Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  “I’m sorry we have to lie to our families.”

  “Yeah.” He pushes off from the tree and walks up to me, stopping maybe a foot away. “So how is this practice thing going to work?”

  That is a very good question, and I’m grateful for the subject change even though I don’t exactly have an answer.

  “Well,” I take a deep breath. “For my audition, I need to demonstrate certain skills, mostly solo stuff, but showing at least a little bit of partner work and a few lifts will give me a real advantage over some of the other people auditioning.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to send it in?”

  I look away. I haven’t explained the mental gymnastics I’ve done to get to rationalize this stage let alone the rest. “It means I’m going to film the best audition video I can.”

  After a moment, Heath says, “All right.”

  Relieved that he’s not going to press the issue, I keep talking. “Since I’ve always been a singles skater, this is going to be a lot of trial and error. I have some ideas of the kind of lifts I want to incorporate, but it’ll really come down to the ones I can do with a reasonable level of proficiency before I have to film.”

  “And you have a friend to do that with you on the ice. I can stick to grass?”

  “Right,” I say. “But Anton, my friend who actually knows how to pair skate, lives in Houston. Between college and his own skating, he doesn’t have time to drive out and rehearse with me. I need to be able to go over the parts of the routine I need him for and then pretty much film it right after. He can only give me a day, and I need to know what I’m doing before then.”

  “I guess that’s the plan then.”

  I frown at Heath, but the expression is directed at myself. “Not really, no. I have to teach us both how to do something I’ve never done before, and I basically have a month and a half to do it.”

  Heath takes a slow step toward me, holding my gaze. “Then we better get started.”

  * * *

  I decide to start easy and go with a simple half press lift. I reach for both of Heath’s hands and step into him once they are clasped in mine. I make a point of staring directly ahead at his neck while I explain what I want him to do. It’s an easy lift; in fact it’s typically the first one they teach little kids when they are learning to pair skate. The guy bends his knees and elbows while the girl locks hers, and then he powers up, keeping his elbows bent while she extends her legs apart. Easy, except, not at all.

  The actual mechanics of the lift are straightforward enough, and Heath lifts me without any obvious effort, but once he’s holding me in the air with our joined hands at his shoulders and his chin resting low against my stomach, it feels anything but simple.

  “Now what?” Heath asks, his breath warm against my belly even through the fabric of my fitted blue tank. It causes a tremor to pulse through my body that I know he can feel.

  “Now nothing. This is the lift.”

  “That’s it?” Another tremor.

  “You can turn in a circle if you feel—yeah, slow like that. That’s what we’d do if we were on the ice.”

  “Shouldn’t I be pushing you up higher? Like a barbell?” He’s already extending his arms as he speaks, lifting me above his head.

  I squeak and my elbows buckle, sending my weight crashing onto his face and then both of us tumbling to the ground.

  Heath lets out an oof as his back hits the grass and I make a similar sound when I slam into him. His hands fly to my thighs on either side of his as he lifts his head.

  “Are you okay?” Before I can answer, he swears under his breath. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I am?” I push up to a sitting position on his chest and then slide off, one hand lifting to my eyebrow and coming away wet. One glance at the tiny smear of red and my vision starts to shrink in on itself. Something warm presses hard against the cut and Heath’s steady voice begins to penetrate the darkness.

  “—you still with me? Brooke, look at me.”

  I focus on his face a few inches in front of me until the blackness begins to recede.

  “There you are.” He sits back and lets out a long exhale, his thumb still pressed against my eyebrow. “Your eyes started to roll back into your head for a second. It’s only a little cut.” He lifts his thumb. “Yeah, it’s almost stopped bleeding already. Look.”

  I feel myself start to turn the color of the grass and I squeeze my eyes shut, hanging my head between my bent knees.

  “Brooke?”

  I wave off his concern. “Just give me a minute.” I breathe deeply, in and out.

  “Is it the blood?”

  I nod. Deep breath in.

  “Even that little bit?”

  I nod again. Deep breath out.

  “Wow. I’ve never seen anyone react like that before to the sight of blood.”

  “It’s pretty much my whole family,” I say, still focused on my breathing. “One time when I was like eight, my mom cut her finger while chopping tomatoes or something and Jason and I ran into the kitchen when she cried out. He passed out midrun, ended up slicing his chin completely open, and when I slid in a second behind him, I gashed my head on the corner of the island when I went down too. My dad had to take all three of us to the emergency room for stitches.” It’s only after I finish the story that I hear the sharp breathing coming from Heath. I glance up at him. He looks ready to pass out himself.

  At first my eyes scan him for an injury I might have overlooked, but there’s nothing to indicate he’s hurt. And then I remember what I just said. The way my family freaks out around blood, relaying the story of Jason passing out from the sight of a mere cut finger. All I can do is stare at Heath with wide eyes.

  Jason always reacted poorly to the sight of blood, and yet, somehow he stayed conscious long enough to stab Cal to death. I don’t know how he could have done that, what would have overridden his mind so much to let him. Questions without answers keep me limp on the ground, but not Heath.

