The Truth About Falling

by H. M. Sholander

  He raises a brow. “Take it in while you can because this thing is going in the trash after today.”

  “Is that considered a sin?” I tease. “I bet somewhere out there a guy just cursed your death.”

  He smiles, shaking his head as he chews the last bite of his food.

  The kids begin arguing over the last slice of pizza while another one decides to stick his finger in the uncut cake.

  “Guys, knock it off,” Hudson hollers, but they ignore him. I laugh, unable to control it. Hudson playfully glares at me before saying, “Duty calls.” He runs off to man the chaos at the table, leaving me to watch the madness unfold.

  Hudson gains control over the rowdy kids, coaxing them with cake if they settle down. I’m going to say that’s an oxymoron because giving kids cake will not settle them down in the least, momentarily sure, but not in the long run.

  I shake my head watching them eat pure sugar in silence. When they’re finished, Chris opens his gifts oohing and ahhing over all of them.

  “Which one is yours, sweetheart?” I turn my head to see a woman in her forties next to me, watching silently as laughter sounds from the table.

  “None of them.”

  “Oh?” she questions, concerned for the safety of the rambunctious boys.

  “No, sorry, I was invited by the birthday boy’s dad,” I backtrack, trying to make myself seem like less of a weirdo.

  “Is that so? He seems like a nice young man,” she says like she’s fishing for intel.

  My eyes land on Hudson, carrying Chris over his shoulder. My shoulders shake from the chuckle vibrating through me. “Yeah, he’s great.”

  “I’m Mary. It’s nice to meet you.” She unexpectedly hugs me from the side, causing my body to tense before I relax, returning her gesture.

  “Jade,” I say, hoping my demeanor doesn’t come off as cold. “Which one is yours?”

  “I have two. Right there.” She points across the park, indicating Hudson and Chris. I stare at her, perplexed. “Hudson’s my son and Chris, my grandson.”

  Damnit. I wish I had known that. At least I can be thankful I didn’t say anything incriminating–or rude.

  “I didn’t know,” I say apologetically, although I’m not sure why I’m sorry. I just feel like I should have known. I’d like to smack myself in the face right now.

  “That’s quite all right. It’s nice to meet you. Hudson doesn’t have many friends. He takes on too much responsibility and doesn’t have enough fun of his own.” She sighs. “I’m taking Chris home with me when everyone leaves. Give Hudson a little break even though I had to beg him to let me take him for the night,” she says, shaking her head. “Do me a favor and make sure Hudson has fun tonight. Don’t take no for an answer.”

  I nod my head because I feel like if I disagree with her I would get a lecture. She walks away, heading to the swarm of kids, trying to pull Hudson to the ground.

  Mary sits next to Chris at the picnic table, and I find myself jealous that he has two people in his life to ensure his happiness.

  It reminds me of how I felt on my tenth birthday.

  The doorbell rings through the house, and I rush down the stairs, wanting to get to the door as fast as possible.

  “Jade, be careful,” Mom says as I step off the last stair and slide across the wood floor in my socks.

  I jerk open the front door and smile at my three friends–Julie, Kim, and Natalie.

  “Happy Birthday,” they shout in unison.

  “Thanks, come on.” I wave them in. “We have ice cream and pizza.”

  Kim steps inside and says, “Mmm, can we have ice cream first?”

  “It’s my birthday; we can do whatever we want,” I say, waving my hand in the air.

  “You’re lucky. My mom would never let me have dessert first,” Julie pipes in.

  We head to the kitchen where a line of ice cream toppings are spread across the kitchen counter.

  “You only get to have ice cream first because it’s your birthday, Jade.” Mom laughs, shaking her head at me.

  Mom scoops ice cream in four bowls and hands one to each of us. I pile my ice cream with every topping, including rainbow sprinkles and chocolate syrup topped off with caramel sauce.

  “This was a terrible idea,” Mom says, her eyes wide as she takes in each of our bowls.

  “Think of it as my birthday present.” I shrug, placing my bowl on the table.

