughtfully. “Drea and Scott are the truest versions of themselves when they’re together. It’s like being loved by the other gives them the confidence to show even the darkest parts of themselves. Even to others.”

  “I can relate,” I say, coming to a stop and directing her attention toward the house up ahead before she can ask me why. “This is the place.”

  “This is your home?” she asks, pointing at it, just in case there’s any confusion about which place I’m referring to. It’s a big house sitting on a double lot, it’d be hard to get confused.

  “This is my business,” I correct her, “my home is at the condo.”

  Her eyes narrow skeptically. “Okay, mister. You’ve been making vague comments about this new career path of yours all afternoon, time to spill it.”

  “I’d rather show you.” I take her hand and begin to walk her up the steps leading to the back terrace.

  The floor to ceiling glass doors lining the back of the house are impressive enough to keep everyone silent until I can get them inside without having to answer any more questions.

  “Wait here,” I tell her, releasing her in the center of the room and leaving her to stand there in the pitch black.

  “Lane!”

  I should have known not being able to control this would freak her out. “One second.” Even as I say it, I flip the switch and light spills into every corner of the open floor plan.

  “Whoa.” Scott spins on his heel to take in the whole space. “It’s like...an art gallery or something?”

  “Something,” Drea hisses, tugging his shirt and reining him back in, “Just shut up a second. I don’t want to miss whatever is about to happen.”

  Tess still has her back to me as she stands face to face with the largest piece on display on her side of the room. This picture crushed me the first time I saw it. Now the only thing I see is the catalyst which led me here, and the only thing I can feel for that is gratitude.

  “Tess,” I whisper, nerves getting the better of me. Maybe I should have told her sooner.

  Moving but an inch at a time, she begins to turn away from the image and toward me. Her eyes only get wider when she sees what’s behind me. Her. And the one night that changed everything.

  “Alexis Lane,” she says in a voice so hushed I only understand it because I already knew what she would say.

  “I should have told you,” I admit, “but at the time I was so hung up on this idea that I needed to escape everything that I was to find what I wanted to become, I couldn’t bring myself to let the two bleed together.”

  Her finger moves up to loosely point behind her. “Is that her?”

  I nod, never taking my eyes off Tess. We both know she’s asking about the woman in the picture. The woman staring down at the ring on her hand with such disdain, it was clear in an instant she never loved me. Because that ring was my grandmother’s and the most valuable thing I had to share with her, but she could never see past the fact that I hadn’t spent an adequate fortune to acquire it. Because I had a fortune to spend, and not spending it on her was not an acceptable form of love to her. So, she moved on to Brant. Who understood her love language perfectly. Not surprisingly looking back. His mother has always been fluent in it, too.

  “My sister’s the one who set all of this up. I was pissed when I first saw it, but then, I finally understood what she was trying to show me. All my life, I’ve been struggling to fit into the right mold and failing. I couldn’t meet my father’s expectations, because I refused to follow his footsteps into medicine. I couldn’t meet Olivia’s because I couldn’t conjure up the same interest in all the luxuries she lived for when I felt that most of them were wasteful crap. And worst of all, I couldn’t meet my own because I’ve been hiding behind stuffy clothes and pursuing my passions only in secret. Holding in my opinions and feelings. Until you. You came along and somehow, hiding became impossible. You could just...see. And the more you saw, the more I wanted to show you.” I take a deep breath in and hold it, trying to calm my racing heart. “I am the truest version of myself when I’m with you.”

  “Oh my God,” Drea gasps. “Explain to me again why you guys aren’t together?”

  Tess shrugs helplessly, her gaze traveling in circles around the room just to avoid me. “Probably because we’re both too damaged and scared.”

  “I’m not scared.” And I’m about to prove it.

  “Fine. My mistake. It’s because he’s not interested in me. In that way.” She waves carelessly at the image of Olivia wearing my ring, as if the entire other side of the house is empty. Void of the mark she’s so permanently left on me and which I’ve put up on display, not only to show her, but everyone.

  “Stop.” I cross my arms in front of my chest. I can’t help her through this. She has to get there on her own. It’s the only way. “You know damn well that’s not true and you sound like a crazy person when you say it.”

