Fall From Grace

by Michelle Gross

  “That’s great.” Mom gave him a smile. “You’ll have to introduce us,” his face paled at her words, “but, Grace, you can’t just run off into the woods like that. It’s dangerous,” Mom cautioned.

  “Mom, Noah knows his way around.”

  She sighed. “I’m sure he does.” Mom looked at him again. “Noah, would you like to come in and eat with us?”

  Something about the shine in his eyes and the hard swallow I watched slide down his throat told me he liked the idea, but he still looked hesitant. “Umm…”

  “Do you need to go ask your parents?” Mom asked about his parents again.

  He straightened quickly. “No, they won’t mind.”

  He ate with us that night. I’d never seen someone eat so much food. I smiled proudly that day, thinking his appetite was because of Mom’s cooking until he left, and Mom stood by the door watching him dart over toward the trailers.

  That night, I listened in on my parents as she told Dad about Noah. “I know how dirty a kid can get while playing outside during the summer, but Steven, he looked as if he hadn’t had a bath or a decent meal in God knows how long. And as soon as he saw me, he started fidgeting with his clothes like he was used to grown-ups commenting about how dirty they were and was self-conscious.” Mom sighed. “It bothered me.”

  “Don’t think too much of it,” Dad told her. “You’re making assumptions when he might just be that dirty from playing outside, unlike you thought.”

  Mom’s voice softened, “You’re right, I do tend to get ahead of myself.”

  I heard Dad kiss Mom’s forehead and slipped back upstairs into my room from the hallway where I was peeping outside their door.

  Only Mom hadn’t been wrong that day. Noah’s parents were far different from mine.

  2

  Grace age 6

  Noah age 7

  Girls are frustrating, I don’t understand them… But Grace isn’t so bad. She’s super girly when it comes to things like bugs and stuff, but she’s not afraid to have fun and get dirty even in the ugly dresses she wears… I guess it’s not too ugly because she’s not bad to look at and the longer we stay in the sun, the more freckles she wakes up to the next day. I like her freckles, even the gap in her teeth… Grace is pretty, I suppose… looking at her… I sort of understand why adults want to kiss and touch.

  I wish she wasn’t so nosy, though.

  I’m embarrassed and I don’t like to feel that way. I don’t want her to find out about the house I live in. The parents I was born to. The way my Dad gave Mom the drugs she wanted that slowly chipped away at her life. I don’t want her to find out how unimportant I am, not when she looks at me like I can show her anything…

  I’m not needed, perhaps I’m not loved more than a drug in this family. She doesn’t need to know that though.

  N.P.

  The next day, and the one after that, and every hour of daylight that summer, Noah came to play with me. He became my friend within a day’s time, but the extent of what we became rapidly grew with age, and even though it started out innocent, it couldn’t stay that way.

  When he came back over that next day, I was so surprised to see that his hair wasn’t brown like I had originally thought. Now that it was washed, it was blond. He wore the same clothes he did the day before, though, and I still wore dresses. Mom cooked for us every day, often scolding us for sneaking off into the hills when she told us not to. Noah behaved around Mom and Dad, always. It was when he was alone with me that he let his cheekiness show.

  Two weeks into living in our new home, I experienced a taste of what Noah’s life was like. He had been taking too long to come over, and I was so impatient and tired of waiting. Mom had made me promise not to go over to the trailers where he lived, but I couldn’t obey the rule that day, much like how I couldn’t stop myself from playing in the hills when she told me not to.

  I knew which trailer was his. I made sure to watch the evenings he ran off to his house when the sun was setting in the sky after we had played all day. Out of all of the trailers, his was the dirtiest. The once white trailer was colored with green mold on its side and trash littered the ground around it like his parents were hoarders of scraps and metals. By the time my flip-flops hit the first step on the porch, I was a little wary about testing the steps. The porch was a lost cause and barely reached the door, there was a gap of at least half a foot between the two.

