Catch My Fall

by Wright, Michaela

  “Jensen. Just because some fucking asshole – some Festering Asshole -” He stopped and shook his head, running his hand over his stubbled chin. He was riled up. I couldn’t understand why I’d bothered him so much. “He didn’t pull a dick move because of you. He’s just a dick. Pure and simple. Guy will never find another girl to come close to you -”

  I tried to laugh at that, but instead I burbled – a strange mix of snotty chuckle and near sob. Again I pressed my hand to my face. I was embarrassing myself with each passing moment. “I think I need to go home, please?”

  He slumped back into his seat again. “Don’t let this guy do that to you.”

  I sat there, my lips curling into themselves as I replayed the moment Stellan pushed me away again and again. If only he knew just how sure I was about this fact – no one wanted me. No one.

  But more importantly, Stellan didn’t want me.

  Evan scratched his head and chuckled. “You have no idea – you know you’re the girl who ruined me for other women, right?”

  I scowled at him. There’d never been anything more than plutonic love between us. Furiously loyal love, but plutonic nonetheless.

  His eyebrows shot up in exasperation. “It’s true. I can’t find another woman like you to save my fucking life.”

  I fought past the wet in my throat to speak. “Why would you want to? You could have any woman. That party was practically Vagina Town -” He made a face, but I continued. “Weren’t you on some magazine cover as Most Eligible what-fucking-ever?”

  He smiled. “You saw that did ya? Fantastic. Hopefully other women like you did too.”

  “Shut up,” I said and tapped him.

  “I’m serious woman. Christ, I keep going out with these girls – they’re beautiful. I mean gorgeous - from Denmark or Brazil, gorgeous women. They come into my life with a hair flip and a great ass, I fall madly for them, then a few months later they’re screaming at me because I’d rather play Call of Duty with Stell than take a trip to Monaco on some fucking yacht. Then boom; they’re leaving, and I’m glad to see them go.”

  “Sounds like you might want to try a different dating pool.”

  “No shit, right?”

  I wiped my face. The smile in his voice was drawing me out. It always did.

  He took a deep breath. “Seriously, if I didn’t know Stellan would stab me for it, I’d ask you to marry me right now.”

  I shook my head. “I doubt Stellan would protest.”

  Evan glared at me, speaking before I could question why. “You’re the pipe dream, woman. You’re the real deal.”

  “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else, guy.”

  He grabbed at the steering wheel like it was on fire. “Are you kidding me? For fuck’s sake, woman. You’re perfect.”

  My mouth fell open at the nonsense of his words. “Yeah, definitely mixed up with -”

  “Dude, let’s be real. Stellan and I were not cool kids. Biggest fucking tool bags ever. I mean, what did we do with our fucking time? Play video games, blow shit up, tag up the back of Brigham’s, hack sites we didn’t like, hang out in the woods.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “God, how many days did you spend just watching us play games for fucking hours?”

  I laughed. “Hey, I played.”

  “Fuck yeah you did.”

  I searched for a joke to lighten the tone. “I often wonder what I might have done with my life if I’d realized there was more to life than sniping your faces off in Star Wars: Battlefront.”

  He smiled, but continued through his laughter. “You never complained, or picked on us or left us. You let us be jackasses and kept us company. You laughed at our jokes, made us laugh. Fuck, you showed us up half the time, and when you didn’t feel like it, you’d go draw some magnificent thing that I could never in my lifetime come up with, and I’d question the worth of my whole existence.”

  I shook my head, but he wasn’t done.

  “You remember the days you’d had enough. You would stand in front of the television and say, ‘Let’s get out of the house, before I set fire to it.’ And we did.”

  “Yeah, and then we’d end up in a cemetery,” I said, gesturing to our location.

  He steamrolled right over my joke. “Or Denny’s, or driving around. It doesn’t fucking matter, what matters is you accepted us. You didn’t try to change us. Now, because of you, I have this insane notion that there are other women out there who will love me for exactly who I am - that won’t try to change me.”

