Page 53 of Fall Into Me

And she’d do it too. She’d ice me out.

There was this hardness to her that hadn’t existed before. Something that developed in a person when they had only themselves to rely on. I knew it because I’d been fucking covered in it when I’d met her. This lack of trust in the world, in people. It was something I’d been intimately familiar with.

When I met her, she still believed in softness, in patience, in the idea that broken things could be fixed. Now, she moved through life like someone who knew the world would never meet her halfway.

She was soft with me then. Patient.

If Cali was angry, she could be angry. If she wanted to fight with me, I’d fight with her.

Those words were on repeat in my head when I got home. When I toed off my boots and left them by the door and stepped over Jerry to find Cali asleep on my side of the bed.

The sheets were rumpled, and I could tell where she’d started. My pillow was clutched tight in one fist, her face half buried in it.

I managed to slip into bed on her side without making her stir one bit. When I woke up hours later, when it was still dark and quiet, it was to her head on my chest and her heart beating right against mine.

Still in sync.

18

Calista

Before

Fane told me to meet him in front of an apartment building that was about a fifteen-minute walk from the on-campus dorm I still shared with Jelly.

I couldn’t believe it myself that I had finished my second year of studying and still had the wherewithal to share a room with her.

Since the first time I asked her to keep her clothesless shenanigans to an all-time quiet, I’d found a random naked stranger in my bed exactly three times and had also once been woken up by what had to be the most hard-core sex I ever had the displeasure of involuntarily witnessing.

I mean that I woke up in the middle of the night because theyfell on top of me.

That was three days ago.

I called Fane to come and get me, and I’d been staying with him and Ash ever since. Irefusedto go home, which sucked because Fane didn’t live anywhere near campus.

Me: Hey, I’m here.

Fane: Floor 3, Apartment 26.

I could feel the confused scrunch of my brows settle into a semi-permanent state from the moment I entered the building till the moment the elevator doors opened.

This building was nice. The part of Artington we were in was definitely classified as the nice part. It made sense, considering the University of Artinginton was just up the street, but we were nowhere near Fane’s, and we didn’t know anyone who lived here.

We’d been together for just over a year, so all our friends were pretty much the same. Unless he’d branched out unknowingly, I was pretty sure we had no friends in this building.

The door to Apartment 26 was wide open, and there was Fane, standing in the middle of an open-plan apartment. The floorboards were ashen-color wood with white walls and modern light fixtures. The kitchen drew my focus straight away with its midnight-blue cabinets and marble countertops.

It washuge,and it made me think of Fane. He loved to cook. More specifically, he loved to cook forme,and boy did I love to let him.

There was one long hallway that disappeared off the living space that had huge, half-mooned windows that let in all the sunlight of the day. The space immediately felt warm and homey even as it sat empty.

“Are we breaking and entering?” I said, after taking a minute to appreciate the way this man looked in a pair of black fittedjeans. I’d never really been one to keep my compliments to myself. “Your ass looks really good in those jeans too.”

“Funny,” Fane said, turning to face me. “I was told that exact same thing this morning.”

“By who?”

“My girlfriend.”

---