How I Fly

by Anne Eliot

  I try to shake my head and come to my senses, but all I can utter is: “Um…” I glance sideways at people staring at us from the line. “We should…maybe…”

  “You saved my camera. Thank you.” He smiles, startling me to silence again because he’s so cute. Both of our eyes go to the Canon again. I nod, wondering if I should push him off me. But he sounds so darn nice…he smells so great…and if he moves maybe he’ll notice my CP.

  “Um…yeah…um…” I say again, drawing in another pine-tree whiff. (Because stuttering “um” and sniffing people is what you should say and do when random, handsome photographer guys are lying on top of you!)

  Finally, he moves to the side as a few people bring over our crutches. Before I can untwine myself from him and his camera strap enough to apologize, or at least make excuses for my classic clumsiness, he slowly pulls me up into a seated position like I’m really fragile. Then he blows a minty whisper across my too-hot cheeks while saying, “Look, I’m so embarrassed about all this. I’m so sorry.” And then, because I’m not startled enough, he adds, “I fall down a lot. Like…it’s a chronic thing for me. Falling.” He looks down at me. “It’s why I’m stuck with the crutches and the metal boot for two more weeks. Will you forgive me? Because if we’re going to be friends after this, I’m going to have to warn you that I will probably be doing this a lot.”

  *Thinks: Did he just imply that if we become friends, he will be lying on top of me a lot?*

  I blink at him and finally answer, “Did you say you fall down a lot? You?”

  “You can’t hear me?” His brow wrinkles. He quickly places the palm of his hand on my forehead and startles me more by moving my long bangs to the side. He’s now staring deeply and very awkwardly into my eyes. Before I can think, his hand’s roaming over my entire head and temples, making me blush all over again. “Did you hit your head while we were rolling? Or did my camera clock you? Never mind. Look. Don’t forgive me. The way I fall…it’s unforgivable. Do you feel like you’re going to black out? Dizzy?”

  “I…am a little,” I say, deciding that the only reason I feel dizzy is because this guy’s making my heart beat fast in ways I thought had died forever—which is good, yet feels kind of sad all at the same time.

  *Slaps face. This is good, not sad. You’re done with being sad.*

  He examines my face way up close. “Damn. I suck. Can I see if you’ve got a concussion?” He leans in even closer, still keeping his gaze intently on my eyes. “Hold up.” He fishes a pair of black-framed glasses from his front shirt pocket and shoves them in place against the bridge of his nose. They’re so hipster cute I have the urge to photograph them. Him! Us!

  “Your pupils look good. Tell me if you feel nauseous. I know all about head injuries.”

  “What? You do?”

  “Yeah.” His brown eyes cloud with what looks like regret. “Last month I gave my aunt a concussion when I tripped into her at our family reunion. It just happens. I’m up, and then I’m down. No excuse for it, except I’m always spacing out. Looking for the next best camera shot is what usually causes the accidents. Falling off my porch while trying to capture the underside of a wasp nest without getting stung is how I got my current Velcro cast. I tripped today because I was checking you out. I’m so sorry. Well, not sorry that I checked you out. And I guess not sorry how we landed.”

  I laugh, blushing all over again.

  “Look at this thing. We’re twins!” He sits back and balances on his arms so he can show off the foot that’s encased in the same kind of immobilizing brace I’ve got. Only, his move shows off that he’s very—and I mean very—well built from forearms to shoulders. All that is under his white T-shirt and blue and white flannel over-shirt seems to be flexing all at once. If he didn’t have me swooning at the camera, the glasses, and the flannel shirt, he’s also wearing very cute, tattered cargo shorts. Like a cherry on a pie, the foot that’s not in the brace is sporting one faded navy canvas sneaker. He’s literally, perfectly my-type adorable.