  The door was open except for the screen door. I peeked inside and tapped my tiny knuckles onto the glass. I was moments from running inside when I saw the woman lying on the stained yellow sofa passed out. Her legs were spread eagle and her arms were sprawled out at her sides. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes were looking upward, completely void of life. It was the scariest thing I’d seen. Fear and worry for the woman clawed up my stomach, chest, and throat in a rush.

  There was movement inside the trailer. My eyes widened and reached for the handle; my thoughts were running back and forth between going inside to check on her or rushing back to the house to get my mom who was an adult.

  The coffee table was littered with needles, cigarettes, and pills. Was this Noah’s mom? Was she sick?

  A man stepped to the door and I recognized this man as Noah’s dad immediately. There was no mistaking the color of his hair and eyes that were so much like Noah’s. Even before I discovered his parents were addicts, his dad would have been a handsome man before his addictions prematurely aged his skin and destroyed his teeth.

  Behind him, I saw Noah go to the woman on the sofa. He hadn’t thought that I would be the one knocking on the door. He started tapping her shoulder. “Mom,” he waited. “Mom. Mom!” He sounded both worried and annoyed. “Why did you let her get this way again?” he yelled, and I thought it must be his dad he was yelling at. “Dad! Get over here and check on her. Or don’t, I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  Noah’s dad looked down at me and smiled, flashing yellowish teeth before stepping in my line of sight so that I could no longer see Noah. “You know how your mom gets when she’s resting… stop being overdramatic.”

  “She’s not—”

  “Eh, Noah didn’t tell me he had a little girlfriend.” He turned his head. “Is this where you disappear to at night?” He gave away another secret of Noah’s in that moment.

  Noah rushed to the door with wide, fearful eyes. When he saw me, he grabbed his shoes and rushed out the door. “Noah?” I whispered nervously, but he took my wrist and led me down the steps, out of the trailer park, and across the road back to my house. “Noah, is your mom okay?” I asked but I got no words from him until we were tucked away inside the treehouse.

  “Don’t go back to my house,” he told me. The look on his face scared me. I’d never seen him look so serious before, even when we first met arguing over the treehouse.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, “you were taking so long…”

  “Just promise me not to go back over there, okay?” He propped his elbow on his knee and looked at me so earnestly that I dropped my eyes. “Bad people show up at my house, it’s not safe.”

  He said things I couldn’t comprehend. “What do you mean, bad guys?” I shook my head softly. “Why would bad people go to your house?”

  “Not everyone’s parents are as put together as yours, Grace!” he snapped, then his eyes widened in realization. He spoke softly this time, “If I tell you, you can’t tell your parents.”

  My stomach knotted. “Why?”

  “Because I could get taken from my parents if anyone decided to call and report them… and even though… they’re still my parents,” he said begrudgingly.

  I grabbed his hand. “I won’t, I promise.” I was telling the truth. The thought of him going away and leaving me, I hated the thought.

  “My parents are addicts.”

  “Addicts?” I knew what the word meant. Mom often said I was addicted to popsicles. I just didn’t know what was so bad that his parents were addicted to.

  “Just leave it at tha
t, Grace,” he told me. “Pretend you don’t know, I didn’t want you to know.”

  I realized how little I really did know about life that day. I saw my friend differently. He was more than a boy, maybe a man in a boy’s suit, but that wasn’t entirely right either... Maybe somewhere in between a kid and having to grow up faster than he was supposed to.

  I did the only thing I knew to do. “Noah.” He lifted his head. “Where’s my adventure?”

  He smiled. We were once again as we’d been for the past two weeks.

  _____

  That night, with his dad’s words ringing in my ear, I sat by my window flipping through pages of a book as I watched the treehouse. Noah had gone home around eight. I had bathed and gotten ready for bed. It was a little after nine and all I could think about was how I had thought Noah had been living in the treehouse… and with his dad’s words from earlier, I waited.

