Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  I shake my head. “Never.”

  “They say why?”

  I think about the fight I overhead between Dad and Uncle Mike. “I think maybe my dad feels guilty, like he did something wrong raising Jason.”

  “And did he?”

  My eyes flash to Heath’s. “No.”

  He doesn’t look away. “But somebody did, didn’t they?”

  My whole face goes hot. He’s quoting me, my diary from the pages Mark photographed and sold. The questions I’d tormented myself with by writing them down, because I couldn’t ask Jason.

  Why did you do it? How could you kill him?

  I don’t understand.

  I don’t understand.

  I don’t understand. I loved you, we all loved you. Cal was your friend and you killed him. Why, Jason? We didn’t do anything wrong, did we? Laura and me? Mom and Dad? But somebody did, didn’t they? What did Cal do?

  Heath leans toward me. “Did you ever ask him? Your brother ever tell you what mine did that he deserved to die?”

  I recoil as though slapped. Heath doesn’t look contrite in the slightest.

  “We don’t have to dance around, right? That’s the whole point—I can say stuff like that, and you don’t get to act wounded.”

  I’m not acting. I can feel my eyes stinging, but I blink the sensation away. “I didn’t write that for anyone else to see—”

  “Just the entire internet.” Then he stills and looks at me as if realizing what I mean. “You didn’t give anyone those pages to publish.”

  “I would never hurt my family like that, not for anything. They’re barely hanging on now, and it was so much worse then.”

  “But it’s better now?” That brief flicker of compassion snuffs out and he comes close to sneering. “My sister lost her job and had to move back home and my mom spends the majority of every day at Cal’s grave, talking to him like he can still hear her. And my dad? Haven’t seen or heard from him in six months. If it weren’t for my job and my grandparents we would have already lost our house.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say quietly.

  “But you’re sorry, right? That’s your line? It’s what you say, but it’s not what you believe or what you write when you don’t think anyone will ever see it.” Heath’s face tightens like he’s going to say something else, something that would hurt worse because he hurts worse. But his words don’t come.

  Mine do.

  “I wrote that the night Jason confessed. I didn’t want to believe that my brother was a—” I choke on the word “—murderer. I wanted to believe anything else. That there was a reason, some explanation that would make me understand what made him do it.”

  He nearly spits the question at me. “Did you ever find your reason?”

  I can’t answer him. I haven’t found a reason, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on there being one. I have to believe my brother isn’t a monster, even though he did something monstrous.

  “Whatever happened between them that night,” I say, “my brother deserves to be in prison for what he did. I know that. I wake up every day knowing that.” So, so slowly, Heath’s features relax until he’s just staring at me. Letting me see what he wakes up with every day. My heart squeezes too tight in my chest. “We’re not supposed to think about each other, or care that ours isn’t the only family affected by this, but I can’t help that anymore.”

  “No,” he says in a low voice, shaking his head at me. “You’re not supposed to do that. I don’t want you to be nice to me right now. Don’t you get that?” He’s breathing too fast and blinking too quickly. “I want you to get mad, to—” His chest heaves and I catch the sheen in his eyes before he lifts them skyward and locks his jaw. “Please, can’t you just...”

  When his voice breaks off I don’t even think. I reach for his hand and slide my fingers into his. He jerks but doesn’t pull away. For me too the touch is jolting, both from how warm his skin is compared to mine and from how rough the texture is. Touching Heath’s hand feels intimate in a way that should make me draw back, but instead makes me hold on. I find myself wishing that the ice had left its mark on me for him to touch, to feel that indelible part of me.

  Heath eyes our hands and his chest rises as he inhales, but it’s steadier this time. Then his thumb glides over the back of my hand, rough against soft. A single movement that he doesn’t repeat, but the whispered touch ignites something in me that chills even as it burns.

  Gently, I begin to draw my hand back, but at the slightest resistance from him, I stop. I close my eyes even as I feel his linger on me. I meant to comfort him, to remind him that he isn’t alone and that even if we’re not supposed to, I do care. More than I should. More than I realized until this moment.

