Risk the Fall

by Steph Campbell

  “I’m pretty sure that my dad is having an affair,” she says softly while shaking her head. My brows pull together as I try to think of something to say. What are you supposed to say?

  “It’s fine, I mean, it’s not, but I don’t expect sympathy or anything. I just needed to tell someone. I hear him sneak out sometimes late at night.”

  “Are you going to say something to your mom?”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t have any proof, and even if I did, it wouldn’t make a difference. They are both completely accepting of their unhappiness. I am so damn scared that I am going to turn out like that.”

  “You’re not, Quinn.”

  She glances over her shoulder, away from me.

  “You want to go for a swim?” she asks, motioning to the L-shaped pool across the yard.

  “No,” I say.

  She fumbles with her hands in her lap. Jesus, I don’t know if I am even close to what this girl needs in her life right now, but I know that I need her.

  “Do you want—”

  I cut her off with my lips to hers. Her hands instantly tangle themselves into my hair as she falls into me.

  This girl I’ve only known for a matter of weeks has managed to shake me like nothing else before. Quinn is most definitely not part of The Plan.

  I’m in the middle of my fairytale, lying beside Ben on the deck. My teeth nip the back of my hand as I bite down to keep from squealing like some lunatic fan girl. I could lay right here forever, feeling safe and wanted.

  A gruff throat clearing brings me crashing back down to reality. Tipping my head backward on the wood board, I see my dad. His face is twisted into an irritated scowl. Mom is beside him with her face half submerged in her requisite wine glass. Great, their home.

  “Who’s your friend?” my dad asks. Ben doesn’t miss a beat and jumps up. He brushes his long bangs out of his face and extends his hand.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. MacPherson, I’m Ben.” His voice is casual, not kiss-assy.

  I feel short of breath. I’ve been dreading introducing Ben to my parents. I’m never sure what to expect from Mom, and Dad is always an ass. Please don’t scare him off, I silently plead.

  “Leland,” my dad says, shaking his hand quickly. “This is Quinn’s mother, Patricia.” Dad turns away and struts inside the house with his signature John Wayne swagger, and the proverbial stick up his ass.

  “Quinn.” Mom downs the rest of her Pinot Grigio like a champ— in one quick gulp. “We need to talk when your friend leaves.” She flashes a forced smile at Ben before traipsing inside the house after my dad.

  “Sorry about that,” I say. “I lost track of time, I guess.” Ben catches my chin between his thumb and index finger. The heat fills my cheeks.

  “No problem, it was good to finally meet them.”

  “Liar,” I say. He grins back at me. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Ben follows behind me, his strong arms wrapped securely around my waist as I lead him around the side of the house. This simple gesture may be insignificant, I bet he isn’t even thinking about it, but I have never felt safer.

  Ben leans against the side of his car with his legs slightly straddled. He hooks his thumbs through my belt loops and pulls me toward him. His warm, clean scent overwhelms me, and I press my face to his chest to capture as much of it as I can.

  “When am I going to see you again?” His finger gently tips my face to meet his. I tangle my fingers into his thick hair that curls at the nape of his neck.

  “When I get out of summer school tomorrow?” The level of stupefaction that overtakes me when he is this close is immeasurable. My face must be ten shades of red right now.

  “Quinn.” I hear my mother call. I can’t see her from the driveway, but I know she’s standing with her arms crossed tightly, and her foot tapping impatiently.

  “You’d better get inside,” he says. I feel so adolescent right now. Leave it to my parents to completely ruin this perfect night.

  I push my bottom lip out into my best pout and Ben leans in and bites it gently before kissing me goodbye. I have to fight the urge to skip away like a total jackhole.

  For the record, I was right— Mom is toe tapping away on the porch. Her eyes are glazed over and sleepy looking. Already.

  “What?” I say as I walk past her into the house. Crap, she looks pissed. I quickly do a mental inventory of all of my wrong doings, and what the parents could have possibly caught me doing. I haven’t missed any summer school. I haven’t broken my stupid curfew. It can’t be about the pills. There is no way Mom is lucid enough to know what she takes on any given day. Color me stumped.