  Wordlessly, he gets to his feet and starts walking back to his truck.

  “Heath, wait! I didn’t mean—”

  He stops but waves his hand to cut me off without looking at me. “Look, it’s late anyway. I need to be done for the day.” He runs his hand through his hair and glances down before meeting my gaze again, and when he does he can’t hold it for more than a second or two. “I told you before that I’d try to remember I’m not angry at you. I’m trying really hard right now, and I’m not gonna feel great later about what comes out of my mouth if I stay, okay?”

  I wrap one hand around my opposite elbow and nod quickly, as though I completely understand and am not hurt at all by his needing to get away from me. I get it, I do, but my lungs still feel too tight when I breathe in. We keep trying not to hurt each other.

  But I did and he did.

  We are.

  I don’t even know how to say sorry except to let him go.

  “Yeah, I guess it is late.” I have time before my shift starts but I can see how much his composure is costing him with every second that passes. I hate leaving things like this though, especially when I can’t tell if he means he needs to leave now, or he needs to leave for good. “Will you...tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know right now. I gotta...” He gestures to his truck, and when he starts walking this time I don’t try to stop him.

  * * *

  It’s late that night, so late that it’s technically not even the same day when I get his text.

  I’ll be there tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 24

  My second practice with Heath starts a lot better than the first, mostly because we don’t talk about anything. We get the half press lift down—and by down I mean up—and with a lot of courage on my part, move on to the full press.

  “I got you,” Heath says, as we get into position.

/>   “I know.” I’m not worried he’s going to drop me; I’m worried that I’ll freak out being that high off the ground.

  Remembering our previous failed attempt, Heath chooses one of the denser patches of grass for us to practice on. It’ll still hurt if I fall, but hopefully we can avoid bloodshed this time.

  He squeezes both my hands before squatting, and then I’m up, dizzyingly up. He doesn’t pause at the halfway mark, lifting me above his head. High. Too high. My arms start to wobble as the horizon appears to toss like the waves of the ocean in my vision.

  “Don’t you break,” Heath says, stepping slightly to the left to counterbalance us. “I’ll drop you right on your ass.”

  My eyes snap down to meet his, my arms locking automatically at the threat.

  “I’m dead serious. I’m not letting you take me out again.”

  I’ve never seen it before so it takes me a second to register the teasing gleam in his eyes.

  “There you go. See? Not so bad, right?”

  Looking at his upturned face and the one-sided smile he’s giving me, I nod, but the second I glance forward, the vertigo charges back. Heath’s reflexes are fast enough to keep us from hitting the ground when I fall this time, but I still solidly bang his nose against my sternum on the way down. Both his hands rush to his face the second he unceremoniously sets me on my feet.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Heath, I’m so sorry,”

  He turns his back to me and his words are muffled. “Get away. I’m trying to tell if it’s bleeding.”

  I take a huge step back, twisting my hands in the hem of my tank at I stare at his back. “It didn’t feel like I hit you that hard this time. It’s not broken is it?”

  He turns to face me again and I can see his reddened but thankfully blood-free face. “No it’s not broken.” His eyes are watering a little, but otherwise he seems intact.

  I bite both my lips. “I really am sorry.”

  He prods his nose. “Tell me again why we’re not doing this in the water?”

  “Because I have to go straight to work from here and wet hair and ice rinks aren’t a good mix.”

  “Well then did you ever think that maybe ice-skating isn’t the best sport for someone who is afraid of blood and heights?” There’s no animosity in his tone, but I must have hit him harder than I thought for him to even semi-serious ask that question.

  “Why do you think I’ve always been a solo skater?”

  He grumbles a response that I can’t make out. “Can we stick to lower lifts for now until we can figure out the fear-of-heights thing?”

  I refrain from saying that my fear-of-heights thing isn’t something we can just “figure out,” because I’ve dealt with it my whole life, and because I’m not exactly eager to be up that high again either. A little compassion would be nice though. “Aren’t you afraid of anything?”

  I’m looking for a basic phobia like mine—fear of enclosed spaces, fear of the dark etc.—but I can tell nothing like that is on his mind as he lets his hand fall from his face.

  I feel an echo of the emotions from the first day, the trepidation and unease as he stands and walks farther under the shade of the tree. But I also feel something else, a longing that I can’t quite put my finger on.

  He moves farther away from me than I expect, as if he’s remembering our first meeting under this tree too. “That’s a question,” he says.

  “I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” He comes closer then, and after hesitating so briefly that I wouldn’t have noticed it even a week ago, he brushes my fingers with his. There’s that jolting thrill I feel whenever he touches me, but there’s more than that awareness this time. I answer with my own fingers, and he takes my hand. That’s where he keeps his gaze—our hands and not my face—when he answers.

  “Cal was on a full scholarship to U of T. Maybe you knew that.” He shrugs.

