Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  And I don’t know if it’ll be the right one until Dad falls to his knees in front of her, gathering her up like a doll and Mom is only a heartbeat behind him.

  CHAPTER 43

  The first week of August is hard. Despite the truth being unveiled within my family...we’ve spent a year strangling that truth about Jason’s crime, even from ourselves. One tear-filled night doesn’t make it go away.

  Things are better with Laura though. We’ve started meeting with Pastor Hamilton, as a family and individually. Laura and I have been spending a lot of time together and talking late most every night, sometimes until dawn. Sometimes about Jason, but mostly not. There’s a lot that has gone unsaid for too long. I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to do that, to reconcile the endless love she had for our brother with the way she feels about him now. I haven’t begun to try myself.

  What I have done is skate. Laura says I’m an addict and she’s not wrong. I spend hours at the rink, as many as I can despite Jeff’s ever watchful and disapproving stare. But Maggie’s gone now—she finished her notice, and I haven’t seen her since. She hasn’t contacted me or shown up with her camera equipment in tow. It hurts to think I’ve truly lost her too. I know I could try to talk to her again, but I don’t know what I’d say. I’m not sure there’s anything I can say. I have no defense for my actions.

  Jeff’s still looking for someone to replace her, and in the meantime he’s been filling in himself—driving Bertha, not cleaning bathrooms. But I don’t even mind his presence that much, because I’ve been skating in a way I haven’t since before Jason went away.

  I work on choreography and jumps, on spins, footwork and combinations. I don’t consciously put an audition routine together, but that’s what I end up with all the same.

  When Laura asks to see what I’ve been working on, I bring her to the rink one evening when it’s not too busy and Jeff is off.

  “It’s just for fun,” I tell Laura as I finish lacing up my skates. “So don’t expect perfection here.”

  With a brisk nod Laura says, “I’m officially lowering my expectations.”

  I smile, and it feels beyond amazing to see her smile back. And then I’m on the ice where everything always feels amazing. I have to modify my routine a little to accommodate the other skaters, but I still get in some of the more impressive elements and I land my jumps so cleanly that a couple little girls clap. From there I enter into a layback spin bending my head as far back as I can while holding my free leg in an attitude position before grabbing my blade and pulling it up over my head to finish in a Biellmann spin. I didn’t stretch as much as I should have before heading onto the ice, so my back protests the extreme bend when I try to hold the spin for more than five rotations. But if Laura notices me shortchanging the spin, she doesn’t react; in fact she turns away almost as soon as I straighten.

  “Laura?” I call from the ice, before skating to her. She doesn’t face me again until I stop at the other side of the half wall.

  Her eyes are swimming when she lifts her head. “When I told you before to send in your audition I just—I thought maybe you wouldn’t be as good as you used to be.”

  My eyes dart back and forth between hers. “That’s not why I brought you here,” I say over the lump forming in my throat. “I wanted to show you that I don’t need Stories on Ice to still skate.” The lump swells. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  She nods, blinking a little too fast. “The audition deadline is in a little over a week?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You have to send one in.”

  For a second I think she’s forgotten what that could mean. If they cast me, I’ll be touring right after I graduate. Depending on the show, I could be away for six, even eight months of the year. That thought isn’t any less painful now that I know the depths of Jason’s guilt and that my family has begun the long and difficult journey of healing together. It might be more so. I know just how much Laura needs me, wants me, how much I need her.

  “That doesn’t matter anymore.” I try to catch her eye but her gaze moves back to the ice and the people skating past me, and she sucks in a breath.

  “You have to try so I won’t feel like it’s my fault that your life is over too.”

  “It is not your fault,” I say with enough power behind my voice that she starts. “Any of it.” I’ve been saying that to her nonstop since finding out she witnessed Jason’s crime—we all have—but I know she still blames herself.

  Her gaze slides back to mine. “But if you don’t audition, that will be.”

  * * *

  Saturday comes both slowly and quickly. A knock on my door wakes me in the morning, but it’s not Mom’s soft tap, it’s Dad’s loud double rap. I dash out of bed to open it, almost tripping when the sheet tangles around my ankle, and find Dad staring down at me.

  “You visiting your brother today?”

  My sleep-addled brain hasn’t fully awoken, but I force my thoughts to clear. I’ve been trying not to think about Jason and instead focus on Mom, Dad and Laura, but I always knew I’d go back today. I have to see my brother again, to look him in the eye knowing full well what he did. “I—Yes, sir.”

  Dad nods and turns back down the hall. I call after him.

  “Is Mom coming?”

  “Not this time.” That’s all he says before heading down the stairs, leaving me to turn my head and stare at their closed bedroom door at the far end of the hall.

  I dress as quickly as I can and go in pursuit of Dad and answers, but Laura is the one I find in the kitchen, and the soft whir of power tools coming from the basement tells me Dad won’t be joining us anytime soon.

  My heart starts thudding in my chest seeing Laura. She’s never in the kitchen on Saturday mornings. She knows what those are.

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask, moving slowly toward the island where Laura is sitting with a mostly untouched bowl of cereal. She jumps at the sound of my voice, kicking my pulse even higher. She can’t mean...to come visit Jason too?

