If I Fall

by Amber Thielman

  “Well…” He leaned forward, supporting himself on the bar with both arms. “You told me you wanted to be a doctor. Why aren’t you in school?”

  “Oh. That?” I rolled my eyes and mixed a martini before handing it off to its owner. “People don’t really do that, Ty. It’s just a dream.”

  “I do it. I’m doing it because it’s my dream.” He sat back, shrugging, and then removed his jacket to sling it over his arm, revealing a sculpted set of biceps. Damn those sexy biceps!

  “Maybe someday,” I told him. “When I can get my shit together.” He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the tone of a pager. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, holding the speaker to his ear so he could hear the report.

  “Car accident,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have to bail.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Go. Go save lives.” I watched him and his partner leave, trying to compose myself enough to get back to work. Perspiration was accumulating on the back of my neck, and my skin was tingly and buzzing with heat below my waist.

  “Jesus, Khloe, do you need to relieve yourself in the bathroom?” Ava teased, coming up behind me. I flushed, feeling the heat rise from my lower body to my face.

  “He’s just a guy,” I muttered.

  “As I said, men in uniform are just… yum! You better take advantage of that shit before he moves on.” Ava gave me a pointed look, and I scoffed, feeling a wave of disappointment wash over me.

  “Moving on would be the best thing for him,” I said, and we didn’t speak of Ty for the rest of the night.

  “If it’s any consolation, I think you’ve got this whole psycho bit under control,” Jesse said. Ignoring him, I yanked the old tattered phone book from my kitchen drawer and dropped it onto the table.

  “She’s always been crazy,” Ava said from where she was standing next to the window. She had a lit cigarette propped between two fingers, one arm crossed under the other. She looked totally composed as I went about my escapade, which was nothing new. Not much fazed Ava. “Just now more than ever.”

  “I wasn’t going to do this,” I admitted. “But it’s been a week since I read about this guy, Jay, and I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  “Oh, baby, he’s all wrong for you,” Jesse said. “I don’t think he swings that way.” I flipped him the bird and opened the phone book, running my finger down the page, marking with a pen every single auto shop on that side of the city that I could find listed.

  “You’re just setting yourself up,” Ava said, putting out her cigarette in the sink and joining me at the table, shoving Jesse’s bare feet off the spare dining room chair as she did. “This is Seattle, doll. There could be hundreds of these places, and just as many of them with an employee name ‘Jay.’”

  “Then I’ll call them all,” I said. Jesse looked over at Ava, his face totally serious.

  “Has she considered therapy?” he asked her. That caught my attention. I looked up and over at Jesse.

  “Carter went to the school counselor, and he still killed himself,” I said. “So, no. I’m not sure some shrink is the answer.”

  “What’s that going to prove, anyway?” Jesse asked. “How does finding this guy help you at all?”

  “If he knew Carter, maybe he knows something that I didn’t,” I said. “Maybe he knows the secrets that I didn’t. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” I didn’t get much of an answer from either of them, but I didn’t care. I was determined not to give up yet. If Traci Dunham couldn’t help me, maybe this Jay guy could. After all, Jay was part of some secret life of Carter’s that I hadn’t even known existed. There had to be something there worth knowing.

  By the time I marked down all twenty-four auto shops in what Carter had described as ‘downtown’ Seattle, my hand hurt from dialing the phone numbers and my confidence was slowly fading. It wasn’t until I reached the third to last listed number that I finally had success.

  “Buckley’s Auto.”

  “Hi! Is, uh, Jay there?” I sat back against the kitchen chair, bracing myself for another confused or snippy reply.

  “Sure,” the man replied. “He’s kind of busy, though. Can I take a message?” I shot upright, a million emotions bombarding me at once. Ava, seeing my expression, yanked a pad and pen from the countertop and handed it to me. Even Jesse, who was rolling a joint, his feet now propped on my table, looked impressed.

