The Fall of January Cooper

by Audrey Bell

  Our last night together. Halloween. We were leaving a party. He was telling me he resented me. He was saying that he hated playing hockey with me.

  I couldn’t think much further than that. Then it became a flood of emotion and sensation, a twist of fear and regret when I let myself remember how we spun, how my leg broke. How the truck that hit us rolled over. How the medics later, in that white room, when I woke to a blinding pain in my leg, told me I’d lived because I hadn’t worn my seatbelt. How they never had said that to anyone before, but I lived because I’d been thrown from the car. And Sam died because he had worn his.

  I shivered.

  God, I wished Sam were here still.

  “What?” my father said dangerously.

  I’d said it aloud—that I wished Sam were still here—and my dad looked like he’d been punched in the gut. I hated what that did to him.

  My father wore an expression of dark anger—the only way he knew how to be sad—and my mother was doe-eyed and wounded. I cringed. “Sorry, I didn’t…”

  “I miss him, too,” my mother said quickly, kissing my temple gently. She cleared the plates and I could tell she was crying silently, from the tight spasms in her shoulders.

  My father glared at me like now look at what you’ve done.

  “Sorry, I…”

  He got up.

  “Why don’t you show January the spare room?” my father said tersely, going to my mother.

  I winced and nodded at her.

  January didn’t say anything as I walked her upstairs.

  “It gets cold in here,” I said, grabbing a quilt and putting it on the narrow bed in the tiny room. I had slept in here for a while when Sam and I decided we wanted different rooms. It didn’t last long. We ended up back together in the same, stupid twin beds that were too narrow by the time we were seniors in high school.

  “Sorry,” January said.

  “For what?”

  “For intruding. I didn’t realize there’d be a family thing. I mean, your family’s nice. Sorry to have crashed it or whatever…I mean, I know you didn’t want me here. Obviously. I’m a stranger.” She stopped talking. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll…thank you.”

  “Oh,” I shook my head. “It’s fine. You made it easier,” I said. She gave me a dubious look. “Trust me. Took me longer than usual to piss off my dad and make my mother cry.”

  She bit her lip. She took a half step forward and without thinking I took a half step back.

  Sophomore year, I’d have pushed her back onto the bed and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. I could’ve had her screaming my name.

  But it was my birthday and we were in the guest room across from my parents, and I’d made my mother cry and just about made my father cry, too.

  She was so fucking beautiful it hurt and I had no right to touch her.

  She smiled awkwardly and ran a hand through her hair. "Well, thanks."

  “Yeah,” I said stiffly.

  She sat down on the bed, undoing an elaborate bracelet on her wrist. The thing looked like it cost a fortune.

  I walked to the doorway and hesitated briefly, looking at her face warmed by the light from the lamp on the bedside table.

  In another universe, where Sam and I left the party fifteen minutes earlier or fifteen minutes later, I'd be in a different bedroom, with a different girl, maybe one not quite as pretty, but probably not as crazy either. When she stepped to me, I'd have kissed her.

  She looked up and caught me staring. "What?" she asked softly.

  "Nothing," I said, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind me. I didn’t live in that universe anymore. The last girl I remembered fucking—before Steve Gorachuck’s girlfriend—hadn’t been able to keep her hands off the hideous mess of scars on my thigh. And I didn’t tell her not to, even though it made me feel more crippled and broken than I normally did.

  I thought that I deserved to feel like that.

  January

  I woke up early. I sat up abruptly before I remembered that I’d gone home with the grouchy bartender at McSorley’s that never flirted back, no matter how hard the freshmen girls tried. And sang him happy birthday with his parents. And slept in his guest room.

  Jesus, my life was a disaster.

  I made the bed neatly, put the quilt away, and checked my phone which still told the time even if it couldn’t do anything else. 6:30 AM.

  I bet I could get away with slipping out at this hour.

