Break My Fall (Falling #2)

by Jessica Scott

  Well, this just took a turn for the worse. And by worse I mean personal.

  My hands are slick with sweat.

  Violence and mental illness and religion are not things I want to dig up and explore in some sanitized classroom. They're not theoretical abstractions in my world.

  There's silence in the classroom now and it spreads like an eighth-grade rumor.

  Professor Quinn holds up his hands, silencing the debate. "This is fundamentally the problem with all extremist movements," he says. For a little man, he's got a strong voice. Reminds me of my Uncle Richie, who was the quintessential child of the ’60s, who refused to shave his white beard or his gray ponytail long after that glorious decade of debauchery was over.

  The disparity between Professor Quinn's voice and his body isn't easy to overcome, but he's put his voice to good use by drawing all of our attention to him.

  "Anything that can motivate individuals to sacrifice themselves for the group is toying with a dangerous ideology," Parker says. "It's brainwashing."

  Everyone turns as Mr. Douglas cuts Parker off. "Show me the evidence where it’s brainwashing."

  There's violence radiating off him right now. Stress is a palpable thing. I want to interject, to stop this because I can see so clearly where this whole thing is going and it's not going to be good.

  Quinn has a reputation. He likes to start massive arguments in his class, then when things get out of control, he’s likely to throw your happy ass out of class with a quickness.

  "I'm sorry," Parker says and her voice is dripping with condescension. "But that's exactly the problem. These groups trigger something in people that make them lose their sense of self. It's completely irrational." She shifts back toward Professor Quinn. "It's like when people were protesting us leaving Iraq. It was stupid to leave soldiers there. We had no business invading, and leaving was the most rational thing this administration could have done. No boots on the ground is smart."

  Douglas leans forward, his eyes dark and flashing. Professor Quinn has shifted, folding his arms over his chest. Watching. Waiting.

  "We damn sure do have boots on the ground."

  Parker makes a noise. "We don't have any soldiers in Iraq anymore." There’s casual arrogance in her answer, and it grates on my nerves even though it’s directed at Douglas for once and not at me.

  "Really? Check your news, there, princess. We've got almost five thousand troops on the ground and more on the way." I hope Professor Quinn can't see his fists bunched in his lap. "We continue to be and have never stopped being at war," he says quietly. "And violence is the only way to deal with some people."

  "Violence is never the solution to problems," Parker says. "We need to figure out what ISIS is really after and negotiate."

  He tenses then. His fists are tight beneath his desk, his knuckles are white against his skin. "They have told us what they are after. Your refusal to believe them is your problem, not theirs."

  "That's not true," Parker said. "These people only want jobs and normal lives like the rest of us."

  "That's a stupid and naïve way to look at the world," he says and his tone is ugly and hard.

  I can't look away from the tension radiating off him. This is not anger at a debate gone wrong.

  This is personal.

  And I have a burning need to know why.

  Chapter 5

  Josh

  "Let’s not devolve into personal attacks," Quinn finally interrupts.

  I'm breathing hard now. My fists are tight in my lap. I can't stop. I want to shut my mouth but everything is spinning too fast, too far out of control. I need to get out. Get away. I can't do this. My advisor was wrong. So fucking wrong. I can't do this.

  Ms. Hilliard breaks through the vibrating anger in my brain. "I thought we were going to be able to discuss things? Isn't that what college is all about?"

  She draws Quinn's attention away from me, and for a moment, I sit there and just try to breathe. To yank my temper and my emotions back under control.

  I am falling. Again. Into the rage and the hate and the anger.

  "He's clearly personally involved in this," Parker says, and there is a barely concealed sneer in her words.

  “So what if he is?” My protector shakes her head. Slow and smooth and steady. She's amazing. "I don't think we should automatically discount his argument just because it doesn't mesh with what we've been taught. He's arguing for a position that's pretty foreign from the homogenous environment that we usually find ourselves in."

  I narrow my eyes and wish I didn't understand what she'd just said, but my brain has been rewired since I started school here. Words like “homogenous” and “heterogeneity” are now part of my vocabulary and I can't undo that. We couldn't just say "similarity within groups". Oh no, we have to make up big words to show how intellectually superior we are.

  I rub my hand over my face, trying to yank my thoughts back from the edge of the abyss. I ball my hands up in my lap and struggle to drag my emotions under control and pray to a God that I don't believe in that the conversation will move beyond the current impasse.

  But oh no, Parker just has to keep going.

  "Look, I appreciate diversity of opinions, but let's be honest. Arguing that violence is the solution to any problem isn't appropriate in academia. The only people who support violence are those who get hard ons from playing first person shooter games."

  She stabs me then, right in the soft spot, and there is no way she did it on purpose. But it still hurts.

  I’m about to pipe off with something deeply inappropriate but at the last minute, I yank myself back and refocus. Breathing. One. Two. Three.

  My savior next to me continues on the offense. “You’re failing to attack the argument on its merit and only attacking it based on the fact that you don’t like where it takes us.”

  Professor Quinn, apparently, has decided to pull his man card and control his class. And by that I mean me.

