This Is Falling (18 page)

Ty is watching ESPN when I get back to the
room, and he waves me out of his way with his arm when I stop in
front of the TV. “Well, how’d the grand master plan go?” he says,
only half interested in me. Clearly more focused on the highlights
from last week’s Saints game.

“Oh, you know…I pretty much blatantly stared
at her tits for about ten minutes until she realized what a perv I
am and ran away,” I say, flinging myself backward on my bed and
covering my eyes with my pillow.

“That sounds like progress to me, bro. Nice
tits?” Ty asks. I stare at him for a few seconds, at first wanting
to throw something at him for his dumb-ass question, but eventually
I realize I’m no better than he is.

“Yeah. They’re pretty fantastic tits,” I say,
laying my head back again and burying it deep under my pillow.

The sounds of
Sports Center
lull me in
and out of a sleepy state for the next half hour, and I’m almost
ready to give in completely and just let this shitty day come to an
end when my phone buzzes next to me with an alert.

When I pull the pillow from my eyes, the
light in the room is almost blinding, and it takes me a few seconds
to focus on my phone screen. When I realize I have a Facebook
message from Rowe, I find my bearings quickly and scoot up to sit
with my back against the wall and open the message section.

Hi Josh.

Shit! This isn’t for me. I set the phone back
down and click the screen off. I sit up all the way at the back of
my bed, out of Ty’s view, and I run my hand through my hair about a
thousand times hoping some sort of sign comes to me. She writes to
him. This…
this isn’t good.
Rowe sends messages to her
ex-boyfriend who, from what I understand, is damned near
brain-dead. I just called him her ex-boyfriend, but that’s not even
true. He’s her boyfriend, or at least that’s the last thing he
remembers them as—if he even remembers.

Fuck!

“I’ll be back, dude.” I grab my phone and
slip my feet back into my shoes and head out the door. Ty says
something when I leave, but I can’t even focus on his voice. I head
to the stairs and just keep going, my feet gaining speed until I
hit the front doors of the dorm. I start a slow jog, and I get
faster and faster, until I’m actually sprinting all the way to the
baseball field.

The lights aren’t on, but I can see enough to
find my way. The equipment is all still out, so I slip though the
side gate and through the small space at the front of the batting
cage. The bats are all hanging still from our practice this
afternoon, and I know I’m not supposed to be in here, but goddamn
do I need to hit something right now!

I flip the switch on the machine and it takes
it a few seconds for the wheels to gain speed. It’s dark as hell,
but in a few minutes, I should be able to see enough. I pull my
phone out from my pocket and look at Rowe’s photo and name. I know
I shouldn’t read it. I should just delete it or not look at it and
write her back quickly, letting her know she sent me something
meant for someone else.

Someone else.

Fuck!
That’s the problem. There’s
always going to be someone else.

I grab the wooden bat because I want to feel
the sting in my hands. Sometimes I use it to warm up before games
because it makes swinging metal even easier. But tonight I want to
feel the pain and stress of the wood—to pull this feeling from my
heart and push it into my hands.

Crack!

The vibration hurts like hell, and I step
back and let the next two pitches smash into the hard plastic
behind the plate. My eyes are starting to adjust, so I step back in
and hit three more, swinging harder than I normally do, punishing
the ball for everything I’m feeling. One more ball fires my way,
and I swing and miss, which just pisses me off.

“Stupid goddamned machine!” I throw the bat
across the cage and smack my hand against the emergency shut-off
and the motor slows until the only thing I hear is my rapid
breathing and the crickets in the grass.

I hold my phone in my lap while I slide down
to sit with my back against the chain-link of the cage. My weight
sends up a small puff of dirt when I hit the ground. I pull my
knees up and pat the dust from the legs of my jeans and let out a
tiny laugh at how futile it is. I’m filthy, and I just picked a
fight with a decade-old pitching machine.

