Never Stop Falling

by Ashley Drew

  His free hand pushes his wavy blonde locks away from his face, while the other holds a couple of shopping bags. “You’re damn right it’s about time! How long you here for?”

  “A week. I’m staying with my dad and Jamie until next Friday, and then my ass is on a plane back to New York.”

  “So you and your dad are okay now, I take it?”

  I’m not about to put a damper on Braiden’s mood with all of my drama, so I twist the truth a bit. “We’re working on it.”

  “Good. I’m glad. And I’m especially glad you’re here! Does Kelley know?”

  “Yeah, I actually had coffee with him at the Perg a little while ago. A little catch up session, if you will. Or we did as much catching up as we could before he had to get back to the pub.”

  A look of confusion wipes over Braiden’s face as he squints and puckers his lips. “The pub? Really? He said he was taking the day off, so I don’t know what he would need to do over there.”

  For a second, my coffee from earlier tries to climb right back up my esophagus. It takes everything in me to force it back down, and now I’m left with the aftertaste of coffee and stomach acid clawing at the back of my throat.

  Nick obviously lied about having to be at the pub today. I do my best to keep a straight face, channeling my inner Barbie and plastering a smile right on top of the dejection hidden beneath it.

  “He wanted to check in,” I casually say. The last thing I want is for Braiden to realize that Nick lied to me. How stupid that would make me look.

  “Oh, okay. It probably has to do with tonight. I take it you’re coming, right?”

  This time, it’s an uppercut to the underside of my chin that gets me, and it knocks the plastered smile right off my face, shatters it into a million pieces, and reveals the confusion graffitied all over it.

  “Wait a second. Don’t tell me the wanker didn’t invite you to his engagement party.”

  I’ve seen a few boxing matches in my life, and I’ve often wondered what goes through the losing boxer’s mind before he gets taken down. The loss of breath and the loss of energy can certainly lead to the loss of hope when he’s received more punches than he’s thrown. It’s only a matter of when that final punch is thrown, and when it happens—that match-ending, blood-splattering punch—he doesn’t even see it coming. He’s already down. KO’d.

  Now, I don’t have to wonder. Because, I’ve just been KO’d. I’m down—knocked out—as soon as the word engagement leaves Braiden’s mouth.

  “What the hell do you mean you invited her?”

  Braiden looks at me, doe-eyed, sipping on his beer at the corner of the bar. “Dude, calm your panties. You’re looking at me like I just told you I bagged your sister...which I didn’t nor would I ever, so don’t worry,” he quickly adds.

  Fucking Braiden. Not only did he tell Cori about my engagement, but he chooses right now to make jokes about Tess and his former infatuation with her. As long as he and I are friends, my sister is off-limits. I don’t want to be placed in a situation where I one day might have to choose my sister over my best friend. Losing another friend, for whatever reasons, is not an option.

  But considering the circumstances, I may have to reconsider that, because losing Braiden right now may not be the worst thing in the world.

  “When she said you two had coffee together, I assumed that you invited her, naturally. I mean, she is a friend, isn’t she? So, she comes to the party. What’s the big deal anyway?” He takes another long swig of his beer. “Hey, do you think I can get some of that spicy trail mix that you guys always put out in the little bowls?”

  I place my face in my hands, shaking my head. This is not the way I wanted Cori to find out about my engagement. Not like this. As easy as it would be to blame Braiden for the mess I’m in, it really isn’t his fault, since I’m the idiot for not telling her in the first place. Plus, Braiden only thinks I didn’t invite her to the party. He has no idea the engagement was never mentioned—period. And it will have to remain that way, since I can’t have him questioning me why.

  I stand up and let out a defeated sigh, my head hanging low. “Nothing. It’s not a big deal. Just forget it,” I mumble under my breath.

  “Man, nobody committed a crime here! Lighten up. It’s a party, for fuck’s sake, not an Opus Dei acquisition. Besides, you’re the dick for not inviting her in the first place. No offense,” he says, lifting his palms up in defense. “And why are you even here? You said you were taking the day off. Isn’t Riley at your place?”

