Never Stop Falling

by Ashley Drew

  Her mouth drops. “I knew I was thinking it, but I didn’t realize the word had actually left my mouth! I am never drinking again.”

  I look toward the end of the hall behind Cori before wrapping my other hand around her waist. “Since when did you start liking that riot girl punk shit that Andi’s playing out there?”

  Shrugging her shoulders, she tugs at the hem of my shirt with her free hand, and memories of her yanking it off and running her soft fingers up my chest the other night come flooding back to torture me.

  “Since never! It was merely small talk and me trying to apologize for my drunken stupor the other night. I hate that music, and you of all people should know that,” she teases, poking her finger into my torso.

  I release my hand from her waist and hold it to her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Cori. I don’t want to waste any more time apart. Have you talked to Cooper?”

  The second I say his name, the smile falls from her face, taking the light from her eyes down with it. As if that doesn’t already give me a cause for concern, she releases herself from my hold, pulling away from me. “Cooper is here.”

  My body grows rigid. “He’s here? In Santa Cruz?”

  “Yes. Sitting in a booth in the next room, actually,” she admits, her admission apologetic. “He arrived last night.”

  A familiar ache begins to creep out of my chest when I think about Cori not picking up my phone call last night. She didn’t pick up because she was with Cooper. And if he’s sitting in the next room, then it could only mean she hasn’t broken things off with him. Which could only mean they probably slept in the same bed—if they even slept.

  “Nick?”

  The sound of Cori’s voice pulls me from my torturous thoughts as I unconsciously grasp my chest.

  “Introduce me,” I spit out, surprising both Cori and myself when I say it. I really must love the torture.

  Her breath quickens and her eyes ricochet back and forth between the two walls lining the long corridor. “The thing is,” Cori starts, hesitant, “Cooper doesn’t know about you.”

  Confused, my mind reverts back to the night at the lodge when she was on the phone with Cooper. “He doesn’t know that we’ve been hanging out all week? That night at the lodge, I thought you—”

  “It wasn’t Cooper,” she interrupts. “It was Mateo. Cooper doesn’t know about that night. The truth is, he doesn’t know about you at all. I never told him about you.”

  Wow. I don’t know how to process the information, if I should feel disappointed or pleased, the two feelings teetering on opposite ends of a seesaw. Either my role in Cori’s life has been as insignificant as a stranger passing by in the street, nothing worth mentioning, or my significance would put every man to shame, raising the bar so far out of reach that none of them would ever be able to fill the void she secretly longed for—me. I suppose I feel a little of both.

  My lungs give way to a heavy sigh. If we could see the emotions written in every breath we exhale, then you wouldn’t be able to read the jumbled mess of mine.

  “Don’t do that,” Cori pleads.

  “Do what?”

  Stepping closer to me, she cups her hand around my cheek and strokes it gently, a move probably too risky to be making out in the open like this, but I don’t care. I thrive in Cori’s touch, like I could be lying on my death bed and all it would take is for her to touch me in some way, and I’d feel alive again.

  “I know what you’re thinking, so don’t. I know it’s crazy, the fact that Cooper doesn’t know about this huge part of my past. The truth is, I don’t know why I’ve never told him about you.”

  “I think you know why, Cori.”

  She gazes into my eyes long enough for me to realize she’s not going to give me her answer. I know this Cori; I’ve seen her. The girl who always puts on a brave face and dominates fear, a tactic she uses because she’s afraid that fear will dominate her, exposing every one of her vulnerabilities. But I see right through it. Little does she know, there is nothing braver than allowing yourself to be vulnerable to the world.

  She drops her hand from my cheek, turns around, and motions with her head toward the end of the hall. “Let’s go. I’ll introduce you.”

  “Coop, I’d like you to meet someone,” Cori announces when we reach the table.

  Rising from his seat and turning around, Cooper responds, “There you are. I’d almost gone looking for you.” Selfishly, I sort of wish he had. Maybe then, he would have caught Cori and me in a compromising position, thus setting their breakup in motion.

