The Rarity of Falling

by Leeann M. Shane

  “You were incredible out there!” Coach bellowed, his eyes about to pop out from screaming so loud. He wrestled me to my feet. “Play like that every game and Minnesota will be begging you on their hands and knees.”

  “You think so?” I peered at him sideways, afraid to let out how much I wanted it.

  He nodded seriously, slipping and sliding across the ice with me as the team made its way to the locker room. “I know so. You’re one of the best players I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past decade, Bishop. You have stamina, strength, viciousness—you’ll decapitate someone if they get in your way—but you’re a smart player at the same time. You calculate, establish, and score. It’s orgasmic!” He laughed manically, too hyped to calm down as he ran over to Ryles and shook him so hard his helmet went flying.

  The team waited for me. Grinning from ear to ear. They patted me on the back, and I did the same. There was a strange sense of camaraderie after a win. It had been that way my entire life. Where we were high on the ice and happy with the score where we were all accepted. I felt like I belonged. It was fleeting. As soon as we all showered and changed back into our clothes, I’d go back to being where I felt most comfortable. On the outside and they’d all be okay with it.

  Losses were a different story.

  When you win the game, you also have to take the hit when you lose one.

  Something I tried not to do as much as possible.

  “Win dinner on me!” Coach shouted.

  Ryles laughed beside me, ripping off his jersey. “Coach needs to chill. He’s going to pop a vein.”

  “Uh, Coach?” I called, ignoring the eyes on me.

  Look, they were probably thinking, he does talk.

  “What, hotshot?” He winked at me.

  I rolled my eyes at his nickname. “You mind if I take a raincheck? I have to work tomorrow.” Not entirely a lie. I had to find Ava first.

  He nodded, too happy to care. “Here. Take yourself to breakfast tomorrow.” He dug out a fifty-dollar bill and walked over to slap it in my hand. He clutched my sweaty head between his hands and laughed in my face. “What a win!” He kissed my forehead and I pushed him off, glaring at his back as I wiped it off and my teammates guffawed.

  I grabbed a towel and took off for the showers, their laughter to my back. I showered fast and got dressed while everyone else was still fighting for hot water. I dragged my towel over my hair and stuffed my sweaty gear in my bag, promising myself I’d wash it sometime soon. I pulled my phone out, my heart falling when there weren’t any texts or missed calls.

  I went out the backdoor, wanting to bypass the crowd piling near the concession stand and lobby. I cut across the street and made my way to the rear parking lot. It was unreasonably crowded, and I’d forgotten to look up at the letters in the light posts to note where I’d parked. I started where I somewhat remembered and cut through the cars until I spotted a little figure sitting on the back of my car, white sneakers swinging back and forth.

  My heart screeched to a halt.

  And I was pissed.

  I stomped over to her with renewed purpose. “What is the matter with you?” I roared.

  Ava’s eyes snapped up from her lap and widened.

  “I’ve been calling you all day!”

  She could barely give me her eyes. She looked so small and I knew I should stop yelling, but I was too wound up to remember why.

  She hopped down and crossed her arms over her chest. “I know.”

  “You know! And you didn’t think to call me back? To say, ‘hey, Bishop, I know you’re worried about me but I’m okay?’ Huh?” I stomped over to my car and jammed my key into the back, tossing my gear in before slamming the back door and wrenching open the front. “I’m talking to you.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. The streetlights danced on the sheen her teeth left behind. “You were worried about me?”

  My eyes bugged out of my head. “Do you hear yourself? Of course, I care about you! What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s all messed up in here.” Her finger gently touched her temple. “It’s all messed up everywhere.”

  Tears started to glimmer in her eyes. As hard as it was, I needed to rein it in. I took a deep breath. “Did you drive here?”

  She nodded.

  “You want to take my car? I can drop you off here later.”

  “Where are we going?”

  I just stared at her.

  She smiled a little. “Right. You’re starving. I brought some food for you. I figured you’d be starving after the game.”

