If I Fall

by Anna Cruise

  I frowned. “Thanking you?”

  He smiled. “I got you out of the house for a night. That was no easy task. Even if this date ends up being a dead-end, you at least get to get out for some fresh air. All thanks to me.”

  I stared at him for a moment, then I realized he was kidding with me. I was so tense and so unnerved that I was missing his sense of humor.

  I finally smiled back so he would know I wasn't a complete idiot. “Thank you, Prince Charming.”

  “Just call me Case,” he said, chuckling as he pulled away from the curb.

  We stopped at a small sandwich shop and grabbed sandwiches and drinks and then headed over toward La Jolla and the Cove. He'd stashed a blanket in the bed of the pick-up and he grabbed this as we walked down to the shores.

  Being with him was easy. I didn't feel like I had to say the right thing or do the right thing or act a certain way. We ate and talked about school and music and it felt like we'd done it a hundred times. There was no pressure to be anything other than who I was with.

  “Have you heard from your mom?” he asked as we tossed our sandwich wrappers in the paper bag.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. I don't think she can actually communicate with anyone outside the facility for another week or something.”

  “It's usually a month,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  He leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs out on the blanket. “My mom. She was in, too.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Seriously. It's why we moved here. So she could kind of start over.”

  I remembered what he'd told me about his dad being in jail. Maybe I didn't have much to complain about, after all.

  “Started out as a bunch of stuff,” he said, watching the water. “Alcohol was her thing, too. But after my dad got arrested, it just got out of control. She started messing with uglier stuff. My grandparents threatened to take me away if she didn't get clean. They paid for her to go in.”

  It was remarkable how similar to me it sounded. Not the specific details, but just the rock-bottom our moms had hit.

  “When she got out, they wanted her to get as far away from her so-called friends as possible,” he continued. “My grandfather has a friend out here who owns a restaurant. He offered her a job if we wanted to come out. So we did. And so far, so good.”

  The waves crashed out beyond the shore and the birds squawked as they buzzed along the water line.

  “But it's always gonna be one day away, you know?” he said, glancing at me. “One fuck up and it's back to square one. There's like this pressure that we always feel. You try to dance around it, but you really can't. So every night, when it's time to say goodnight, I think we both breath a sigh of relief that we made it to the end of the day without her having a setback. Then it starts again the next day.”

  I hadn't really given much thought to what it was going to be like when my mom came home. I didn't even know if I'd be living with her. But I hadn't even thought about what the day to day things would be like. He was giving me a pretty clear picture of what was in store for me.

  “So when I see you hanging around with Aidan and doing who knows what,” he said, glancing at me. “It sort of freaks me out.”

  “Why?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Because I know what can happen. Because now I know your mom has issues which means you're way more likely to be susceptible to having problems. I don't want to see that happen to you.”

  “Case, you barely know me,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I know enough.”

  “Enough about what?”

  He stared at the ocean for a long moment. “Enough about you to know that I like you. Enough to know that I've been willing to watch you spend time with some asshole who isn't worth your time. Enough to know that I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Enough to beg your aunt to let me take you out.”

  “You had to beg?”

  He shrugged. “Somewhere between asking and begging.”

  I laughed and laid my hand over his. He looked down at our hands, smiled, then looked back at the water.

  “Did you mean what you just said?” I asked.

  “What? That I sorta had to beg? Yeah.”

  “No, no,” I said. I chose my words carefully. “I mean, about liking me.”

  “Oh.” He glanced down at me, then back at the water. “Yeah.”

  I felt the butterflies again. “What about Jada?” I asked.

  “Jada?” He glanced down at me, confused. “What about her?”

  “I don't know.” My free hand drifted toward the sand and I scooped up a handful. “I just thought you might be interested in her. I think she likes you, you know.”

  He chuckled. “Nah. She doesn't. We tried going out.”

  “You did?” This surprised me. “What happened?”

  “We found out that we make really good friends,” he said. “And that's it.”

  I wondered if that had been his conclusion or if Jada had felt the same way.

  “Besides,” he said. “I think she's finally coming around. On Logan.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

  Case nodded. “Dude is persistent. And he's obviously crazy about her.”

  I couldn't argue with that. Logan had been in love with Jada since forever.

  “OK, my turn to ask a question,” he said. His hand was still underneath mine and he shifted it just a little, so only our fingertips touched.

  “OK.”

  “Why are you with him?” he asked.

  He didn't have to ask anything else. I knew who he was talking about.

  I picked up another handful of sand and let the grains fall through my fingers. “I don't know that I am.”

  “You are,” he said. “Or at least you have been. Why?”

  A dog hustled down the beach in front of its owner, a tennis ball squeezed into its mouth, his ears pointed straight in the air, something that looked like a smile on his face. The owner fired another ball down the shoreline ahead of him and the dog took off like he was shot out of a cannon, dropping the ball he'd held in his mouth. The owner picked it up and followed along behind him.

