The Upside of Falling

by Alex Light

  I was sitting on the floor when I heard the door creak open. Becca walked in, looking a little uncomfortable. I think I may have been crying, because I was sort of seeing two of her instead of one.

  “You know,” she said, kneeling on the floor beside me and sitting down, “when my parents got divorced, I felt like this too. I kept searching for answers like their marriage was some puzzle and all I needed was to find the right pieces. I obsessed over it for years, wondering why my dad left and what moment he realized he didn’t want us anymore. Was it during dinner one night? Was there a fight I don’t know about? Did he just stop loving my mom? There are so many questions and I’m still looking for the answers, Brett. Even now. I mean”—she started laughing—“I show up at his house sometimes and I just stand there like a complete weirdo! Staring and waiting! I even went inside last week and talked to his wife! And the worst part is, I don’t even know what I’m waiting for. I just stand there and hope that the day will come when I won’t have to. When I won’t feel like this anymore.

  “And some days are better. Like when we were at the arcade eating jelly bells. Or when I’m at the bakery with my mom and Cassie. In those moments, it’s like the life we used to have with my dad was from another lifetime. And I’m happy with it being just my mom and me. But there are days when it sucks. Days when I obsess over him and overanalyze every little thing until I realize it’s pointless. People leave, Brett. It’s not our fault for not giving them a reason to stay. It’s their fault for not finding one. You know?”

  No. I didn’t know. Because up until this moment my life had been contained in this perfect little bubble: perfect house, perfect football career, perfect family—everything was so damn perfect. Too perfect. And now there were dents. Cracks. And I kept thinking back to the way my mom looked during dinner when she dropped that glass of wine. And the night when I found her in her bedroom crying after my dad left for New York. Or the morning he came back and she stood there on the porch, not saying a word. And I felt like a complete idiot for not realizing that being perfect was just a facade. An act. That if you pulled back the curtain, there was a whole lot of shit hiding behind it.

  “My dad’s having an affair.” I whispered the words, like maybe if I said it low enough it would make it less true.

  “Yeah,” Becca said. Her hand slid across the floor and grabbed on to mine. “He is.”

  Becca

  WHEN IN DOUBT, RETURN TO the trusty pro-con list.

  I made myself at home in Brett’s bedroom. Which is probably one of the weirder places I’ve been this year. Weeks ago, if someone told me I’d be spending my Saturday afternoon sitting on Brett Wells’s bed, I would have laughed in their face.

  Once Brett dug out a notebook and pen from his desk drawer, I went to town. I drew a line down the center of the page and wrote PROS on one side and CONS on the other. The list was to decide whether or not it was a good idea to tell his mom about his dad’s affair. Or, on a heavier note, possible multiple affairs.

  Brett was sitting at his desk chair, his head still in his hands. It was physically painful for me to see him like this and not know what to do to help him. I of all people should know some magical word to ease the pain at least momentarily. But nope. I had nothing. Nada. His world was falling apart and the only solution my brain could conjure up was a dumb list.

  It was quite literally all we had. The pressure was on.

  I tapped the pen against my knee, thinking out loud. “A con could be that there’s always the slim chance it wasn’t your dad we saw.” Brett made a noise, almost a snort, and didn’t look up. “Maybe telling your mom will do more harm than good. Like she’d prefer to not know instead of everything changing with the truth. Ignorance is bliss and all that.”

  “That would make two of us,” Brett mumbled.

  I filled in the CON side of the list with the two bullets.

  “Pro would be that you don’t have to keep a secret from your mom and that she deserves to know the truth. I’d want to know if it were me.”

  Brett stood up. “This is ridiculous, Becca. We’re seriously using a list to figure out whether we should break my mom’s heart?”

  I gripped the notebook a little tighter. “They help me make decisions.”

  “But it’s not helping me,” he said, storming out of the room.

  I hated this. Feeling like there was nothing I could say or do that would make this easier on him. But there had to be something. This wasn’t some book I was reading, where the future was already planned out. I still had a chance to change Brett’s story. So what was I going to do?

  I had an idea. It was there, in the back of my mind. I kept thinking about last night, when Brett said he wanted to be distracted, that it would help him process. And I had the perfect distraction. But it was personal. Like, very personal. And it was one of the things I wrote on my own pro-con list about dating Brett—the one con that scared me the most.

  I tried to put everything into perspective. Brett was going through a lot right now, and I knew exactly what having your world turned upside down felt like. And I wished I would have let someone help me through it instead of bottling all my emotions up. Maybe then I’d be better now, more in the present instead of stuck in the past. That was five years ago. I couldn’t go back and rewrite my own story. But Brett’s was happening right now. And if there was a slim chance I could help him, even for one night, wasn’t it worth it?

  I crossed the list out on the page. Then I put the notebook down on the desk and followed Brett downstairs. I found him sitting on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “Hey,” I said, sitting beside him. He hadn’t smiled all day.

  Brett brushed his fingers against mine. “Sorry for getting mad,” he said. “This is a lot. It’s like everything I thought about my life, my parents, their marriage, was all a lie. I want to call my dad right now and ask him. I want answers. But the thought of having them is terrifying, Becca. What am I supposed to do?”