  My stomach perked up. “You did? What kind of food?”

  “Sandwiches.” She took a tentative step toward me. She’d changed. No longer was she in all black, but she looked more like herself. Like a soft, beautiful frail bubble I wanted to wrap my hands around and protect. “But you can’t have them if you keep yelling at me.”

  “I wasn’t yelling at you. I was just yelling.” The raise of her brows suggested she thought otherwise. “Fine,” I relented. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. That wasn’t nice. I won’t do it again.” I took a step toward her, too.

  She hesitated, looked down at her feet, and then back up at me, her eyes glassy. “Bishop?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What does it feel like to have a breakdown? Because I feel like I’ve been having one all day. Don’t be mad at me.” She started blubbering out words. Something about her smothering me and then something about her dad’s stuff being gone and then her running away. “I needed to see you before I left.”

  I tried my best to string the pieces together.

  I clutched the front of her sweater in my grip and then pulled her quickly against my chest, bending to wrap my arms around her waist. I held her for a moment, savoring the feel of having her close again.

  She cried against me.

  I needed her closer.

  I hoisted her against my chest and in my arms, her little feet dangling in the air and her arms wrapped around my neck. I leaned against my car and held her to me, letting her sob herself out. By the time she pulled away, she was limp in my arms and the only things keeping her upright were her legs wrapped around my waist and my arms wrapped around hers. Her scent was overflowing with sweetness and peaches and the scent had the power to settle the churning in me.

  I set her on her feet.

  She didn’t move far. She moved right back against me, pressing her forehead to my sternum.

  I rubbed her shoulders. “Did you say you were going to run away?”

  “I am.”

  I fought to keep the smile out of my voice. “Where are you going to go?”

  She pressed her chin to my chest and looked up at me, glaring. “Are you laughing at me?”

  I tried to fix my face but ended up laughing anyway. “Come on, Ava. You’re not running away.”

  “I am. I packed my things and everything.” She pushed away from me. “I filled my car with gas. I just wanted to stop and feed you one more time, just so…” She cracked, sobbing all over again. “Just so I could know you wouldn’t be hungry.”

  A tiny scrap of fear moved through me. “You’re serious? You’re bailing?”

  Her head bobbed. Whatever mascara she’d had on was running down her cheeks and heartache was so apparent in her eyes the sight of it broke mine, too.

  That small piece of fear exploded into all-out terror. In seconds, my brain put it together. It understood what I would feel like tomorrow waking up without her. My heart knew every single second of suffering it would wade through when she left. I was able to sort through my emotions, confusions, and desires all in a matter of seconds even though they’d been impossible to pin down for weeks. I was left with one solid, painful thought: she couldn’t leave me.

  “When do we leave?”

  “What? We? No. You’re not coming with me.”

  I made up my mind in seconds. “I want to be where you are.”

  She wiped at her eyes with a shaking hand.
“Bishop, stop. You have hockey. You have your dreams, college—you have to stay here. I don’t have anything left here.”

  It felt like she’d reached into my chest and obliterated my heart with her tiny fist. “You don’t? What about me, Ava? You have me here.”

  That made her cry harder. She sank down, bending at her knees. “Stop.”

  “Unless you don’t want me.” Horrified stillness settled in my bones. “Unless you want to leave me.”

  “Bishop.”

  I swallowed the horrible fire and pushed it down to burn. “That’s okay. Everyone does eventually. My parents. My grandmother. Every single foster family I ever lived with. The kids at school. The teachers. You know, in middle school, I had a teacher who didn’t even know my name all year long. She called me Bane, and I just let her because at least she was making an effort to forget me. What makes you any different? Just go, Ava.” I made a move to get in the driver’s seat.

  But I could hear her sobs.

  I could feel them.

  I couldn’t back up.

  I couldn’t leave her the way she was leaving me.