  “I thought we told you, no one over if we aren’t home,” Mom says.

  That is what this is about?

  My eyebrows pinch together. “You guys were serious about that?” I ask. “What am I, ten?”

  “Rules are rules, Quinn. Although that’s not something you have a real firm grasp on here, lately.” She polishes off glass of wine number-who’s-counting.

  What kills me about my mom is how she’s completely rewritten our family’s history. In her mind, the childhoods she subjected me and my brothers to never actually happened. I guess it helps her with her guilt, but it really sucks for the rest of us. She expects us to be perfect after all we had to endure, when frankly, she’s really lucky that my brothers and I are still allowed to live under the same roof as her after the stuff she has pulled over the years—much less break her silly rules.

  Mason is doing homework at the breakfast table. He catches my eye when mom and I walk into the kitchen but his gaze quickly drops, and his mouth forms a sympathetic frown. If Mason is feeling sorry for me, I know I’m in serious trouble.

  My dad wastes no time. “What’d you do with the gas card, Quinn?”

  My brow puckers in confusion. Gas card?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, shaking my head. I really don’t have any effing clue—it isn’t an act for once.

  In response Dad dramatically slams the bill on to the counter top. I peer over at it and see an itemized account of gas charges and quick stop purchases totaling over six hundred dollars.

  I step back so I can look him in the eye. “I didn’t do that.”

  I glance over in Mason’s direction. He’s staring straight down at his World History book, but his eyes aren’t moving across the page. Faker. My parents never make him leave the room while we argue. I’m positive it’s a deliberate decision. They make sure that they keep him torn between the two sides—the parents and me.

  What Mason doesn’t remember is how I would wake up in the middle of the night to Mom screaming because he wouldn’t sleep when he was a baby. I was just a kid, but I would take Mason from her and rock him until he dozed off, or watch Mulan on repeat with him until the sun came up and I had to get ready for school. That is yet another fact that my mom has wiped from her memory. Mason looks at me with such disappointment that it tears at me. I don’t want him to think badly of me. My brothers are two people that I actually give a shit about what they think of me.

  I shrug my shoulders and give him a small smile. He looks away without reciprocating.

  “Cut the crap, Quinn,” Mom says. “Give us the card back.”

  “Am I on glue, or did I not just say— I. Don’t. Have. It.”

  My dad yanks my purse off of the coat rack and gives me one last bug-eyed warning glare before dumping the bags contents on to the pristine counter.

  “Look what kind of example you’re setting for your brother, Quinn,” Mom says. Wait, my example? What about them? Every part of me, even the tips of my ears prickle with anger.

  Dad quickly rifles through the pile, the vein above his right brow pulsates with rage. Left unsatisfied with the lip gloss, tampon and Starbursts that he finds, he moves on to thumbing through my wallet. I watch annoyed as he tosses it back onto the counter and storms out.

  “Don’t they have surveillance came
ras or something?” I call after him. I hear an angry grunt and a door slam in response. So, no?

  My mom turns to me, the hazel in her eyes swimming with alcohol. “Well, someone took it Quinn.”

  I silently wonder if my dad gave the card to the girlfriend that I know he has, and is trying to blame me to get himself off the hook. I’d never say that to my mom though. She’s far too unstable, there’s no telling what she’d do with an emotional blow like that.

  “Someone that isn’t me.” I toss my belongings back inside my small clutch. “So, just, ugh!”

  I throw my hands up in frustration. I know she has tuned me out and is currently mesmerized by the glug-glug-glug sound of her wine glass being topped off. Again.

  “Whatever,” I mutter, and race upstairs. Once inside my room, I slide my desk drawer open. My heart picks up pace as I run my hand along the splintered underside of the top drawer, until I find the two Valium I took from my mom’s stash taped to the top.

  A good ten minutes pass with me standing there, rolling the two pills in between my fingers. I sigh, and tape them back inside the drawer. If I swallow them and then pass out, I won’t be able to remember that beautiful kiss from that beautiful boy.