  “Because that night we all went down to the bonfire,” I finally said. “That night you guys didn't want to leave me, but I was being a total bitch and said I was staying. That night I was a mess. You know? It was like everything was falling apart—everything—and he was nice to me. And, I don't know. I think I just wanted some attention. I was tired of being alone and feeling hurt all the time. And, with him, I didn't hurt anymore. And he's not a jackass all the time. He can be sweet and nice and different when we're alone.”

  He nodded, but didn't say anything for a long time. The sun had set, sinking beyond the horizon, and the sky was streaked pink and gray as night tried to take the reins.

  “When my mom first went in rehab, I was a total pain in the ass,” he said, smiling at the memory. “I quit doing schoolwork. I quit the football team. I quit, like, everything. I quit my friends, too. And I started dating this girl. For all the wrong reasons.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He kicked off his flip flops and dug his toes into the sand at the edge of the blanket. “She was an escape. She was two years older than me. Don't ask me why she liked me, I have no clue. But she did and we started hanging out. She got me a fake I.D. She lived by herself. She had this totally screwed up life where she'd been emancipated and basically did whatever the hell she wanted. So her house? Everyone just hung out there and there was always alcohol, always weed, always a ton of other crap.” He shrugged. “And it was an escape from my mom.”

  The breeze picked up off the water and his hair fluttered as it wafted over us.

  “Everything I shouldn't have been doing, I was doing,” he continued. “And then after a month of doing all this stupid crap, I sorta woke up and started wondering what the hell I was doing. When I brought it up to this girl, she just looked
at me like I was crazy and stopped talking to me. Dropped me like a rock.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “Actually, it didn't,” he said, glancing at me. “It made it easy. To step back out of it. She didn't give a crap about me. The people I was hanging out with didn't give a crap about me. It was easy to just leave it. I got out of it, cleared my head, and got my act together.”

  I wondered if that was the stage I was in, the stepping out of it. I was so confused and everything just seemed blurry, like I couldn't see anything clearly.

  “And before I end up sounding like some preachy grandpa, I will shut up now,” he said, smiling at me.

  I squeezed his hand. “No. No. It's OK. I think maybe I need to hear that stuff.”

  “I'm not some goody-goody,” he said. “But I think there's a difference between having some fun and just putting yourself in a position to totally screw up your life.”

  I nodded. “There is a difference. And I think maybe I'm starting to see it.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “Just don't let anyone take advantage of you, Meg. Don't let anyone care that little for you. Especially when there are people right in front of you who do care. Who care a whole fucking lot.”

  I leaned over and before I could think better of it, I kissed him. His lips were soft and warm, both sweet and intoxicating at the same time. His fingertips traced the side of my face, brushing at the strands of hair near my ear. My stomach flip-flopped, but in a different way than it ever had with Aidan, like it was never going to stop twisting and turning.

  Finally, he pulled back from me and leaned his forehead against mine. “I wasn't saying all that to get you to kiss me.”

  “Should I not have?”

  He smiled. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, you should have.”

  We kissed again and my stomach kept somersaulting. His lips, his hands, his skin—everything felt right. Not like in a make-me-forget kind of way, but in a just-right-for-me kind of way. I didn't hear the ocean or the birds or the people walking along the water.

  It was just me and him and I wondered why I'd been so dumb for so long.

  THIRTY SIX

  “Is tomorrow gonna be weird at school?” Case asked.

  We were standing at my front door and he was holding both of my hands. We'd stayed at the beach a little longer, doing more talking than kissing, before he pulled me off the sand and told me it was time to go. I could've stayed there all night, but he was going to keep his word to Sara and have me home by my curfew.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I don't know.”

  He nodded. “Sorta figured.”

  “I need to...” I said, searching for the words. “I'm going to need to talk to Aidan. And Jada. And, like, everyone.”

  “I know,” he said. “And, Meg? You don't owe me anything. I understand that things can get messy and that getting them untangled can get even messier. So there's no rush. I'll be here.”

  How had I missed out on realizing who Case was for so long? I felt so stupid. It was like I was seeing him for the first time, really seeing him for who he was and how he felt about me.

  I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight. Not the way Aidan would do, grinding his hips into mine, but a hug that felt warm. Safe. I wanted to stay there forever. “Thank you.”

  He let go and reached for my hands one more time, squeezed them gently. Then he released them, smiled at me and headed off down the walk toward his truck.

  Sara was sitting on the couch in the living room, reading a book, and she looked up when I came in. “Hi.”

  I shut the door behind me. “Hi.”

  She set the book in her lap. “Good night?”

  I paused, then nodded. “Yeah. Really good night.”

  She smiled. “Good.” She picked the book back up.

  I waited for her to ask me more questions but she didn't.

  “I'm not gonna get the third degree?” I finally asked.

  She smiled, then shook her head. “No. No third degree.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it's none of my business,” she said simply.

  I squinted at her. “What?”

