Falling into You

by Abrams, Lauren

  Ben had been my best friend since my freshman year of high school. He was a year older than me, and even though we had played together while we were in diapers, his family had moved away and they returned just before high school started. I couldn’t even recall a time that we had spoken before the night during the first month of school.

  We had gotten trapped in the locker room after swim practice. The boys’ and girls’ locker rooms were connected in the lobby area, and we had both been in the showers long after we were supposed to get out. It was another thing we had in common—the love of freakishly long showers. The Environmental Club, of which I was president during my senior year, would certainly have kicked me out. We had emerged to find that the custodian had put the chain on the doors from the outside.

  Unfortunately, the cinderblock walls from 1968 prevented any cell phone signals from getting through. We were stuck there all night.

  Now, I generally agree with the “guys and girls can’t actually ever be friends thing,” but given our crash course in discovering totally embarrassing secrets (twelve hours without food on a very hard and very uncomfortable floor will do it), it’s all that we had ever been and all that we ever would be.

  The friend zone had encompassed us in a warm and fuzzy bubble in the space of twelve hours. No matter what I hoped for. No matter that the knowledge of it was slowly turning my brain to mush. No matter that I had wanted him to kiss me for five years.

  Ce la vie.

  Running away to Australia had always been our code for a desperate situation. It had started that first night, just before the custodian released us. I was whining about my stomach, telling him that I was going to die before anyone found us.

  “When we escape the locker room of doom, let’s run away to Australia,” he said. “We’ll get some hammocks and sleep on the beach. We won’t even have a house, just buy some land, get some hammocks, and eat some coconuts.”

  I had laughed until my eyes were swollen with tears. “Ben,” I said, “You do realize that Australia isn’t really known for its coconuts?”

  “It’s an island, Hallie. Everyone knows that.”

  “Well, you go and find those coconuts then, and I’ll be right with you.”

  And we dissolved into laughter. The custodian found us, exactly like that, rolling around on the floor. I think he was probably just happy that we had clothes on, but the look on his face only made us laugh harder.

  Australia had been our thing ever since, what we always did when we were sad or had a bad day. His friendship had been the best thing about high school. It was the best thing in my life.

  I flipped through the messages from the past two weeks silently.

  Hallie, pick up the phone.

  Hallie, get ur lazy butt out of bed and answer the phone.

  Hallie, what the hell is going on?

  One from my mom: Hallie, I just spoke with Ben. He called to see if you lost your phone. Did something happen between you two? Is this the reason you decided on a New York Christmas? Please call me as soon as you get this.

  My gut twists. Our moms had been making wedding plans since the first day I had gone to his house to do a project for Spanish class. My mom was probably thinking that all her dreams of her daughter and her best friend’s son walking down the aisle of a small-town church were finally going to be realized.

  I’ve never had the heart to tell her that it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Ben—I did. Too much, in fact. I know he loves me, in his own way. I practically know everything about him—the way the side of his mouth curls when he gets really angry, his dreams of becoming a writer, his dislike for girls that travel in packs to the bathroom.

  And he knows everything about me—the way my voice turns too high and uber-friendly when I’m nervous or talking to someone I don’t particularly like, the way I could never say no to an extra practice, a tutoring session with someone struggling with math, an extra article for a school newspaper. Worse, he knows when anything gets me off my game in the slightest.

  And he knows about the one thing that no one else did. He had been my savior that night, and the memory or lack of a memory still hung between us. That’s the moment that I fell irrevocably in love with him.

  Unrequited love is such a pain in the ass. And it’s the real reason that I’m in New York and not Ohio.

  It all started when I had come home for Thanksgiving break.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he told me, pulling me aside at a crowded party. “Be nice.”

  I looked at him innocently, and said “I’m always nice.”

  He rolled his eyes in response, because I may have been slightly less than my best self to some of the others.

  “I’m maintaining that it’s all really your fault,” I had told him. “Your taste in women is beyond suspect.”

  After swatting at my arm, he had brought Susan over and introduced her to me. Of course, she was a tiny, perky, blond girl, a cheerleader at their university in Ohio. They had been dating for about a few months, I gathered from the first part of our conversation.

  It doesn’t matter. She’s just like all the rest. Five minutes later, as I giggled with her about something or other, it hit me in a flash—it was worse than I could have imagined. I liked her. And she was smart, dedicated, sweet, and obviously devoted to Ben. She was completely unlike any of the others.

  And with that, Ben’s and my friendship—the one thing in the world that meant the most to me—was going to slip away. I had tried to tell myself that I was coming to New York because it had been my dream since I was a little girl, that I would be able to see the city like a real New Yorker, that Sophia would be the best tour guide I could ask for.

  While all of those things were true (except for the tour guide part—Sophia was going to make a lousy tour guide), the real reason I had come was because I was afraid that I was going to lose Ben completely. Every year, I looked forward to our traditions—the bonfire at the lake, the gag gifts, and the drive around town while we placed bets on whose family was going to have the worst Christmas lights. Things that would now pass to Susan.

  It was cowardly. He was my best friend and he deserved happiness. But I was pretty sure that I didn’t need to watch it happen right in front of my eyes.