  This girl is like nothing I’ve known before. I’ve never seen someone command attention the way she does. It isn't even her looks that do it, although, truth be told, she is freaking gorgeous, and I've never seen an ass like that, either. But the way she talks to people, and the way she carries herself, with witty, casual confidence— it’s unbelievable.

  Still, what surprises me most about Quinn is the vulnerable side she keeps so closely hidden. The side she thinks I don't notice—but I do.

  She got into another fight with her parents tonight. I've only known her for a couple of months, but from what I can tell, the fights are a constant thing, and always have been. So here she is, passed out on my chest, her minute shorts showing off her lean, tan legs that have molded themselves to the side of my body. My arm underneath her has long fallen asleep, but I don’t give a shit. Quinn looks like she’s finally managed to capture a little peace as she sleeps, aside from the slight twitching every so often. I wonder if anyone has ever told her she does that. On second thought, I don’t want to think about anyone else watching her sleep. In the short time I’ve known her, I already feel so fiercely protective of her.

  I run my fingers through her long brown hair, the citrusy smell of her shampoo floats up in the air. God she smells amazing.

  The sound of my mom’s footsteps shuffling up the stairs interrupts my serenity. I inhale deeply and hold it, hoping against hope that she will pass right by my bedroom door. Tomorrow is the first day of school and I know my parents assume Quinn has already left for the night. Mom cracks my bedroom door and frowns at the sight of Quinn and me lying on my bed.

  "Benny." The disappointment hangs extra thick in her Southern twang. "We don't have boy-girl sleepovers." She glares at Quinn’s tiny frame that has shaped itself to me while she speaks.

  I nod in response. Mom shuts the door while shaking her head. Why can't I have the parents that don’t care once you’ve turned eighteen?

  This would never have happened back in Kentucky. Not only because I didn't know anyone like Quinn in Kentucky, but because the last girlfriend I had, Caroline, never would have been here like this. There was no chance I would have ever been kissing Caroline the way I had kissed Quinn tonight or touched her the way that I touched Quinn. My mom is happy we moved to Atlanta, but I know she'd be even happier if we could have just packed up sweet Caroline with us.

  I nudge Quinn gently. She only curls up tighter on my chest in response.

  "Quinn," I whisper.

  Her body quivers slightly, but she still isn't budging. Part of her t-shirt is folded up, exposing her tan, toned stomach. I run my calloused hand across the gorgeous muscles, and she gasps and shoots straight up. I jerk my hand back and instantly feel like an ass for waking her.

  "What the fuck?" she asks. The fragile vulnerability of her sleep fades when she speaks. She glances around the room like she doesn't immediately know where she is. "I fell asleep?" She rubs her hair roughly, tangling it in to a ratty mess. Strangely, the disarray only makes her look more sexy.

  "Yeah, it's late, you'd better get home." I trace a line along the back of her neck.

  "I don't want to go," she pouts. Her frown is adorable. I brush my thumb across her lower lip.

  "I know baby, I don't want you to go. But my mom will have a coronary if she comes back in here and you’re not gone. And your parents will be freakin’ pissed if you didn't come home."

  Quinn leans forward and starts kissing my neck, her warm mouth making silent promises. Her lips make their way to my ear.

  "They won't even notice, I promise," she whispers. I don't really believe her, but her lips are so damn convincing. Her skin is on fire against mine. I’m desperate to be close to her.

  "Oh, to hell with it.” I concede. I throw the blanket over both of us, and pull her tiny body close. She easily finds my mouth with hers in the darkness. Now that she got what she wanted, I refuse to let her go. Just as they had the first time I kissed her out on her deck, her soft lips move perfectly in-sync with mine. I only wish I had the slightest fucking clue what I’m doing. My hands fumble along her bony hips. There is barely a fraction of a centimeter separating us, but I want the space to disappear. God, I want her—like I've never wanted anything in my life. My head knows it, and my body certainly agrees.