  “I think we’ve gotten as much out of this argument as we can. There’s value in having these differing opinions but if we shout each other down, are we really listening to each other or just waiting for our own biases to be confirmed?”

  Abby

  The sunlight hurts my eyes. It was cloudy and overcast before class started, the sky swollen and threatening rain. Now, the clouds have burned away, leaving the sky brilliant and blue.

  I slide my sunglasses on and feel him step into the light with me. "That went well," he says mildly.

  He sounds far too calm for what just happened. I saw the tension in his body during that debate. I saw his hands fisted in his lap.

  He was not calm. So why the hell is he acting like they just argued about the best flavor of coffee?

  "What…what was that?" I say. Because I can’t help myself.

  There's a tiny crease at the corner of his mouth that I've never noticed before. Just the tiniest little line that draws my attention to his ridiculously full bottom lip. It's actually the only thing soft on him.

  At least, as far as I'm aware of. And wow, talk about a stunning mental detour.

  "A purely academic debate about violence," he says mildly.

  "You were a little more wound up.” I honestly can’t say why I’m out here, talking to him. I need to go. To get away from the strength and power in those hands. “And now you’re acting all calm, cool, and collected. What gives?”

  He looks at me sharply and I feel pinned to the spot. Like I've been cornered by a caged mountain lion and I'm wearing a steak jumpsuit. “You really want to know?”

  Whenever anyone asks a question like that, it’s generally a good idea to answer no and get the hell out of Dodge.

  But, of course, I stay right there. I fold my arms over my chest. “Yeah. I do.”

  He stiffens a little. “It’s…you. You and Parker and all these professors. You sit around and wax poetic about violence and starvation and inequality while sitting on one of the wealthiest college campuses in the S
outh. Completely safe. No risk. And then people like Parker judge people like me who have to make those decisions.”

  “And live with the consequences,” I whisper.

  He hesitates. His mouth opens, then snaps closed. Like my answer surprises him as much as it does me.

  “Yeah.”

  He's watching me. I want to step closer to him but I can't. I won't.

  Because I'm not blind to the darkness in Mr. Douglas. It's there, just below the surface. Like a pot of water just before it boils.

  The tension is back, now. A slow burning anger I should be getting as far away from as I possibly can.

  "What?" I finally ask, needing something to break the spell between us.

  "Why do you care why I got angry in class? You don’t even know my name.”

  I narrow my eyes at him and open my mouth, then snap it closed, mirroring his earlier action. I didn't expect the question and I have no idea how to answer.

  Because in reality, I don’t have an answer for why I’m standing here at the moment.

  Damn it.

  My brain finally latches on to the first thing I come up with.

  "Wookie life debt. Payback for you helping me the other night."

  I try to leave then. Hoping that he’ll let me go and put all my curiosity away. For good.

  "Hey." His voice tugs at me to stop.

  I won't look at him now. Because I'm ashamed of what he'll see if he looks into my eyes.

  And I can't stand the thought of him seeing the needful loneliness that has become my constant companion since Robert ripped my heart out and left it bleeding on the cobblestone sidewalk.

  "What's your name?" His voice is low and quiet. Steady now. Almost calm.

  I turn, unable to avoid looking at him now.

  It dawns on me that no, I don't know his name.

  I stand there for a moment, hesitant. The last time this happened, I fell too far, too fast.

  This time will be different. Because I'm not going to make the same mistake twice.

  It's like standing too close to an electrical current.

  The simplicity of the question is deceptively benign.

  I'm drawn to him in a way that is unhealthy and dangerous. He's already consuming my thoughts, drawing my attention away from the matter at hand and luring me down a dark corridor where only dark thoughts and whispered need twist together.

  I hold up one hand, needing to break the spell or whatever is going on between us. My hand collides with his chest, and I am flush against the stark reminder of this man's strength and power and capability to do violence.

  Before the rational part of my brain kicks in, I brush my fingertips gently over the bruised and damaged skin above his eye.

  He goes still beneath my touch. That full bottom lip opens a little. A tiny space, but I can feel the heat of his breath on my wrist.

  His eyes are locked on mine. I'm trapped, unable to move. I'm not sure I want to. I'm furious for him but I'm frozen, burning where my fingers touch his skin.

  I cannot move. Cannot look away.

  "I'm Josh," he whispers. An answer to an unasked question.

  I swallow the sudden lump blocking my throat. "Abby."

  "Abby." He repeats my name and it sounds something like a prayer, whispered in reverence and awe.

  I lower my hand then but he catches it. His palm is rough and big, surrounding mine. "It’s nice to meet you, Abby," he says softly.

  And I say nothing. Because in his eyes I see a hint of something I am longing for.

  And it is something that terrifies me.

  Chapter 6

  Josh

  I have to stop thinking about her. I have to put her out of my mind and crawl back into the dead space where I’ve been living since I came home from the war.

  It really sucks when you're trying to crawl into a bottle because you need to stop thinking about things and can't summon the energy to get blasted. I'm tired of listening to the voice in my head, and I'm hoping to drown that little fucker.

