Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  I hesitate and start second-guessing a million things.

  He frowns before shifting his gaze back to me and the ten-plus feet still separating us. “Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean that I couldn’t care less if you were here or not.” His frown deepens, then smooths with obvious effort. “I don’t know how to talk to you yet. You’re not—” he stares at me, his brows drawn together, perplexed this time rather than annoyed “—anybody else.”

  That was a vague statement, but I think I know what he means. There’s no default for how to act around him. He’s not some guy I can smile at and hope he smiles back. I’m not trying to impress or repel him, and I don’t know if I can befriend him or if that’s something I can even want. Making a joke would feel so wildly out of place, and yet I don’t want to be somber and morose either. Plus we don’t know each other, and the only shared experience we have is one that keeps us both up at night.

  I decide to take the first step, literally, and even though he watches me somewhat warily, he doesn’t tense up. I choose a section of the branch that’s close enough to the ground that the tips of my toes graze the grass when I sit.

  “What about you? Do you have a job?” I ask.

  “Over at Porter’s Grocery store, stock clerk, but mostly late at night.”

  I pluck one of the small, green leaves that seem to be dripping from above me and rub the smooth waxy surface between my thumbs. “Graveyard?”

  “If I can get it.”

  I think about that, then nod, deciding I’d probably pull for the late shift too. Fewer people. I’m reaching for another leaf when the question spills out of me. “Can I ask you something?”

  Heath reclaims his seat several feet away from me, his expression open and waiting.

  I have rubbed the leaf I’m holding nearly clear through and I look down at the green residue on my thumb. “You said your family talks a lot about C—your brother—”

  “Cal. You can say his name.”

  I don’t look up, but the even tone in Heath’s voice allows me to keep going. “You guys talk about Cal a lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it the same? Your family—are they sad but still the same, or is it like they’re different people?”

  Heath leans against the tree trunk. “Everyone tries to be the same, but it feels false a lot of the time, like they’re pretending it’s okay that he’s gone because we have all these happy memories—’cause we can only remember the good ones. But then somebody’ll slip and say the wrong thing, and it’s like he just died all over again. The only thing we have then is the anger.”

  Leaves lay abandoned in a pile on my knee. “What about your sister?” He has a much older sister; I remember seeing her in the courtroom, stoic and unflinching even during the worst parts.

  “Gwen will be angry for the rest of her life. If she found out I was talking to you, she’d come for me first, and she wouldn’t feel bad about it afterward.”

  No wonder he didn’t mention seeing me to his family.

  “And your sister?”

  “The opposite. Most of the time Laura acts like she feels nothing. She worshipped my brother, I don’t think she knows how to cope with a reality where he’s...” I still can’t say it, so Heath does it for me.

  “A convicted murderer.”

  It doesn’t sound like he’s relishing the words this time, so I nod. “The way my boss acted—we all get that reaction, but it’s hardest for Laura. She’s only fourteen, and people used to drive past her and throw things at her. My parents started homeschooling her last year after a bunch of kids rigged her locker with exploding blood bags.”

  Heath swears under his breath. “That’s sick.”

  I nod.

  After a moment, he asks, “What’d they do to you?”

  “Nothing like that,” I say, thinking of Mark being in my room while I slept. I hadn’t wanted to let anyone chase me away from school, but at the time, I’d thought it might be easier for Laura if she wasn’t the only one shifting to online school. If my going back to homeschooling has helped, she has yet to show it.

  “I actually like doing school online. I get my work done in half the time and I get to do it all in my pj’s if I want to. And it leaves me more time to skate when the rink is less busy.”

  “Do you compete or...?”

  “I used to.” I explained that skating on a truly competitive level required a full-time commitment, not just from the skater but from their family too. I found myself telling him about Stories on Ice and the audition video I no longer feel I can make.

  “Because of your brother?”

  I hesitate, then decide to tell him the truth as much as I understand it myself. “No, because of everyone he left broken.” And for the first time since Jason went away, I’m beginning to see what that brokenness looks like beyond my own family. I’m not sure I want to see any more. Looking at grass, I say, “If you felt bad for the other day or whatever, you can stop. I didn’t get fired, and I get why you were mad about the money. We can just leave it at that. You don’t have to...to...” My gaze shifts to the scarred part of the tree where Jason’s initials used to be, then back to Heath. His anger from my just mentioning my brother is still right there in front of me, simmering under the surface. “You don’t have to try.”

  Suddenly I’m so sad that I feel like I could just fall to the earth and never move again. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t personally do anything to him or that he had nothing to do with breaking down my family. It doesn’t matter what we know; it’s what we can’t help but feel. I’m still who I am, however Heath phrases it out loud, and he’s still who he is. “It’s okay,” I say.

  He shakes his head, his movement agitated. “It was easier before.”

  I frown. Nothing has been easier. He knows that better than anyone.

  “My brother is gone, and the person responsible is in prison. I don’t get to ask for more in this life. It’s the reason I can get out of bed each morning, the thing that keeps me moving each day, the reason I sleep instead of stare at darkness all night and think about his empty room down the hall from mine.” He opens his mouth and then snaps it shut. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “I didn’t sleep last night.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask, a tremor in my voice.

