Page 95 of Falling

“That sucks. I’m sorry,” Wren says, smiling sympathetically. “But your parents are still together, right?”

“Yeah,that’sthe weird part. My dad forgave her almost immediately. When I thought they were going on date nights, it turns out they were going to couples therapy. They’ve been hiding it from me for years.” I laugh but it’s forced.

“And you haven’t forgiven her?”

“I’m trying to. I’m just scared that if I see her, I won’t know how toact,” I admit. “We haven’t really spoken since I found out, and I don’t know what I’m going to say. It’s just awkward as fuck.”

“I’m going to be there. If you want to leave at any time, I can pretend I have diarrhea or something,” she suggests, and it sounds so genuine I laugh, shaking my head.

“Generous offer, but I couldn’t let you do that. I don’t think Clara would ever let us live it down,” I say, and her eyes widen. She scrambles from her side of the table and kneels in front of me, her hands on my shoulders, shaking them slightly.

“Shit, Miles. I forgot you have a sister. She’s going tohateme,” she says frantically. I chuckle and put my arms on her shoulders like she’s doing to me.

“She’s going to love you, Wren. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, but she’s agirl. She’ll know. She’ll find something she doesn’t like. I know she will.”

“There is nothing about you that she wouldn’t like. You’re perfect.” She inhales, about to say something, but I stop her. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t try to tell me that I’m not telling the truth or that you’re not perfect because you are, okay?”

She shrugs shyly. “I mean, if you say so,” she mocks.

“Yes, I do say so.” We stare at each other for a minute until we finish eating our food in comfortable silence. I don’t want to overstay my welcome, so once I’ve thrown out my trash, I get going and hope Wren can be my good luck charm for facing my mom.

30

WREN

CHRISTMAS TREE FARM

I’m alwayssurprised by the Christmas decorations in Salt Lake. There’s something about the holidays that always makes me happy, and I wish my parents made more of an effort after their divorce. I might have been a teenager, but it would have been nice to have something to celebrate while all my friends did. The upside to getting to celebrate now is that each year the decorations get more and more extravagant.

The girls and I like to keep our decorations simple with a small silver tree and decorations to match. The second we venture out of our part of town, the houses get more glamorous. This year, I’ve seen one house transformed into a giant present and another with a Christmas tree almost bigger than the one in Rockefeller.

When I walk up to Miles’s truck, he’s blasting Mariah Carey’s Christmas songs, singing along like a maniac. Nothing new coming from him. I laugh as I open the door and slide in, watching him with adoration.

I couldn’t bring myself to say it the other night, but I am so grateful for him. He sat with me for what felt like hours after the show when I waited for my mom to turn up. He does things without me having to ask him, and that’s more than what Augustus had ever done.

He still brought me home and ate dinner with me after he saw how bratty I was acting with her. I’m not proud of it, but I was pissed about her missing the end of my performance. She’s been pulling stunts like that for years, and I find it hard to stay angry at her for long every time. The anger she fuels in me makes me work harder just to spite her and prove her wrong. I hate that it works every time. Austin’s problem is going to have to be on hold for a while.

“Merry Christmas, my love,” he says as if he has only just noticed I got in the car.

I turn down the music and frown at him. “Hey, what happened to Wrenny or baby? They were starting to grow on me.” He laughs as looks at me and then back at the road. Then he gives me another glance.

“You look hot,” he says, ignoring my comment.

I grin. “I know.” I watch his smile tug up on his lips, and I have the strangest urge to kiss him. I don’t know where we stand after we breached the rule about the things we do alone, but that shouldn’t be on my mind. I gesture to his jeans and thick jumper and say, “You could have told me to dress down.”

I’m wearing a red skater dress and black boots with a long black puffer jacket to keep warm, assuming this would be more of a formal thing. I'm meeting his parents for God's sake. I don’t exactly know what the uniform to meet your boyfriend's parents is, but I feel way too dressed up for this.

“What part of ‘you look hot’ don’t you get? If you look better than me, they’ll know that you care, and they’ll focus onyouinstead of me.”

“I don’t want them to focus on me,” I moan, sulking back in my seat.

“You could be wearing a paper bag over your head with the eyes cut out, and you’d still be the most gorgeous woman in the room,Wren.” He looks at me intensely when he says it, his eyes taking another sweep of my outfit. I hold up the bag that I brought in my hand awkwardly.

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