  Damn. The insane thoughts that run through my head with a little Cori on the brain.

  Speaking of which, would it have been too much to ask if the guy could look like Freddy Krueger instead of Freddie Prinze, Jr.?

  “This is Nicholas Kelley,” Cori introduces us but not without adding, “my childhood friend.”

  “Hey, it’s you,” Cooper acknowledges, pointing his index finger at me like he knows who I am, yet I don’t know how he could.

  With my hands tucked firmly in my pockets, I shrug my shoulders, forcing the hard line of my mouth into any semblance of a smile. If I had a mirror, I’m pretty sure it would tell me I failed. “Uh, yeah, I sure hope I’m me,” I respond in a lame attempt at a comeback. I’m pretty sure I failed at that, too.

  A wide grin spreads across his face, and damn the guy for one-upping me by unintentionally showing me how it’s done. “What I mean is, I was here last night. Sat right there at the bar.” He points to the seat at the end, now empty. “The Balvenie 17 guy. Ring a bell?”

  It all comes back to me. Cooper, or at least I hadn’t known it was him—Cori’s fiancé—sat at my bar last night and irked my biggest pet peeve by ordering a Scotch I don’t carry. Luckily, he ended up being pretty cool about it, unlike some of the other douche-y yuppies I’ve encountered around here lately. If only he fit the mold, and to be quite frank, it irritates the shit out of me that he doesn’t.

  “That’s right. I remember now,” I recognize, removing my right hand from my pocket and offering it to him. But unless he’d mentioned the part about the Balvenie, I would have never recalled our chance meeting. My mind was so preoccupied with Cori last night that Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters could have sat down in front of me, and I wouldn’t have been able to separate them from the rest of the drunken fools in this place. Plus, Braiden was here, and he wouldn’t shut up over how I never told him about Cori and me.

  Confused, Cori looks back and forth between us. “Wait. You two met already?”

  “Well, not officially,” Cooper remarks, taking my hand for a firm handshake. Of course, he’s got a great handshake. “Nice to meet you, Nicholas. Cooper Reed.”

  “Likewise.” I release his grasp and shove my hand back into my pocket. I shoot Cori a quick side glance, wondering if this entire situation is as awkward for her as it is for me.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” Cooper asks, wrapping his hand around Cori’s waist as my eyes narrow in on it, his fingers kneading into her flesh through the fabric of her shirt. Every jealous reflex of mine wants to slap his hand away.

  Puppies and rainbows. Puppies and rainbows. Puppies and rainbows.

  Whoever came up with the old puppies and rainbows trick ought to rethink it. It doesn’t fucking work.

  I catch a nervous swallow move down Cori’s throat before she answers, “Nicholas lived down the street from me. We went to school together.”

  A few seconds of silence pass as I wait for Cori to elaborate. When she doesn’t, it bothers me that she can sum up a lifelong friendship in two measly sentences. She must sense my frustration because her eyes are apologetic. What I can’t seem to figure out is what she could possibly be sorry for, and the feeling doesn’t sit well with me.

  Luckily, Cooper carries the conversation in a different direction, talking about his line of work and asking questions about mine. But somehow, the conversation gets steered toward their upcoming nuptials tha
t should no longer be deemed as upcoming. And just when I think this conversation can’t take a turn for the worse, it does. It takes a turn for the worse, all right, when Cooper announces he and Cori’s plans of moving here, blindsiding me off the road and sending me over a fucking cliff.

  Only, I haven’t made impact. Because I’m still falling.

  “It looks like we could be neighbors.” Cooper smiles, and it’s so genuine, I can’t stand it. Not to mention, the perfect set of teeth beneath it. Seriously, he couldn’t at least have crooked teeth?

  Though it isn’t my intention to be rude, I don’t respond to his friendly remark. I don’t say anything because I’ve lost the words, vanishing along with any promise Cori had given me the other night. She looks so guilty that she can’t even look at me. Perhaps it’s because her guilt is sitting on that promise, because she cruel-heartedly took it back. My lungs release a long breath of air, and it surprises me that I’m still breathing.