  I made sure the room was immaculate and snuck downstairs. I took a breath, thinking about leaving a note.

  Dear Christian:

  Thanks so much for giving me a place to stay even though I was a total bitch to you on your birthday, fucked things up with your parents, and forced you to give me free drinks at the bar where you work.

  Sorry about that!

  January Cooper.

  P.S. When you see my father’s name on the news, I swear none of it is true! Or, even if it is true, I’m still a good person. Deep down. Like wayyyy deep down.

  I’m mean, for fuck’s sake.

  My stupid father. I could really kill him. How could you ruin so many lives? Including your own.

  If we had any money left, I would’ve flown back down to Dallas and killed him. Or at least kicked him in the shins. Though apparently I’d have to get in line to do that. My life was not the only one he had ruined.

  I knew no one thought of me as a victim. I knew that legally I wasn't victim. But of the frauds he’d perpetuated, the one that he was a good man and a good father seemed most galling.

  I didn’t leave a note. There was no good way to thank him or to explain why I had five hundred dollar shoes and a Jason Wu jacket, but nowhere to go.

  All I could do was start walking. I crept out of the house, holding my shoes, only sliding them back on my feet after I’d walked down the slope of his driveway.

  I tried to make sense of what had happened to my life. I couldn’t though. I knew it was bad, but I felt detached from it. Like I was falling. I knew once I stopped falling, I’d feel the pain of everything that had happened, but for now I was grasping at air. Trying to orient myself before I hit the ground.

  I’d found out my father was a criminal. I’d lost my apartment. And then Tyler showed up.

  For a second I had believed he was in Cambridge because he thought that I needed him. So, when he offered to buy me dinner I said yes.

  We never made it to the restaurant. He demanded to know how much I knew and whether he’d be implicated as soon as we started driving.

  And he didn’t care when I said I didn’t want to talk about. He didn’t care when I started to cry.

  “What does this mean for you legally?”

  “I have no idea,” I’d told him.

  “Well, can you find out?”

  “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? My parents won’t talk to me. I don’t have my own lawyers.”

  “January, this is serious.”

  "I'm being serious. I'm terrified. I have no money. And when people find out about this, they're going to hate me.”

  He’d laughed. He'd laughed.

  “I'll give you five hundred bucks for a blow job. That should get you through the next few days.”

  I'd opened the car door while we were still driving and he started yelling at me as he pulled over. Normally, when I get angry, I just yell. But this was a totally different kind of rage. It stopped me cold.

  I tossed my clutch at his feet when I got out of the car. I said ‘fuck you’ like I meant it and I knew he believed me for the first time.

  I suppose I should have felt lucky that I hadn’t married him.

  I'd seen his true colors.

  I knew who he was now.

  But I was too scared to feel lucky.

  I was terrified that I wouldn’t stop feeling like I was falling until I hit the ground.

  And I was pretty sure that when I hit the ground I was going to break.

  I knew
this year was not headed in the direction of a new best friend named Charlotte and a boyfriend named John or Paul and a honeymoon in Paris and the twins, Luke and Lily, and the cupcake shop.

  And I really didn’t give a fuck. It was hard to count the dreams as losses when there were so many real ones. Maybe that was the appeal of dreams. You barely felt it when they died.

  But I had lost real things too. You could put a price on a lot of it, sure. I knew the FBI certainly planned to itemize the things that I owned, price them, sell them off, and make reparations to my father’s victims. But I’d lost more than just the things they were selling.

  They would sell my horses, so I lost riding. They would sell the house I grew up in, so I’d lose my home.

  And then there were the things that only had a price to me. They were the hardest things to lose and I’d already lost them.

  My sense of self-respect. Security. The belief things would be okay. My parents. My trust in them.

  They were in so much legal trouble and they wouldn’t talk to me. It was like losing them twice. In two awful ways.

  I bit my lip, turning right onto the main road which I hoped would lead back to the bar. I couldn't remember exactly how we'd arrived here last night, but I knew the way to Harvard from McSorley’s.