  “You know what? I’ll just come in,” I clicked the pen. “What’s your address?” I scribbled the address and phone number down, surprised to see my hand trembling in what I could only assume was excitement.

  “We’re about to close,” the guy said. “But you’re welcome to stop by tomorrow.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said, and dropped the pen. “I will.” I hung up the phone and took a deep breath, meeting both Jesse and Ava’s curious looks from across the room.

  “Well?” demanded Ava. “Did you find him?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I picked up the scrap of paper and smiled. “I think I did.”

  It became an odd and difficult decision to make over whether I should seek out my dead, best friend’s ex-boyfriend. If that wasn’t a mouthful and a plate full, I didn’t know what was. But even then, looking at all the possible outcomes, I couldn’t not do it. This Jay may have had information I didn’t. Maybe he had some insight that nobody else did. Maybe he knew why Carter killed himself because I sure as hell didn’t.

  Ava was still asleep on my couch when I got dressed the next morning, gathered up the journal, and drove my crappy car downtown. A few times, I almost turned the car around to go home, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not now. Not when I was so close. I was both terrified and ecstatic to learn more about this secret life of Carter’s that he had hidden so well from me, but not just from me, from everybody. It was time to get to the bottom of this. I knew that if I didn’t, the questions would haunt me for the rest of my life, and that wasn’t something I could live with.

  Buckley’s Auto was a shitty hole-in-the-wall business, tucked between a sketchy looking pizzeria and a strip club. I parked Missus Betty and then stood in the middle of the parking lot, hesitating with the journal under my arm, still debating on this. What kind of person would Jay be? Would it even be the right Jay? Would it be the Jay my best friend was in love with and had never told anybody about? Would he be nice? Would he hate me?

  “Can I help you, miss?” a man asked, pushing open the front door to the shop office. A bell rang, startling me.

  “Uhm. Yeah. I’m looking for Jay. Jay… um. Jay?”

  The man with the potbelly and sweat-stained baseball cap eyed me as if he was expecting I was pulling some mean prank.

  “Sure,” he said finally. He scratched his belly, and I resisted the urge to grimace. “He’s in the back.” He hitched an oil-clad thumb over his beefy shoulder and then turned away, not bothering to offer any more help. Fine. I didn’t need help. Squaring my shoulders, I went around to the side of the building. I could hear someone in the garage working with a loud machine. I ducked under the partially opened garage door and stepped inside, looking around. The smell of gasoline and oil engulfed me, and I coughed, feeling my eyes water. There were a few men around me, none of whom looked interested in the fact that I was standing there with an expression of full-on dumbass. My eyes flickered from one hillbilly man to the other, wishing I had more information than just this guy’s first name. God forbid if Carter never told me he’d ended up falling for some overweight, grease-stained, tobacco-chewing redn—

  “Can I help you?” someone asked. I looked around, wondering where that voice had come from. Ducking my head, I caught the gaze of a person looking at me from the other side of a van that was lifted in the air. He had his eyebrows raised, waiting for a reply.

  “Hopefully!” I ducked under the car that was elevated in mid-air, wondering for a moment if I would be so lucky to be flattened like a pancake before my quest was over.
“I’m looking for someone.”

  The dark-haired guy kept his eyes on me, wiping his hands on an oil rug.

  “Does this someone have a name?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Jay. Do you know where I can find Jay?”

  “That’s me,” he said, and he didn’t seem startled at all. “Please don’t hang around under the lifts for too long. Can I help you?”

  I tucked Carter’s journal even deeper under one arm and held out my free hand to him. He eyed it carefully before giving a half-shrug and returning the shake. His hands were rough, dirty, yet somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to mind as I took him in.

  “You’re really cute,” I observed. And he was. The guy I assumed was Jay had that high-school quarterback look to him—coal black hair, vibrant green eyes. He was tall and filled out and looked like he lifted weights. He dropped my hand as one eyebrow shot up.

  “I’m sorry?” he said politely.