  A heartbeat later, the resistance is gone and our hands slide apart.

  The hot, humid air feels cold in place of Heath’s warmth. I feel him looking at me, and rather than meet his gaze I let mine sweep over the tree and the names carved into it, avoiding Jason’s former spot and snagging here and there on names that I don’t recognize.

  “Where’s yours?” If he spent any time here as a kid it has to be somewhere.

  Heath moves to the far side of the tree and I follow, glad to leave the scarred remains of my brother’s initials behind. He backs up and cranes his head. I follow his line of sight to a branch some thirty feet high. Normally, the higher the branch the less legible the name. The branches are bone thin toward the top, and anyone climbing that high risks a branch snapping rather than supporting much weight for longer than a hasty scrawl.

  Heath’s first name is both high and readable, even from the ground. It’s more than readable, I realize, moving closer. His lines are straight and even and thick enough that the name hasn’t faded like many of the ones surrounding it.

  “Did you bring a router with you or something?” I ask, thinking of the power tool Dad uses to add decorative details to his furniture. I don’t add that that’s kind of cheating, but my tone implies it.

  Heath shakes his head. “Pocketknife.”

  I’m frowning at him in disbelief before generations of ingrained politeness smooth my features. It would have taken him at least an hour to carve something that precise with nothing more than a pocketknife, which is about fifty-nine minutes longer than the branch he would have had to stand on would have supported his weight. “Hmmm,” is all I say.

  A small smile curves one side of his mouth. He pulls a knife from his back pocket, flipping it open in one move. He squats down and picks up a branch about as thick as my forearm that must have broken during the rainstorm the day before. He snaps it in half over his knee. The knife glints in the sunlight as he works on it for no more than a few minutes before slipping the knife back into his pocket and holding the branch out to me.

  I step close enough to take it, and the rough wood slides into my hand. Along the side, in letters so even and precise they look printed, is my first name.

  Speechless, I look up at him.

  “My grandfather taught me to carve. That’s his name right there.” Heath directs my attention to a certain branch, and I swallow when I recognize the same bold, clear lines spelling out a name I know well. “Cal was named after him.”

  I nod. “He taught you well.” I’m not sure what to do with the branch I’m holding. Should I give it back? Does he mean for me to keep it? I end up half extending the branch back, but Heath shakes his head and returns his gaze to the tree.

  I glance back up at Heath’s name. “I still don’t understand how the branch held you that long.” He must have at least fifty pounds on me and, height aside, I would have snapped it.

  “I was a tiny kid.”

  I widen my eyes at him. “How old were you when you carved it?”

  Heath shrugs one shoulder. “Eight maybe.”

  I look up again and have this sudden vi
sion of a little boy scurrying up the tree and swinging from branch to branch with a knife clamped between his teeth. My heart skitters a little. I grew up surrounded by saws and blades and all kinds of things that could amputate a finger as easily as cut a piece of wood. Dad instilled a healthy respect for them in all his children, and that included not climbing thirty feet in the air with a pocketknife.

  “You didn’t cut yourself?”

  Another half shrug. “No. I finished the carving before I fell out of the tree.”

  I gasp.

  Heath nods. “Broke my collarbone and one of my arms.” For a reason I can’t begin to fathom, he smiles at the memory. “Cal was with me, and when he saw that I wasn’t bleeding—” Heath’s smile grows wider “—he finished carving his own name before helping me.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Heath moves to sit on the lower branch again, still smiling. “He was mad because I climbed higher than him. Plus he didn’t actually see me fall, so he thought I was just being a baby. He cried when Mom showed him my X-rays, and then he carried my backpack to school for months afterward—wouldn’t give it back even after I got my cast off.” In a quieter voice he adds, “I’d forgotten about that.”

  I retake my spot a few feet away from him and set the branch he carved my name into beside me.