I’m slow at first, clicking the phone screen
on and hovering my thumb over Rowe’s profile picture on Facebook. I
don’t even have her number. I never asked, but she never gave it to
me either. This is the only way I can contact her, other than
holding her hostage in her own dorm room. And neither method was
from her choosing. I sought her out on Facebook, and heaven gave me
a break when they put us together on the same floor of Hayden Hall.
But never, not once, did Rowe come for me.

I’m reading before I can stop myself, and I’m
reading with anger in my heart. I’m not angry at Rowe, I’m angry at
myself for falling for her—for falling for a girl who can’t let
herself be mine to love.

Hi Josh.

Haven’t written in a week, lots to catch you
up on. I told two more people about you—my roommates, Cass and
Paige. I know, I know…but I was wrong about Paige. She’s actually
pretty nice, once you get through all of that fake crap. I’ve been
wrong about a lot. I didn’t think I could do this without you. But
here I am, almost a month in, and I don’t want to go home, Josh.
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I miss my parents, and
there’s a part of me that wants to crawl back into the cocoon I
lived in for two years, the one where I hid from the world because
you’re no longer in it. There’s a reason I don’t go into your room
when I visit your parents. At first, I thought it was because I
couldn’t—because I was too afraid of hurting and seeing you unable
to speak or move. But I don’t think that’s it anymore. I don’t come
see you because I’m selfish. I’m selfish, Josh, and I feel so awful
about it, but I am. I want to forget about you. I want to remember
you on that last day, moments before that man walked into our lives
with his gun, but I don’t want to remember you after. I don’t want
to know what you look like now, because I don’t want that vision in
my head making me feel guilty for being alive. And I want to be
done with you. I am cold and callous even writing this, but oh god
Josh, I want to be done with you. The more I think about it, the
more I know we probably would have broken up by now anyway, because
as good as you were, we were young, and the me I’m growing into
wants to experience more in life. There’s this guy, and he’s all I
can think about, and Josh I want to love him. I’m so close to
giving in, and I think if I could just let myself, he would love me
back. But I can’t, because you’re always there…in the way of my
life. I’m probably just angry. And I’m sorry I’m taking this out on
you tonight. But it’s not like you’ll write back or see any of it.
I’m not writing you any more. Not because I don’t love you, because
I always will. But because I’m letting you go. I let you go, Josh.
Please…please let me go too.

At some point, while reading, I started to
cry. There’s a single tear waiting to fall from my eye, and I let
it go. I read the entire message twice and then I delete it from my
phone because I don’t want to be tempted to read it again, and I
don’t want Rowe to see it. I know there’s a chance she’ll realize
what she’s done eventually, but I will never bring it up. These
words were private—not even meant for Josh. But reading them was
just the slap in my face that I needed.

Before I can stop myself—maybe before the
sense has enough time to settle in my head—I sprint from the ball
fields, through campus, and to the dorms. I take the steps two at a
time until I get to our floor, and I’m not even careful or quiet
when I pound on her door. Light shines underneath it, so I know I’m
not waking anyone; I take a deep breath when I see the shadow
interrupt the light.

“Nate, it’s okay. I’m not
that
embarrassed. But if you bring it up again…” She’s talking through
the door, and I can tell she’s looking at me through the peephole.
I brace both of my arms on either side of the frame and press my
forehead against the wood.

“Just open the damn door, Rowe,” I say,
unable to contain the need building inside of me.

“Nate, I’m leaving tomorrow. Let’s just talk
when I get back.”

“Rowe, I swear to god, if you don’t open the
door I’m going to break it,” I know I’m probably frightening her,
and I don’t want to. But I need her to act—I can’t have her hide,
not now.

When I hear the lock twist, I grab the handle
and turn it to push her door open before she or I have any time to
react and think better of what I’m about to do. She’s wearing a dry
shirt but the same small cotton shorts, and her hair is still damp
and long against her back. Her eyes are wide while she stumbles
backward a few tiny steps as I barrel into her room. I scan it
quickly to make sure she’s alone, not that it would matter or stop
me, but she is.

