Reckless Falls Kiss

by Amelia Wilde

He blinks and opens his mouth. “We ran….”

  “You ran,” I corrected him.

  His chest hitches.

  “I got caught,” I finished.

  For a second, I see the denial there, like he wants to claim it never happened, but he clamps his mouth shut and widens his eyes.

  I close mine because it’s way fucking easier to confess this old hatred without his beautifully warm brown eyes boring into me. “It was the night janitor we heard,” I start. “You told me to run, and I did. I ran after you, but you were way too fast.” I can feel my head shaking, trying to deny how much this hurts even as the story bubbles up out of me. “He caught me, Adam. Called my parents.” I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly when I hear his shocked gasp. “And the next morning, I was hauled in to the dean, and…”

  “Oh, Reg….”

  “No!” I snap my eyes open and cut off his sympathy. “It’s not that I got in trouble. I can fucking handle that, and you know it.”

  “I do.” He falls silent, waiting for me to finish.

  I take a deep breath. “You know how it was for me growing up. We weren’t poor, exactly, but things were tight. My mom tried with all her wild money-making schemes, but sending all three of us to college was out of the question.” I shrug a little, feeling the mantle of I don’t care settling around my shoulders with its familiar weight. “Maria got a full ride, of course. I mean, of course she did, she was valedictorian, taking classes at the community college when she was fifteen, for Christ’s sake. And Christina, well, it was pretty clear she was working her way towards sainthood from the very beginning. All that volunteering looks really good on paper. She was set. But me?” I shrug again, picking at a loose pebble on the shore. “I’m just me, you know? Nothing special.”

  “No…” Adam breathes, trying to reassure me, but I wave him away.

  “I’m not,” I say firmly. “I’m a B student, sometimes C’s. I’m not good at making friends. I’m closed off and weird and can go months without really opening up to anyone. It’s kind of like I’m a background character in my own life.” I sputter out a bitter laugh. “And that’s fine now, as a grown-up because I can live my life on my own terms, but back then? I didn’t stand out enough to get any sort of accolades or praise. It meant that the only way I was going to get to college was some kind of weird, outside scholarship.” I blink rapidly as Adam leans forward. “And I got one, Adam. I never told you, but the Knights of Columbus were going to cover my first year of tuition.”

  “Wow, Reg!” His eyes are shining. “That’s awesome! That’s so cool!” Then he frowns. “So wait, though, but you never actually went away to school….”

  This time my bitter laugh is much longer. “I know,” I say acidly. “Because as part of the terms, I was supposed to be some kind of youth ambassador for them, be a role model and shit.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t…”

  “Well, what kind of role model breaks into her school chapel and smashes a religious icon dating back to the founding of the school?”

  He blinks, but holds my gaze as the slow-dawning horror floods his face. “Oh, fuck…”

  I laugh again. “Instead of leaving for college, I worked all summer at Bob and Lou’s to pay back the school for the property damage. It was the only way they agreed not to press charges. I almost didn’t get my diploma.”

  “Jesus, Reg.”

  “Yeah.”

  He shakes his head. “I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, well, you ran.”

  “You should have told me.”

  I shrug. “Yeah, well…”

  He scrambles to his feet, and I gape at his suddenly furious face. “No, I’m fucking serious, Reggie! There’s no excuse. You should have fucking told me!”

  17

  Adam

  Reggie looks up at me, eyes wide, mouth open, completely shocked. I’m shocked, too. More than a little. Anger surges through my chest and courses hot through my veins, crashing over me like the water over the falls, relentless. It’s the same anger that welled up and spilled over when I found out my dad was cheating on my mom with that whore nurse. I couldn’t swallow it down then.

  I can just barely swallow it down now. I look up at the patches of sky through the trees and force myself to take in a breath, and then another.