  Laura reaches for her spoon like it’s some alien tool she’s never seen before. “Dad said he needed another pair of hands today.” She stirs her cereal.

  “He what?” I turn to look at the basement door. “When has Dad ever—” I break off when I turn back and see Laura staring at me.

  “She’s downstairs with him right now, so, you know, she can’t go with you today. It’s just you.”

  I join Laura at the island and look at the empty counter in front of me. “So I can see Jason alone.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Laura keeps stirring her cereal. “Is it?”

  Is it? There aren’t any more confessions to extract from him, but I’ll admit, if only to myself, that I’m relieved Mom isn’t coming. Laura isn’t looking at me when I glance at her. I’m glad her only role this morning is that of messenger and not visitor. I can’t bear the thought of having to sit by and watch Laura see him for the first time since his imprisonment, or him her.

  But the answer is no, I’m dreading this, and the thought of going alone is torturous, regardless of it being the best—and only—of my available options. I move to slide off the stool, but Laura’s hand on mine holds me in place.

  “You don’t have to go. If you don’t want to. I think—I think that was one of the reasons Dad needed help today.” So I wouldn’t have to endure Mom’s wounded reaction if I decided I was done visiting my brother, is what she means.

  I hug Laura with my free arm. “It’s okay. I need to go. I’ll, um, see you when I get home, okay?” She’s still holding my hand against the counter, and I have to exert a little pressure to slide it free. “It’ll be okay.”

  And when I push open the front door, I find Maggie sitting on Daphne’s hood, waiting for me.

  “So you don’t have to go alone,” Laura says from behind me. She gives me a small smile when I
glance at her over my shoulder, then shuts the front door.

  Maggie has her pink aviators on, the ones that used to exactly match her hair before she dyed it again. The current shade is one I hadn’t seen yet. It’s a swirl of lavender and periwinkle that makes me think of unicorns. She keeps her sunglasses lowered as I approach, her weight supported by her arms outstretched behind her on Daphne’s hood.

  “Laura called you?”

  “Well it wasn’t you.”

  My neck warms. “I didn’t know what else to say.”

  “So you say the same thing. Again. Until I hear it.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. I really messed up.”

  Maggie tilts her head down so she can peer at me over the edge of her sunglasses. “That’s it?”

  “I should have trusted you with the truth and I never should have manipulated you in order to keep it from you.”

  “You should have and you shouldn’t have.” She flicks her eyebrows up, indicating that I should keep going.

  “And these past couple weeks have been horrible for a lot of reasons—which I will tell you—and not having you to talk to made it so much worse,” I say, taking a step toward her. “I get that I deserve this, that it’s my fault, all of it, but I really miss you.”

  Maggie slides forward until she’s standing on the ground and takes off her sunglasses. “Laura, she kind of filled me in. I always thought she was a bit of a brat, you know? Barely saying anything when I tried to talk to her.” One shoulder lifts. “But she’s not so bad.”

  “She’s amazing,” I say, looking at Maggie, standing in front of my best friend because of my sister. “I can’t believe she called you.”

  “You should have called me.”

  “I know. I’m just glad you’re here. And I’ll keep saying it this time. I’m sorry.”

  “—and you love me, and you miss me, and your world means nothing without me in it.”

  I smile, feeling my heart swell.

  Maggie’s expression, close to smiling back, goes flat. “It has to be different. It can’t be us against the world anymore. I don’t want that.”

  After this past week, I know I don’t either. “I know.”

  “I’m not saying everyone without exception, but I get to decide who I want to be friends with. No more looking to you for a thumbs-up or -down, Caesar, okay?”

  “It should never have been that way,” I say past the lump in my throat. Even if Maggie forgives me, I won’t be forgetting what my selfishness cost her anytime soon. “What else?”

  “Well...”

  “Anything,” I say, meaning it.

  Maggie glances down at her feet. “As much as I’ll miss Bertha, I don’t think I can go back to working for Jeff again. I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did. Another day and I would have done something bad, end-up-on-my-permanent-record-and-affect-what-kind-of-college-I-get-into bad. I can’t risk it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you mean that’s it? That’s a big deal. I’m throwing you back to the wolves, alone. At least, I’m throwing you to one wolf, and he sucks out loud.”

  I smile at my best friend and my heart flutters when she smiles back. “I really missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  It feels like a missing piece of my heart has been given back to me when we hug. But then I make the mistake of opening my eyes and I see Daphne parked and waiting for me. Maggie feels the change in me and pulls back, turning so that we’re both staring at my car.

  “So you’re going?”

  I glance at her, unsure how much Laura told her.

  “Everything,” Maggie says. “She told me everything.”

  In a way I’m relieved. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between me and Maggie, but the old part of me, the part that’s been hiding things from her since the day we met, feels uncomfortable, exposed. And woefully unprepared for what lies ahead of me.

  Maggie takes a deep breath then moves around to the passenger door. “Then let’s go.”

  “Maggie,” I say, loving her but knowing I have to tell her no. “You can’t come with me. You’re not on the approved visitor list and—and I have to see him on my own.”