  I glance back at the text message and put my phone back into my purse.

  I need out. Now.

  I grab my purse and move as quietly as I can through the crowd. I see Sophia talking with someone, and I’m hoping that she didn’t see me making my escape. I manage to sneak out the door, and I press a button on the elevator.

  L.

  Lobby? Lower level?

  Out.

  I had no idea where I was going. Sophia’s dad had picked us up from the airport, and except for my limited knowledge of New York gleaned from some rom coms where a guy is on the motorcycle, trying to catch up with the girl he is desperately in love with, I had absolutely no idea where I was. I was pretty sure that the café where the boy and girl shared a long kiss at after as the motorcycle ran out of gas didn’t even exist.

  Well, if I was ever going to be a real New Yorker, part of the initiation ritual included a moment where the small town girl gets lost in the big city, right?

  So, this was it.

  I look around me. I see a glowing neon sign across the street that reads, “Late Night Food,” which is the same sign I’ve seen in countless sitcoms set in New York. Fine. That would do for now. I walk across the street and slide into a booth, trying to seem like I fit there, that this was my hometown and that I went alone to diners every single day.

  “Can I have a black coffee please?” I ask, when the waitress drops by the table.

  “Ten dollar minimum.”

  Apparently, diners in New York had a cover charge.

  “Um, ok. I’ll take the coffee. Just give me a second to figure else what I want to order. Thank you.”

  She returns with the coffee but leaves before I can meet
the stupid minimum charge. I take a long sip. I had maybe three beers at the party—enough to make me slightly fuzzy-feeling and nostalgic. I pull my phone back out of my purse and the message is still open on my phone, and the word Australia stares back at me. I type back the only response I can manage.

  In NY with Sophia. Grabbing coffee right now. Talk soon, I promise.

  I click send, and then, thinking better of it, add another quickly.

  Miss u.

  I look at the “u.” It seems appropriate. “Miss you” seems too needy. “Miss u” had the perfect ring to it, the “I’m looking forward to seeing you but it doesn’t mean that much to me.” While that wasn’t exactly true, he really didn’t need to know that.

  It was only a couple of seconds before his reply pops onto the screen.

  Call me tomorrow. If u don’t, I’ll have to get to NY to see u. Make sure ur still alive.

  Ben could absolutely not come here. One of two things was bound to happen. First, he would take one look at Sophia and fall madly in love with her. Although I was actually pretty tolerant of his parade of girlfriends, and Sophia might be better than Susan in some ways, the thought of seeing Ben with Sophia made my stomach turn.

  That one was not ever going to be okay with me.

  The second potential reaction was far more worrisome. Before I left for school, we had a conversation about Greenview, a small private school where the students are, on the whole, rich and spoiled. Basically, they’re the Ivy League rejects who partied too hard in high school.

  “Tell me if I ended up becoming one of those snobby girls that we both hate,” I said to him.

  Or, as I had thought silently in my head, one of those snotty girls that you tell me that you hate and you end up screwing and complaining to me about.

  “You would never,” he had replied, kissing my cheek.

  It was certainly possible that he would see the beautiful apartment and the beautiful people who were so not my kind of people and he would get his big-brother voice out to tell me that I was losing myself, that I was becoming everything I never wanted to be. He had almost no tolerance for bullshit. It was probably my favorite thing about him, but I have to admit that I was a little bit afraid that he would come here and call me out on mine.

  So, objective number one was to prevent a Ben visit.

  I’ll call. I can’t tomorrow, but I will call soon. Be home in 3 weeks and see you then.

  Fine. See u.

  It was curt, even for Ben. Yep, he was definitely mad. He wasn’t one to abuse words or to write long messages, but there was usually something that resembled a bad joke stuck in there, something that would make me smile. I was going to need to fix that. But fixing that would make me face all of the things that I had been avoiding since Thanksgiving, and I just wasn’t ready. So, Ben would have to wait.

  Words were coming from somewhere and I figured it was the waitress. Only after I had looked up did I realize that the words were not coming from the middle-aged woman with yellowed teeth who had delivered the coffee.

  “From the party, right? The terrace? Mind if I take a seat?”

  Chapter 4

  CHRIS

  Of all the gin joints…

  I knew it was flip-flop girl from the back of her head, although the foot peeking out from underneath the booth definitely would have helped. She was by herself, another party refugee, although I still had no idea who she was or what she was doing in my part of town.

  “Of course,” she says, sweeping her hand over the empty seat across from her. “Please.”

  I jump in the booth, glancing around to find the waitress. Meeting the eyes of an older woman who had clearly been working in this particular diner for at least ten years too long, I pantomime drinking coffee. She nods, albeit with a tiny smirk on her face. It was going to be a minute before I saw that coffee.

  I turn my attention back to the girl. Goddamn Sophia. Now you exiled yourself until the car comes and you’re stuck trying to make conversation with flip flops. I sigh. At least I would get to see her eyes again.

  “What’s up?” I ask her. She was putting her phone away and muttering an apology about being rude. My interest was piqued—clearly a childhood with family dinners and no cell phone conversations, then.