  “This…” I shake my head. “I can’t talk about this half-naked.” I flip my shorts up from where I dropped them on the rock and try to step into them, only my legs are still a little bit weak from fucking Reggie. It wasn’t a timid orgasm I had. Even thinking about it is starting to make me hard again, but even that can’t compete with the bitter, disappointed feeling flooding my gut.

  Reggie lets out a laugh that sounds a little nervous and reaches for her capris. They’re damp, and she struggles with them a little, eyes glued to the fabric fighting against her legs.

  “Let me help you.” I reach a hand down to help her up.

  She shakes her head. “I can do it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Reg, don’t be a stubborn ass.”

  Her eyes flick back up to me, and she hesitates once more before taking my hand. The last thing on earth I want to do is to put her pants back on, but I also can’t leave this hanging between us, this bitterness that she’s been carrying like a talisman all these years. I reach down and tug them up her legs, realizing only at the last moment that she’s not wearing any panties. She never has been. When my hands meet her bare skin, I can’t help but grin at her. “You’re sly.”

  “I’m—” Her cheeks go a little pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then she steps back and folds her arms over her chest. “Are you pissed at me?”

  I run a hand through my hair. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes.” Reggie lifts her chin. “I have no idea why you think you have any right to be—”

  “You should have told me,” I repeat again, struggling to keep myself under control. Things could have been so different. So different for both of us. All she had to do was say something to me. Anything. Instead… “I could have helped.”

  Reggie opens her mouth to argue, but I see the realization dawn in her eyes. It’s a slow awakening, like the way she so gradually leaned into me at the reunion the other night.

  I can’t let the silence linger. “There was a lot I could have done. I could have—” The options would have been practically limitless. The one thing my dad was good for was handing out money. I used that against him more than once after the divorce with a sharp anger dancing behind my heart. It was never worth it, in the end, because even getting things out of him didn’t make up for the humiliating life he wrapped up in a bow for my mother and me and delivered like a bomb. “I could have done a lot. There was no reason for you to miss out on college just because of that stupid shit in the chapel.” I’d have asked my dad to pull some strings for Reggie the moment I’d known. By the time I was done with my junior year of college, I had two separate businesses running–one for t-shirts, like the kind sororities order by the thousand, and one for drop-shipped condom packages so that dudes didn’t have to go to the drugstore. Joke shit, ways to spend my dad’s money out of spite, but they made a real profit.

  Reggie would have put up a fight if I offered her help, but she’s not that good. I’d have made up a fake scholarship. I’d have made it look real. I’d have fixed this situation. I’d have—

  Reggie smiles at me, and I pretend not to see that it’s forced, that there are tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She does a slow blink that she clearly thinks I don’t notice. “It’s really not a big deal.”

  “It is.”

  “It’s not, because I don’t care about all that.” She waves her hand in the air, but the timing is all wrong. She’s lying through her teeth. “I built a new life for myself. All that’s in the past.” Her chin is inched high in the air, like if she lets it down at all she’ll burst into tears, and there’s no way she’s going to do that. “It doesn’t matter now. I have a
lot going on.”

  I want her close to me. The anger in my chest dissolves, replaced with a yearning so fucking pure I could bottle it up and sell it as cologne. “So tell me about it!” I leap across the gap between us and pull Reggie in. She can’t help herself. She might be trying to hold herself away, but it’s only a second until she gives in. I’m sorry, I try to say, giving her a squeeze. I’m fucking sorry. “I want to hear about all of it. What do you have going on?”

  She breathes in, laughing a little, and wriggles out of my grip. “I can’t talk when you’re holding me that tight.” But she doesn’t pull all the way away. “Come on, you’re soaking wet. Let’s head back.”

  I catch her hand in mine and thread my fingers through hers. I lean down to her ear. “You’re wet,” I joke, just to make her snort, which she does. Then I straighten up. “Fine. We’ll go. But you’re going to talk. Tell me what’s going on.”

  We start back down the trail, and neither of us mentions the fact that we’re holding hands. Neither of us mentions how easy it feels, how right. I don’t dare say a word about it. I feel like I could spook her at any second, and then she might run off and never come back again. Even though, I guess, that’s supposed to be my gig.