  I got back out and walked around to where she sat on her knees completely breaking down. I grabbed her upper arms and lifted her up. I walked her to the driver’s seat and lowered her inside. I cradled her face between my hands as she looked at me with tear-soaked eyes.

  “You can’t leave me.”

  “I never wanted to.”

  “Breathe,” I ordered softly. She pulled in a ragged breath. My poor girl was having a melt down and I needed to remember that her defense mechanism was to run, like everyone else’s. “Take a couple more.”

  She did, breathing in as deeply as she could through her panic. “I didn’t mean it. When I said that I didn’t have anything left here, I was lying. I meant I don’t have anyone but you, but I didn’t know if that was fair to put on you.”

  I scrubbed my thumbs beneath her eyes, trying to remove her tears. “Put it on me. Put the whole world on me, Ava. Stop worrying about how I feel. If you left it up to me, I wouldn’t have this right now.” I held her face tighter. “I want you to feel how you want to feel. That’s all. Sad, mad, happy, funny—feel the way you want. Just do it here.”

  “You’re okay with my… intense like… for you?”

  I chuckled at her word choice. “I’m okay with it. I have a bit of intense like for you, too.”

  Her eyes widened. “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “Does this mean I don’t have to leave you?” Her trembling fingers reached up to grasp my wrist. “Because I’d really miss you.”

  I brought her face close and kissed her forehead. Her temple. Her cheek. Her jaw. The corner of her lips. The tip of her nose. Her chin. She let me, moving this way and that, giving me different parts of her to kiss. “You were never going to leave.”

  “I wasn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” She gave me her temple.

  I kissed it, sliding my lips close to her ear. “Because you came to my game. You waited in the parking lot for me. You made me food. You came here because you needed support and knew I’d never let you leave. You know we have a connection.” I pressed my face to the side of hers. “Tell me you feel it.”

  She reached up to thread her fingers in my hair. “I feel it.” And then she pulled me in for a hug, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “I’m sorry everyone leaves. I’ll never do that again. It wasn’t fair of me.”

  I shook my head against her. The last thing she needed to do was start blaming herself. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The scary part of her assurance wasn’t the promise itself, but the fact that the only way for it to come true was if I trusted her. I’d never, in my entire life, trusted another person with my heart before. And it was too scary to fully consider right then, so I swallowed it and pressed a kiss to her neck. “Can I have my sandwich now?”

  She laughed. “Only if you have something for me to wipe my face off on.”

  I rummaged around in the back of my car until I found a shirt that smelled marginally clean. She handed me her keys and told me where her car was parked. I found it two rows over, my stomach falling when I saw how she’d packed it. I found the tote with food, and then looked through the rest of her things as fast as I could.

  She needed to breathe.

  To accept the things in her life that were different.

  She needed a chance to break and come back together.

  I internalized things.

  She externalized them.

  We weren’t that different.

  Her face was clean and dry when I came back. I found my sandwich and shoveled it in my mouth. I told her about the fifty bucks from Coach and that I wanted to spend it on dinner with her. She denied me but was too emotionally exhausted to put up much of a fight.

  “What are you in the mood to eat?”

  She thought about it for a long time before she answered. “Something warm and comforting. I feel like I’ve been freezing for hours.” She didn’t stop. “I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I like you too much and you’re going to tell me to get lost, and like that will hurt ten times more than my dad leaving. I feel like you’re the only person in my life that can handle me. That wants to handle me?” She said the last part like a question.

  If I were her, I’d feel insecure as well. That’s what happened when the people you loved left you. You started to think that it was you. I knew that better than anyone. “I want to comfort you and warm you up. And then we’ll sit down and talk about everything, all right?”

  She sniffled. “All right.”

  “Breathe, Avie.” I gave her my right hand.

  She gave me her left. “Did you just give me a nickname?”

  I stilled, replaying the last words out of my mouth. Oh crap. I had. Oh well. “Get over it.”

