Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1)

by Amy Vanessa Miller

  My face flushes bright red. It’s exactly what I had suspected; she did see us!

  “Ok enough!” I interject. “It’s time to go Skylar, the both of us, come on.” I get up from my chair and take hold of her arm. I give her a tug and she complies but refuses to take her angry eyes off of Evan.

  “It was really nice to meet you guys,” I say to Kelsie and Derrick who appear completely unsettled by Skylar’s behavior. I’m so embarrassed.

  I turn to Evan. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” I say quietly.

  He nods but refuses to look me in the eye.

  Once we get outside, Skylar reaches for my hand but I pull away angrily. We walk to my place in complete silence.

  Evan

  The minute Kelsie, Derrick, and I walk into my house I kick my sneakers off and make my way down the stairs to the basement where the three of us always hang out. They follow behind me quietly. I’m pissed, embarrassed, and annoyed. They know I don’t want to talk about it, but they are sticking around which only means that they plan on talking about it anyway.

  I can’t believe that I actually thought going out with Bree even though she and Skylar are still an item was a good idea. In what world is it ever ok to date someone else’s girl? I should have known better. I’m an idiot.

  “Evan,” Kelsie says, finally breaking into our silence as we each plop down on the old sectional in front of the TV.

  I shake my head, “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know you don’t, but I’m going to say it anyway,” she replies.

  “I’m done listening to your advice. No offense, but this has been one of the most embarrassing, not to mention emasculating, weekends I’ve ever experienced. I’m done.”

  “Done with what?” my sister, Ellie, interjects as she’s walking down the stairs toward us. She takes a seat next to Kelsie and unwraps a chocolate bar. She offers everyone a piece before taking a bite.

  “Your brother bombed with a girl tonight,” Derrick says as he reaches for the TV remote on the coffee table. He flicks through a few channels till he reaches MTV and then puts the remote back down.

  “Shut up. I didn’t bomb with her. It’s not my fault she’s with someone else,” I return bitterly.

  Ellie laughs. “Who is she?” she asks Kelsie.

  “Bree Porter. He’s had a thing for her for a while now.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Doesn’t matter, it’s not going to happen again,” I reply coolly. “I’m done.”

  Kelsie sighs. “You know she likes you, right?”

  I shrug, “Doesn’t matter if she stays with Skylar.”

  Ellie raises an eyebrow, taking another bite of her bar.

  “I think if you give her some time to be friends and don’t expect more, she’ll come around to you eventually. She was pissed at Skylar tonight,” Kelsie points out.

  “Wait, wait, is this Skylar Hale you’re talking about?” Ellie asks, her interest officially piqued.

  I jerk my head in Ellie’s direction. “How do you know Skylar?”

  “I don’t really know her,” she tells us with a shrug. “But I have a friend who knows her well.”

  “Who?”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “Him? Since when do you have ‘him’ friends?” I ask, half panicked, half pissed. “When the hell did that happen?”

  “Oh for God’s sake Evan, she’s fifteen,” Kelsie replies for her. “Try to remember what you were doing at fifteen. It wasn’t that long ago.”

  My eyes narrow as I think about my relationship with Adrienne and how much I wanted to have sex with her every second of the day. “You better not be doing anything I was doing at fifteen,” I say to her, pointing my finger in her face.

  Ellie slaps my finger out of the way and shoots me an annoyed look. “I’m not a fucking horn dog like you, Ev. I do know how to control myself.”

  Derrick bursts out laughing and Kelsie hits him in the arm. “Oh, like you can talk,” she says pointedly.

  I laugh in spite of how annoyed they are making me. I might die single, but at least I’ll always have Derrick and Kelsie by my side.

  “So you want Skylar Hale’s girlfriend, huh?” Ellie brings the conversation back to where we left it. She smirks. I hate that she’s sticking her nose in my business. And how does she know so much about Skylar?