  Even his computer bag is rugged and worn and somehow sexy. Add in his longish, waving, and perfectly floppy hair, that smile that catches my breath every time he’s used it on me—which is a lot—plus the great tan and some careless chin stubble, and I could swear someone created this guy out of a dream I didn’t know I had. He looks like he fell out of one of those catalogs where there are snow-capped mountains in the background, and the people are all laughing and roasting marshmallows next to giant backpacks and fancy tents because they’re so cool they’re off on a National Geographic photo shoot or something.

  “So…you got stung by those wasps?” I ask, ignoring his compliment, and trying to give proper attention to his story of how he got his boot.

  He nods, sitting back down. “Twenty-six times on my face, which is why I toppled over the rail. I was hospitalized. The EMTs who showed up even shoved an EpiPen in my leg because I’d swollen up so badly I could hardly breathe.”

  “Wow. Epic. I’m happy you survived.” A small giggle escapes the back of my throat. His story’s so ridiculous that I can’t help myself.

  “Are you laughing at me?” One brow shoots up. He’s biting his lip, obviously trying not to laugh along with me.

  “Yes.” I giggle louder at his expression. “You got any selfies of how your face looked after that?”

  He holds up the camera. “I’m a photographer. Of course I do. I was planning to sue those bastard wasps, but they all died when my uncle sprayed them.”

  More laughter escapes me.

  He interrupts, that cute arched brow going up again. “Enough about my past humiliating moments. Let’s stick with this one I’ve just caused, shall we? Still dizzy? Should I call you an ambulance, get you a shot in the leg? Anywhere hurting?”

  I don’t tell him the truth, because saying, how half of my body hurts pretty much all the time, is quite the conversation killer. Instead, I smile as wide as he’s smiling. “I’m good now.” I wiggle my legs, especially the bad one to make sure it’s responding properly. “Zero damage done. And…” I meet his gaze with a very serious expression. “If you must know, I also fall down a lot. Probably way more than you.”

  He stands in one fluid move to balance on one leg while bending to grab my crutches and his before helping me up. “If this is you announcing that you’re trying to take away my status as the clumsiest person in the Ontario province, you’ve got no chance. Your stories of falling can never beat mine. Don’t even try.” This wider grin reveals two impish and adorable dimples. “I’m also not going down without a fight. Get it? Going down…ha-haa…ha?”

  I laugh at his dumb joke. “Yeah? Well me falling…is why I’ve got my own crutches for the entire summer. Your tumble off the porch is nothing if you’re out of your boot in two weeks. My last tumble broke both of my legs and actually put me into a wheelchair! So…yeah. Wasp stings are child’s play. I’m not afraid of your brand of clumsy. Say goodbye to your title, dude. There’s a new kid in town!”

  “Well.” He grins even wider. “Considering you saved my camera and it’s possible there will never be a girl more perfect for me…I’ll just ask you now.”

  “Ask me what?” I say, leaning all my weight onto my crutches.

  “Will you marry me? Have a whole pack of falling-down kids, live with me in a bubble-wrapped cottage behind a white picket fence?”

  I shake my head, laughing again. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not the first girl you’ve proposed to like this?”

  “What are you saying?” He puts a wide, tanned hand to his chest, acting all wounded and innocent. By the flash in his eyes, I know I’m right.

  “I’m saying that I’m on to you, player.”

  He pulls off his glasses and peers at me as though he’s trying to get a better look. Then he tucks them into his front pocket. I admire how his wide-set brown eyes fit perfectly within the planes of his face. His angled cheekbones are softened with a few freckles scattered here and there. I suddenly want
to examine photos of what he looked like when he was a kid, because I think he probably looked and acted very much like Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comics. I’m wondering briefly if he’s cuter with the glasses on or without, when I lock gazes with his warm brown eyes all over again. That’s when I realize he’s been staring at my face as long as I’ve been staring at his. I feel heat seep back into my cheeks.

  As though we’re sharing a secret, he leans all of his weight onto his crutches and whispers into my ear, “It’s an unfair judgment to call me a player. Everyone plays until the game turns serious. Otherwise, how would anyone ever know what they wanted? Maybe playing is the only way to…find out.”