  His eyes were red, staring into mine. I realized he’d run out of the room to cry.

  “The thing is,” I said, “you don’t have to do anything right now. I know it seems like life or death, but all of this weight will still be there tomorrow, Brett. You can make a decision then. Tonight, you should come to my house for dinner.” I paused. Forced the words out. “With me and my mom.”

  “I thought you didn’t want your mom to know about us?”

  “I don’t. I really don’t. But you need a change of scenery right now. Being in this house is not helping you.”

  “You’d really do that for me?” he asked. It made me sad that he sounded surprised.

  “Of course.” How bad could Brett fiasco number two really be?

  Brett rested his head against mine, exhaling a long breath.

  “You’re the best girlfriend I never had, Becca Hart.”

  Saying I was nervous for this dinner would be an understatement. I was visibly freaking out. My feet were tapping against the elevator floor, and I swear this thing was moving faster than normal because suddenly the doors were opening and we were standing in front of my apartment.

  “Remember,” I whispered to Brett, “no talking about fake anything. Got it?”

  He still wasn’t giving me that ultra-Brett smile, but his lips twitched a little. It was a start.

  “Got it.”

  With my heart somewhere in my stomach, I knocked.

  “Don’t you have keys to your house?” Brett asked.

  Of course I had keys to my house. I was just too nervous to remember. Dammit. I grabbed them from my pocket and had the key in the lock as soon as the door pulled open. My mom looked at me, then Brett, then back to me about a thousand times. I swear it happened in slow motion. Every agonizing second ticked by and I saw the exact moment the realization hit her.

  “This is a surprise,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears.

  “Mom,” I said, giving her the please-do-not-embarrass-me look, “you remember Brett. My�
��—c’mon, Becca. Spit it out—“boyfriend.”

  She gasped, hand flying over her mouth and everything.

  One second in and the regret was oh so present.

  “Brett! From the bakery! You’re the one who made Bells drop all of the cannoli—”

  “Thanks for bringing that up, Mom.”

  “—of course I remember you, dear. Come on in.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Hart,” Brett said, kind as ever. Then he gave her The Smile. She was a goner.

  Good god, mother. And I thought I was the one who had to keep it together.

  “You can call me Amy, hon. I wish Becca would have told me we were having a guest for dinner,” my mom said, casting me a not-so-subtle glare. “I would have made something fancier than hamburgers.”

  “Hamburgers are fine, Mom. That’s his favorite anyway.”

  “They are?” she asked, gesturing for the two of us to step inside.

  “Yeah.” Brett turned to me, eyebrows drawn together. “I didn’t think you remembered that.”

  I shrugged, moved my hair in front of my shoulders to block my stupid cheeks, which felt as hot as the sun. Thankfully, my mom led us into the kitchen then and the attention was taken off my ability to memorize random facts about Brett. The air smelled like grease and meat instead of its usual warm vanilla scent. My mom ran to the stove and was juggling two trays in her hands. “Have a seat, you two. It’ll just be another minute.”

  I sat down while Brett walked to my mom’s side and shut the door to the oven. Total butt kisser. She was eyeing him like she was trying to visually measure what size tux he’d wear for our wedding. I hoped Brett didn’t notice. Or see the thumbs-up she gave me when he had his back turned.

  This was going to be a long night.

  When we were all seated and my mom seemed to get over her initial shock, she said, “So, when did this happen? Becca kept telling me that you two were only friends.”

  “A few weeks ago,” Brett said.

  I coughed. Really, really loud.

  Brett stopped pilling fries on his plate to give me a confused look.

  “What Brett means,” I said, doing damage control, “is that we’ve been talking for a few weeks, as friends, and we just recently started dating. Right, Brett?”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Then he shoved a handful of fries in his mouth. Good. Now he couldn’t talk and mess all this up.

  Thankfully my mom had her love blinders on and didn’t notice the slipup. She was grinning at the two of us like a weirdo. And for once I was thankful Brett ate so damn fast. At least this dinner would be over soon.

  The tour I gave Brett of our apartment ended in my bedroom. It was funny: I started the day off in his bedroom and now we were in mine.

  And by funny I meant severely nerve-racking.

  His eyes instantly locked on the wall that was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I had it color coordinated. I was very proud.

  “You’ve read all of these?” he asked.

  “Most more than once,” I said.

  I sat on the middle of my bed and folded my hands in my lap. I felt very awkward. Not in an uncomfortable way. More in a this-is-the-first-time-a-boy-has-been-in-my-room kind of way. The butterflies were back, flapping away in my stomach.

  Brett’s gaze went from the books to the posters covering my yellow walls. They were mostly bands I listened to when I was younger or posters from some of my favorite books that had been made into movies. For the record, the book was always better.

  “Your room is nice,” he said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Exactly what I was expecting.”

  “And by that you mean you were expecting to see a lot of books.”

  “Pretty much. Yeah.” Brett laughed and I gasped, pointing my finger at him.

  “You laughed!”

  “So?”

  “You haven’t laughed all day. I’ve been waiting for it.”