  “How do you even know that she has a girlfriend, anyway? Like seriously, am I the only person that didn’t have a clue this whole time?” I demand, exasperated.

  “I told you I know someone that knows her. And don’t worry Evan, he didn’t know about them either. Not till recently. I guess Bree and Skylar were keeping it a secret from everyone.” She shoots me a sly smile. She knows I want to know who she's talking about. Crap like this drives me crazy and she knows that. Now she’s just taunting me with it. I decide to let it go to save my sanity. She isn’t going to tell me more than that anyway.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter how much I want her,” I say. “She’s made it pretty clear tonight that she doesn’t want me.”

  “When exactly was that made clear?” Kelsie asks. “Was it when she walked into The Loft holding your hand? Or when she blushed every time she glanced in your direction?”

  I shoot her a condescending look. “You know that none of that means anything if she’s choosing to be with someone else, right?”

  Kelsie sighs, looking to Derrick for support, but all he does is shakes his head. “Nope, not getting mixed up in this one.”

  “Why not?” Kelsie demands. “I know you have an opinion.”

  “What?” I ask, eying Derrick. “What’s your opinion?”

  He shrugs. “I just think you like her. Maybe even more than you liked Adrienne.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. We just haven’t seen you like this with anyone in a while. Maybe it’s worth it, you know?”

  Ellie’s phone beeps telling us she has a text message. She pulls it out of her pocket and replies to whoever it is.

  “What do you think, Ellie?” Kelsie asks looking over to my sister as she’s shoving the phone back into the pocket of her jeans.

  “Well,” Ellie begins, “I guess I think getting in the middle of a couple’s relationship could be messy.”

  “We aren’t saying he should break them up or anything,” Kelsie replies on the defensive. “We just think he shouldn’t give up completely. You never know what might happen… you know?”

  Ellie nods with a secretive smirk on her lips. “You never know,” she says, crumbling up her chocolate bar wrapper and tossing it into the trash can next to the TV. She gets up from the couch and starts toward the stairs. “Evan, I have to go meet someone. You think you can cover for me with Mom?”

  “Seriously? She’ll be home in like ten minutes, Ellie.”

  Every night lately Ellie’s been asking me to cover for her while she stays out for half of the night with God knows who. Sooner or later she’s going to get caught and of course it’ll all be my fault because I’m the ‘man of the house’ and I should ‘know better’ than to cover for her. But, of course, I always do.

  “I’ll be an hour, tops,” she calls out from the top of the stairs. “Please?”

  “Fine. You better not get caught. I’ll never hear the end of it!”

  “Thanks, Evan,” she yells back just before the door slams behind her. I turn to my friends and grimace. “My mom’s going to kill me one of these days.”

  Kelsie smiles, “You aren’t her parent Evan, you can only do so much.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. Derrick seems to want to turn the channel on the TV again but is unsure if he should. He reaches for the remote twice before sitting back in his seat and leaving the TV as it is. Kelsie readjusts herself before finally deciding to break the silence. “So what are you going to do?”

  Of course she’d be bringing us back to the situation at hand that is beyond my contro
l. If Bree’s with Skylar then she’s with Skylar, who am I to get myself all mixed up into that? I can’t put myself in a position where I’ll fall for her harder than how I am already feeling. I just don’t want that for myself.

  “I’m going to walk away,” I reply firmly, So that she knows this is the end of the conversation for me.

  Kelsie doesn’t argue with me this time. I think she knows that I’ve extended my heart out much further than I have with anyone in a long time, and I can’t push myself further into this without being sure that the end result won’t destroy me. I don’t have it in me to go through that again.

  I just can’t.

  Bree

  When Skylar and I arrive at my house, I run up the stairs and slam the door closed before she can follow me into the room. The house is empty. My parents must not be home yet from their night out together. I am relieved to realize this because I have a feeling that the argument Skylar and I are about to have won’t be a quiet one. I’m far too angry at this point to keep things civil and quiet.