  “I still feel guilty when I remember stuff like that, you know?”

  “Stuff when he wasn’t perfect?”

  Heath exhales a laugh and nods.

  I look down at the grass, the same kind that grows along the banks of the Wilcox River. “Yeah, I know.”

  * * *

  It feels like I’m running away when I stand, but if I stay much longer I’ll be late for my shift.

  “You told me when you got here, remember?” Heath says when I fumble out an explanation. “I know.”

  I take a few steps, then stop and turn back to him. “I am sorry about what your family is going through. I didn’t know, but I should have.”

  He nods, his gaze unwavering. “That’s on me too then.” Then his voice hardens. “How’d that website get your diary?”

  I pause, unsure if I should tell him. I gave my heart and my trust to someone who never loved me, and I can’t help feeling like that says something about me. Heath is waiting for an answer though, and I don’t want to lie to him. I can’t help glancing up at the tree where my and Mark’s initials are still linked. “My ex-boyfriend.”

  “What a scumbag.”

  I smile at him. “That’s why he’s my ex-boyfriend.”

  And he smiles back, and then turns to gaze up at the tree where I was looking. “His name is on there somewhere with yours, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just initials,” I say, glancing where Jason’s used to be.

  “Want me to cut it out?”

  I shake my head. My brother would have obliterated Mark’s name if I asked him. He wouldn’t have even made me tell him why. “It’s a good reminder.”

  “Of what?” he asks.

  “That I don’t get to change the past.” I step to leave again, but something invisible tugs at me and I meet Heath’s gaze again. Before the words are out I know I shouldn’t say them, but I do. “What if...what if it doesn’t rain again for a while?”

  His eyes lower and I know I shouldn’t have asked. “Brooke—”

  “What am I saying?” My smile is falsely bright as I back toward the road. “It’s summer in Texas. I’ll see you...when I see you.”

  I come just shy of sprinting to Daphne, grateful as I start her that she doesn’t stall.

  CHAPTER 21

  Despite the heavy clouds rolling across the sky day and night, along with the occasional clap of thunder and lightning forking in the distance, it doesn’t rain in Telford the rest of that week. I can’t decide if I’m allowed to be disappointed by that or not. Either way, I am.

  Martina McBride has been singing about Independence Day all week and thanks to Maggie and me, the entire rink is now finally draped in enough red, white and blue streamers to make Jeff declare us patriotic enough to match the rest of the town, which has exploded in excitement for today: the Fourth of July.

  To Maggie’s horror as a vegetarian, the grill masters have been smoking meat for days so that you can’t set foot in town without salivating at the promise of the barbecue they’ll finally be serving up at the firework show tonight. And even though I won’t taste any this year, I’d put every dollar I have on Ann Keller’s banana cream pie to take top honors at the bake off yet again.

  The craft fair was already in full swing when I drove into work this morning, and the antebellum cannon will be firing in a few hours to announce the start of the parade, which passes right past Polar Ice Rink. Needless to say, Jeff graciously offered to let me off early today—not so that I can take part in any of the celebrations, but so that my presence won’t hinder anyone from enjoying the ice after being out in the heat all day.

  Wrinkling her nose as the door opens and the mouthwatering scent of pork spare ribs wafts in, Maggie eyes the clock for the fifth time and sighs.

  I send a commiserating smile in her direction before returning to our task of scraping gum off the underside of the bleachers surrounding the rink. “Two more hours and we’re done.”

  “But I can smell it from my house too! I wish your mom wasn’t sick so we could go to your house tonight. I mean there’s no way the smell reaches that far.”

  Sadly it doesn’t, but even though Maggie has been to my house a few times, the lie about my mom came easily to my lips when she suggested it earlier. I never feel comfortable having her see my family, as though if she looked too long she’d figure out the truth I’m trying so desperately to keep from her.

