Last Chance to Fall

by Kelsey Kingsley

  “You wrote me a poem,” she said quietly.

  I nodded. “I did.”

  “It was beautiful.”

  I shrugged. “It was okay. I never said I was a poet.”

  Lindsey sighed, pressing one hand against her forehead. “This is why I don’t ever let my guard down, Sean. I used to do what I wanted. I was a selfish little bitch, and karma bit me in the ass with cancer.”

  I burst with a bitter laugh. “You’re comparin’ me to cancer?”

  Her mouth fell open, her eyes stood wide. “God, no! No, oh my God … No. But I have done as I was told for the past thirteen years of my life, and the first time I decide to think for myself and set a bed on fire, I found you.”

  “And?”

  She looked so utterly defeated. “And I … I’ve never been more terrified of anything in my entire life.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Being alive is supposed to be scary. It means you have somethin’ to lose.”

  “I just …” She shook her head and wiped a hand over her face. “I never got good sleep before, with Jack or when I was alone. But I can sleep with you. I never took risks before, I never spoke my mind before … I didn’t do shit for myself, because I was too scared, and I just went with the flow, like a fucking robot. I was a doll to be dressed up and flaunted around, and I was fine with that because none of this shit matters in the end anyway, but …”

  I waited and watched. Her fingers pressed together around the feckin’ poem I had jotted down the night before. Her eyes floated this way and that, and I waited. Waited until they fell on me, waited until they moved over my body, and settled on my face. And I saw there, in that sea of golden stars, hope.

  “Can I give ya a piece of advice?” I finally asked, realizing that she was too afraid, too nervous to say anything to me.

  Her eyes remained on mine, and she nodded. “Yes.”

  I stepped forward, to stand in front of her, and opened her purse without permission. I dug through, grabbed her phone, and handed it to her. “You get one life, Lindsey,” I said, quoting her from earlier in the week. “Don’t waste it on bein’ afraid of what might happen if you live it. So, make a decision, and if that decision is to go back home to your parents, so be it. But just let it be made from your heart, and not from your fear, okay?”

  She took the phone from my hands, dropped to the couch, and before she could dial any numbers, she asked, “Why are you even talking to me right now?”

  “What?”

  “I said some terrible things to you, Sean, and I don’t understand why you’d want to talk to me after that.”

  I narrowed my eyes and knelt in front of her. “Because sometimes people say things, and sometimes they’re terrible. But as crazy as it is, I love you, and you’d have to do a lot more than say some shite for me to not open the door when ya knock.”

  ❧

  I didn’t know what she was going to do. I didn’t know what the decision she would make was going to be, and the truth of it was, I wouldn’t have blamed her for running back home to her parents. They had it all figured out for her, a safety net for her to fall back into when all was lost, and they would always make sure she would be okay.

  Why would she pass that up to stay with some mattress salesman from a little town in Connecticut who she had only just met?

  “So, wait a minute, hon. Where have you been staying all week if you haven’t been at your house?” Her dad Mitch’s voice was deep and refined, and he dripped wealth through the speaker of Lindsey’s phone.

  “It’s not my house, Daddy; it’s Jack’s,” she gently reminded him.

  I still wasn’t entirely sure where I stood in this equation. I didn’t know my place in the conversation, or if I even had one. So, I sat on the other side of the living room, bare-chested and in my pajama pants, elbows on my knees. I stared at the phone in the palm of Lindsey’s hand, but I wouldn’t look at her eyes. I didn’t want to see the galaxy within them. I didn’t know what she was feeling beyond her words, and I told myself that would make everything easier.

  “Lindsey, where are you?” Years of selling mattresses, and I had never heard someone with a voice as tired as Jillian, Lindsey’s mother. I imagined Lindsey thirty years from now, married to some hoity-toity stock broker. Someone she found safe and impossible to love. Someone who felt the need to apologize if she didn’t quite understand the ins and outs of federal tax law, someone who would have boring sex on the same day every week. I wondered if she would sound like that. Exhausted.

  “Well, all I really wanted was a mattress.” And she told them the story of us.

  She told them about that first night in the Ol’ Tavern, our conversations and the deal we had made. She told them about discovering the Polar Vortex and soy ice cream, and about meeting my brothers and the rest of my crazy and supportive family. She told them about pancakes, Jules, the trip to Jack’s house, the rehearsal dinner, and the wedding.

  I was grateful that she left out all the sex, but when she covered the phone’s receiver and whispered, “And lots and lots of fucking,” I laughed, prompting her mother to ask, “Who was that?”

  I grimaced and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  Lindsey only smiled and then said, “That’s Sean, Mom.”

  When I began to hold my breath, I have no idea, but at once my lungs felt painfully restricted and I released a long, drawn-out gust of air that seemed to hiss through my teeth. The truth was, this was the closest I had ever come to officially meeting the parents, and it was feckin’ terrifying. Even if they were states away.

  “Lindsey, are we on speakerphone?” Mitch sounded as though he were too tightly wound. If someone just plucked him once, he was likely to snap, and I was on edge.

  She looked utterly petrified. Scared. Weak. “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Sorry.”