  Her soft giggle made me feel better. It also amazed me that as her life changed, she still had it in her to laugh. I’d never been that strong. I’d stopped laughing altogether. Until I met her.

  She didn’t speak again until I’d pulled into the parking lot of one of the best restaurants in Duluth.

  “Bishop!” she gasped. “We can’t go here.”

  “Why not?”

  “First of all, we’re broke. The water isn’t even free here. Second of all, I look like utter crap. I’ve been crying all day and—”

  I cut her off. “First of all, I got it covered. Second of all, you look beautiful. You always do. Now stop yapping and get out. I’m—”

  “Starving,” she finished for me. “I know, I know. Can I please fix my makeup at least? Please?”

  Her honey eyes looked so fragile, I couldn’t deny her. “Fine, but you don’t need it.”

  I sat there, watching her as she put this goo the same color as her face under her eyes and magically made the signs of her crying disappear. She rubbed her eyelid in a light peach color and then scrubbed mascara over her silken lashes. When she was done, the only signs that she’d almost broken both our hearts and ran away was the pain trapped in her golden eyes.

  I wanted to erase the look entirely.

  Bisque and Dumplings was a good place to start. It was a high-end restaurant I’d always wanted to go to. Though Ava was right. The price tag was exorbitant. But as soon as we walked inside and her eyes went wide and she smiled hugely at me, I knew it was worth it. The atmosphere was warm and golden lights adhered to the ceiling emanated a rich, comforting glow as it radiated off the wooden accents.

  I felt like an imposter wearing an old sweater, thrift store jeans, and worn sneakers.

  Ava looked soft and adorable and comfortable.

  We were night and day.

  And even though I knew it was frightening, I wanted to be in her light.

  It was getting harder and harder living in the dark.

  I stepped closer to her as we waited for the maître d. He shuffled over, forced a smile, and
rushed us on. The restaurant was busy, so he didn’t stick around long. After our drink orders had been taken—lemonade for me and hot chocolate for Ava—and the garlic bread had been set out, I decided that was as good a time as any to talk.

  I shoved a chunk of garlic bread into my mouth and then another, ignoring her staring. By now, she should know better. “I’m worried about you.”

  She gently tore at her bread. “I’m worried about me.”

  “We should do something about that, then shouldn’t we? I can’t force your parents to get their heads out of their asses, but I can focus on you. Why don’t we do things that make you happy? Every chance we get?”

  She smiled shyly, so afraid to feel. “Like taking me to a fancy dinner?”

  “Does that make you feel better?”

  I appreciated her thinking her answer through. “Yes,” she decided.

  “Good. What do you want to do next?”

  She didn’t even blink. “Make out with you.”

  I choked on my bread, trying and failing to cough it up. Oh man, please not this again. Ava came over and patted my back, grinning at me like the noob she was. Finally, the piece of bread dislodged, and I could breathe again.

  “Just kidding. Sort of.” She laughed. “Hey, can I sit with you?”

  In response, I pulled her hot cocoa over. “Think about doing something you want to do.”

  She tapped her chin, her cute face angled in thought. “I want to talk.”

  Of course, you do. “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

  I’d try. For her.

  “Your game.” Her eyes lit up. “You were incredible, Bishop. And you only got hurt once, but that was toward the end and that big guy was just jealous you were kicking his butt. It was so exciting and exhilarating. I felt so proud when everyone was cheering your name. That’s your happy place for sure.”

  I leaned over and kissed her. Right on the mouth. Our eyes locked. Hers sweet, mine ice—those two things shouldn’t go together, and yet, in that moment, nothing could have felt more perfect. The honey in her eyes melted and her eyelids fluttered closed. I felt her sigh against my lips, the way I sighed after eating after being starving all day. The sound lit me. I angled toward her and grasped her face, turning her to the side to kiss her better. Her lips were soft like marshmallows and tasted just as sweet. I’d never felt anything so good in my life as her sweet lips kissing me back.