  “Man, I’m sorry.”

  Confused by his apology, I glance at Cori whose expression mimics mine.

  “Coop?”

  He tugs at the back of his neck, a move I usually make when I’m nervous about something. Only, I can’t imagine what he could possibly be nervous about. “I wasn’t going to say anything nor did I mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard you and your friend last night talking about your engagement, that is, if it’s still an engagement.”

  The realization barrels into me so hard and fast that I feel like I may lose my balance and fall onto Cori, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Cooper had overheard my conversation with Braiden, and I quickly run the entire thing through my head: how I was going to break off my engagement to Riley, that I never got over Cori, how she and I almost…

  Cooper heard it all, and yet, he doesn’t realize what he actually heard. Granted, Braiden always uses nicknames for everyone, so maybe Cori’s name never actually made it into the conversation. I don’t know whether or not I should be thankful for Braiden’s stupid nicknames.

  “I didn’t mean to rub our wedding in your face, man,” Cooper says with regret in his voice. “You sound like you’re in a tough spot. I just hope everything works out, for all three of you—whatever that may be.”

  I notice the worry that shades Cori’s brown eyes at the mention of my predicament, but like me, she must realize Cooper has no idea.

  I hate seeing her like this—tense, confused, guilty—and I’m sorry this is what the last six years have boiled down to. I’m sorry that a good guy like Cooper and an amazing woman like Riley had to get caught in the middle of what they’d certainly see as betrayal.

  But I’m not sorry for loving Cori all of these years. And there’s no way in hell I’m sorry for holding her and kissing her and showing her the way that I love her.

  I only hope she isn’t sorry about it either.

  “Let’s save this conversation for a rainy day, shall we? It’s getting a little too heavy for my taste,” Cori voices lightheartedly, but I get the feeling she’s sensing the awkward tension. To say you could cut it with a knife would be an understatement. Take a jackhammer to it, and it would only shave off the outer layer.

  “Right,” Cooper agrees. He pulls his hand from Cori’s waist and offers it to me again for a handshake. “It was great meeting you, Nicholas. We don’t want to keep you from your work. If I had more time here, I’d say you could humor me over a few beers with some stories about my girl,” he jokes as he nods his head in Cori’s direction. “I almost wish we didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”

  Did I just hear that correctly? As I shake Cooper’s hand, my eyes narrow in on Cori, whose own eyes stare blankly at her feet. “Tomorrow? You’re leaving?”

  “Oh, come on, Coop,” she says playfully as she nudges him with her elbow, but her playful banter doesn’t reach her eyes. “You know I haven’t actually decided yet.”

  I release Cooper’s hand, my eyes still focused on Cori. “But you’re considering it?”

  Eventually, she looks up, and I don’t need to hear her say the word because it’s shaded heavily over her brown eyes. The ones I love so much. And they’re dark. Too damn dark.

  She pauses before answering, “Yes.”

  And there it is. I’ve stopped falling. I’ve made impact.

  She’s leaving. Regardless if it’s tomorrow or the next day or the week after, she’s leaving. After she and I spent the last few days together. After she and I made the mess because we said it would be one worth making. After she and I said we’d clean it up together. After all of that, and she still decides to leave.

  She was always going to leave. She was never going to choose me.

  I don’t doubt Cori’s love for Cooper. I know she loves him. But I also know he is simply another one of her tactics. She’ll stay with him if it means never having to face the fear of losing me.

  Love is full of risks. Losing the person you love is one of them, and you have to be willing to take it.

  Jumping out of an airplane, scaling down a hundred-foot cliff, and road tripping it across the country with nothing but the shirt on her back, are all risks that Cori is willing to take.

  Losing me isn’t one of them.

  So, I applaud you, Cori. You have succeeded in getting what you want, yet again.

  She can never lose me.

  But I will always lose her.

  When I return home in the early evening, I’m determined to get so shit-faced that my throat burns and my stomach turns drier than the Sahara. Even if it’s only temporary, all I want to do is forget the last glimpse of Cori I had before she walked out of the pub—with her hand in Cooper’s.