  “Yeah she is,” I tell him, and she’s the reason why I avoided home after going to the Perg. But I leave that part out. With Cori fresh on my mind, for some reason, it didn’t feel right going home to Riley soon after.

  “Now how about that trail mix?”

  I grab an empty bowl and the bag of trail mix from one of the cabinets, sliding them both across the bar toward Braiden, the bowl skidding instead of gliding, teetering on its bottom before coming to a halt in front of him. “There. Knock yourself out.”

  “Whatever happened to service with a smile?” he taunts, pouring the trail mix into the bowl.

  Ignoring his attempt at humor, I lean my back against the counter behind me and rest my hands along the edge, looking over the almost empty restaurant. The wooden blinds lining the windows can’t keep out the early evening sun as it creeps through the slits, the five o’clock shadows crawling across the floors and scaling up the walls. The smooth sounds of Journey fill the empty booths and seats but fail to drown out the faint clanging of dishes echoing out of the kitchen. In a couple of hours, this place will once again be a madhouse. For now, other than a few occupied tables, a man sitting at the other end of the bar, and Braiden gorging on a free beer and trail mix, it’s quiet.

  I wish I can say the same for my head because it’s being invaded by all things Cori. The way she scrunches her nose when she disagrees with something. How she purses her lips to the side when she’s deep in concentration. The way she bats her eyelashes when she’s trying to be cute. God, she doesn’t even have to try; she’s so damn cute. It’s like Slayer got zapped by the dad in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, took refuge in my head, and decided to thrash out with Raining Blood on repeat for the past twenty-four hours, without even pausing for a bathroom break.

  I should have flat-out told her. She did ask if Riley and I were serious, and nothing says serious better than a white dress, a black tux, and a hundred of your closest friends and family getting trashed off the open bar. Maybe I thought I’d never see her again after today, that she’d eventually find out through someone else after she’d gone, out of this town and out of my life again. Not that I don’t want to see her again, because I do—badly. But I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t.

  But that doesn’t stop me from pulling my cell phone from my pocket, flipping it open, and speed dialing one, for Cori. Only after hitting the key do I realize that no one else is programmed into my speed dial besides her. Not Tess. Not Braiden. Not my parents. Not even Riley. Just Cori. Programmed into my phone after we exchanged numbers last night. Set at number one.

  One—small in number, loaded with weight.

  The top of the list, the first in line.

  The beginning, the original.

  One. Cori Bennett.

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  As the line rings, my heart attempts to flee my chest, slamming into it, beat after beat. I still have no idea what to say, and a part of me hopes she doesn’t pick up. The line goes straight to voicemail, and I should feel relieved but find myself feeling disappointed instead. Maybe all I want is to hear her voice. Maybe I’ve simply missed hearing her voice. Maybe the universe hears my pleas, because I’m greeted by the sweet familiar sound of her voice as she tells me to leave a message after the beep.

  There goes the beep, and I freeze.

  I scold myself for not thinking about what to say before I dialed her number like a dumb ass, and now the message is recording nothing b
ut silence. At least if I hang up right now, she won’t know I called.

  “Yo Kelley, can I get another beer?” Braiden yells across the bar.

  And that happens. I can always count on good ol’ Braiden to open his big mouth at the wrong time.

  I grasp the back of my neck, pacing up and down the length of the bar. “Hey, Cori. It’s me, Nick. Nicholas Kelley.” Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’m pretty sure she knew it was you without having to say your full name, ass. Shaking my head, I grab another bottle of beer from the bottom fridge, flipping the cap off as I continue the message. “Anyway, it was great seeing you last night, and today of course, and it would be great if you could join us tonight. I’m here at the pub with Braiden, good ol’ Braiden,” I force through my teeth, handing him the bottle when all I really want to do is pour it all over that wavy blond hair of his.

  “Tell that girl she better get her ass out here tonight! The Benster’s got six years’ worth of partying to make up for!” Braiden wails as he grabs the bottle of beer from me.