  Reggie flicks her gaze across to me, and I make a show of looking down at the trail to pick the best footholds. “Well,” she says, and her voice is carefully neutral. She used to sound this way when she wanted to tell me something really important but didn’t want me to know it was. It’s a dead giveaway. “I’m doing a triathlon.”

  I can’t help the laughter that bubbles up and rings out over the woods around us. “Oh, shit. Those are hard as hell!”

  She’s smiling. “Why are you laughing, then, if it’s so impressive?”

  “Because I tried to save you from the lake like a jackass. You were probably training. You’ve probably put months into this, right? Gone all out?”

  I glance at her. Reggie seems surprised, and her face is glowing, like this is the first time anyone’s been excited about this for her. It breaks my heart more than a little.

  “Yeah,” she says finally, admitting it. “I’ve been working really hard. I want to—” She cuts herself off, then decides to plow ahead. “I’m hoping to maybe place in my age group.”

  I squeeze her hand. “That’s fucking amazing, Reg.”

  Reggie turns to face me, stopping dead in the middle of the path. “It is amazing. Triathlons are really hard.”

  “I know!” I grin at her. “That’s what I just said. Should I say it louder?” I turn back to the path and shout. “Triathlons are really hard! Reggie is amazing!”

  She laughs out loud and yanks on my hand. “God, stop,” she says, but she can’t stop smiling. “Anyway, between my job at the Indigo and some shifts at the Country Club, plus school, I’ve been training for that nonstop.”

  We move down the path together, sunlight dappling on our shoulders. A strange pride comes over me. I can’t believe she’s doing a triathlon on top of everything else. She’s resilient as fuck. “When is it?”

  Reggie picks her way over an exposed root in the path. “When’s what?”

  “The triathlon! I want to come watch.”

  “No way.” She shakes her head. “Nobody even knows I’m doing this.” So it is the first time anyone’s been excited for her. This is her big secret, and she told me.

  “Not even your parents?”

  “No.” Reggie presses her lips into a thin line. “I’m trying to prove it to myself.”

  I’m so proud, I can hardly stand it. “Tell me when it is,” I needle her. “Tell me. I’ll keep it a secret. But I have to see this, Reg! You’re going to be so great.”

  She takes in a breath, and suddenly the air is vibrating with anticipation. “It’s tomorrow. But you don’t have to—”

  “I’ll be there!” I shout into the woods and pick up the pace. “Come on, we have to go. We have to get spaghetti. Isn’t that what you do before a big race?” I can’t keep the smile off my face. “I can’t fucking wait.”

  18

  Regina

  There’s this strange osmosis going on between us. Adam’s excitement for me is somehow flowing into me, and all at once, I find myself actually wanting to tell people what it is I’ve been up to for all these long months of training.

  It feels like there are little bubbles of champagne popping in my veins. I want to tell, but I have no idea who to tell, and maybe that’s why when I got home after stuffing my face full of pasta with Adam, I had the bad fucking idea of calling my parents.

  It’s a stupid hope, but it’s there anyway. In my mind, I picture my mother clapping proudly on the sidelines. Her awe at my tenacity, how on earth I found time to work towards this while holding down two jobs and also taking classes. The way her faded eyes would brighten up when I crossed the finish line, and how she would call my dad and my sisters to tell them how well I did.

  It’s a pretty picture that has no basis in reality at all, but I am still basking in it when I take my phone out of my running shorts.

  My parents are still ferociously old-fashioned enough to have a landline. I dial the same phone number I’d memorized as a five-year-old, and let it ring. My heart is banging around in my chest like there’s too much space for it. Like I’m hollowed out inside.

  “Quinn residence.” My mother answers the phone the exact same formal way she’d taught all three of her daughters. She is horrified at informal greetings and forever suspicious of Caller ID.

  I swallow. “Hey, Mom,” I say carefully.