  His voice is calm but his hands are braced on either side of his thighs and his fingers are digging into the bark and turning his knuckles white. “Because I don’t think you slept either. Because I think you have to find a reason to get up every day and another to keep going once you do.” Heath turns his head toward me. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  But I can’t. My fingers curl tight into the fabric of my sundress as his eyes lock with mine.

  “I can’t get it back,” he says, and it’s half a whisper, half a plea. “I can’t just feel that one thing anymore.”

  I shift my weight, slowly, and then with more purpose until I’m mostly facing him on the branch. It’s not the same for us. I saw my brother a few days ago. I see him every week. I get to talk to him and hear his voice. He’s still here. And one day, my brother will come home. Heath’s won’t.

  “No one expects your family to feel sorry for mine.” My throat thickens just saying the words. “I don’t. Be mad and hard. You get that. I don’t want to take that away from you.”

  “You’re not your brother,” he says, and my eyes sting so suddenly and sharply that I have to squeeze them shut. “I’m getting that not a lot of people around here see that. I don’t want to be one of them. I think...” He waits until I’m looking at him. “I think you want that too, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  How can he know what I want? I don’t even know what I want, or what I’m allowed to want anymore, what I’m supposed to feel or what I’m supposed to do when none of it seems to matter anymore.

  “Your family didn’t hu
rt my family,” he says. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “No,” I say, “but I’m hurting you now.”

  He doesn’t deny it. Instead his gaze shifts to the road where our vehicles are parked, one behind the other. “I started driving Cal’s truck after the funeral. My mom didn’t want to sell it, so I sold mine instead. I used to feel sick just from picking up the keys. But I forced myself to drive it, to think of Cal until I could do it without wanting to run it off a cliff.” I see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. “I want to be able to think about my brother and not just the fact that he’s gone.” His gaze shifts to me. “It’s not as hard as it used to be, driving his truck. Sometimes it’s even okay. Sometimes I’ll go out and sit behind the wheel and it’s like the only place on earth where it doesn’t hurt.”

  I suck in a gulp of air, wanting to break away from his gaze but unable to. He’s trying to equate entirely different things. I’m not a good memory buried beneath bad. I may not be my brother, but time and exposure will never soften the fact that Cal is dead because of Jason. Seeing me means remembering my brother, which means remembering Cal’s murder, which means pain and rage and revulsion all corroded together.

  I believe Heath means what he says; he wants to not blame or despise me. And I believe he knows that logically he shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean his heart agrees. I know this because I feel it too.

  When I find it, my voice is a whisper. “I’m not a truck.” I wish I were, for my sake as much as his. “When you look at me like that, when I can tell that you have to force yourself to hold my gaze, all I can think is that I deserve it because of my brother. I can’t hold my head up and walk past you like I don’t make your skin crawl. It’s not just you working through your pain and maybe finding something okay on the other side—it’s my pain too. And I can’t even say that to you, because how gross is that? Trying to equate our situations—” bile starts rising in my throat “—is so wrong. I’m not allowed to feel bad in front of you. I’m not allowed to feel bad in front of anyone, but especially not you, and I don’t know how to stop.” I suck in another breath so deep that it makes me dizzy. So dizzy that I think I see him stand and move until he’s right in front of me. Close enough that I could touch him.

  Close enough that he could touch me.

  I want, for just a moment, to reach for his hand, if only to hold on to someone else’s hurt so I don’t have to feel my own.

  His face in front of me isn’t steady. He’s letting me see just how hard this is for him. But he’s not moving away.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know.”

  My eyes sting when he sits right next to me. He holds himself very still, and so do I. After a moment he exhales and I feel the tension start to ease from his body.

  “You can feel however you want in front of me, okay?” He’s not looking at me when he says it, and I’m not entirely sure he won’t surge to his feet to get away from me the second I answer him. Still watching him from the corner of my eye, I nod. “I’m not saying I’ll be okay all the time, but I promise I’ll try to remember who I’m really angry at, and it’s not you,” he says, sounding like he’s talking to himself as much as me. “It was never you.”

  * * *

  My phone is flashing when I open Daphne’s door and slide behind the wheel. When I check the screen I see a ton of missed calls from Maggie, but no messages. I try her back right away but I go straight to voice mail. Frowning, I pull my door shut and try again.

  “Hey, it’s Maggie. If you’re a recording then you can go straight to robot hell, otherwise leave me a message.”

  “It’s me,” I say, starting the car and pulling onto the road beside Heath’s truck. “Sorry I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten. I was, um—” Heath and I make eye contact as he starts his engine, and that shaky, sick feeling I felt the first time we met by this tree is as faded as my dream; in its place is something surprisingly steady and safe. Or it feels that way to me. “—driving around with my phone off and well anyway, I’m guessing that’s why you were calling. We still have time to watch a movie before my shift. I can be to your house in twenty minutes. Actually, make that thirty ’cause I still have to grab snacks. Okay. Call me back if anything’s wrong.” Still frowning, I end the call and check my phone again, but she didn’t text me either. She just called a lot. My stomach clenches as possible explanations begin dropping like stones in my gut.