  “That’s fine, honey. I just … I just don’t understand entirely what’s going on. You made a friend, and you’ve been staying at his place?” her mom asked.

  “Um, sort of?” Lindsey looked to me for support and I could only shrug.

  “What do you even know about this man?” Mitch spoke up, protective. “Why would you do something so … spontaneous? Did you even think about this at all before shacking up with some guy you just met?”

  “Daddy, I swear, it’s not like that.” I grimaced to myself, because it sort of had been just like that. “You don’t have to worry. It’s been—”

  “Lindsey, of course I have to worry! You’re my only daughter, my only child, and I hear about you leaving Jack, and—”

  Her expression shifted. A flash of anger. “He left me,” she growled. “He made that decision; not me.”

  “Well, let’s be honest, honey. You didn’t exactly make it easy for him to stay. His parents would tell us—”

  “Did his parents tell you that he’d been sleeping with his secretary? Because, yeah, there was that, so …” She chewed at her lower lip angrily, and I wondered if I should go over there, put my arm around her. Support her.

  “We know, honey, and that was not your fault, right, Mitchell?” Jillian stepped in, playing the peace keeper. Her father grumbled incoherently, and her mother continued, “And in any case, you’re heading back home tomorrow, right? We’ve gotten your room all ready for you, and oh! We figured you’d want to get some new clothes, so I thought sometime during the week, we could—”

  “Mom,” Lindsey said, fidgeting the gauzy black material of her dress through her hands.

  “Oh, I know, hon; we’re being ridiculous. It’s just that we’ve missed you so much, and—”

  “Mom.”

  Lindsey looked up at me, forced my eyes to stare into hers, and I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me to find that galaxy staring back. A world of hope and possibilities, no room for fear or safety.

  “What is it, Lindsey?” Jillian Molloy asked, tired and now irritated for being interrupted twice.

  “I, um … I’m not coming home,” she said, her jaw tre
mbling just a little after allowing the words to fall from her mouth.

  And with frantic urgency, I stood from the chair and crossed the room in two strides, nearly tripping over myself in the process. I shoved the coffee table away, dropped to my knees in front of her and gathered her waist in my arms. I laid my head on her lap, kissing over her covered thighs and thanking God for miracles and burnt mattresses.

  “W-what?” her mother stammered. “I don’t understand. Where are you going to stay? Lindsey, this isn’t—”

  She softly giggled, pushing her fingers into my hair. I felt the tremors of her beating heart pulse through her body. Felt the release of her tension and terror, and she said, “I’m going to stay with Sean, Mom.”

  “We know nothing about him!” her mother protested, shrill and panicked. “Do you even know anything about him?”

  Lindsey bent at the waist to kiss the back of my head, breathing me in. She turned the speaker off, and I sat back on my heels to watch her, to see her face.

  “Mom, I know it’s insane,” she said, her voice water-logged and trembling, “and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll come home. But I don’t think it hurts to give it a shot. I mean, I’m actually happy, and I—no, I know, but we could come down there soon, if you wanted. I think you’d—right, but I just—oh, hey, Daddy … yeah, I know. She sounds pissed off, but whatever … Uh, y-yeah, sure.” She took the phone away from her ear, and handed it down to me, grimacing. “My dad wants to talk to you.”

  Oh, hell. “Hello?” I answered, and Lindsey lowered herself from the couch and straddled my lap.

  “It’s Sean, right?” Her father’s voice was menacing but held a friendly edge I could settle into.

  “Yes, sir,” I responded, as she wrapped her arms around my neck. My free arm snaked around her waist, holding her tight.

  “Listen, I have no idea who you are, and I don’t like that very much.”

  “I understand,” I said, forcing the strength in my voice while my confidence flailed wildly.

  “My daughter has been through a lot in her life, and I have done everything I could to protect her and make sure she was cared for, but …” He cleared his throat. “We both know how that turned out, I guess.”

  His voice had fallen to a hushed tone of vulnerability, and I sensed that was his own confidence faltering. I was reminded of Jack and the conversation in his foyer. This was a heart-to-heart, not an attack, and my heart and soul swelled and pressed beyond my body and into hers. I had gotten to her, had broken her out of her shell, had kept her safe.

  I was her home.

  Mitch continued: “I don’t like that she’s chosen to stay with you. I don’t like that at all, and it’s going to take her mother and I some time to accept this. But … Lindsey isn’t known to be spontaneous. She’s about as calculated as I am, and she is very careful about her decisions. Honestly, I think most of the time, she only does what her mother and I want her to do, but … The fact that she trusts you, and is willing to try and make whatever the hell this is work … Well, that says something to me about you.”

  Lindsey was kissing my collarbone, up the slope of my neck, behind my ear, and my body had yet to respond while I was listening to her father’s reluctant blessing. “Ehm, thank you, sir. And for what it’s worth, I have every intention of protectin’ your daughter and makin’ sure she’s cared for, to the best of my ability.”

  “Well, I hope you do,” he said, the threat in his voice loud and clear. Then, he asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Born in Balbriggan, Ireland, but I’ve lived in River Canyon, Connecticut my whole life.”