  I want her— but shit. I can't do this right now.

  "Quinn, we can't do this." I groan against her lips.

  Since her mouth refuses to leave mine, I know she isn't taking me seriously. There’s no doubt that she’s going to make this difficult on me.

  "Quinn, baby, stop." I kiss her deeply and then force myself to pull away. She’s frowning again.

  "What's the matter?" she purrs, her voice breaking through a breathless pant. God, she’s beautiful. The mood is officially killed when I toss the blanket that covered us to the floor.

  "We just can't...." How can I say this and not sound like a complete tool?

  "Because of your parents?" she asks.

  "That's part of it," I say, with nod.

  "Oh." Her voice is flat as she jerks away from me. Her tan cheeks turn the lightest shade of pink, and I realize that she thinks I’m rejecting her.

  "No, Quinn, it's my parents being here, and, shit..."

  "It's fine. You’re right, I should go." She stands up and grabs her car keys off of the nightstand and is standing at my bedroom door in one quick movement.

  "I've never, crap— I've never had sex before and I just think we should maybe hold off a little while longer," I blurt out. My stomach lurches. This is a girl who is not used to being turned down.

  Quinn doesn't say a word and instead wraps her hands around the back of my neck and pulls my lips back to hers, kissing me fervently. Did she just hear what I said? Was I somehow unclear? How does she manage to make me so freaking crazy?

  She pulls back, her mouth forming a luscious smirk.

  “I think that's the sexiest thing I have ever heard."

  Do you know what the definition of “a sick joke” is? Old Webster calls it, “An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.”

  My definition: me having to work at my dad’s CPA firm as punishment for sneaking out of the house last night. Oh, and for the still unsolved mystery of the missing gas card. Which, seriously, I didn’t take. Have I mentioned how mentally incompetent I am when it comes to numbers? Sure, it's just office work, but still. Just being around all of those numbers is like having to sit through an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I don’t understand it, and it’s guaranteed to have a shitty ending. Obviously, the love of math is not an inherited trait. I knew when I was given the choice between going to therapy and working for Dad, I should have picked therapy.

  I've already been to counseling once before though. It was this lame group thera
py. My parents ordered me there after I took their Macy's card without permission… Ok, whatever, so I stole it. But I only bought a shirt I had no intention of ever wearing and then returned it the next afternoon. I even had the refund credited back to their card. Don't ask me why I do stupid shit like that because I can't explain it. Maybe I do need help, but I was a freak in therapy, too.

  Anyway, we were all forced to sit in a big circle, drinking old coffee a la AA style. The Goth girls in the group therapy sessions were too busy channeling Winona Ryder circa Beetlejuice to “share”, there was a handful of methamfetafiends, and the highlight was the wannarexics recounting their bingeing and purging of the week. Then there was me. Even the group leader laughed when I told her the reason I was there was for stealing the credit card. The entire group treated me like I wasn't fucked-up enough to hang with them.

  I didn't go back after that, so the parents changed my punishment to taking my car away. That lasted all of two days because in addition to being crazy, my mom is l-a-z-y and she didn't want to have to get up and take me to school and gym, so she handed me back the keys.

  So, lucky me, after my first day of school today, I get to go to Pops office to "work". I'm pissed I have to do it, but if my parents and I hadn’t got into another fight last night about the still absent gas card, I wouldn't have snuck out to Ben's house—and then he wouldn't have said the things he said to me, and looked at me the way he did. And AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Last night was definitely worth the punishment that it garnered.

  “Earth to Quinny,” Tessa says. She waves her hand in front of my face. I'd zoned out sitting at a stop light on our way to school.

  I blink and shake my head back and forth to clear my momentary daze before finding the accelerator.

  “Sorry, just tired I guess,” I say.

  Tessa smiles, “I can't wait to meet the reason for all these late nights. Is he as hot as Daniel? I bet he is. How is Daniel by the way?”

  I’m covered in goosebumps again at the thought of seeing Ben. I can't believe what a total spaz I am turning in to.