  Thankfully, the moon was full that night, and the porch light didn’t reach out to the treehouse. My heart soared the moment I saw his thin form darting across the lawn. I slammed the book shut and got up. My parents were still up watching TV, which was the very reason I had told them I was going to bed earlier than I normally did so they wouldn’t come upstairs to check on me. I tiptoed across the house and slipped out the back door easily. The moment my bare feet touched the cold, wet ground, I grinned and took off sprinting toward the treehouse.

  A flashlight beamed down at me as I climbed the rope. “What are you doing?” Noah whisper-hissed at me.

  I slung my legs over and pushed him back so I could move past him. I smiled lightly and took his flashlight, pointing it at him. He sighed, shielding his eyes with his hand. “Do you sleep here every night, Noah?” I asked softly.

  He ran his hand through his matted hair. “Not every night,” he whispered with a shrug.

  “It’s kind of chilly,” I told him. “You don’t… in the winter, do you?” I feared for him if he did. When he didn’t answer, that was answer enough.

  “It’s nothing,” he grumbled. “Stop being nosy, Grace.”

  “You do things that make me worry for you,” I said, flicking his nose.

  I could barely see him as he grabbed his nose in the darkness. “I’m rethinking this friendship,” he told me.

  “Sure, sure.”

  I flopped down, pulling him down with me. “What are you doing?” he grumbled.

  I laughed. “Too bad we can’t see the stars inside the treehouse.” I placed my hands behind my head. He got comfortable next to me. We lay there in silence for several seconds as he pointed the flashlight toward the ceiling, turning the light on and off. “You won’t be lonely anymore,” I whispered in the dark space around us, trying my hardest to make the words sound as if we were older. We were there together, but why was there such a vast amount of difference between us? Why did I try so hard to make sense of things at only six-years-old?

  He made a sound in his throat. “I’m not lonely,” he muttered.

  I turned my head and smiled. “Not anymore.”

  No summer was better than this one. The nights Noah went to the treehouse, I slipped off and stayed with him. His blankets had an odor to them that I could never get used to but that didn’t matter. I didn’t even care that he was dirty and even the days when he did bathe, he rarely put on clothes that were washed. Mom took notice too, and a lot of days I wanted to ask her to wash his clothes, but the fear of something bad happening because of my meddling, I let him be. I wanted him around more than wanting him to be clean, and the fear of Mom calling the people Noah was afraid of taking him away only made my choice easier.

  I discovered so much about Noah, he didn’t fear hardly anything. He picked up bugs, frogs, and a black snake that he swore wasn’t poisonous. His favorite food was meatloaf, and Mom made it for us once a week. He liked popsicles like me, but when I discovered his love of chocolate ice cream, I started making Mom buy that for me instead so that I could share it with him.

  I cut my foot on a piece of glass while playing in the hills with him, and he had carried me on his back all the way down. I could still remember how surprised I was that he could, his shoulders were no bigger than mine, and we were the same height. After that, he never let me go into the hills with flip-flops. Mom had scolded me too, and he stood right by her nodding and agreeing, causing her to shake her head and smile at him.

  Then school came that August. Luck was on our side that day when I stepped into my classroom and saw he was in the same class as me. Mom taught sixth through eighth so it would be few years before we had her for a teacher.

  I noticed his clothes were ones I’d never seen him wear before. His parents must have bought him new ones just like my parents did for me. I was so happy until I approached him while he was talking to two other boys. “Hey, Noah!” I beamed at him only to get a cold glare in return.

  “You know the new girl?” one of them asked him.

  “Since when do you hang out with girls?” said the other.

  “I don’t!” he yelled.

  “Hey, I’m Sara,” said someone stepping to my side seconds before I could yell at Noah. My cheeks felt like flames, and I was embarrassed. My stomach hurt with his need to ignore me.

  Sara pulled me away and I shot Noah a glare. He had the decency to look worried before he crossed his arms and gave me an arrogant smirk. “You’re new here so you don’t know that those three dweebs are jerks. They’re mean to all girls—”

  “It’s only because they like us,” another girl interrupted Sara. “Hi, I’m Tiffany.” Tiffany was shorter than both Sara and I, but Sara was the only blonde out of the three of us.