  I wasn’t in any rush to get to my dorm.

  Katelyn was going to love this. I rolled my eyes and stalked towards campus. I needed to borrow someone's car, I thought vaguely. I'd have to move my stuff into our dorm room.

  I personally would have to move it. And first I had to find it. I couldn’t remember where we’d been assigned.

  And then I had to figure out a way to graduate. To pay for things. To support myself.

  People hated me before. Now they could make fun of me.

  It was going to be hell.

  I’d thrown loads of nice parties, given lots of expensive gifts, and when it came down to it, I didn’t have anyone to call who I trusted. I didn’t really believe anybody liked anything about me except for the fact that my dad had a lot of money.

  And now the only thing I ever had to offer was gone and I was screwed.

  I'd asked a bartender for help. A gorgeous, disinterested bartender who clearly thought I was a hot mess.

  Christian Cutlass practically smoldered. And he couldn't have been less interested in me.

  Very soon, he and everyone else would know my family was broke and my father was a felon. And he was a stranger. I’d asked a stranger for help when I needed it most.

  Christian

  I knew January wouldn’t stick around long in the morning.

  I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator. I drank from the carton as I walked to the hallway. Her shoes were gone. I’d already missed her.

  "Damn," I muttered.

  My father made me jump when I walked into the kitchen.

  "Your friend really hightailed it out of here, huh?" my dad asked, folding the sports section in half.

  I looked up at him. "Yeah, guess so." I took a long sip from the carton. He watched me intently.

  God, she must have left early. It wasn't even seven o'clock.

  "Look, I know you're an adult, but don't pull that shit when you're under our roof. You understand me?"

  I wiped my mouth. "She needed a place to stay."

  "I don't want to hear it," he said. "You know how hard your birthday is for your mother. You shouldn't be bringing strange girls home anyways."

  I tapped my fingers on the counter. "She slept in the guest room."

  "How stupid do you think I am?" he asked.

  I bit my tongue to keep from snapping that he had to be pretty stupid to think I'd slept with her.

  "Huh, Christian?"

  "How stupid do I think you are? You seriously want me to answer that question?" I asked.

  He gave me a look. I took another long drink from the orange juice carton while he steamed.

  When I swallowed, he grabbed the carton out of my hand and set it on the counter, getting a little too close for comfort.

  "Cut the shit, Christian," he said. "You understand me?"

  I nodded once.

  "Do you hear me?" he barked.

  "Yes, sir," I muttered, annoyed.

  "And get a glass, for God's sakes. How many times do I have to ask you?" he snapped.

  I smiled and got a glass and poured the remains of the juice into the glass. "Waste of a glass, in my opinion," I said.

  "Yeah, well, when you're back in your apartment, you can live according to your opinion. When you're in my house and you're not paying rent—”

  "You want me to pay rent? I can pay you rent," I said.

  "I don't want you to pay rent. I want you to have a little respect."

  I nodded, finishing my juice. I walked towards the sink.

  "You got physical therapy?"

  I nodded. "Yeah."

  He nodded. I could actually feel him scrutinizing my limp as I walked over to the trash to throw away the empty carton.

  "You're limping worse than usual," he said. I could tell he was trying to say it neutrally. Kindly, even.

  Still, my neck stiffened. "It's fine," I said shortly.

  He gave me a look, shaking his head. "Does it hurt?"

  "I said it was fine," I put my glass in the dishwasher. “You want me to say it again?"

  "Don't be a smart ass."

  "My leg's fine," I said.

  "You going to see Coach Taylor?” he asked.

  "Dad."

  “Well, if it hurts…”

  “I’m not having a surgery.”

  “Fine, but you shouldn’t be in pain,” he muttered. “That’s all. You could…I mean, they can help with that.” He winced, when I shifted on it, like he could palpably sense how much it hurt.

