Page 20 of Falling Too Late

“I miss him, so much, but what I think I miss the most is watching them together. Watching him love her and her be loved by him.” He looked at me now, and I could now see the tears rolling down his face. “She still cries for him sometimes. After he died, she started working doubles at the diner. Their savings dried up paying for the bills. I just kind of watched her wither away for a while. Me wanting to play sports didn’t seem like a good enough reason for her to work more.”

The guilt ate at me with every word he spoke. “I shouldn’t be here.” I covered my hands with my face, shame filling me. I was taking away from what Alex could have. I was a burden to them.??

In the first five minutes of meeting him, I went from terrified to hopeful. I froze when he pulled me from the slide, and I fell on him. He was so warm that I wanted to stay there. Then I sat at that table across from him and took a chance on asking for more than I deserved. And then his mom told me I could stay here as long as I followed the rules.??

“Wren, you are the first thing I have ever asked Ma for.” He gently tugged my hands away from my face. I could barely see him through the tears. “And I’m so happy I did.”

CHAPTER 10

ALEX

“Tell me a secret.”Wren walked along the fallen tree trunk, her arms outstretched to keep her balance. I walked along with her, watching her carefully, afraid she was going to fall off the thing. We had snuck out early this morning and run to the thicket of ash trees that surrounded the area. It wasn’t very big, and eventually you would find the train tracks, but we were happy to wander around in the area for hours on end. Wren liked to look at plants and lie on large fallen tree limbs. The air was cold and crisp still, but we didn’t mind. Wren borrowed clothes from me and layered up.

“A secret?” I thought about it for a minute. I didn’t really have secrets. I hadn’t had anyone to keep anything from. “I don’t have any secrets.”

Wren blew a raspberry at me. “Come on, you have to have a secret. Something you think or have done that you wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

I tried to think of something, but I couldn’t. I just shrugged, and she rolled her eyes. Wren had been relaxing more these days. She wasn’t quite so jumpy anymore. Every day more of her personality started to shine through. I liked to watch her. We would watch movies that I had seen so many times I could recite them word for word, but Wren was watching them forthe first time. I liked observing her reactions. The surprise and wonder on her face. I heard her laugh for the first time. Truly laugh to the point that she had a tear running down her face.

She loved to listen to the radio. I had found one in a dumpster on the way home from school one day and brought it home to find out it would still work if you wrapped tinfoil around the antenna and pointed it in a certain way. She started to learn some of the songs and sing along quietly.

“Why?” I asked, curious.

She reached the end of the trunk, jumping off of it and landing on her feet. “Because I have a secret that I want to tell you.”

With her safely on the ground, I shoved my hands in my pockets, warming them. “Okay, so tell me.”

She brought her thumb up to her mouth, chewing on it, and I fought the urge to grab her hand to stop her. She would chew the skin around her thumb until it bled.

“You’ll think I’m a bad person.”

I screwed my face up at her, confused. “You're not a bad person.”

“If you knew my secret you would hate me.”

At that, I walked over to her, grasping her shoulders gently and stooping so she couldn’t avoid my eyes.

“I would never hate you. There is nothing you could ever do that would make me hate you.”

We stared at each other for a beat before I stood, giving her more space. She fell into step beside me.

“I wish they were dead.” Out of my peripheral, I watched her tilt her head back and look up to the tree branches. “I wish they would get into a car accident or fall asleep and never wake up.” She shook her head. “I think about it all day, every day. I wish they were dead.”

I didn’t have to ask who she meant.

“I wish they were dead too,” I said the words and meant them. What kind of mother did that to a kid? Her own daughter.

We took a few more steps before I felt her hand slip into mine. My heart kicked up a notch and I tried not to react. I didn’t want to make her feel weird or regret it. So, I gently held her hand and walked with her to the edge of the grove.

“I got you, Wren.”

I promise.

CHAPTER 11

WREN

Flashback,fourteen years old

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