  I scoffed. “There are gamer girls all over the world.”

  “Fuck that! I don’t want a gamer girl. I want a woman who games. I want a woman who has her own interests – her own passions. I don’t want someone who’s only positive is that she’s going to fight me for the Xbox, for fuck’s sake.”

  “That’s a little -”

  “Spoiled? Yeah, your fault.”

  I smiled and sniffled. “You’re full of shit.”

  He growled softly, smiling. “Let’s not fight it any more, Jensen! Marry me! We just won’t tell the Swede.”

  I laughed again. “Nevah!”

  He clasped his hand over his heart in feigned despair. “How can you say no?”

  “Because I’ve seen you naked.”

  Evan burst out laughing with such power, it shook the roof of the car. “Hey, it isn’t that bad! Actually, I’ve heard from several gold-digging models that it’s quite nice, in fact!”

  “Oh, it’s lovely Evan. It’s just the fact that I saw it while you were tripping balls, chasing my neighbor’s cat and flying ass over tea kettle into my grandmother’s lilac bushes. It just doesn’t inspire lust, I’m sorry.”

  He threw up his hands, laughing. “God damn it! I just can’t win.”

  The image of his bare ass in that bush, lit by my back porch light, came blaring back to mind, and I laughed as though I’d just witnessed it.

  I remembered Stellan’s response when he joined me on the porch – “Ah, my eyes! I can’t unsee that, you Dick!”

  Evan shot me that show stopping smile of his. He reached over and grabbed me by the neck to pull me over to him. He hugged me and kissed my ear. “I’ve missed the shit out of you.”

  I slipped my arms around him and hugged him back. The comfort was intense. We sat for a few minutes like that. When we separated he threatened to finance a think tank whose sole purpose was to invent a means to wipe my memory so he could propose again. Then he started the car and drove me home.

  He parked on my street, took my phone and texted himself from it.

  He gave an evil laugh. “Now you can’t hide from me.”

  I took the phone and thanked him for the ride. He grumbled at the thought of returning to his own party as he put the car into drive.

  He leaned toward the passenger window and looked up at me. “Text Stellan, you. Don’t go to bed til you do.”

  I drifted up my front steps, watching his car pull away. I still had his jacket draped over my shoulders.

  My head was heavy and just about cried out as I draped his jacket over the chair in the corner of my room and slumped onto my bed. I was hardly horizontal when my phone buzzed.

  It was Evan. Sleep well, Cyndi.

  And thanks to alcohol, I did – with my bangs still styled like a hawk’s wing over my head.

  CHAPTER thirteen

  I didn’t just not text Stellan that night, I also didn’t respond to his texts all the next day.

  At noon - You feeling better?

  At four – You around?

  At nine that evening – How long we planning the silent treatment, here?

  Between those texts, I heard from:

  Evan – You stole the shirt off my back, you Minx.

  Jackie – How was the shindig last night? Did you have fun?

  And finally Meghan. Meghan didn’t text though. No, she couldn’t have the courtesy to wait and call me a
fter ten in the morning to rip my head off for abandoning her the night before.

  “You were supposed to line me up for some hot Evan Lambert action. You whore. I can’t believe you left me there.”

  I explained to the best of my ability without ever mentioning the catastrophe with Stellan or the hour I spent alone in a car with her man of choice. Still, she seemed to soften when I explained I’d had too many and needed to be taken home. She and I were still on the phone when the first text from Stellan came through. I used the phone call as an excuse to not answer. By the third text that day, I had no excuses.

  Well, what was I supposed to do? Respond like nothing happened? I just wanted to forget – forget that I’d made a fool of myself, forget that I let myself behave that way, forget that despite all of that, the most damning part was that he hadn’t reciprocated. Discussing with Stellan just why he didn’t want my tongue in his mouth was the last thing I wanted – today or any other day for that matter.