  “My name’s Grace,” I told them.

  “How do you know Noah anyway?” Tiffany asked. “He’s the biggest jerk of them all.”

  “We live in the same neighborhood,” I answered, sneaking a glance over my shoulder at him. He was laughing with the others, but he met my eyes for a fleeting moment. “I thought we were friends.”

  Sara and Tiffany laughed. “Guys suck,” Tiffany said.

  “Girls rule and boys drool,” Sara added, and they both laughed again. I quickly followed with a fake one as I turned around to see what Noah was doing.

  That evening, I drove home with Mom as she asked me how my first day was. I sat on the porch and looked toward the trailers. When the bus dropped Noah off, he didn’t even go inside his house. He started running toward my house. I slipped inside and ran out the back door. I managed to make it inside the treehouse before he did.

  When his head popped up first in the treehouse. I brought my knees to my chest and glared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him.

  “I can’t be friends with you at school, Priss,” he told me right away.

  I puffed my cheeks out. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a girl!”

  “You’re right, and you’re a boy, so I don’t want to be friends with you at all.” I stood up. “Not even when we’re not at school!”

  “You don’t mean that,” he said plainly.

  “Yes, I do.” I started going down the rope.

  He poked his head out. “But, I’m the only one that can give you an adventure.”

  I paused, looking up. “Fine, but just so you know, you’re my enemy at school.”

  “Now you’re getting it.” He watched me walk away. “Wait, where are you going?” he sounded depressed that I was leaving.

  I turned around and stuck out my tongue. “I’m too upset to play with you today. You’re lucky I need you for adventures or else—”

  “Or else?” he challenged.

  Mom opened the back door. “Come and eat you two!” She looked up at Noah. “I made brownies.”

  Noah jumped down and ran past me. I puffed my cheeks out in frustration then it turned into a smile as I followed after him.

  3

  Grace age 7

  Noah age 7

  Being around Grace is the easiest thing in the worl
d to do, pretending not to be interested in her at school is hard, especially when I know Dustin only picks on her because he thinks she’s cute. I pick on her to keep her away from my friends, and it’s become a game where we tease each other at school (mostly me teasing her) only to go home and play together.

  I like her more than I like Dustin and Mark, only I’ll never tell anyone that.

  When I visit the treehouse at night, I always secretly wait for her to come to me.

  This might be what it feels like to have someone care about me.

  I like the way Grace makes me feel sometimes, no… I just like her.

  I’m going to call her my best friend…

  I’m glad she’s my best friend.

  N.P.

  Our first school year together was spent playing the part as mortal enemies at school while rushing to play together the moment we were home. It wasn’t hard to pretend not to be his friend at school, he had a way of crawling under my skin, and he would say the meanest things in front of his friends. Which I was no different, I fell into Sara and Tiffany’s world rather easily, and it became fun to talk bad about the boys like they did us.

  I turned seven November eleventh, and it was that night I discovered Noah in the treehouse again. I checked for him every night, and that was the first night he had gone to the treehouse to sleep since the summer months. It was cold outside, too cold for him to be sleeping in a small boxed room up in a tree with no door. My parents were asleep as I slipped on my coat and boots and made my way to the treehouse. My fingers were burning by the time I climbed up the ropes, I didn’t see how Noah could handle this cold.

  I saw him huddled up in a corner. Every blanket he had was on top of him. I couldn’t even see his face. I crawled over to him. “Noah,” I whispered.

  He startled immediately at the sound of my voice. “Grace?” he sounded half asleep. “Go back, it’s too cold.”

  “No,” I told him. He pulled the blankets down from his face to look at me. “Why are you here when it’s this cold outside?”

  “Too many people at the house,” he answered. “I can’t stand being there when they’re smoking and being loud.”