  “None of my business, Meg.”

  “I thought everything I did was your business.”

  “Well, it is, if you're doing the wrong things,” she said. “But I don't think you were doing the wrong things.”

  “Maybe I talked him into taking me to see Aidan,” I said, leaning against the wall, folding my arms across my chest. “And maybe he just waited on me so he could bring me home and we could fool you.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “I don't think so. I don't think Case would do that.”

  “I don't know. I can be pretty persuasive.”

  “Meg,” she said, raising her eyebrows at me. “Do you want me to think the worst of you all the time?”

  My throat constricted a little. I didn't want anyone to think poorly of me, no matter how much I deserved it. “No.”

  “So why are you reverse arguing with me?”

  “I don't know. Because I expected to come home and have you ask me a million questions,” I said. “I expected you to ask me where we went and what we did and a hundred other things.”

  “Do you need me to ask those things?”

  I thought for a moment. “No, I guess not.”

  “Then maybe just let me trust you,” she said, frowning. “Let me trust you again. I told you. My goal isn't to be your jail warden. It's to help you start making some better decisions. But if I just sit here and pepper you with questions any time we aren't together, you'll resent it and nothing good's gonna happen.” She smiled at me. “You're not a bad kid, Meg. You've been handed a bad hand and you made it a little worse. But it doesn't mean you can't fix it.”

  She picked up her book again, studying the page like she was trying to figure out where she'd left off.

  I crossed the room and leaned over and hugged her.

  She seemed flustered. “What's that for?”

  “No reason,” I said, squeezing her one quick time before standing back up. “No reason at all.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink and she shook her head, but I thought I saw a small flicker of a smile.

  I went back to my room and fell on to my bed. My mind was racing. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, then realized it wasn't there because Sara had it. I momentarily thought about walking back out and asking her for it, but then thought better of it. I didn't want to ruin the night and the truth was, I didn't really miss my phone. I wasn't sure what was going to be waiting for me on there. I didn't know if Aidan had called or texted. I was pretty sure he had, but maybe he hadn't. And I wasn't sure if I really cared.

  My stomach knotted, thinking of what waited for me at school the next morning. I had no idea what I was going to walk into. Maybe it would be nothing. Maybe the confrontation with Sara had just turned Aidan off me completely. The thought didn't reduce me to tears. If anything, I felt a tiny sliver of relief. Not just because Case was interested in me. It wasn't like I needed another boyfriend lined up before I could let one go. No, it was because I was finally realizing that I didn't think I wanted to spend more time with Aidan. That writing on the wall? The writing everyone else had been able to read except me? It was suddenly crystal clear.

  I didn't worry about what I might say or do when I saw Aidan the next day. I knew where I stood, where I was headed. But I just had a feeling that Case's words—about how untangling things could be messy—were going to hold true. And that's what worried me.

  I spent the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling, dreading the morning.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  The night passed in fits and starts and I finally gave up on sleep around six in the morning. I pushed myself out of bed, took a shower, blew dry my hair, did my makeup and pulled on my favorite jeans, a Roxy T-shirt and sandals.

  I forced down a slice of toast and half a glass of orange juice. Sara grab
bed her to-go tumbler of coffee and we drove to school in silence. The sky was overcast, the marine layer almost to Clairemont and the air was heavy with moisture.

  “You OK?” she asked, as we pulled up to the drop-off area at school.

  “Fine.”

  “You're quiet.”

  “Just tired.”

  She studied me for a moment as I pulled my backpack off the floor. “Alright. Meet you here after school?”

  “Yep,” I said, pushing the door open.

  “It'll be OK, Meg,” she said as I got out. “It'll all work itself out.”

  I shut the door and leaned in the open window. “I hope so.”

  “It will,” she said. “I promise.”

  I gave her a quick wave and headed off toward my locker.

  I was loading my books in when a pair of hands on my hips made me jump.

  “Hey, good girl,” Aidan whispered in my ear. “You're alive.”

  I pulled out the book and notebook I needed for English. “Yeah.”

  “Tried calling you last night,” he said. “And texting you. You shut me out.”

  I shut the locker door. “I told you. I don't have my phone anymore.”

  “Your bitch aunt take it?”

  I turned around to face him. “Yeah. Remember? I told you that. And she's not a bitch.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “Hey, I thought maybe we could bail at lunch and head to my place for a little bit. I can call the office, get us passes. We can hang out at my house for the afternoon, then get back here before the end of school.”

  The week before, I would've said yes without even thinking about it. I would have said yes to anything he suggested.

  But now?

  “I can't,” I said.

  He frowned. “Why not?”

  “I'm already behind in my classes,” I said quickly. “And Sara's watching me like a hawk. I just don't want to screw up.”

  He leaned into my ear, his lips brushing against my skin. “I was hoping we could screw another way.”

  Again, a week earlier, I probably would've thought his words were cute, sexy, attractive. But all I could think about now was getting away from him.