Page 2 of Falling

“They can’t do that, can they? Just cut the whole program?” Kennedy asks, her arms still tight around my shoulders, clinging to me as if she’s my emotional support animal. Scarlett hasn’t said much since I relayed what happened, but she doesn’t have to. I know how her business student brain works. She’s probably working over plans in her head.

“Well, apparently, they can,” I mumble, kicking the crunchy leaves beneath me. I was training this morning and went to the gym right after.

“So, what are you going to do? There must be some loophole,” Scarlett says. Her voice is a lot calmer and rational than Kennedy’s frantic one.

“I have no fucking clue,” I say, rubbing at my temples.

Our walk slows as we get closer to home, the chilly air urging us forward. I must have defeated them with this conversation alone because we all silently agreed to take the stairs to our apartment instead of waiting on the elevator.

“I might have to start a petition or something,” I suggest, waving my hand vaguely in the air when we reach our door. Ken hums in agreement, unlocking the door, and we slip into the warmth.

I turn back, and Scarlett is still in the doorway, arms planted by her side, her neat hair a mess from the September breeze. With her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw set, she pins me with a strange look.

“Scar,” I coax slowly, gesturing to the apartment.

“Youcannotpetition. I’m not letting you do that,” she sayssternly, finally starting to walk inside. Ken and I exchange a worried glance before turning back to her as she toes off her shoes at the door. “Take it from the girl who wasted her whole final project last year on a petition that landed her a B. A fuckingBfor collecting over twenty thousand signatures.”

“A B isn’t bad, Scar,” Kennedy says, shrugging. I close my eyes. Trying to argue with Scarlett about grades is like trying to argue with a cat about the benefits of a bath—completely futile and likely to end in scratches.

Scarlett is a lot like a cat in many ways, always with her claws out. Unlike Kennedy and I, who each have only one sister, Scarlett is the youngest and the only daughter of four sons, so she’s constantly trying to prove that she is as good as them. You wouldn’t need to look at her twice to realize she’s smarter than all of them combined. I just wish she could get that in her head. And I wish Kennedy would stop prodding her with these questions.

“It’s bad forme,” she argues, shuddering as she walks into the open living room and kitchen. “ABis like asking for a grande latte and getting a tall black coffee—close, but not quite what you were hoping for.”

I just huff at her response, and Kennedy giggles after getting a rise out of her. I throw myself onto the couch, ready to make this my bed for the next few days. The girls walk around me, probably looking for food. “I need to think of something, like, yesterday. If I can’t skate, I have no options.”

“Why don’t you just stick with creative writing and get more benefits that the degree offers? You could get some real feedback instead of getting totally biased opinions from us fools,” Kennedy suggests, flopping on her beanbag across from me. She tucks her legs beneath her, a box of Cheerios in her hand.

The suggestion churns in my stomach. It always does whenever anyone brings up the idea of giving up skating to commit to arealdegree. The prospect of throwing myself into that justfeels like I’m setting myself up for failure. That’s the annoying thing about me—if I know I’m not perfect at it, I’m not going to try. I’ve never seen any point in it, and there’s no use starting now.

“I’d need to be a good writer to do that,andI’d have to admit defeat to my mother of all people,” I say with a shiver. The looks she gave me in the office were enough. I’ve dedicated my whole life to fulfilling the legacy she never got to start. I want to be a living, breathing reminder that her dreams didn’t die the day of the accident. I’ve committed too much time to it, too much effort, too many tears to give up now. And I truly don’t think she would look at me the same if I did.

I throw my head back onto the headrest, trying to organize all the thoughts whirling around my brain and tugging on my lungs. I’m going to need to find a way around this. They might be too afraid to say it, but I know this is my fault. I made my bed, so now I have to lie in it.

I don’t know how long I stay there, trying to breathe and think at the same time like it’s a sport, but when I open my eyes, Kennedy is wheeling in The Whiteboard, a staple in our household. After Scarlett was gifted two large whiteboards for Christmas, she dedicated one to her studies and the other to the number of crises we have per week. It’s come in handy for our pros and cons lists for dates, breakups, changing shampoos, or trying to find a place to eat that isn’t Nero’s Pizzeria. If we didn’t have The Whiteboard, our lives would have completely gone to shit by now.

“Scarlett, would you like the honor of being our scribe?” Kennedy announces, holding out the oversized whiteboard pen to her as if it’s the holy grail. Scarlett’s face lights up as she flashes me a toothy smile.

“I would love nothing more,” she replies, jumping up and retrieving the pen. She starts to scrawl words across the board, dictating them as she does. “Operation ‘save Wren fromdropping out of skating even though she secretly hates it’ is underway.”

I throw her a sarcastic smile, lobbing a cushion at her.

“Maybe we should just paraphrase?” Kennedy suggests, unimpressed as she returns to her seat in the beanbag.

“Thatwasme paraphrasing.” Scarlett continues writing out the name on the whiteboard regardless.

“Or,maybe,we could stop assuming how much I love skating altogether,” I counter. As if they planned it, they both turn around, frowning at me like bratty children.

I can tell this is going to be a long night, and it’s only four in the afternoon.

2

MILES

SHOTS?

“Sorry. Could you say that again?”

I shake my head to get my eyes to refocus from the brown walls in the office to her disappointed face. It’s not much of an improvement, but maybe moving my eyes will fight off the headache that is threatening to ruin my day. That is, if this doesn’t do it for me.

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