  I fondled my cell that night, chanting and re-chanting in my mind how to talk to him. “Man, remind me never to drink again,” or “the rumors were true, I’m the best kisser in town.” None of those felt cavalier enough. No matter what I said, my actions had done the talking, and there was no taking it back. I wrote and deleted the same words in various order six or seven times, before I finally just set the phone beside my bed and went to sleep.

  I woke to the doorbell and glanced at the clock. It was noon the next day.

  I greeted Jackie at the door, my hair and clothes rumpled to an equal degree. She simply set her purse down by the door and hugged me.

  Jackie was light itself. The weather could lighten her step in an instant, and from her entrance, I prepared for a truly lovely day outside. She was sunshine, even when she wasn’t feeling like sunshine, inside. I was too bedraggled to search her for cracks today. I was one big crack myself.

  “Do you want to get dressed?” She asked in an almost pleading tone.

  “Why? You weren’t planning to spend the day with a wino?”

  I turned to the staircase as she assured me that she’d meant no harm. I wouldn’t be showering or shampooing the rat’s nest of a hairstyle I was sporting that morning, but at least I could clip it into submission.

  When I returned to find Jackie on the living room couch reading one of my mother’s magazines, I probably didn’t look any better. I wore ratty old jeans with tears in the knees that had come from actual wear rather than fashion, and my ancient, yellow Mickey Mouse t-shirt had seen better days. Still, it was well fitted under my bust, so I’d never had the heart to part with it.

  I hoped I wore it better now than I did at thirteen when my mother first bought it for me.

  “Shoes?” Jackie said.

  I raised an eyebrow at her tone. It wasn’t stern or pushy in any way, but almost plaintive. I glanced at her, doing my best to read her body language without diving into a line of conversation I might not be mentally capable of upholding. She was agitated – or perhaps energized is a better word.

  I pointed to the beat up flip flops by the door and shuffled over. Jackie snatched up her purse and hovered a few feet behind me as I fought to balance and be melancholy at the same time.

  No easy feat, that.

  “Do you mind walking?” Jackie asked as we reached the curb outside my house.

  I looked at her. “Where are we going?”

  She shrugged. “I thought we might have lunch downtown. Maybe get something at Sally Ann’s or the Boathouse?”

  I agreed, knowing full well I had no right to have an opinion given that my jeans’ pockets were empty. “Whatever you want.”

  She froze and watched my face. “Do you not want to? We can do something else.”

  “No, no. I’d love to take a walk downtown.”

  “Oh good. I was thinking we could maybe split a sandwich, then get cannolis over at the Boathouse.”

  I hummed my approval. Despite knowing full well the best Cannolis were at Mike’s in the North End, the Boathouse did their best. Their best cost approximately eight dollars, but what do you expect from downtown Concord?

  Jackie seemed to be at a constant clip, just a half step or two ahead of me. I wasn’t deliberately meandering, but still, there was a spring to her step I couldn’t match. And to be completely honest, as we hit the rotary at Monument Square, the sudden revelation that I was in line of sight from Stell’s house gave me pause. I did my best not to stare at it like a David Letterman fanatic.

  And just like that, Jackie stopped. “What’s going on in your brain right now?”

  “What? Nothing.”

  How does she fucking do that?

  “Are you sure? Do you want to go visit Stellan?”

  “No, no! I’m fine. Just a little dazed is all.”

  She stared at me. “What’s wrong with you and Stellan?”

  God fucking damn it, Jackie. “Nothing. We’ll be fine.” I hope.

  “You will be fine? As in, you’re not quite fine right now?”

  I deliberately continued across the street. She followed, shifting her purse as she matched my pace.

  I didn’t say anything as we passed the Christian Reading Room and the Hardware Store, but when I glanced up to find her still watching me for a response, I sighed. “We’re not talking right now.”

  If I was hoping for a day spent not talking about it, this wasn’t the appropriate way to get it. Jackie wouldn’t press. She would never press, but when she searched your face with her sympathetic smile, you couldn’t help but share. And, oh boy, did I share.