  “Not much?” Ice cold.

  “Sorry. I’m Chris. I saw you in here and figured that I might as well sit rather than stand.”

  It wasn’t totally true. There were a couple of stools at the counter, and I could have taken one of those.

  “Of course,” she says, still staring at the table rather than at me. “I was about to leave in a minute, anyway. Just needed a little break.”

  “A break, huh?”

  “A break,” she confirms.

  We sat in silence for a couple of seconds. I was going to have to try a little harder.

  “So, I’ve never seen you before. Was that your first Sophia party?”

  “Yeah. It got a little crowded for me up there.” She hesitates, looking at my face and shaking her head slightly. She had just made a decision, and I wasn’t sure what it was yet.

  “Yeah, it does that.”

  She lets out the breath she had been holding in and offers me a small smile, enough for me to remember the way the space around her had lit up when she had smiled at me from across the terrace.

  “Most of us know each other from high school,” I say. “I’m pretty certain you didn’t go to Sampson.”

  She laughs, and it’s a throaty sound and full of mischief. “What gave me away?”

  I hesitate for a second and decide to tell the truth. “Well, I could have figured it out, because we live in a small, fairly closed-off world. Plus, Sampson only had 100 kids in each grade, so when I realized I didn’t know you, it was pretty clear that you didn’t go there. But, actually, it was the flip-flops.”

  She looks down at her feet and then smiles again at me. This was certainly a change from most of the girls I knew. Their favorite facial expressions were somewhere between a smirk and a pout, echoing the expressions of the girls on the runway. They were probably aiming for mysterious and sexy, but it usually came off as rude and snobby.

  “I live in flip flops,” she admits, leaning slightly across the table and cupping her hand around the side of her mouth.

  “I am a complete, total, hopeless klutz. When I saw that balcony, I knew that if I wore the only pair of heels I own, I definitely would have toppled off the side of the balcony. No one would have ever seen me again.” She finishes in an exaggerated stage whisper, leaning across the table conspiratorially.

  Fair enough. I’d had the same concerns after seeing a too-drunk girl go out to the balcony earlier that night. I grin at her, and her mouth opens slightly. Damn. That was definitely not the mouth of the girl next door.

  I must have stopped talking, because she offers a question. “So, Sampson, huh? Are you in college now?”

  “I’m taking a break,” I tell her.

  “A break, huh?” She echoes my earlier question.

  “Yep. A break.”

  She hadn’t offered an explanation or an excuse for her break, and I didn’t want to tell her that I was an actor. There were only two ways that girls responded. Either they would get that starry-eyed look (like Sophia), immediately inching closer to me. Or, and I felt like this was more devious, they would pretend that they weren’t interested in movies at all, like that was supposed to turn me on.

  I had an older sister who would sit and relay the plots of her favorite novels to me over morning coffee (unfortunately). The regular, everyday girl who landed the movie star/rock star/sensitive/rich and famous guy always had absolutely no interest in fame or celebrity. She was usually some do-gooder that captured the attention of said celebrity, who was famous and yet remarkably normal, kind, chivalrous, and generous.

  This was slightly unrealistic. While I’m sure do-gooder girl existed somewhere, I had never met one like her.

  “Like, a gap year? Voluntee
r work or something?” she asks, looking at me dubiously.

  What the hell. Why not get it out of the way?

  I could figure out if she was from the hanger-on or do-gooder category. I’d be willing to place my bets on everyday girl with the heart of gold. It would definitely disappoint me slightly if she pretended to have absolutely no interest in fame and fortune, though.

  “No, I was in LA shooting a movie. I have some press to do here, and then I have to get back to reading scripts and trying to figure out what my next project is.”

  “No way. You made a movie? That is the freaking coolest thing ever.” Her eyes were suddenly alight with questions.

  Did she just say the word freaking? Not the anticipated reaction. Not at all.

  I laugh at the expression on her face. Her eyes were impossibly wide and blue. Still guarded, though.

  “A movie fan, huh?”

  She nods vigorously. “I’m kind of a pop culture junkie. I’ve loved movies since before I could even sit through them. My mom made me watch Gone with the Wind with her when I was three, and I kind of fell in love with the whole thing. I like stories, you know? It’s nice to escape and pretend that you’re a character in them. You can forget about everything else for a couple of hours and just imagine that you’re the one stuck in the middle of some impossible situation. I’m a total sucker for a good movie.”

  “Me, too. And it’s pretty freaking cool that I actually get to be the one in the story,” I admitted. I had definitely just used the word freaking. Her excitement was infectious. “I mean, it’s not as simple as all of that. The endless hours of having someone stick pins in you while trying to get your costume to fit right and the fifteen takes of a scene kind of take some of the magic away. But you do still get to be a part of it.”

  “Wow,” she says, leaning one cheek on her elbow and sipping her coffee, a dream in her eyes. “But you’re not, like…” Her voice drifts off, and I can tell that she was thinking, “famous.”

  “Hardly.” I chuckle. “A lot of people think that you just wake up one day, and you’re famous. But it doesn’t work like that. At least, I don’t think it works like that.”