  “Whatever. This is stupid. I guess I don’t know why then.” I can see her swallow hard, fighting feelings. Feelings that frighten her. Feelings we promised each other we’d never have. A promise we both knew we’d never keep even as we were making it.

  “Yeah, you do,” I whisper.

  “Alright.” She sighs painfully. “It’s me, okay? I’m the damaged cowa
rd who’s scared. That’s why we’re not together.” She throws her hands up at Drea in surrender, anger flooding her face for being called out, for being forced to face it, admit it to everyone.

  “Time to get brave, Tessa.” I march straight for her, closing the distance between us at last. Cupping her perfect face gently in my palms I search her eyes until she surfaces. The woman I fell in love with hiding behind the girl who never got over being the one no one loved enough.

  I rest my forehead on hers, my heart on the verge of exploding, my body succumbing to the bittersweet ache of holding her and still not having her. “It’s okay to fall, Tess,” I rasp, my throat closing up on me from the swell in my chest rising higher and higher. ”I swear to God, I’ll catch you.”

  Her eyes are the first to give in, then her mouth follows. Her soft skin molds to mine, her every muscle melts against my hold and her heart beats against my chest until it feels like it’s mine, beating inside me.

  A whimper escapes her lips as they graze over mine and she breathes, “falling feels a lot like flying this time.”

  Epilogue

  Tessa

  GRADUATION. KIND OF stunned I made it through my college education in one piece, considering the final year it’s been. The ceremony was bittersweet, knowing Aunt Edi wasn’t in the crowd, cheering me on. But so many others showed up to take her place. More than I expected to. Meredith and Miriam both came, Miriam with her whole family in tow. Drea was with me, of course, but Scott and her parents showed an equal enthusiasm for the both of us as we each received our diplomas.

  Lane and I argued for days whether he should come or not, given it would mean blatantly exposing the relationship we have and the likelihood it started sometime around our student teacher beginnings. In the end, I always knew my efforts would be futile. He was going to be there. And he was going to cheer me on louder than anyone else in the room. What I didn’t know, was that he’d bring his sister, Alexis and her husband, and that both of them would shower me with so much love and support, I couldn’t help but feel like maybe someday I could call them family as well.

  Family.

  Riley showed. She sat alone in the very back, until Lane spotted her and dragged her over to sit with him. She and I are getting better, slowly but surely. We’re even talking about having her move in next year, so she can finish high school and start getting serious about college without our mother trying to sabotage her at every turn.

  We’re having dinner at the Rose Garden to celebrate this monumental moment for Drea and me. It’s not romantic or fantasy-like, but it still feels a lot like a fairy tale coming into its happy ending as I stand here, waiting for everyone to have a seat at our massive table, taking in all the love coming together for me and my best friend today.

  “She’d be so proud of you,” Meredith whispers in my ear, one arm wrapped around my side, her head tipped against mine in the closest thing we’ve ever shared to a hug. “Everything she ever wanted for you, is sitting right here, at this table.” She squeezes me one last time before she lets go. “You created this from nothing, Tessa. If that doesn’t prove you can create anything you want with this life, I don’t know what does.”

  Blinking back tears, it’s all I can do to mouth the words ‘thank you’ and nod as she backs away to find her seat beside Miriam.

  Dinner is a loud and fabulous affair and by the time the evening winds down, I’m confident for the future in a way I don’t remember ever being before.

  “Guess we’re officially grownups now,” Drea says with a painful sigh as we stand together outside our front doors, the only two left to call it a night.

  “I think we can manage it.” I wink at her and make her grin.

  “But, like...how different do you think it will be?” she asks, a scheming flash in her eyes as though she’s contemplating a way to buck the system, avoid becoming a fully committed adult somehow. Shouldn’t be too hard, all things considered.

  “Well, we both enrolled to go back next year to get our masters, so, not all that different Drea,” I point out, laughing. Sure, Scott is making the official move into the apartment, which sounds like a big deal but really isn’t. And, I’m giving up my time at the Basement to write my first big piece on this photographer I know. But, come fall, I have a feeling we’ll still be having that same ‘first week of classes don’t count’ conversation we do every year.

  “Feels weird, standing out here,” Drea mumbles.

  “Because we’re acting like it’s some big goodbye when really one of us will be busting in on the other again before so much as twenty-four hours has passed,” I tease.