  I practically unleashed. I told her about the Halloween party, about Stellan - and how dare he show up with his hair cut. I told her about the kiss, or the face licking, more aptly, and the resulting push. I managed to get it all out in a huff of exasperation rather than a font of emotion. Crying on Main Street might result in talk. You don’t live in Downtown Concord for a good amount of your life and not get to know people.

  “You kissed him? And he pushed you away?”

  I nodded rather than repeat it out loud. It was hard enough to say it once.

  “Why did he push you away?”

  I laughed. Sometimes Jackie betrayed a sweeter nature than she wanted the world to believe. “I assume because he wasn’t as keen on making out with me as I’d hoped.”

  “I can’t believe you just went for it. I’m so proud.”

  I stared at her. “Proud? Are you kidding?”

  “Yes, I’m proud! You’d been thinking about him for a while. I worried you’d never say anything.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I wish I’d kept it to myself.”

  We reached Sally Ann’s, and the bell jangled over her head as she entered. I followed her inside, silent. A few minutes later we were walking across the street with a small paper bag and two boxed waters. Jackie decided we should sit amongst the old crumbling gravestones of the South Burying Ground and eat our Turkey Sandwich.

  The sandwich was perfect, and I could have easily eaten two more, but again, I hadn’t the means to be greedy.

  “I still don’t understand why he would push you away,” she said, finally.

  The innocence of her tone was almost grating. Why couldn’t she see what I saw? That I was undesirable! He didn’t want me! “He didn’t shove me or anything.”

  “That seems so forward, even for you.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I did have somewhere around seven rum and cokes beforehand. Nothing like liquid courage.”

  When she didn’t respond, I glanced up to find her watching me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You were ‘drunk?’

  I paused. “Yes?”

  When she spoke, my charade splintered into pieces. “Faye.”

  Fuck. Clearly I’d forgotten who I was talking to.

  Jackie and I met in college. She was studying theatre at BU, whilst I was busy drawing stupid characters and apparently wastin
g my life at Mass Art.

  In the weeks following my lunch with Dad, I’d started frequenting frat parties, if you could call them that. She and her then boyfriend found me stranded after such a party with chapped lips from making out with a stranger and no idea where I was. She didn’t know me well by then, but Jackie’s nature couldn’t leave me there, hammered and lost on a sidewalk somewhere South of Fenway. She brought me back to her dorm.

  She asked me questions, something I found nice after hours of endless banter with boys who wanted to get into my drunken pants. She made me tea and toast, and we discussed our lives into the wee hours of the morning. By the time we were eating breakfast at a nearby diner, we’d exchanged numbers.

  We hung out again, she brought her then ‘friend’ Kevin, and I brought some random guy. We had a couple pints, then she and Kevin headed out. Now, I knew my date hadn’t paid any mind to the amount I’d been drinking. Most guys outside of the date rape and concerned chaperone variety don’t really care to pay attention. Still, if I’d known Jackie forgot her purse, I might have behaved differently. Had I known she forgot her purse, I might have followed her to her car and avoided this moment in my life. Instead, I turned to Ben, or Jamie, or whatever the fuck his name was, and said the immortal words, “Wow, I’m so drunk right now.”

  Those words are magic, ladies and gentlemen. Once they have been uttered, the gloves come off, the friendly gestures flow, but most importantly, accountability flies directly out the window. When Jackie returned to grab her purse, I was knee deep in Ben-Jamie’s inaccurate kisses, and his hand was finding its way into my blouse. She said my name, and before I could realize who I was acknowledging, I leaned in for a slurred greeting and met the eyes of a woman who could read me like Ikea furniture instructions.

  She didn’t see me again until the night I nearly broke my toe in the main entrance of her dorm building, trying to flee a guy I’d let take me home. She was coming in as I was pile driving my way out, and we only managed to avoid colliding with one another because I yanked the door open directly onto my open-toe shoed foot.

  I still curl my toes when I think about that.