  CHAPTER 18

  Maggie’s tearstained face meets mine when I enter her room armed with way too many boxes of Red Vines and enough Dr Pepper to fell a horse. I know instantly that her crying isn’t because she got tired of waiting and started the movie without me.

  “What happened? I’m so sorry I didn’t get your calls. I didn’t have my phone and—” I place the soda and candy on the nearest surface and climb onto the bed she’s sitting on cross-legged.

  She doesn’t look at me, and the stones in my stomach start tumbling faster and faster.

  “Do you remember what I said to you at your house yesterday?”

  One of the stones leaps up into my throat. “Which part?”

  “That my mom decided to drive me over so she could meet your mom? That’s not why. I just had to get out of my house so I asked her to drop me off. I left my phone at home and I haven’t looked at it in twenty-four hours because...” She sniffs, trying to smile and limply gesturing toward the phone resting on her crossed ankles. “I know I shouldn’t care, but...”

  My gaze lowers to the phone. She doesn’t stop me when I take it and look at screen.

  “You know the dragon-look video I made based on that book series I love? Well the author shared it on all her social media accounts. Her publisher too.”

  “Maggie, that’s—” Except it’s obviously not great based on her red, swollen eyes. “I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing.”

  “A lot of people saw that video.” Her voice catches. “This time it’s not just mean people from my old school commenting.”

  It’s with a different kind of dread that I start scrolling through the comments on her phone. At first I still don’t understand. People are praising Maggie’s creativity and undeniable skill, but then I start seeing a few not so nice comments mixed in among the good. And a few more. My gut sinks the more I read.

  Nice makeup, you need to fix your teeth before you make any more. Or don’t smile.

  Why are her eyes so puffy? Damn girl, you need to put some Preparation H on those things.

  You’d look prettier if you lost weight. Your neck looks like a pack of hot dogs.

  Chinese girls are so ugly. #notenoughmakeupintheworld.

  The air punches out of my lungs and I have to stop reading. Because that’s not even the worst one. I grip her phone so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in my hands.

  Memories come flooding back to me; memories from before I learned to avoid the internet because of what people said about my family and me.

  I’m not surprised. I heard they homeschooled their kids, probably taught them all kinds of sick, twisted crap. The cops need to watch his sisters.

  He needs to fry and they need to make his family watch.

  The older sister wrote all about his temper in her diary. You can tell from her handwriting that she was afraid of him. Here’s the link.

  The uncle is a felon! Of course he helped plan the murder.

  Somebody needs to set fire to that house while they’re all asleep.

  I don’t trust myself to look at Maggie, and if I keep staring at vile, hate-filled words on the screen I’ll start crying with her. I switch the phone off, wanting to hurl it through the window, but I lower it to the bed instead.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Maggie says, trying to hide a sniff. “I’m Korean, not Chinese. It’s like, get your hate right, people.”

  My eyes lift to Maggi
e’s and I don’t smile at her attempted humor, weak as it is. “You are beautiful,” I say. “And you’re talented and funny and the fact that there are people out there who can’t see that...” My chin trembles. “You are amazing. Those people—” I fiercely jab a finger toward the phone I’ve dropped on her bed, my one concession to how enraged I feel “—are nothing. Nothing.”

  She nods, but it’s the nod she’s supposed to give, not the one she actually feels. “It’s not the first time and I know it won’t be the last. People at my old school used to flood my videos with mean comments or leave notes in my locker. Every time, I tell myself I won’t care.” She lifts one hand to her face. “I want to not care but I can’t help it.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. She shouldn’t have to.

  “I do have neck rolls and my bottom teeth are crooked. Even if I lost weight, I wouldn’t lose this. My mom is microscopic and she has hot dog–neck too.” In a quiet, frighteningly unMaggie-like voice she says, “Maybe I should stop.”

  “No,” I say, not caring that my voice shakes, because it captures her attention completely. “Don’t let them get to you and make you think things about yourself that you know aren’t true. Promise me.” I lean over and wrap both my arms around my friend. “You are so good and you love this. Don’t let a few awful people take this from you.”

  That’s easier to say than to do. I still can’t escape the anonymous things people said about my family and me online.

  It’s horrible, the way words can scar.

  Maggie’s arm lifts from my back to wipe her cheek and I let her go, moving to grab a pack of tissues from her vanity and bringing them back to her. She takes them with a small smile.

  “These are blotting papers.”

  “So blot,” I tell her.

  She gets up and exchanges the blotting papers for an actual mini tissue pack from her desk drawer, holding them up to show me the difference.

  “I thought you said you could use tissues for blotting.”

  “You can.” She sits next to me again. “The papers are just better at keeping your makeup intact, but a tissue can work too. You can even use toilet paper in a pinch if you separate the ply.” She starts to demonstrate with the tissue like she’s blotting excess oil instead of drying tears, but her hands slow halfway through.