  “So I should take back the present I got you?”

  “No!” I shout.

  She smiles, the corner of her eyes wrinkling. All four of us eat our ice cream as I stare at the mountain of gifts sitting in the corner.

  Mom nudges my arm. “Do you want to open your gifts?”

  I nod my head, my brown hair landing in my ice cream. She pushes the hair behind my ear as she stands from her chair.

  She picks up a maroon bag filled with white tissue paper. “This is from me and your dad.”

  I scan the room, noting Dad isn’t around, but I don’t think about that fact for too long.

  I push my half-empty bowl aside and brace myself on my knees in the chair.

  I yank out the tissue paper, throwing it on the floor as I dig through the bag. I smile at my mom as I pull out three sketchpads and a small box of graphite pencils. At the bottom of the bag is a mountain of colored pencils, markers, and oil pastels.

  I beam, holding the sketchbooks in my hands. “This is perfect.” I place the sketchbooks on the table, careful not to bend them and throw myself into her arms. “Thanks, Mom”

  “You’re welcome, honey.” She rubs my back, squeezing me to her chest.

  I unravel myself from her and catch Natalie thumbing through the pages of one of the sketchbooks. I snatch it away from her, not wanting her dirty fingerprints on my first drawing pad.

  “You can look, but don’t touch,” I say, wiping off the imaginary dirt, wanting to treasure it for a lifetime.

  The R2D2 cut out falls over from a gust of wind, and Mary walks over, picking it up and putting back in place.

  To this day, I still have my first drawing pad. It’s falling apart, pages breaking away from the spiral binding and the hard cover bending at the edges. I keep it tucked away in my closet, not wanting to cause any more damage to it.

  I push away from the tree and walk in the opposite direction of the party, slipping into my own world, away from the insanity. Sometimes a girl needs a break–from everything.

  This is the most interaction I’ve had with people outside of a hospital, work, and my family in a long time. The smiling…the laughing…it’s great, but it’s also a lot. It’s a lot for me to act normal, to wear a smile on my face–a mask.

  It’s weird that people often call the happy face they plaster on for the world a mask. They don’t want anyone to see their emotions reflected on the outside, so they pretend everything is fine–they pretend everything is perfect–even when it’s not

  I don’t know how they do it because it’s exhausting. I’d much rather people see that I don’t want anything to do with them–that I’ve got enough shit to deal with besides worrying about what they think about me.

  So instead of playing pretend, I sit by myself next to a chain link fence with my eyes closed, letting everything drift away. My thoughts. My surroundings. The noise. All of it–until there’s nothing.

  Black. Empty. Silence.

  Everything gone–wiped away, existing the best way I know how.

  “Jade, everything okay?” Hudson’s voice jolts me back to the land of the living.

  My eyes snap open, and I jerk my head back, my hair snagging on the fence. I untangle my hair from the fence and rub the back of my head.

  “I didn’t mean to scare,” he says, kneeling across from me.

  “It’s fine; I’m fine,” I croak, squeezing my eyes open and closed to bring everything back into focus.

  “Everyone’s gone,” he says, studying me like I’m broken and lost. But I’m not. I’m just me–worn
around the edges, frayed, and holding on.

  “How long have I been over here?” I ask, standing from the ground and wiping any dirt off my butt.

  He gets to his feet, keeping his eyes on me. “About forty minutes.”

  I wince. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Kids are a lot when you aren’t used to them.” You can say that again. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “Actually,” I say, stopping him before he can slip too far away, “your mom said I had to make sure you did something fun tonight.”

  “Is that so?” He chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. I’m a big boy.”

  “Please, I’m more scared of her than worried about you having fun. So what are we going to do?” It’s true. Don’t mess with a mom and her child because you won’t win.

  “If it’s okay with you, we can head back to my place. I’m exhausted.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I agree, wanting nothing more than to sit on a couch for my last few hours of freedom before work starts all over again tomorrow.