  “I’m not going in with you, dummy. I’m staying in the car so I can make sure you go in and so that I can be there, waiting for you when you come back out.” Her expression softens along with her voice. “However you come out.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Details from the prison assail me when I walk inside. Acidic disinfectant smells, the soft clanging of keys from guards walking around me, and the squeaking sound of thick black rubber-soled boots on linoleum flooring. Hands and questions and metal detectors. Even the scratch of the pen as I sign in. My nerves are jangling and buzzing like live wires under my skin when I’m ushered into the visitation room. I’m never calm entering this room, but I’ve never felt so primed to bolt before. Counting cracks in the ceiling or eavesdropping on neighboring conversations, nothing distracts me from the lone door in front of me. When it finally opens, I nearly do run.

  I’m not ready to see him, not ready to contend with this new horror, the sure knowledge that my brother committed cold-blooded murder. And yet, as repulsive as the reality is, when I finally see Jason’s face, the orange of his jumpsuit bringing out the sallow green in his skin, the startled yet relief-filled look in his eyes, revulsion is not there. I don’t feel it when he sits across from me and folds his trembling hands on the table. His chin quivers once before he starts talking.

  “I thought maybe I’d never see you again.”

  I suck in a breath, not wanting to admit that I’d had the same thought. Even now I don’t know what to say to him. It hurts. It hurts so bad that it makes me want to hurt him, even if it’s only with my silence.

  Jason’s eyes well with tears as he looks at me. “I wouldn’t have blamed you. I don’t blame Dad or Laura.” He chokes saying her name, and my heart clenches in response. “I can’t give Cal back his life, not even by spending the rest of mine here. I can only tell you I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tear-filled apologies tumble from his lips and my chin starts quivering too. “I killed my best friend and I don’t deserve forgiveness for that—” His voice cracks. “I wish I could take it back, Brooke. All of it. I wish Cal was alive and that I was d—”

  “No,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut as my heart threatens to stop. “Don’t say that.”

  He tries to soften his voice if not his words. “He’s not the one who should be in a grave.”

  A tear slips from the corner of my eye. I wish Cal were still alive too, but I’ll never wish Jason dead.

  Because he’s my brother.

  And I still love him.

  I love him for all the reasons I tried to give Laura—for swimming at Hackman’s Pond together, for waking me in the middle of the night to play outside the one winter it snowed in Telford, for putting a frog in my cereal box as a kid so that I nearly screamed the house down when it hopped into my bowl, for telling me I was beautiful when I got my braces, for telling me I was a brat when I refused to wear the scarf Laura knitted me for Christmas, for telling me Mark wasn’t good enough for me and that no one ever would be.

  The realization jolts me in my chair. It’s almost as much of a shock as learning the truth about that night. The two facts don’t easily reconcile, especially when I think about Cal’s family. One has caused the other the single greatest pain they’ll ever know. I feel sickness twist deep in my belly at my own clashing emotions, and a different kind of despair knowing that whatever I had with Heath is over too.

  I try not to think about that as I sit with my brother, unable to reach him in every sense of the word as he tries to explain how he ended up standing in front of Cal with such hatred in his heart.

  “It’s my fault,” he says, sniffling. “I’m not telli
ng you this to change that. I’ll regret what I did for the rest of my life. I just didn’t want to become Uncle Mike.”

  I draw back. “You—what?” But I think I understand the answer even before he gives it.

  “He’s been in love with Mom since college, and he swears she loved him back, at first, before she met Dad.”

  “Jason.” There’s so much sadness in the way I say his name. “It’s not the same. Mom barely dated Uncle Mike, and you and Allison were practically engaged.”

  “She still chose him.”

  I don’t know if he means Mom chose Dad or Allison chose Cal, but however much I love Uncle Mike, the future parallel is ludicrous to me. “But you’d have met someone else. You wouldn’t have become like Uncle Mike and—and—”

  But Jason just looks at me until I fall silent, remembering how he lost it with me on the phone for talking to her.

  “I would have,” he says it with such conviction that another tear slips down my cheek. “I’d have loved the same girl for the rest of my life, stood beside the man I wanted to be at her wedding, played godfather to her kids while cursing the fact that they weren’t mine. I’d have probably become a drunk too when it all got to be too much. I’d have watched her and regretted her with every breath I took.”

  “You don’t know any of that,” I say, but the objection sounds weak even to my own ears.

  Jason shifts his gaze past me, not focusing on any one thing. “When Uncle Mike used to get drunk and pass out on our couch, what did he always say was the single greatest mistake of his life?”

  He doesn’t make me say the answer even though I know it as well as he does.

  “Letting the woman he loved go without a fight.”

  Tears are trickling down my face now. “He didn’t mean—Jase, he never meant—”

  In a voice barely above a whisper, Jason says, “Sometimes I don’t know.”

  I press a hand to my mouth. He thinks Mike wishes he’d done to Dad what he did to Cal? Jason’s gaze focuses on me again. The second it does, the tears he’s been fighting to hold back start to break free. I’m the one fighting tears now. He can’t cry here. I know he can’t, even if he’s somehow forgotten. And if I cry with him...