Page 12 of Falling Too Late

We had made it to the school grounds now, and I nodded at him. “I will.”

CHAPTER 7

ALEX

I could hearthe neighbor yelling again. It was a strange mix of garbling that I couldn’t quite make out. She’d been yelling a lot more recently. There would be days where I wouldn’t hear anything, and then she would go on for hours. It became mostly white noise.

I’d lived in these apartments my whole life. The walls were paper-thin, with chipped yellowing paint. The neighbors below us smoked, and it seeped up through the floor. The landlord never took care of anything that was broken. If you bothered him too many times, he was known to send eviction warnings based on lies just to get you to shut up about the issues. I’d watched people come and go. The kids I used to play with moved away with their parents. Adults with no kids started to fill this place up, and eventually it felt like I was the only kid here.

Other than Wren, but I didn’t even know what building she was in.

I didn’t think Ma had noticed just how bad the yelling got. By the time I came home from school she was ready to leave for the night shift at the diner. We lived in the same place but had completely opposite schedules. Plus, Ma was so dead tired by the time she got home, I was sure nothing could wake her.

Even while I was on break, I still rarely saw her. The diner wasopen on Christmas Day, and I had gone down and read a book in the corner booth while she worked. Ma would sit with me and chat for as long as she could before she had to go check on tables.

“There’s food in the oven. It’s still warm, so use a mitt to pull it out. Do your homework and read for an hour before you sit in front of that television,” Ma said. She kissed my cheek roughly before she headed out the door.Even over the break, the teachers had handed out a bunch of homework.

I was trying to read, but there was a lot of thumping and yelling. I couldn’t tell if the woman was fighting with her boyfriend or what. I hadn’t seen her out of the apartment in over a year. Sighing, I realized I couldn’t focus on my book. I closed it and shoved on my shoes and coat, deciding to walk out to the playground just to get away from the noise. I took the book with me, knowing that Ma would be quizzing me on this chapter this weekend. She said reading was good for the soul, and one day if I couldn’t afford to have a TV or the newest games out there, books would be an escape good for all ages. I read because it made her happy. I hadn’t seen her happy since my dad died.

I made sure to lock the door behind me, putting my key in the safety of my pocket.

I headed out to the playground behind our apartment. It was the Friday of the first week in January. On Monday, I would finally see Wren again.

I aimed straight for the swings, brushing off the snow before taking a seat. There were a few streetlights out here keeping it lit, just enough that I could read. It was too quiet now. I started reading aloud.

I wasn’t sure how long I was reading out loud before I heard the scream. I looked up from my book to see someone running out from around the apartment directly toward me. They slipped on the ice, falling hard and sliding before they scrambled back up and headed for the jungle gym, running up one of the smaller slides before climbing into the big slide.

Wren?

I was about to get up and go to her, but behind her, someone else was running out of the apartment. It was a man and a woman. The man, who was walking weirdly, was behind the woman I recognized as my neighbor.

Oh shit.

“Where’d she go!?” It took me a moment to realize the woman was talking to me.

“Who?” I forced myself to not look toward the slide. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I wasn’t going to rat her out.

“The kid who ran out before me!” she yelled louder, rushing toward me.

“Oh.” I looked out past the parking lot toward the main road. “I saw someone run that way a second ago.” I nodded my head in the direction.

“Shit, Kevin, if she?—”

“Shut up, Lynn!” he bit out. I recognized the man as the guy who lived down below us. The smoker.

Holy fuck.

They rushed toward the parking lot, the man slowing them down before getting into a car and driving off. I shut my book and ran over to the slide, looking up from the bottom of it.

“Hey, they’re gone.” She didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t really sure if she’d even heard me. “Wren, you can come down now.” Still, she said nothing, but it sounded like she slipped, the familiar screeching sound of skin on the slide. I reached up, tugging gently at her leg. I must have pulled too hard, because we ended up on the frozen ground with her lying on top of me.

“What the he—” I started before I opened my eyes to look up into wide emerald-green eyes. She stared down at me, her hands braced on my chest, holding herself up. I could feel her shaking.

I finally found my tongue after a minute of silence. “Wren, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” She scrambled off me and climbed up on the lip of the slide, her eyes wild, scared.??

I got myself up off the ground and brushed the loose bark off my clothes. Hoping I didn’t dirty anything up too bad. Itwould be a few more days till we had enough change to go to the laundromat. I looked back at her. The first thing I noticed was her small red feet. She was barefoot and it was freezing out here.

I looked back to the apartment, expecting to see the red truck pulling back in, but the parking lot was quiet. “Was that your mom and her boyfriend?” Still, she said nothing. I looked her over and noticed that blood was seeping through her pink sweatpants.

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