  “I guess if I’m wishing for anything it’s to be homeschooled like you,” Maggie says, jabbing with her scraper. “School starts the end of next month and I already know it’s going to suck so hard. You’re the only person in this whole town I want to talk to, and you’re not going to be there. You do all your work on a computer in, like, a few hours, and you don’t even have to put on pants.” She scowls at her jeans. “I hate pants. Don’t you hate pants?”

  “Not usually, no,” I say, not wanting to mentally jump that far into the future. Right now, Maggie and I exist in our own little bubble. I know I can’t keep her to myself forever, but I don’t want to think about losing her weeks from now either.

  I want now to last just a little longer.

  I’m bracing myself on my elbow for better reach under the bench I’m working on when I see something that makes me gag a little.

  Maggie peers at me from the next bench up. “What?”

  I show her what when I finally chisel it free, and she shrieks while crab walking to get away from it. It is a wad of gum and...other things wrapped around a Q-tip and covered in gray hair.

  “What the actual hell? Is it dead?”

  “It smells dead.” Holding it as far from my body as I’m physically capable of, I drop it and the glove I’m wearing into the trash and knot it closed. Maggie runs over and starts jumping up and down on the mostly empty bag. She doesn’t stop even when I give her a look.

  “You want to take the chance that that thing crawls out of the trash bag and kills us in the bathroom?”

  I start jumping on the bag with her. We pause after a minute, listening. Nothing, but we stomp on it a few more times just to be safe. I don’t wait for her to say it. Even though it’s less than half-full, I pick up the bag and head toward the exit. Maggie darts around me to get the door, flattening herself against it as I pass.

  “Downside to being homeschooled—my shifts will always start earlier than yours, which means I’ll be the one finding stuff like this.” I raise the bag an inch and Maggie ducks away. “Still jealous?”

  “Gross hairball gum monster or not having to wear
pants...”

  I pause halfway outside. “And?”

  Maggie scrunches up her face as she eyes the trash bag. “I’m going to have nightmares about that thing, so I’m officially less jealous.” She follows me to the Dumpster. Jeff watches us go but says nothing. Maggie gives him a wave and after a moment’s hesitation, he returns it. Even with me standing right next to her.

  Maggie was pretty much trained after the first week, even with Bertha, but she’s somehow convinced Jeff that she still needs to shadow me everywhere in order to meet the “unimpeachably high standards he sets for himself and his employees.” I’m actually learning a lot more from her than she is from me, especially how to couch even the most nonsensical request to Jeff in compliments so he can’t say no.

  “I swear I can hear it breathing in there,” Maggie says, after the lid closes on the Dumpster.

  “Then it can probably hear you.” I tug her arm. “Come on.” We round the corner back to the entrance and I stop.

  Heath is standing in the parking lot by his truck.

  Maggie does nothing more than glance in his direction, stopping only when she realizes that I’m standing still. Despite Maggie’s presence, I can’t tamp down the warmth that rushes through me when I see Heath. I take a single step toward him.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey.” Heath takes a step of his own and a shy smile lifts the corners of my mouth.

  “What are you doing here? Did you...come to skate?”

  He breaks eye contact to look at the Polar Ice Rink sign then at Maggie. It takes all of three seconds for his gaze to return to me, and that’s twice as long as I need for a chill to take up residence inside me. He can’t be here with me, not with Jeff and my coworkers inside, and especially not with Maggie standing right there volleying her gaze back and forth between us. This interaction is nothing like the one she witnessed between Mark and me.

  “Um, hi,” Maggie says, her slightly recriminating but mostly excited eyes wide on me, before turning them toward Heath. “I feel like I’m supposed to know who you are, and yet I don’t.” Her words are reproachful, but she’s doing a poor job of trying not to smile. I thaw infinitesimally, knowing she doesn’t recognize Heath as the scowling boy we passed when she was teaching me how to drive stick. Then again, I might not have recognized him either. When Heath’s features aren’t twisted in animosity, he has the kind of face that would be easy to get caught staring at.