  But temporary is cut even shorter with a hard knock on my front door, and when I open it, Cori is standing there. I hate the way my body deceives me at the sight of her¸ taking back the pieces of my heart so easily, putting them back together, and filling the empty space within my chest. It’s pitiful, and I’m so damn weak. I want to smile, but I don’t. It doesn’t make me any less pathetic.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her coldly, turning around and leaving her in my open doorway as I stride down the hallway toward the kitchen. I open the refrigerator and rummage through it for a beer, finding the only bottle that happens to be a brew that Riley bought. I never told her, but I don’t like it. I actually hate it, and it makes me feel even shittier. It’s my only option, and my taste buds will have to take a backseat to my needs because I need this beer.

  The door swings shut, and the patter of footsteps shuffling across the wooden floorboards of the hallway grows louder, stopping at the doorway of the kitchen as I sift through a drawer for a bottle opener. I rub the back of my neck, now suddenly warm and achy with the feel of Cori’s eyes burning into me. I need to open this damn beer.

  “I needed to see you,” she says.

  Pulling open another drawer, I find a few wine keys, a strainer, a couple of jiggers, muddle stick, and some bar spoons, but no bottle opener. I have everything to make a goddamn mojito when all I want is a beer. The world really does work in mysterious ways, constantly trying to find ways to screw you in any way it can, and it doesn’t want me to have what I want. I’m going to find that fucking bottle opener if it kills me.

  “Does your fiancé know you’re here?” A resentful chuckle rises out of my throat along with those two words.

  “Cooper doesn’t know I’m here. He’s back at the house with Dad and Jamie. They’re keeping him occupied while they send me to the store for wine, or at least that’s what they told him. Dad and Jamie are winos. They always keep their stock full,” she says with a light bounce to her voice, and even with my back turned away from her, I know she’s smiling. God, do I want to see that smile of hers, but I practice restraint and keep my body turned. “I don’t have much time.”

  Time. The imminent clouds of tomorrow loom over us, and I almost wish they would already pass. Because then, life without Cori can start all over again. It’s waiting for the inevita
ble aftermath that is most torturous.

  I move quickly, pulling drawers out one right after the other, drawers I’ve already searched, drawers I know a bottle opener wouldn’t be in, and slam them shut in fast, fluid motions.

  “I don’t like the way we left things today.”

  Sweat forms along my upper lip, and I swipe it away with the back of my hand. I start opening cabinet doors, cabinets filled with dinnerware, glassware, pots, pans, condiments—clearly places I wouldn’t find a stupid bottle opener.

  “Please say something, Nick,” Cori pleads, her voice soft and cautious.

  Pots and pans and glasses and cups crash against each other as my hands lift, push, and pull through the cabinets. With the raucous clanks and clangs, nails on a chalkboard would be more sympathetic to the ears.

  “Nick?”

  My body channels every ounce of anger coursing through my blood, and turns it into pure, heated energy as I violently slam the door of the glassware cabinet shut, the vibration of the impact rattling the glasses from within, a few of them toppling over and shattering.

  “How the hell do I own a fucking bar and I can’t find a single fucking bottle opener anywhere!” I roar at the top of my lungs, slamming the beer bottle down on the countertop and turning around to see Cori flinching in the doorway of the kitchen, her body paralyzed by my sudden outburst. I feel my lungs ready to explode with every rise and fall of my chest while my hands shake out-of-control.

  She crosses the threshold and takes a step into the kitchen. “Nick, I don’t...I never meant...I don’t know what you want me to say—”

  I grab the counter behind me and lean against it. My eyes, icy and cold, narrow in on her, and despite the comfortable temperature of the room, I notice when she shivers in response. “Now you’re out of words, Cori? You want me to say something, and yet, you have nothing to say to me?”

  “Can we not do this? I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

  “Then what did you come here for? To talk? As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already spoken your piece, you’ve made your decision, so there isn’t really anything left for you to say now, is there?”