  “I already cleaned everything up, so let’s go.” He motions his head in the direction of his trailer.

  “Did you burn your Darth Vader outfit already?” I tease.

  “Ha.” He shakes his head. “Gave it to one of the kid’s parents. I thought I’d let someone else experience what I did today.”

  I peer over at him. “And what was that?”

  “Kids trying to kill me because they thought I was the bad guy.”

  He isn’t the bad guy, not even close.

  His skateboard rests under his arm, so I ask, “Do you ever use that thing, or do you just carry it around?”

  He laughs, and I savor the sound, holding onto it like a prayer. “I don’t just carry it around, but I thought it would be rude if I skated ahead of you when it’s starting to get dark.”

  “Who says I can’t keep up?” I jab at him.

  “Are you insinuating you want to race?” he jokes.

  “Yes,” I say, determined to prove him wrong. Tell any woman she can’t do something, and she will. Fact.

  He places his skateboard down on the road and looks over at me with those damn smiling eyes, trying to distract me. “On the count of three, we go. The first one to the steps wins. Do you remember which one is mine?”

  Gathering my long hair, I throw it in to a bun on top of my head. “Yes,” I say, getting in a running stance.

  “One, two–” I run on two, leaving him behind, not caring I left before three. “Hey, cheater!” he yells from behind me.

  “Slow poke!” I shout, zipping ahead closer to his trailer.

  My breathing increases, making me pant like a wild dog–definitely not attractive. The wheels of his skateboard grind against the road, the noise getting closer and closer as I seem to be losing steam, exhaustion hitting me. I’m not cut out for exercise.

  He easily speeds ahead of me, waving to me as he passes, and I scowl at him for having an unfair advantage because yeah, wheels are faster than legs, I’m just stubborn.

  Thirty seconds later I reach the foot of his stairs. I bend over at the waist, heaving in as much air as I can, struggling to catch my breath.

  “It’s about time you showed up. I was getting worried.”

  I tilt my head up and give him the most menacing glare I can, which I can only imagine isn’t as scary as I think it is since he laughs. “At least you didn’t let me win because I’m a girl. I would have had to hurt you for that.”

  “I would never.” He hops up the two steps, landing on the porch with a thud.

  I move like a snail behind him, climbing the stairs like they’re Mount Everest.

  “You should get out more.”

  “I work too much for exercise,” I complain.

  He opens the front door and steps inside, holding it open for my slow ass to crawl through. An eternity later–I’m exaggerating, it’s more like ten seconds– I walk through the door.

  “I’m so glad you made it.” He jokes, holding his hand over his chest. “I was worried I was going to have to perform CPR on you.”

  “Hardy-har-har.” I sit on a chair closest to the door, noting how low to the ground it is.

  “If you break that, Chris will be mad at you.” He struts to the kitchen after he situates his skateboard in a corner, out of the way.

  I study the chair, noticing it’s for a child, but I don’t care. I sit, proving to Hudson that I won’t break it.

  “Water, okay?” he asks, his head hidden by his full-size refrigerator door.

  “Yeah,” I respond.

  I take in his home, perceiving how much bigger it is than mine. I’m a little jealous that he has a kitchen big enough for a normal size refrigerator and oven.

  A few toys are shoved in the corner next to the television, and other than a pile of shoes next to the chair I’m perched in, it’s rather clean.

  I stand from the tiny chair, stretching my cramped legs. I move over to the inviting couch and sink into the cushions, enjoying the softness that surrounds me. Cinnamon invades my senses, and I inhale, relishing in the spice that surrounds me. It smells like Hudson.

  “Decided the chair wasn’t for you?” he asks, handing me a bottle of water.

  “I’m like Goldilocks. It just wasn’t right, but this couch is perfect.”

  He chuckles, plopping next to me and placing a bowl of popcorn between us. “What do you say we watch a movie?”

  “Start her up.”

  “Any preference?”

  “Something mind-numbing.” I kick off my shoes and cross my legs, getting comfortable.

  “That bad?”