  My mother always pauses for a moment, as if mentally flipping through her Rolodex of daughters before saying a name. “Regina,” she finally says, and I suppose I should feel grateful she got my name right on the first try. “It’s nice to hear from you.”

  Always that little note of guilt, like we should be talking every day. But she and I both know that it’s better that we don’t. “Yeah,” I say instead. “It’s been a while, but I’ve been kind of busy,” I start to say.

  But she cuts me off. “Have you talked to your sister?”

  My mouth is still hanging open. I snap it shut with a grimace. “Which one?”

  “Which one?” my mother echoes sarcastically. “The one whose grant application was accepted!”

  “Oh?” So the sister in question was Maria. “That’s good news.”

  “It’s fantastic news!” my mother crows. Then her tone changes abruptly. “You mean this is the first you’ve heard?”

  “I haven’t talked with her yet, Mom.”

  “Really, Regina?” My mom is aghast. “You knew the deadline was last month. Why didn’t you call when you knew the closing date was coming?”

  “Mom, I’ve been busy.”

  “Too busy to make a simple phone call? I cannot believe you, Regina. Honestly. Your own sister.”

  “Maria could have called me, too, you know,” I point out.

  “Do you know how busy she is?”

  “I’m busy, too.”

  “Doing what? Waiting tables?”

  My hand clenches into a claw around my phone. “I’ve been training to compete in the Harvest Triathlon. It’s tomorrow.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line, and for a second, I wonder if she’s just wandered away. If she’s really just that disinterested in her overlooked middle daughter’s life.

  “A triathlon, Mom,” I repeat.

  She finally exhales. “You mean like a marathon?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not just running,” I explain as patiently as I can. “You know what the triathlon is, Mom. They have it every year at the end of the summer.”

  “Oh, that thing that they shut down Main Street for? That’s tomorrow?” I could hear her starting to fret. “Oh, traffic is always awful when they do that. I’m going to have to reschedule my appointment with the dentist now, and I’ve been waiting to see him forever.” Her tone shifts again. “You didn’t ask about my tooth,” she accuses.
>
  The tight clenching fist inside of my chest that had been loosening by degrees suddenly has a white-knuckle grip. “Your tooth,” I say dully. “How is your tooth?”

  “Well, it’s not any better today,” she sighs. “And now it’s not going to get any better tomorrow either because of your triathlon.”

  “Mom.”

  “I suppose I should thank you for at least warning me,” she sniffs. “I’ll have to call first thing.”

  “Mom, tomorrow is Sunday. Dr. Herbert isn’t open on Sunday, is he?”

  My mother falls silent, and I wait with that ever-tightening fist squeezing the air from my lungs. I’ve told her she’s wrong. It doesn’t matter how politely or how needed it is. I am still her daughter and she’s my mother and the authority only flows in one direction. “Traffic will still be a mess on Monday,” she says stiffly. “And oh, the trash those people leave everywhere. Like they were raised in a barn. It’s terrible.”

  “Mom, I’m going to be competing in it. I’m one of those people.”

  A bright, brittle laugh, as loud and as unwelcome as Dr. Herbert’s dentist drill burrows its way into my brain. “Oh, Regina, stop it. You’re not an athlete, honey! What are you doing, really?”

  I swallow down the hot lump forming in my throat. “I wanted to see if I could do it.” And if you’d want to see me try, I restrained myself from saying. Because it’s clear by now that this phone call was a big mistake.

  “Well, you have fun with your silly little game,” my mother says, sounding bored. “And make sure you call your sister for heaven’s sake! I can’t believe you’ve let it go so long. Poor Maria!”

  “Okay, I will,” I say before hanging up without saying goodbye. My mom hates that, so I do it on purpose.

  But that small act of passive aggressive rebellion does nothing for the hollow space inside of me where the tight fist is squeezing even tighter. For a moment, I just stare at the couch as if in confusion. What is it doing there being all normal when everything inside of me feels like it’s sliding sideways?