  “You’re really cute,” I repeated. “I mean, he said you were, but I had to see it to believe it, and I—”

  “Excuse me,” Jay cut me off. He glanced over his shoulder as if making sure we weren’t being watched or heard. “Who in the hell are you?”

  “Duh to me,” I said with a nervous giggle. “My name is Khloe.” I smiled again like a love-struck idiot, admiring the muscles that bulged under his shirt. “I believe you were dating my best friend before he killed himself.”

  “Phil!” Jay called. “I’m taking my lunch.” He reached out and took hold of my upper arm, steering me out of the shop and out the door. “Are you crazy?” he snapped as soon as we were out of range. “What makes you think you can come around my place of employment spouting shit like that?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I snapped and yanked my arm away from him. “What’s it with you gay people always walking around so shameful? Whoever doesn’t like it can stick it up their ass!” Face flaming red, Jay pulled me away from the shop, glancing back nervously over his shoulder as a few of his coworkers watched us leave. He pointed at a little red Neon and opened the passenger door.

  “Get in.”

  “Why?”

  “Please get in?”

  “Fine.” I slid into the car, content that he was even willing to give me the time of day. I settled into the front seat and rested the journal on my lap, smiling brightly as Jay slid in next to me and started the engine. He still looked flustered, paranoid that someone was still watching us. Judging.

  “I’m just a girl,” I said as he backed out of the lot. “The boobs won’t bite.” He glanced over at me, scowling, looking so much like a scorned woman that I had to laugh. As soon as we were safely out of sight of the auto shop, he turned to me.

  “I don’t know who you are,” he said. “But you have some explaining to do. You can’t just walk into my place of work and start rattling my personal business off to the entire world.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But first thing’s first, will you treat a lady to lunch?” I figured he’d turn me down at first, but he didn’t. With a heavy sigh, Jay drove us to a quaint Mexican restaurant, one that looked sketchy, but probably had the best food around. I couldn’t complain. It wasn’t as if I were the biggest straight-shooter in the area. The host sat us in a private corner booth, presumably under the impression that we were lovers on our lunch break. Not that I could blame them. There was nothing gay about Jay. In fact, he seemed and acted quite the opposite, just like Carter had. So much for first impressions.

  “Now,” he said, resting his elbows on the table as soon as the server had delivered our drinks. He was staring at me expectantly, his green eyes no longer angry, but questioning. “Please tell me what in the hell is going on.” I took a sip of my Diet Pepsi and then reached into my bag to pull out Carter’s journal. I set it down on the table. He eyed it, still looking confused. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  I reached forward and flipped open the journal, dog-earring the last page I’d read. I handed it to Jay. He took it, almost hesitantly, and began to read. As his eyes skimmed the printed words, his expression melted into one of shock, then sadness. When he finished, he closed the book and set it back down on the table.

  “You’re Khloe,” he said. I smiled and rested my hand on top of his. He didn’t pull away.

  “That’s me.”

  “You’re his best friend.”

  “Yes.” I tucked the journal back into my purse, out of sight. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to him, Jay, and I’m hoping you can help. I need to figure out why Carter killed himself.”

  Two hours into a meal of foot-long burritos and chips and salsa, we were finally getting somewhere. Jay called out of work claiming he’d been needed for a family emergency, and we’d switched out our soft drinks for margaritas. That was fine with me. I needed all the information I could get, and he seemed to be more than willing to talk after a few shots down the hatchet.

  “I thought I made him happy,” he was saying. He looked down, his eyes wavering over the half-empty plates and soiled napkins. He sighed and shook his head. “I really thought we were happy together, Carter and me. I was happy, anyway.” He shrugged and ran a hand through his shaggy, dark hair. He smiled, but it was forced. I knew a fake smile when I saw one. I was good at them too. “He talked about you a lot,” he continued. “If you didn’t already know his secret, people would assume he was in love with you if they heard him talk.”

  “We were best friends,” I said. “Two peas in a pod, my friend Ava says.”