  “Balbriggan … That’s north of Dublin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.” I looked up to Lindsey with a puzzled look, and she shrugged.

  “Have you ever been back?”

  “Ehm, yeah, a bunch of times in my teens and twenties.”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? My grandparents used to live just west of the city. I went once, when I was much, much younger. Back when they were still alive. We took a vacation to check out their old house and the places they used to go. I always meant to take my family over there, but you know, I was always too busy working. Any time I’d bring up taking off for a couple of weeks, my wife would tell me it wouldn’t set a good example for Lindsey, or that—” He let out a deep forlorn sigh. “Never mind. Anyway, would you do me a favor?”

  I blinked, suddenly shocked. “Ehm … Yes. Of course.”

  “If I gave you a list of those places, would you take my daughter to see them? It’s about time she had some experiences of her own, and seeing as you already know your way around the area, maybe you’re the guy to give them to her.”

  I held her tighter to me. “I could do that.”

  If only he knew who I had been a week ago.

  Before I met his daughter.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN |

  Happiness & Home

  She was supposed to leave, and she didn’t.

  We had pancakes and syrup to celebrate.

  “Granny Kinney’s parents hated Granda,” I told Lindsey, cutting up my pancakes. “She didn’t come from wealth or anythin’ like that, but he was Protestant and she was Catholic. That didn’t matter to my grandparents though—they were in love. But her parents despised him for it, tried to forbid her from seein’ him, and ya know what happened?”

  “What?” she asked, interested like a kid hearing the tale of Santa Claus for the first time.

  “They broke up.”

  Her face fell. “You’re joking.”

  I laughed. “Of course I’m jokin’. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” I speared a bite of pancake and a sufficient amount of syrup, and jammed them into my mouth. “And I wouldn’t be thoroughly appreciatin’ the joy of cake and sugar for breakfast. Which, by the way, really has to feckin’ stop because I’m gonna explode, and I’m afraid ya won’t want me anymore if I look like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” she groaned.

  “What? Ghostbusters?” I offered, and she shook her head. I sighed. “I have my work cut out for me.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “What happened with your grandparents?”

  I smiled. “Ah, well, after her parents told them they couldn’t see each other anymore, they took all the money they had and found a little flat in Balbriggan. A week later, they were married. Granda found himself a job in town, and it didn’t take long before Da was born.”

  “Wow,” she said, her chin propped in her hand. “It’s like a real-life fairytale. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Well, without the suicide,” I laughed.

  “How did they know so fast they were meant to be together?”

  “Remember that thing I said about home?” She bit her lip apologetically, and I groaned. “Have ya listened to anythin’ over the past week?”

  She laughed. “Yes, of course I have. But you’ve talked a lot, and I haven’t been able to retain every tiny little thing.”

  I sighed. “I’ve always believed that falling in love—true love—is finding your home. Or, ehm, a home for your soul, if ya will. Granda Kinney knew days after meeting Granny that she was the only one for him and he didn’t care where he lived, or what he had to do to make things work, because as long as she was with him, he was home. My Da uprooted himself and his entire family, includin’ a couple of infants, just so his wife could be nearer to her family. But that was all right with him, because wherever she was, he was home. Patrick’s home was Kinsey from the moment he met her, and durin’ the time he wasn’t with her, he was so feckin’ restless—homesick. And then Ryan … Jesus.”

  “What?”

  My lips curled into a smile. “Well, he had Snow livin’ with him after less than a week, and I guess I’m just now realizin’ we’re not all that different.”

  “I could have told you that,” she said, returning the smile. “Maybe you’re both equal parts Jekyl and Hyde.”

/>   I chuckled. “Yeah, ya know, maybe you’re right. But, ehm … anyway, he once told me that he knew he was in love with her when she had, ‘let him in.’ And, at the time, I had no idea what the feck that was supposed to mean, but when I think about it now, I think that’s what he meant: the home thing.”

  “The poem,” she said with a smile, and I nodded. “God, you’re such a freakin’ romantic, Romeo.”

  “You’re my home, Lindsey,” I said with enough sincerity to scare me. “And I’m lettin’ ya know right now, I might not be marryin’ ya in a week, but I will marry you one day.”

  “I know,” she said, and she reached across all those pancakes and syrup to take my hand. “I’m counting on it.”

  And I smiled, stroking the rocky hills of her knuckles with my thumb, and I felt warm. Because that’s what true love is.

  Warmth. Familiarity.

  Home.

  Home.

  a shite poem by

  Sean Kinney

  Her breath is oxygen,

  Her hair, the sun.

  In just days, she is everything.

  I’m scared—should I run?

  Her voice is music,

  Her laughter, a gift.

  After so many years,

  I’m able to live.

  She is fields, she is flowers.

  My only fear is her gone.

  She is life, she is life, she is life,

  She is home.

  EPILOGUE |

  Fields of Flowers & a Fiancée

  “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

  That was a question I had heard so many times over the past three months. And even though I hardly knew what being afraid meant anymore, it had become our thing.

  God, I could still hardly believe I was in a relationship with things.

  Like pancakes, our Sunday thing.

  Like soy ice cream, our Saturday thing.

  Like living, our always thing.