I close the distance between us quickly, and
before she has time to protest, I reach my fingers deep into her
wet hair with both of my hands, lifting her face toward mine just
enough for my lips to touch hers, and I kiss her hard. I can feel
her body shake at first, and her hands press lightly against my
chest, but they stop fighting me quickly. I suck at her top lip
until it’s firmly between both of mine, leaving just enough space
for my tongue to brush against hers, and when I feel her tongue
move against mine, I pull her even closer into me.

Her hands grab at the back of my shirt,
almost like she’s fighting herself, until finally she submits, and
I feel the smoothness of her palms and fingers trail up my back, to
my chest, and over my shoulder until she’s grabbing my hair,
pushing my mouth into hers even harder.

I walk her backward until her body is pressed
flat against the wall, and I hold her hands hostage against it, her
arms trapped along the sides of her body, while I press kisses
along her neck and chin. I don’t want to push things, but I need to
make sure she feels me, everything I’m feeling. I know I shouldn’t
have read that message she sent, but I’m glad I did. It was all the
proof I needed that there was this opening here, however small, and
I need to step through it, crawl inside her heart. Otherwise, she’s
just going to continue to fight to keep me out.

My body is pressed against hers, and I can
feel her aching for me, so I slide my hands along her collarbone,
trailing my fingers down her neck and shoulders until my thumbs
find the hardness of her nipples. When I touch her there, she
moans, and my will to stop nearly dissolves.

“Where’s Cass?” I breathe heavily into her
ear.

“Out. With Paige.” She’s panting, her hands
digging into my shoulders and her forehead pressed against mine,
her eyes closed tightly.

“Look at me,” I say, needing to know she’s
feeling this. I don’t want her forcing herself to do something. I
want her to
want
to be here, to remember this, to obsess
over it until she comes back to me. I want her to want more—more of
me.

“I will wait for you,” I say, and her breath
catches quickly, her eyes watering almost instantly. “Do you hear
me?”

She nods
yes
. Her movement is small,
but it is there.

“For as long as it takes. Forever if I have
to. I’ll wait forever, okay?” Everything base and male inside me
wants to lock her door and strip her clothes away so I can taste
and touch every inch of her body until I come undone inside of
her—but, I know that asking anything more from her would be me
being selfish. And she already feels selfish enough for both of us.
So I’ll wait, just like I said I would.

I kiss her one more time, this time slower
and more gently, letting my thumbs brush across her cheeks while
her lips quiver under my touch. I step away from her, and see her
phone sitting on her desk, so I pick it up and program my number in
with her contacts and then hand it to her so she sees.

“I want you to text me when you land…so I
know you’re okay,” I say, squeezing my hands around hers and
kissing her knuckles before I back out of her room and go back to
mine.

“You get shit figured out?” Ty says when I
walk in, his back to me and the light on at his desk while he flips
through a yellow legal pad full of notes.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. I’m just gonna
hit the showers. I’ll be back in a few,” I say, grabbing my clean
sweats and the long-sleeved T-shirt Rowe wore the night she slept
in my arms.

I pause at the division in the hallway, and I
look at the door to her room, the light still shining underneath. I
hope she’ll sleep tonight, but if she doesn’t, I hope it’s not
because of regret. I walk quietly down the hall—careful not to make
any noise that would make her look outside—and I hang my shirt on
her doorknob. Then I step away silently until I’m sure the coast is
clear. I let out a heavy sigh, and make my way to the showers.

After thirty minutes of cold water, I finally
feel calmed down. I shut the water off, dry myself, and pull on my
sweats to go back to my room. When I pass her hall, I pause, just
to see, and the shirt is gone.

Chapter
17

Rowe

Nate was right. By the third play through, I
had all of the words memorized to “Sweet Caroline
.”
The guy
sitting next to me even caught me mouthing the words during takeoff
and followed along with the
ba ba ba
part in the middle. It
made me laugh, and before I knew it, we were soaring above the
clouds.

I wouldn’t say I
like
flying. But I
think as long as my iPod is fully charged, I should be able to
survive my trip back to school. However, I would prefer to fly
non-stop this time. My parents saved money with this flight, but I
had to sit at a gate in Denver for about two hours.