Page 3 of Fall Into Me

“You are a very big man,” I said, staring directly at his sternum.

That’s when I heard it again.

His laugh. It just ripped right out of him. Head tipped back and body shaking with delight.

Completely and totally unzipped.

It was contagious, and I knew those breathless, enthralled, and hopeful feelings were all over my face.

When he asked me to dance a second time, I said yes.

I said yes to a first date, and a second, and a third.

It was the end of my second year of college, and immediately, I had no idea what life looked like without him in it.

I was consumed. Entirely. I had been covered in the sun shining warmth of that same laughter that had tied itself to every rib for two years. I couldn’t imagine wanting anything else. I didn’t think there was anythingmore. There was simply this person who controlled the clouds in my sky, and every single day was perfect.

Peaceful.

My god, that peacefulness. I didn’t think there would’ve been something to steal my craving for the sunshine but Fane was total, utter peace. It was safe and strong and solid and in that, I had everything I needed.

Even when things weren’t perfect, they were stillperfect.

And then my mom got sick. She got sick, and it was like I couldfeelthe laugh lines around my father’s eyes smooth out for the first time in my life. That was the first time I realized what it was like to be heavy. The first time Isawsomeone else be heavy. Covered entirely in clouds without a speck of sunshine to be seen. It wasterrifying.

So, I moved home.

There was never any other option for me. It had always been the plan to go back one day, and I couldn’t help thinking that I was doing my part in making it that little bit better by bringing him home. By adding him to the fold of this safe, perfect place.

There was never any other option for me.

For me.

1

Calista

After

For the last four days, my word of the day was one I’d neither heard of before nor been able to use in a sentence.

For some reason that startled me.

“When would I ever need to use the word flummoxed?” Maybe I wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was the app on my phone. An app I currently paid for, might I add.

“Did you say phlegmy? Are you sick?” Gus yelled like we were on opposite sides of the room rather than separated just by the width of the coffee counter.

He’d forgotten his hearing aids again, and I tried really hard not to wipe the spit I could feel that just landed on the end of my nose.

“No phlegm here, Gus.” I handed him his coffee in a to-go cup along with his change, which was the five-dollar bill he had handed me to begin with.

“Oh, well, that’s good. You make the best coffee in town.” He nodded at me in fierce agreement with his own statement.

“I make the only coffee in town.” I quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” Gus was perpetually uncomfortable with giving compliments but handed them out like candy on Halloween. It meant that he was always rosy-cheeked and flighty with his eye contact.

I always do the same thing every day to soften his apparent discomfort because I really liked Gus. “You’re just trying to butter me up for a free cookie.” The first was free for everyone, but Gus didn’t know that.

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