  It keeps whispering that I’ll fuck up. That I’ll say the wrong thing and everyone can look at me and see the blood and the gore and the twisted parody of humanity that I’m pretending to be. All the memories are circling tonight because I’ve met her. Abby.

  Making me want to pretend I’m not a fucking monster. Making me want to forget everything that has come before, that’s made me into the half man I am today. All of it. Burning my skin again, searing my nose with the smell of blood and fire and the wild thrilling shame of it.

  I head to The Pint, because I don't keep alcohol in my apartment. That would make it too easy to sit in the dark and drink by myself. Drinking is only a problem when you hide it, right?

  I'm not hiding it. No, I'm about to get fucked up in public at the only place that feels even remotely like somewhere I fit. Maybe I should ask Eli for a job. I spend enough time here.

  "Ah fuck." My BFF Caleb is sitting at the bar, shooting the shit with Eli. And by BFF, I mean a guy I wouldn’t piss on if he was on fire. The last thing I want is to listen to him chest-beating about how much action he saw downrange. How the hell can Eli tolerate that guy?

  I met him here a few months back with a couple of the other vets here on campus. He's a former West Point officer, which—unfortunately—should tell you something right there. Ninety percent of the kids who come out of West Point are normal, well-adjusted adults. Like Eli. Except that Eli was the kid leading the insurgency at West Point. Not Caleb.

  No, he's one of the ones who gets high on power and authority and forgets that there are people executing the orders he gives.

  God but I hate officers like Caleb. Spineless fucks who talk about how awesome it was at war, blowing shit up. Like he gets off on the very thought of it.

  And what’s nuts is that Caleb thinks we’re actually friends.

  And there's a happy mental image that I’m about to try and drown with some alcohol. I'm not in the mood to listen to Caleb on a good day, but because I need a drink, I walk up to the bar and mumble something vaguely polite and order a beer.

  Praise Jesus, Caleb ducks away to the latrine.

  "You going to behave tonight?" Eli asks, sliding a beer in front of me.

  "I shall give it my best effort," I say with a grin that’s about as genuine as I’m feeling right now.

  He glares at me in the way that reminds me of my old first sergeant. "Think of the children. Or if nothing else, think of me having to order new bar stools if you break another one."

  Eli is a study in contradictions. He runs a bar—correction: a craft brewery—but I’m pretty sure he’s got a graduate degree from the business school here, which is one of the top business schools in the country. West Point grads tend to be clean-cut and on the tight side of uptight but he’s also sporting full sleeves of tattoos on both arms and a beard that puts the members of the local chapter of Hell’s Angels to shame.

  I snort and take a long pull off the beer. It's the perfect balm to a really odd start to the semester.

  Eli changes the channel on the TV over the bar.

  The newscaster’s face is polished and tight with too much plastic surgery. There’s a false somberness as he reports the latest news from the war.

  FOB overrun within five hours. Seven coalition forces killed in the heavy fighting over three days in the mountains near the Pakistan border.

  “Change the fucking channel.” I don’t beg. I can’t go that far. But I can’t watch this. Not tonight.

  “Hang on.”

  I don’t know Eli’s story but I know he doesn’t turn the war off. Doesn’t avoid it like I do. He watches the news incessantly.

  But then Caleb returns.

  “Hey, dude. How’s the first week of classes going?”

  See? He thinks we’re friends. And when he’s not being a deliberate tool, I have to be polite. Because he’s one of Eli’s stray veterans he keeps rounding up from the local area. And we’re supposed to stick together or some shit
.

  “Surviving. You?” I can be polite.

  “Pretty good. I’m doing an independent study with the head of the law department.” He shifts his attention to the news from Afghanistan. “Fuck man, I wish I was there right now. They wouldn’t have taken the base if I’d been in command.” He takes another pull from his beer. “We’d blow those motherfuckers to Kingdom Come. Let God sort ’em out.”

  “I’m sure you would.” I try, I really try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum.

  I don’t really succeed.

  “What. You know what it’s like, man. The fucking charge you get when you blow one of those fuckers away.”

  I take a long pull off my beer. I do know. And I do not want to fucking talk about it. "You know the Green Zone wasn't exactly fucking Fallujah, right?"

  Eli sets another beer in front of me. "Not tonight, Josh."

  "We got bombed. Every day," Caleb says mildly.

  I shrug. "Sure there were a few attacks. But for the most part, it was goddamned Disney World."

  "Disney World doesn't have incoming mortar fires, now does it?"

  I smile coldly. "From six miles away. Dude, the closest thing to tragedy at the Green Zone was the Olympic swimming pool running out of chlorine tablets."

  "What the hell is your problem?" Caleb rounds on me. “I don’t have enough PTSD or something?”

  I down the rest of my beer. "You know, I came in here to grab a beer, not listen to some prima donna officer bitch jack off to bullshit war stories."

  "Oh, come on. You know you liked it. Everyone fucking likes blowing shit up."

  I did like it. And that’s ninety percent of the fucking problem.

  I've never felt so alone when surrounded by so many people.

  I push away from the bar. "I gotta go." I slap money on the counter. "You should really clean the place up," I say to Eli. “Keep enough guys around who are as full of shit as this guy, real vets will start to stay away.”