  *Decides he’s right. Decides to play the game, too.*

  “Good point.” I shoot him a wink. “And…it’s possible I’ll marry you,” I say, nodding at the camera dangling from his neck. “If you know how to use that gorgeous thing properly, that is.”

  “Oh, I know how to use a lot of things properly.”

  His wink back to me is shameless, and his grin is suddenly layered with promises that make my already hot cheeks go twice as hot. I shake my head again and try to bluff with an eye-rolling laugh, hoping he can’t tell how my heart’s just gone pitter-pat-panic-and-oh-my. “Oh, you’re good. You’re very good,” I say in my most sarcastic tone.

  “I know.” His expression doesn’t change one bit. If anything it simply turns more shameless as his eyes drop to my lips.

  Choking back a laugh, I hold out my good hand to break his gaze. “I’m Ellen. Ellen Foster. And…would you mind handing me my hoodie…whatever your name is?”

  “Harrison.” Thankfully he tones down the smolder-flirt factor, reaches my long-forgotten hoodie with one of his crutches, and gingerly places it over my shoulders while I move my braid out of the way.

  “Harrison?” I ask, because of course his old-school name is adorable and I want to try saying it out loud.

  “Harrison Shaw. Your devoted fiancé. At your service. And might I add…you smell amazing. Is that shampoo? Perfume? Or do you simply hide flowers in your pockets all the time?”

  Even though I’ve only just met this kid, I laugh again and punch him in his shoulder while telling him to shut up as if I’ve known him a long time. He grins back at me as if he also feels like he and I are already pretty good friends.

  Despite all the disappointment from Cam not being here, I soak up this guy’s gorgeous, Harry Styles-wide smile all over again and I suddenly get that…I’m going to be okay here. Heck, maybe I’ll be okay everywhere. Okay with myself and…okay without Cam.

  I’m going to be happy.

  Harrison and I crutch to stand in the housing assignments line together. I look at the smiling faces around the room and feel my chest expanding from butterflies and so much excitement about what is going to happen this summer.

  And there it is again.

  I am happy.

  Cam

  The sun is just cracking the sky from black to dark gray. I breathe in, enjoying the morning 5k run they make us do here every day as much as I’m enjoying first colors that always slowly light the skies. It’s the last day of official classes that will end the spring semester at the Vancouver Boys Preparatory Academy. VBP, otherwise known to its more cynical residents as Very Bad Prison.

  I’ve learned from the other guys—some who’ve been here for years—that the last day, after our finals are completed, we’ll be working all afternoon and possibly into the night to clean up the classrooms and desks. Then we’ll get to scrub anything and everything else our teachers think might need cleaning before the official summer session starts.

  Which would be tomorrow, June 19, at 9 a.m.

  So much for getting any sort of summer holiday break—unless you call me leaving the campus in a locked van to attend my monthly court appearance with good old Judge Chambers a vacation, because that’s what me and a lucky few will get to do later today.

  VBP is near Vancouver. In this part of lower British Columbia, the seasons are milder than back home in Ontario. If it weren’t for the slowly changing trees and the part where the grass has finally started to need mowing, I wouldn’t have even noticed that a whole month has already passed by. This will be my sixth, almost seventh month away from home, and there’s no end in sight. I don’t even want to think about it. From the looks of things, it seems I’ll be stuck completing my senior year here as well.

  Although it’s marketed to the public as an exclusive prep school to people who can afford to pay to send their “defiant teens” here for “help,” this place is also partnered with the government of the Province of British Columbia. This means it serves double duty as a foster care home as well as a juvenile detention group home for teens who arrived here from other centers thanks to their good behavior. Thanks to my temper, my dad’s temper, and my parents’ crap joke of a marriage—and even my mom’s temper—I now know everything there is to know about the foster care system and the juvenile detention system, and every court visit I have with the good old judge, I get to unwillingly learn even more.

