Page 16 of Break Your Fall

And I can’t dwell on what happened after she left the lighthouse, because when I do, the images of her with him assault my heart, a heart she doesn’t know belongs to her, a heart that’s been battered enough over seeing and thinking about her with every other guy who’s not me.

Hey, jealousy.

I have to squash it down and be her friend first. Because that’s what I am—her friend. Just her friend. And a guy who’s just a girl’s friend isn’t supposed to have these feelings.

I’m feeling as close to myself as I can by the time I pull into her driveway. The engine purrs as my stare settles on the bumper of Valerie’s car, the only other one here, a slightly relieving sight that manages to stop me from convincing Reyna to come home with me for the night. But it doesn’t stop the want I have to stay, to help her clean up her room, the mess that my mistake had helped create, to flip the photos of us right side up, to convince her to want me around again.

“How’s your hand?”

I hear the concern in her voice before I feel it in her touch, her hand pulling mine from the steering wheel and examining my knuckles under the glow from the house lights.

My hand is sore, tight, needs a stretch, but, “I can still bounce a ball,” I conclude, then release a humorless laugh at my disappointment.

I don’t want to think about basketball. I don’t give a damn about basketball on a regular day, if I’m being honest, but I especially don’t give a damn about basketball right now. Reyna’s touching me, initiating the contact. She’s giving to me, opening herself to me, and I give back by lacing my fingers through hers, waiting for hers to bend to mine.

They didn’t at the lighthouse.

They didn’t at the skate park.

And they don’t now.

But she’s touching me, rubbing the thumb of her other hand across my knuckles, trying to soothe a soreness that’s almost impossible to feel under the graze of her skin.

When she tugs her hand, I loosen my hold, and it’s all I can do not to keep her palm from sliding out from mine. But she slides away, freezing me out again when I almost have her warmth back.

Reyna is passion. She’s fire. If you stoke her flames, she’ll blaze for you. But now, while doing that, I have to be fireproof, because she will scorch me if I’m not careful.

“Go ahead, Tommy,” she sighs out. “Judge me.”

My other hand loosens up and slides from the wheel. “I’ve never done that.”

“You will.”

I shake my head at her insistence. “Reyna—”

“Everyone else does,” she argues, her eyes cutting to mine before cutting back to the windshield. “It’s only a matter of time.” She’s so certain and accepting of her defeat, in her belief that everyone’s the same. Including me.

“I’m not everyone else,” I argue back, while wanting to remind her of whosheis. Of who she’s not. But no words in the world are going to change how she sees things now if she can’t believe them herself. They might still help, but she’s already shown herself that she’s the one person she never wanted to be. But because she’s wrong and because I’m me, I have to say it anyway.

“Moderation, Reyna.” There’s a smile in my voice as I try to make light. “We drink. We have sex. It’s human. Doing these things doesn’t make you Valerie.”

“I know,” she whispers, then shakes her head. “But knowing doesn’t change how I feel.” She shifts her face toward me, but keeps her stare down. “I look like her. I sound like her.” She shrugs a shoulder, her mouth twisting around her next words. “People seeherwhen they look at me, and I can’t get away from that.” She pauses at the break in her voice. “From here,” she adds, lower, tucking her hair behind her ear as she looks down at her lap. “I had too much faith in myself. I had too much faith in other people.” She meets my stare now with glossy eyes. “That’s what it takes to have the life I want, right? Other people. It’s not about me or how good I am.”

“You’ll get out, Reyna,” I assure her, with more urgency for the brightness of her future than I have for mine.

“Yeah,” she says, dubious. “‘The fight will be worth it.’” Her mouth shapes a soundless laugh as her eyes roll back to the windshield. “If I’m lucky. Because Idon’tbelong here,” she adds on a whisper, then breathes through tears, “I feel so bad.”

Before I can say or do anything, she gives me a last look, and I know it’s final, goodbye, goodnight, before her hand even reaches the door handle and she says, “You should go.”

“I don’t have to. . .” I try again, my hand already reaching to shut off the engine. She doesn’t invite me in, but she releases the handle.

“If I hadn’t told you where I was. . .”

“I would’ve kept looking for you until you did,” I say, and she finds my eyes again, those big, hopeful, green eyes a shade lighter. “Or until I found you.”

I need you.She reached for me, wrote the words. I couldn’t turn my back on that.

Those big, hopeful eyes darken and narrow to disbelief, fill with questioning. “Why are you trying so hard?”

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