  Sometimes I wonder about this guy, if spending too much time in the sun has fried his IQ. Or perhaps he’s swallowed too much Pacific salt water; it’s made his head dense. Whatever it is, he’ll use every social event, regardless of the occasion, as an excuse to get shit-faced.

  I continue with the message, and an awkward chuckle rises out of my throat. “That’s typical Braiden for you. Anyhow, he said he saw you and told you about tonight. I never thought I’d ever say this, but you should listen to him. I would love to see you,” I add, meaning every word of it. Yet, my guilty conscience doesn’t allow me to leave it at that. “And I would love for you to meet Riley.”

  I refrain from making any apologies or excuses as to why the engagement never came up in our conversation today. There’s no way I’m doing that over voicemail. Who knows what may get lost in translation?

  I can hardly translate any of this myself, including the feelings for Cori that I’ve kept locked away, confined to a piece of my heart that will forever belong to her. I was certain they’d never be unlocked again, but she unlocked them the second she walked back into my life. Now, with nothing holding them back, my heart struggles to keep those feelings there, preventing them from taking sole possession over what now belongs to someone else.

  And regardless of how wrong it is, the foolish part of me welcomes them with open arms.

  I’m easily distracted. When I was a kid, my mother took me to a psychologist to see if I’d get diagnosed for ADHD.

  “All the tests have come back negative, Mrs. Bennett. The only thing Corinne has is a highly imaginative, intuitive, and very insightful brain in that head of hers,” he’d told her.

  Well, I’ve been standing in front of the pub for the past ten minutes, distracted as I stare down at the initials N.C. and A.H. carved into the pavement outside the pub which, surprisingly, I’ve never noticed until now. But the only thoughts my imagination are coming up with right now are dreary ones.

  N.C. and A.H. must have been naive. Simply carving your initials into wet cement and encircling them with a heart doesn’t spell out forever. But they seemed to think so. Through forty years of the elements, including the earthquake of ’89, and thousands, maybe even millions, of footsteps trampling all over them, N.C. and A.H. live on in the heart they enclosed themselves in.

  Call it love. Call it romantic. Call it cliché. I call it vandalism on private property.

  Most likely, N.C. and A.H. married, popped out a few kids, and divorced after ten years or so, if that. So long to forever.

  It’s almost ten, which means most of the guests should be inside, unless they chose to be fashionably late, or like me, consciously late. I had no intention of coming here after Braiden dropped the ball on me—that heavy, weighted ball that left every part of me aching. But after I reluctantly turned my phone back on, and the chord of a single ding signaled one voicemail from Nick, I knew what the message said before I even listened.

  I wondered if my annoyance was a result of me not leaving my phone on and missing his call, or for Nick not disclosing that piece of information—his engagement. I tried rationalizing the situation. He must have forgotten, right? There is no other explanation because Nick used to tell me everything. And then, it hit me.

  Used to. He used to tell me. Past tense. Not present tense. Not future tense. Past. Tense.

  Even things I didn’t want to hear, he’d tell me. Like the time he made out with Gemma at Chase Parker’s back-to-school party the beginning of junior year. Some sob story about how she felt sick and asked Nick to accompany her to the bathroom, and before he knew it, her lips were on his, blah, blah, blah. He claimed that he didn’t kiss her back, but I don’t know how much of that I believed. Then again, Nick would’ve never lied to me. That’s how our relationship was.

  Until today.

  I didn’t hesitate to listen to Nick’s message. As confused as I felt over everything, hearing his voice alone calmed my nerves, and when he said that he’d love for me to come tonight, that word alone made it extremely difficult for me to refuse.

  And five outfit changes and two car turn-arounds later, here I am.

  But now that I’m standing here in front of the pub, I’m almost tempted to go home and deal with my father and his male lover, rather than celebrate Nick’s engagement.

  “What would you two do?” I ask N.C. and A.H. under my breath, looking down at their initials. Who am I kidding? N.C. and A.H. probably wouldn’t have had any of the problems that I have. People who have time to draw their names in a heart on wet sidewalk cement don’t have problems, other than not having anything better to do with their free time.