  Of course, it all started when I broke Ellen’s legs. But then it got worse when I stole Dad’s rental car from that hotel last November. It was a car valued at forty-five thousand dollars and belonged to a rental car company based in Vancouver. When I took that car, I did not understand the consequences I’d have to face—or that I’d have to face those consequences here in the courts of British Columbia as part of committing a crime within the province. At that time, I wasn’t thinking about consequences—I was only really thinking about going home.

  About getting to Ellen as quickly as possible.

  As we do another lap, I glance at the sky again, taking in the way the light shines on the dew dripping from the seven-foot-tall boundary fence we circle each day on our run. I wish I’d brought along my camera this morning. It’s a pain to run with, but on the cool-down walk, I’ve managed to get some cool shots of this fence. My memory card is almost full. They’ll let me take photos, but so far I haven’t been able to download or edit any of them. I’m hoping that after today’s check-in with the judge I’ll have passed the probationary period that will finally allow me computer usage. I might even be allowed some internet access.

  Finally.

  I’ve heard if that happens I will also be able to get on Facebook. Which means I can try to contact Ellen.

  My thoughts spin on that thought. Will I? Will I really try to go on her page? Email her? Message her on Facebook…creep on her Instagram to see what she’s been doing all year, or will I just leave it, the past, and her alone? Will she still be listed as “in a relationship” with Camden Campbell? Worse, will she now be with someone else? She should be. That’s what I told her to do…

  Our 5k run leader, the guy who finished first yesterday, thankfully lets us all stop for a water break just as I feel like my throat is closing and I can’t breathe.

  I’m thinking too much about the possibilities this long-awaited day could bring.

  Is it even worth contacting Ellen after what I did and what I texted her? What can she possibly think of me after hearing nothing in all this time? What does Laura think, and Patrick? They must all simply hate me.

  As I aimlessly poke the dewdrops off the fence, I go from almost crying to almost laughing out loud. I have this phobia now that if I even look at her Facebook that I would reactivate my obvious bad-luck streak.

  It’s a streak that seems to appear every single time I try to get to, or speak to, or even text Ellen Foster. The universe spoke against us more than once. I need to listen to it. If today I get the computer permission I’m hoping for, I need to consider my consequences.

  The last time I tried to get to Ellen with that rental car, I was waylaid before I ever got across the British Columbia border. I’d hoped that drive was going to be a simple, two-day road trip back home to Brights Grove. A trip that I’d envisioned would end with my arms wrapped around Ellen while my parents as well as Ellen�
�s mom could all simply face each other and talk things out. We’d apologize, forgive each other, and hopefully work things out for the better. But instead, I found myself locked up while my parents’ marriage blew up and while the car company decided to press full auto-theft charges against me.

  To make things worse, my own father had also simultaneously pressed charges because he was pissed that I’d stolen his car and his wallet while leaving him high and dry at a hotel. When he couldn’t find me on his own, the jerk had actually filed this report to the Vancouver Police stating I was an at-risk youth. They’d caught up to me by the end of the day using the Find My iPhone app. It was obvious I was only using Dad’s money for gas and food.

  I was so mad and frustrated that they wouldn’t let me go, nor would they let me call Ellen, that I filed a bunch of reports to the police of my own. Reports where I told them everything—that my dad was a horrible parent, that he’d practically kidnapped me and forced me to come to Vancouver against my will in the first place. Then I’d begged and begged not to be released into my dad’s custody because I feared mental and possible physical abuse. Those were harsh accusations, but at the time they were true.

  I begged over and over to be placed with my mom, which would have been fine with the police, but my dad wasn’t in the mood to let me near my mom. So when she finally arrived in town, he’d filed even more reports against me being allowed to be with her—at all—ever.

  Those reports stated that Mom was the abusive one, that he’d brought me all the way to Vancouver to protect me from her, and that she was also dangerous because she was enabling and supporting my bad behavior—like allowing me to get in fights and break an innocent handicapped girl’s legs.

  As much as I’d dreamed of the day my parents would start divorce proceedings, I could never have imagined the catalyst being the simple fact that I’d fallen in love with sweet, kind, amazing Ellen Foster.