  “I should be slamming the door in your face,” is all she says when she reaches the door. And I know she’s right. A part of me knows that I deserve to have the door slammed in my face, but an even bigger part of me is angry with her for putting me in this position to begin with! She knew how he affected me and she made me pursue it anyway.

  “You completely embarrassed me tonight,” I tell her.

  “Oh really? Well, it was totally awesome for me to see him practically do you on the top of his car. Jesus Bree, why don’t you just let him rip your clothes off and get it over with?”

  “Excuse me? It was your idea for me to get to know him better. And he wasn’t doing me, he was kissing me.”

  “Get to know him… not his dick. And from where I was sitting he might as well have been having sex with you!”

  “Oh my God! Are you being serious? You made me spend time with him! And speaking of which, exactly where were you sitting anyway? You didn’t trust me enough to let me go with him on my own?”

  Skylar shakes her head. “I didn’t make you make out with him Bree. You did that all on your own. And obviously I was right not to trust you!”

  I throw my hands up in exasperation. “What do you want from me, Sky?”

  “I wanted you to pick me!” She exclaims, tears welling in her eyes.

  “I told you that I picked you. I told you that kissing him was a mistake. You told me to be his friend. You told me to get to know him.”

  “You weren’t supposed to fall for him,” she spits angrily, her voice beginning to shake. Her lower lip starts to tremble but instead of allowing herself to cry, she picks up a glass of water off my desk and hurls it across the room.

  The harsh sound of the glass shattering against my wall makes me jump and my confidence falters. I never wanted to hurt her. I’ve always only wanted to protect her. And now I’m just another person she can’t count on.

  I hate that.

  The room starts to feel like it’s spinning out of control, and I carefully lower myself to the bed, putting my head into my hands. I sit there for the longest time, not speaking, just staring at my feet on the floor. Skylar doesn’t move from where she threw the glass and the air around us feels suffocating.

  What do I do now?

  My cell phone rings in my bag and I hesitate, worried it might be Evan.

  Skylar shoots me a dirty look and reaches in my bag to dig the phone out. She looks at the caller ID. “It’s Spencer,” she mutters, handing me the phone.

  As I reach for the phone from her hand, our fingers touch and I let them linger there for a moment. Her finger grazes mine and my heart skips a beat. I grasp the phone and move my hand away, pressing the talk button as I do so.

  “Hey Spenc,” I say, forcing a cheerful greeting.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks, and I look to Skylar unintentionally. I bite down on my lower lip trying to decide what I can say to him in front of her.

  I turn away from Skylar finally and whisper into the mouthpiece. “Not here,” I say. “Meet me at the park by my house, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Once I hang up, I turn to Skylar, “I’m going for a drive with Spencer.”

  “We’re talking right now,” She replies coolly.

  “No, we’re yelling right now, and I don’t think it’s going to help anything. I need to talk to someone about all of this. I need time to figure out what to do.” I grab my house keys and shove them in my pocket before starting down the stairs toward the front door.

  “What to do?” she repeats in a panic, chasing after me. I turn to face her. Her eyes look into mine and they seem to burn into my heart. The pain I feel looking into her eyes is more than I can handle. I hate this, I hate what this is doing to her.

  “Yes,” I whisper, turning away from her pleading look. “I need to figure things out. This all is happening so fast and I… I’m just not sure about anything right now.”

  The reply pushes Skylar into panic mode as I worried that it might. Her breathing begins to get fast and I can tell that she’s about to collapse into a fit of tears. “B,” she barely whispers.

  I shake my head, “No,” I reply softly, reaching out my hand to her cheek if only to calm her for a bit. “I need you to give me time. Ok?”

  Skylar’s expression breaks and she loses all the composure she’s been trying so hard to keep together. Her lip quivers and she covers her mouth quickly so that I can’t see. She nods and turns back toward my room.