  As I contemplate leaving, Braiden steps outside.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Benster, always fashionably late,” he rags on me. “But better late than never!”

  “You never fail to objectify me with that nickname. What are you doing out here?”

  “Needed a little fresh air, if you know what I mean,” he admits, pulling a joint from his back pocket as he flashes a crooked smile.

  “Some things never change. You’re still you, Braiden.”

  “Now that you’re here, this party can get started because Benster babe, I’ve got a bottle of Don Julio with your name written all over it,” he shrieks at the top of his lungs and wraps an arm around my shoulders, obviously already tipsy with the scent of Scotch lingering on his breath. “I’m so fucking happy you’re here, do you know that? Like high-as-a-kite-fucking-happy!”

  He places a wet, liquored kiss on my forehead, and I return the affection by wiping it away against his black, button-up collar shirt. “Ew, thank you for that. There’s nothing sexier than a wet, slobbery kiss.”

  “Sexy is my middle name, you know,” he attests, shooting a wink at me.

  A group of young girls stumbles out of the entrance doors, dressed in shorter-than-short and tighter-than-tight dresses and six-inch heels, giggling and tripping over themselves as Braiden’s eyes follow them to the parking lot.

  “You know, you’ve got a bit of drool on your chin right here,” I motion with my index finger to my own chin. “You do realize your beer goggles are in full effect right now, don’t you?”

  “Beer goggles aren’t such a bad thing for a guy when he’s horny as fuck! Just gotta make sure to keep them goggles on and to double bag it!”

  “Could you be any more disgusting? You seriously haven’t changed at all.” I scrunch my nose, smacking his arm as he retracts and bursts out laughing, and I can’t help but laugh with him.

  “Anyway, I wasn’t speaking for myself since, you know, I’ve hung up my beer goggles.” His lips tug at a smile. Who knows what he means by that, but thanks to him, I’m feeling much more relaxed than I was earlier.

  “I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much.”

  Braiden pulls me in and wraps his arms around my shoulders, directing me toward the entrance of the pub. “Well, my friend, we’re going to need t
o change that. Didn’t you know that laughter is the best medicine?”

  I nod as he pushes me through the door, and in my head, I curse N.C. and A.H. for distracting me from making my getaway.

  This isn’t my party, but I seem to be the focus of attention anyway.

  “Corinne, honey! I heard you were here,” Marlene Kelley squeals with delight as she takes my face in her hands and places a kiss on my cheek. She pulls me in for a hug which I happily return. “Oh good gosh! It is so good to see you, sweetheart!”

  “It’s been a long time, Marlene, but it feels good to be back,” I tell her, and surprisingly, it does.

  “What have you been up to all of these years? How’s east coast living? And your mother, how is she doing?”

  Marlene spits out question after question, and I don’t know which to answer first. Luckily, William cuts in before I can answer.

  “Good lord, Marlene, give her some room to breathe, why don’t ya?” He pushes his way in between the two of us. “Now, it’s my turn to smother her! Give me a hug, squirt!” He pulls me in, rustling my hair with his palm until the top of my head looks like a balloon grazed over it. He looks down at me, a wide grin plastered across his flushed face, presumably from the glass of wine resting in his other hand. “How’re you doing, kid? Still as beautiful as ever, I see. I bet the boys find it difficult to stay away.”

  William loosens his grip on me as I straighten out my messy hair. The comment about the boys should prompt me to tell them about my engagement, but I don’t.

  “Oh please. You know I’ve never been one for compliments,” I smirk, rolling my eyes in response. “You, on the other hand, are still quite the catch, I must say.”

  He wraps his free arm around Marlene’s waist and grazes her cheek with a kiss. “Well, I gotta keep this woman here happy, right?”

  Soaking him in, Marlene’s endearing gaze at her husband is accompanied by a soft chuckle. “I’ll stay happy as long as you stay healthy.”