  “It must have been hard for you.” Jay picked up his margarita but didn’t take a drink. “You guys were so close. I couldn’t imagine.”

  “We were close, yeah,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t in love with him.”

  Jay met my gaze then, and as the words sunk in, his eyes misted over with tears. He closed them, probably to ward off the sadness, but it failed.

  “I thought we were happy,” he said again. “I thought that finally, once he was able to accept who he was, everything would be okay.”

  I took his hand in mine, squeezing it gently. “So, what happened?” With a sigh, he drew his hand back as if protecting himself.

  “My family are strict Christians, just like Carter’s. When my mother caught wind of my relationship with, God forbid, another man, she threatened to tell my father unless we broke it off.”

  “So, Carter left you?”

  “No.” Jay closed his eyes. “I left him.”

  “Oh,” I said, sitting back against the booth. “I guess I can understand that—”

  “No,” he cut me off, looking ashamed. “I let my family blackmail me into losing the love of my life. He wasn’t ready to give up. I was.” He leaned forward suddenly, looking intense. “Do you think I’m the reason he… he…?”

  “No.” I lifted the margarita glass to my lips to take a sip and then ended up chugging the last bit of it. I set it down, feeling a brain freeze coming on. Carter, if he’d been there, would have pointed and laughed.

  “Taste it, Ladybug,” he’d have said. “Don’t inhale it.”

  “There’s more to this,” I said. “There has to be more to this. Right?” Jay closed his eyes briefly as if trying to think of the right words to say, preferably without upsetting me.

  “What if there’s not?” he asked finally. “What if, no matter how far into this you look, you’ll never really know why he did it?”

  “Not only do I not believe that, but I can’t,” I told him. “If it had been me, Carter would have climbed mountains to figure it out. I can’t let this rest without giving him the best attempt I’ve got.” Jay shrugged, then reached over and took my hand in his. It was warm, and for the first time in a long time, I felt oddly comforted.

  “Just… don’t be disappointed when this doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to.”

  “Dear Lord, this is good shit.” Ava put the glass pipe to her lips and lit it, inhal
ing the thick smoke protruding from the end. She pulled it away, eyes glassy, and looked at me. “He’s a keeper, this one,” she said, tilting her head in Jesse’s direction. “If his drugs stay this good, never let him go.”

  “Our children will be so lucky,” I mumbled, reaching for the pipe she offered me. I couldn’t deny it, though. It was good stuff.

  “Thank my dealer,” Jesse said. “He gets it from someplace out of the country.” Yet again, he was half-naked in my living room, smelly feet propped up on the coffee table, hair greasy and unkempt. I took a hit from the pipe, closing my eyes to embrace the buzz of the drugs.

  “Who’s your dealer?” Ava asked.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” I said. “Ava can’t ever seem to keep her Ps and Qs straight.”

  “Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who just stalked down her dead friend’s boyfriend,” Ava snapped, and I knew she was only half-kidding. She yanked the pipe from my hand and took another hit. “Besides, if I can get some of this, my life will be complete.”

  “I thought I completed your life,” I pouted. Ava grinned and reached over, taking my chin between her fingers. Then she leaned forward and rested her lips on mine. I closed my eyes, trying not to giggle as Jesse looked on. After a few moments, Ava pulled back, fluttering her lashes at me.

  “No good,” she said finally. “I think I prefer la salchicha.”

  “What?” Jesse asked. His face flushed under the light of the living-room lamp.

  “The sausage,” I told him. “You know. Dick versus vagina. Hot dog and taco.”

  His cheeks flushed even darker, and Ava and I laughed.

  “I didn’t realize he was so innocent,” she said. “It’s kind of cute.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” I stood from where I was sitting and crossed the room, leaning down to touch my lips to his. Jesse reacted appropriately, his body moving toward mine. Not thinking twice about it, I crawled into his lap, straddling him. Beneath me, I could feel him harden. His mouth opened slightly, and I slipped my tongue in, searching for his.