  I feel numb and my heart aches. I hate seeing her break this way, but I can’t put her first this time. I can’t ignore what I’m going through. And as much as it makes me feel like a terrible person, I turn away from her sadness and walk out the door.

  It only takes me a few minutes to make it to the park by my house and, oddly enough, Spencer is already there.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I ask as I approach him. He’s casually leaning up against his car, and the sight of him makes me grin in spite of everything that’s happened tonight.

  He shrugs. “I was in the neighborhood.”

  I open the door and climb into the passenger seat as he makes his way around to the driver’s side. Once he’s in the car, I lay my head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around me, pulling me in close. I begin to smile but the emotion dissolves into an uncontrollable fit of tears and I finally let myself break down in his arms.

  “Aw, sweetie,” he says quietly, running his hand gently through my hair. “What happened?”

  “Spenc,” I begin, my voice cracking. “I can’t fix this. I want so much to be able to fix this and it’s so messed up right now… I can’t fix it.”

  “I was with Skylar tonight,” he says softly.

  I look up at him. “When?” I ask, wiping the tears from my face with the sleeve of my shirt.

  “Before and while you were at The Loft with Evan,” he says. He doesn’t seem angry, but he doesn’t seem very pleased with me either.

  “Really?” I sit upright in my seat.

  He nods.

  “What did she say?” I feel a sharp pain of guilt in the pit of my stomach.

  “She saw you guys in the parking lot,” he says, proving what I already knew. “We both did.”

  “Oh?” I reply uncomfortably. The idea that both Skylar and Spencer were just sitting out in the parking lot watching me makes me embarrassed. I’m completely mortified. Why would he bring her there?

  “Your hot make-out session with Evan on the hood of his car completely destroyed her.”

  “She told me to go out with him,” I say in defense. “How many times am I going to have to say that tonight?”

  He shakes his head in disappointment. “You know I love you, and I love Sky too. You are both my girls, always. But what she asked of you was not for you to cheat on her. She asked you to get to know him to see if there were feelings there. She wanted you to be honest with her. And if there were feeling, then the two
of you, together, would have dealt with it. And I know you know that’s what she meant when she asked you to become his friend.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I say. “I had every intention to just meet his friends at The Loft tonight. He was aware of the agreement I made with Skylar and he was on board with it.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “I don’t know. What we feel for each other is chemical. I noticed it the instant I laid eyes on him. He makes my skin tingle, he makes my stomach do flip-flops, everything about him makes me want to touch him and kiss him. No guy has ever had this kind of effect on me. It doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t resist him. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s the truth.”

  Spencer sighs loudly. “I knew this would happen. You should never have agreed to do it. I knew no good would come of it.”

  “A lot of good that does me now,” I mumble.

  “Are you going to keep seeing him?”

  “I want to,” I whisper.

  “And what about Skylar?” he asks, brushing a piece of hair from my eyes. He’s trying hard to keep neutral ground here, but I can tell that he doesn’t like my answers.

  I lower my head, “I don’t want to lose Skylar.”

  “Then you can’t be with Evan. You can’t have them both.”

  I throw my face into my hands in exasperation. “Uhhh! I don’t know what to do! When I’m with Evan, I can’t think of anything else except how amazing he makes me feel. And then I’m with Skylar and I have no doubt that she’s what I need. It’s like my body, mind, and soul are all conflicted and I have no way of sorting it out.”

  “Skylar is right for you. What you’re feeling with him, it’s not real. You and Skylar, that’s real.”

  “Skylar is my best friend. She will always be my best friend. But I can’t deny what I’m feeling for Evan. What if he’s who I’m meant to be with?”

  Spencer gives me a sad look. “He’s not.”

  “You can’t know that,” I say angrily, “There is no way for you to know that.”

  Spencer rolls down the driver’s side window and lights himself a cigarette. He takes a quick drag and blows the smoke out the window before turning back to face me. “Here’s what I do know, B. You’ve known Evan for three days and you’ve known Skylar for ten years. What seems more real to you?”