  “It’s fine.” I turned the water on in the sink, as hot as I could, so I could focus on the scalding heat against my hands instead of my irritation and, yes, the pain in my leg. "I had good doctors," I said softly. "They said no shot. We got a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth."

  "Yeah, but—" he sounded sad.

  "It's not worth going into debt over. They're not going to say anything new," I said. "I'm fine."

  "Just think about it, Christian. I know you’re tired, but just think—”

  "Yeah, sure. I’ll think about it.”

  I could feel him watching me, as I stood at the sink.

  "Look, I'm sorry. I can tell it hurts. I’m not trying to get on your case."

  "It's fine, Dad."

  He was quiet. "I just want you to be happy."

  "I know," I said.

  He tousled my hair and I ducked and pretended to fight him off.

  When he left for his shift, I walked back upstairs to where January had slept the night before. I pushed open the door, just to make sure she was really gone. She'd left the room neater than she'd found it.

  I had a brief vision of her on the barstool, her low and throaty laugh, the fire in her eyes. And of her candlelit face, soft and glowing, when she sang. How seductive she was.

  If she'd stuck around...I caught myself. She hadn't stuck around for a reason. I closed the door on the room and my imagination. I walked away from both.

  "Did I see you leaving with that crazy blonde?" Darrin asked when I picked him up.

  I grimaced. Physical therapy had sucked worse than usual. Tanya had told me I needed to stop jogging, which I had barely been doing at all since the surgery. She'd also told me that skating might help. The thought of getting back on skates had scared the hell out of me.

  "That bad, huh?" Darrin asked.

  "No," I said. "She was fine. Slept in the spare room. Her boyfriend was yelling at her and when I told him to back off, he ditched her in the parking lot.”

  "She slept in the spare room?"

  "Ya."

  "Bullshit."

  You do one nice thing for one pretty girl and everybody wants to give you a hard time.


  Darrin guffawed.

  "What?" I demanded. "Nothing happened."

  "Oh, I bet."

  "Trust me."

  "No, thanks," he said. "So, she didn't even sleep in your room?"

  "You know I'm living with my parents right now, right?”

  Darrin laughed. He'd known my dad since we were eight. "Jesus. Did you run into Officer Cutlass at the door?"

  "They surprised me with a fucking cake," I said. "Good cake. Terrible situation."

  When Darrin stopped laughing, he grinned. "Well, did she sing to you?"

  "What?"

  "Did she sing to you?"

  "Yeah, she sang to me, Darrin. There was a cake. For my birthday. That's what people do."

  He grinned. "I don't know. Could mean something."

  "No.”

  "Well, we need to celebrate. Twenty-two." He whistled. "You can't just let that pass you by."

  I shook my head. "No, thanks, I'm good."

  "C'mon. What am I going to have to do? Get married? Will you loosen up and have some fun if I have a wedding? I'll make you my best man."

  I laughed. "Yeah, I'll loosen up when you get married, but you're single as fuck right now."

  "Yeah, that's what you think."

  He rolled down the window and shouted at some poor woman crossing the street. "Hey, sweetheart, you're gorgeous. Will you marry me?"

  "Hey,” I said. “Stop it.”

  "Come on, doll, what do you say? I love you. It'll be forever. I've got my best man ready to go and everything."

  She ignored him and kept walking. About half of the people on the block were glaring at us. I didn't blame them. I was glaring at Darrin.

  "Don't worry. I'll get someone to say yes,” he reassured me.

  "Yeah, okay," I said sarcastically.

  He smiled. "I'm serious, man. You're like a forty-five-year-old in a twenty-two-year old's body."

  Tell that to my leg, I thought grumpily. What kind of twenty-two-year old was incapable of jogging?

  "So, did you get her number?"

  "No," I said.

  "Ouch."

  I shrugged. "It wasn't like that."

  "I saw you guys talking last night."

  "It wasn't like that," I repeated.