  “No,” I say flatly, not offering him anything. I’m not like everyone else who constantly needs to talk about feelings.

  “I don’t believe you,” he counters, seeing through all my layers of bullshit.

  I cross my arms at my chest. “Tough.”

  “Tell me something,” he says, placing his hand on my arm, prompting every hair to stand on end, stirring electricity through every cell, making every one of them feel alive.

  I clear my throat, ignoring all of my jittery feelings. “Like what?”

  “Anything.”

  “I love watching movies, but rarely have time to,” I say, not able to think of anything else. But it’s a simple fact, something anyone would say, and right now, that’s what a need–putting the heavy stuff on the backburner. But do you know what happens when you do that? The heavy gets burned–leaving it harder to deal with than if you had just dealt with it in the first place.

  “How about we fix that?” He switches on the television and flips through the channels, searching for a movie. “Wanted is just starting.”

  “Love that movie.”

  He glances over at me with a soft smile and whispers, “Perfect.”

  And it is perfect. Relaxed. Comfortable. It’s something to take my mind off everything because even when I draw, my mind reels a mile a minute, never shutting off or giving me a break as the pencil scratches the pristine white paper.

  A loud movie with action and explosions allows me to get lost in someone else’s world without living in my own for two hours. Two hours of peace and tranquility. That might seem odd because movies are loud, but for me, the noise quiets the thoughts in my head.

  I slant my eyes over at him as he shovels a handful of popcorn in his mouth. The side of my mouth slips in a half-smile as I watch most of the popcorn land on his shirt. “Where do your parents live?” I ask, wondering why he lives here if he could be staying with them in some place much nice than this.

  His head whips over to me with a raised eyebrow. “Twenty minutes from here. Why?”

  “Is it nicer than this?” After I say the words, I realize what a bitch I sound like. “I mean your place is great, but this neighborhood isn’t the best.” I cringe, hoping he doesn’t take offense.

  “Ah,” he says in understanding. “It is nicer than this. Their house has four bedrooms and is in a middle-class ne
ighborhood. It’s where I grew up.” He picks the popcorn off his shirt and pops it in his mouth. After he swallows he says, “I want to be on my own as much as I can. I want Chris to see that no matter what happens in his life he can get through anything on his own. Of course, I’ll always be there if he needs me, but what kind of example would I set for him if I free-loaded off my parents?”

  I guess he’s right, and I kind of admire him for being out on his own. “What do you do for work?”

  “I’m an electrician. Easy hours and pays enough for us to get by.”

  “Do you ever miss it? Life? The things you never got to do because you had a kid.” I whisper the last part, knowing it might be frowned upon to think about the things you’ll never have because you have to care for a tiny human.

  He looks back at the television, avoiding my gaze. “I do. What about you?”

  “Every day,” I mumble, watching the features of his face relax with my admission.

  We watch the rest of the movie in silence together, finding peace in the fact that we aren’t the only ones out there who regret so much about the way our lives have turned out.

  I wake up in a fog, my mind muddled and confused as the room comes in focus. I take a deep breath, cinnamon meeting my nose. I lift my hand, rubbing my neck to work out the ache and feel a knot at the base of my neck. I move my hand to my temple, wanting to ease the subtle headache forming, but I wince, feeling a sore spot, bruised from something hard being forced into it.

  Lifting my head, I see Hudson passed out on the couch next to me from the glow of the television. His head rests on the back of the couch with the remote in his hand like he fell asleep before he could hit the power button.

  I slept on his shoulder last night, that’s why my head and neck are killing me. Talk about the most uncomfortable position to fall asleep in. I don’t care what anyone says, just because I fell asleep on a guy’s shoulder doesn’t make it the best night of my life. In fact, I already know I’m going to be miserable all day.

  Sitting up on the couch, I rub my hands over my eyes, willing myself to wake up. A second later, the alarm on my phone blares, telling me to wake the hell up and get my ass moving. Frantically, I shut off the alarm, not wanting to wake Hudson.