  “Speaking of, here’s the new key,” she says, reaching into her pocket to retrieve a small silver key chain.

  “What’s wrong with my old key?” I ask, studying the new set she just handed me. I guess Lane gets one too now.

  “Doesn’t work since Scott switched the locks. Something about him moving in, new beginnings and new rules. I don’t know, I was only half listening,” she rattles on, her eyes half rolling into her skull, because in what world was changing the locks ever going to put an end to the open-door policy we’ve had for years now?!

  “Huh, well, I’m going to pretend the new locks were in the interest of saving me from ever having to view his naked ass again and not some lame attempt at creating boundaries.”

  Drea snorts. “Boundaries. Like we would know what to do with those.”

  We laugh quietly until the last of it dies down to a soft hum of contentment buzzing through us. It’s been a full year. The kind that makes you giddy just thinking about the future.

  “Drea.”

  “Hm?”

  “Thanks for being the sort of friend who gets drunk and parades around in her prom dress at three in the morning.”

  Her lips purse and her eyes flash with delight as she attempts to suppress her amusement. “Don’t recall ever being thanked for that before.”

  “Well, just think. If I hadn’t been distracted with dragging your drunken Cinderella ass up the stairs that night, I wouldn’t have walked in at the exact moment Lane was standing naked in the middle of my apartment. Instead, I might never have seen him until the next morning. Or he would have found me while I was passed out in my bed. Cops could have been called. I could have been arrested. It all could have gone so very differently.”

  She grins. “Timing is everything.”

  “On that note, I’m going to go inside.” I wiggle my brows. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and catch another showing.”

  LANE

  “Lane!” she shouts my name for the third time. I can hear her wander from room to room inside our apartment, searching for me to no avail. How she still has not found me, baffles me somewhat. I made coffee and took two giant cups of it outside with me. I left the door open. The scent alone should have worked as a summons of sorts.

  She sounds like she’s about to yell my name again when I spot Dick slinking his way through the curtains to meet me on the other side. At least one of them has realized the sliding glass doors to the balcony are open.

  “You seriously didn’t hear me?” she huffs, having finally followed the cat out. She stares me down while I keep swaying back and forth in the hammock, my eyelids dreamily drifting up and down with the motion just to aggravate her more.

  “I did hear you,” I confirm. “I liked it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You, saying my name. Over, and over again. It was nice.” I grin. It’s just too easy.

  “You’re a jackass.”

  “But?”

  “No, that’s it. You’re just a jackass.” She slides down beside me, causing the hammock to take a turbulent swing before settling back down.

  I shrug, reaching one arm around her and curling her toward me. “I can live with that.”

  She flicks at my jaw when she catches me closing my eyes again. “Hey! No, sleeping. I wasn’t just calling out for you for the pure joy of having your name dance over my tongue.”r />
  “Speaking of dancing tongues and pure joy.”

  “Not making out with you right now,” she says dryly.

  I sigh. “You’ll change your mind. Just give it a minute.”

  Tess bites her bottom lip, trying to keep hidden any signs she finds me amusing even in the least. We both know she does. In the most possible way. “Lane.”

  “So nice,” I hum, lids drooping shut.

  “You paid me rent again.”

  “Also, very nice.”

  She lifts herself onto my chest and begins to tap the tip of my nose repeatedly with her finger until she annoys me to the point I have no choice but to open my eyes and pay attention to her. I don’t mind. To be perfectly honest, she has my attention every second of every day. She just doesn’t have to be aware of it all the time.

  “Your lease ended two months ago. How are we even still having this argument?”

  I smirk. “Because it’s fun.”

  “How’s that exactly?”

  “Well, I pay you rent. You get all huffy about it, insist I take it back. Then, I get all snarky and refuse to. Eventually, we agree on a truce. I’ll take the money back but only if I get to take you out somewhere. Then we go out, and because you want to stick it to me for annoying you earlier, you pick some place extravagant or crazy or out of the country, places that wind up turning a simple date into amazing adventures, places you would never choose if I just said, hey, let’s go to dinner.”

  She moves to roll off of me and get out of the hammock, but I snag her to me tighter before she even puts so much as an inch between us.

  “I don’t like you right now,” she mutters.

  “Liar.”

  “Fine. But I’m still not making out with you.”