  I did know that. It was one of those details that made my brother’s crime all the more abhorrent to the people reporting it. Calvin Gaines wasn’t your run-of-the-mill college kid. He was brilliant and driven and bursting with so much potential. The world will never know what it lost was a phrase I heard repeated over and over. My heart constricts, then constricts again because I can’t think about Cal without thinking of Jason and hurting for him too. The guilt from that involuntary reaction nearly smothers me, but I can’t pull my hand from Heath’s without explaining. And I can’t explain that to Heath. I can’t even explain it to myself.

  “My whole life he was always that guy.” A smile tugs at the corner of Heath’s mouth. “My first day of high school, the teachers were all giddy when they heard my last name. Calvin Gaines’s little brother. They were thinking if I were half the genius he was then they’d be set. I don’t think it took a week for them to realize the only thing we shared was a last name. I wasn’t the academic or the athlete. Worse, in their eyes—teachers, Cal, my mom—it wasn’t because I couldn’t be, it was because I didn’t care.” He squeezes my hand then lets go, backing up a step and taking a breath. “I never cared, I don’t think, about anything. I did just enough to get by. I let Cal be the golden son because for him, he didn’t have to try. He was just that good at everything.”

  “Heath,” I say, drawing his gaze to mine. “You did more than skate by.” Even though I was a year behind him and we’d moved in different circles, I’d known who he was. And he wasn’t what he was making himself out to be. Maybe he felt that way compared to Cal, but Heath wasn’t a bad student that I know of.

  “No, actually, skating by is exactly what I did. And it was okay. Because of Cal. He was going to be the one who did great things with his life—the one who did things period.” His jaw locks, and I can tell he’s trying to direct his anger at something other than me. “I didn’t care about college so I didn’t apply. I told my mom I’d look into community college but that I wanted to work for a while and save up. And the thing of it is—” his jaw clenches harder and I sense that he can’t bring himself to meet my eyes “—the thing of it is, is that I was fine with that. No plans, no goals. I was going to work and live and die all in the same town without ever feeling like I missed a thing.”

  Was. That’s what he said. He was going to do those things.

  Heath’s gaze lifts to mine, only the anger I expect to see pulling at his features isn’t there. And I understand.

  That life that he thought he was fine with, the life without any real highs or lows, without markers or accomplishments, it’s not enough anymore. It’s not enough because his brother is gone and he can’t live his life watching a ghost from the sidelines.

  And it’s terrifying.

  “What do you care about?” I ask Heath sometime later when we’re sitting in the shade sharing a water bottle.

  “Care about how?”

  “The way I care about skating.” I nod toward the tree trunk with my chin. “Is it wood carving?” Heath has shown me photos of a few pieces he worked on with his granddad, and he’s really good. I know my dad would love to get his hands on someone with Heath’s talent. If Heath were anyone else, I’d have already introduced them.

  Heath’s throat moves as he drinks deeply before offering the water back to me. “No, that’s more about my granddad.”

  I take the water bottle. “What then?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re telling me there’s nothing that—that, I don’t know, makes you feel like you’re awake when everything else feels like a dream?”

  “Is that what ice-skating is for you?”

  I nod.

  He takes the water from my unprotesting fingers. “Must be nice.”

  It’s more than nice; it’s vital. Skating is a part of me, even if now it has to be a smaller part. It’s kind of heartbreaking to think of Heath without that. “Did you have anything before?”
/>
  “Before Cal died?” He waits for my nod. “I can’t even remember before Cal died. Does that make sense?”

  It does. “I could help you find it, you know?”

  He smiles at me, but it feels far-off somehow. “Something to make me feel awake?”

  I feel my smile trying to compensate for the lack in his. “Yeah.”

  He sighs, but it doesn’t feel heavy, more like he’s letting go of something. “I don’t feel asleep now. Up for trying one more?”

  I don’t think he means it that way, but it feels like the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. When he reaches for me, I know that I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he stays awake.

  CHAPTER 25

  Laura is sitting cross-legged on her bed and Ducky is in his cage whistling at her in a failed attempt to get her attention when I bound into her room the next morning, and I do mean bound. I have to overdo it if I’m going to have any hope of enlisting her in what I have planned for the day.

  For as much time as she spends in her room, it’s as slovenly kept as the rest of her. I shift a little so I’m not sitting directly on what looks like an old chocolate milk stain on her bedspread. There are similar stains on her clothes, both the ones she’s wearing and the few that are scattered across the floor. The drawers to her dresser are hanging half-open and there’s trash everywhere except in the wastebasket. It’s not that she was any kind of a neat freak before—she was always in too much of a hurry to do something to care if her room was a mess—but she wasn’t an open slob. Mom was too aware of her own harsh upbringing to force any of us to clean our rooms, and she never really had to with Jason and me. Laura would eventually get frustrated when she couldn’t find a favorite T-shirt and she’d beg me to help her clean her room. She’d keep things semi-neat for about a month then the mess would take over and the cycle would start again. But this... I don’t think she’s touched a thing since Jason was arrested. It doesn’t smell like she has.

  The only clean thing in the entire room—including Laura—is Ducky’s cage.