  He watched me for a moment with a crease between his brows before turning to the photo on my nightstand. It was my mom and me hugging. It was so sunny outside that day that you could barely even see our faces with the glare.

  Brett picked up the photo. “When’s this from?” he asked.

  “My thirteenth birthday party. That was back when my mom was a horrible cook. She made my birthday cake that year with salt instead of sugar. It was disgusting. No one ate it. We took that picture right before the sun set.”

  “Was that your favorite birthday?”

  “No,” I said. “It was the first one without my dad.” I grabbed the frame from his hands and gently placed it back on the nightstand.

  Brett scooted across the bed, moving a little closer until his back was against the headboard. “You were right about getting out of my house. Being here with you and your mom worked. I feel better. It kind of makes everything else shrink a little bit.”

  “You can come over whenever,” I said. “I know my mom would love that. You could move in if you want. She’d probably be fine with me having a roommate.”

  He laughed again. “She’s a little overenthusiastic, huh?”

  “She just wants me to be happy. I think, after the divorce, she was worried it had ruined me or something. That I’d turn into this emotionless robot that doesn’t believe in love and spends the rest of her life alone with a few dozen cats.”

  “But you don’t believe in love.”

  No. But I’m starting to believe in like.

  Shut up, brain.

  “I believe in love,” I said, “I just don’t think it’s worth the risk. Like when you’re dating someone, you’re either going to end up marrying that person or having your heart broken. It’s a fifty-fifty chance. And even if you do marry them, there’s another fifty percent chance you’ll end up divorced. At what point do people realize the odds are always stacked against them?”

  “Isn’t that what makes it so special when you find the right person? The fact that you two were able to beat the odds?”

  “Sure, but there’s still so many downsides to falling in love. Reading, however,” I said, pointing toward my glorious bookshelf, “gives you all the fun without the pain. A great alternative.”

  “I may have to borrow a book or two if my parents’ marriage goes to shit.”

  I hit him with my elbow. “Don’t say that, Brett. You don’t know what’s going to happen.” I mean, I kind of did know what was going to happen, based on my parents’ track record and simple statistics. But I was holding out hope for Brett’s sake. He deserved that.

  “I can make a pretty good guess,” he said.

  This distraction technique was not working.

  “You know what?” I hopped out of bed and grabbed my laptop, tossing it to him. “I’ll be right back.” I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a tub of cotton candy ice cream from the freezer, assured my mom we’d leave the door open (cue eye roll), then raced back to my room before she could say anything else equally mortifying.

  Brett took one look at the ice cream and said, “Don’t tell me you actually like that crap.”

  “Cotton candy ice cream?” I asked, completely appalled. “It’s my favorite.”

  I made a big show of opening the container and scooping out a huge spoonful, then ate the entire thing. I even licked the spoon for good measure.

  Brett looked like he was trying not to gag.

  “Got any jelly bells?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  Ignoring his horrible ice cream taste, I sat back down on the bed and opened my laptop to Netflix. “I realized,” I said, “that everyone thinks we’re dating and we haven’t even gone on our first date yet. That’s not acceptable.”

  “Completely unacceptable,” Brett agreed.

  “So it only makes sense—”

  “Only makes sense.”

  “—if we declare this as our first official date. And stop mocking me. What movie do you want to watch?” I scrolled through all the different genres.

  “Something scary,” he said qu
ickly. Suspiciously quick.

  “You should know I love scary movies,” I said. “So if you’re expecting me to get all cuddly, it’s not going to happen.”

  Brett pouted. I chose the movie. It was about a family who moved out of their haunted house only to move into a new house that was also haunted. Really unique, groundbreaking stuff.

  I ate my way through the entire ice cream carton within the first half hour. I choked on it a few times from laughing so hard. The movie wasn’t funny. It was Brett. He was jumping and shrieking at every little thing. He even covered his face with a pillow at one point.

  To make it worse, I held out a spoonful of ice cream to his face. “Want some?”

  He pushed it away, pretending to throw up.

  A few seconds later he mumbled, “I can’t believe I have a crush on a girl with such horrible ice cream taste.”

  My whole body tensed. I was warm all over. I could feel my heart trying to burst free from the cage I had it locked in. And for a single, tiny second, I considered it. I glanced at Brett. He was staring at the screen way too intensely. Okay. So I guess we were both pretending he never said that. Plus, this whole thing was fake. So he was just acting. There was no way he meant that . . .

  I hid my smile behind the spoon.

  When I woke up the next morning, Brett was still lying in bed beside me. We must have fallen asleep during the movie. I sat up quickly, tensing when I heard the thump! of my laptop falling off my bed. Then I noticed the plate at the foot of the bed with jelly bells on it. There were two pieces of paper tucked underneath. One had Becca scrawled on it in my mom’s signature cursive. The other read Brett.

  Brett

  MY DAD’S FIRST BUSINESS TRIP happened last year. He got another promotion at work and took our family out for dinner a town over to celebrate. The restaurant was Italian, really fancy. It had bottles of wine waiting on the table and dim lighting. Even the menu felt expensive. Everything was over thirty dollars and written in Italian. My mom never stopped smiling. I was happy too because they were happy and we were all together.