Page 2 of Break Your Fall

I don’t answer. My presence without Reyna is the answer.

“You lost her again,” he accuses, and I ball my fists.Hewasn’t the one out there looking for her—either time. He sent outBanks, his search and rescue dog who failed at the rescue, and I was the one to actually find her.

“You let her go in the first place,” I remind him.Then she let me go.

“Was he supposed to hold her captive?” Camille says to his defense, eyeing me as she lets a squirming Grumbles back down. I watch the cat pad toward the hall, then meet Camille’s hard, dubious stare.

“I had to return a cat,” I point out in response, then look back at Julian. “And don’t say it that way. Like this ismyfault. I had to come here because she didn’t want to seeyou.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Camille mutters, and I scrunch my face at her. “Don’t give me that look, Tommy. What she did is still unforgivable.”

“Some could say the same about you.”

Her resigned stare and tightened mouth freezes in place as she holds my less confident stare and parted mouth. Once the meaning in my words registers, she blinks and her rigid features go slack with unease.

I don’t want to lose her, either. I finally got her back after losing her the first time. But if she would’ve shown any hint of pain then like she’s showing now, we wouldn’t have lost her in the first place.

My head is trying to redefine how I want to think and react to things.I honestly shouldn’t be talking to you anymore.

I eye Julian as the thought comes to me, the words I said to him the last night we played some ball in my driveway. His pained stare is in conflict with his clenched jaw. He knows what I’m thinking, prepared to hear that I’m done with this and silently asking me not to be. This coming from the same guy who tried toforceme to pick a side.

So maybe I don’t talk to him anymore. Here, where I’m standing now, is where I decide, not when they tell me to. You have to fight for forgiveness.Wehave to fight for Reyna, and everyone in her life better step up. I don’t want to think about what could happen if they don’t.

Camille crosses her arms as she catches my stare again. Julian and I always joked that this was her shield. But we’re never laughing when she puts it up. “Some?” she questions me. “Or you now?”

I feel my swallow, a gulp in my ears. I guess me now.

The guest room door from the living room flies open, jolting our attention to Banks who stomps out breathing like a bull ready to charge, his hair sticking up in every direction—the usual. “Can you guys stop talking like this?” He yells the words, several octaves higher than any of us were actually speaking. “I’m trying to sleep!”

“We weren’t talking like this,” Camille yells back at him, matching his volume. “But we canstarttalking like this.” Naomi draws her attention with a hand to her shoulder and a discouraging headshake. Camille rolls her eyes back to Banks, her volume normal, but just as spitting as she says, “Shouldn’t you be harassing Reyna’s house now?”

Banks springs forward, his arms waving and bare feet slapping against the floor as he waddles toward us like a pissed off penguin. I’d laugh if I wasn’t thinking about hitting him.

If I find him anywhere near Reyna’s, especially tonight, I swear he’ll be on the ground. The thought only half surprises me.

Banks jerks to a stop right beside me, his eyes wide at my hair. I remember mine is sticking up, too, as his hands fly to his head, patting at his hair like he’s making sure it’s still there. Yes, he’s serious, and his sigh of relief that I haven’t stolen his hair brings out a chuckle from Julian and stunned disgust from me.What the hell is wrong with this guy?

We’ll never know, I answer myself, then add,And we’ll never care.

“Looks better on me,” he says as he continues past me to the front door. It opens and slams at my back, and I shove my hair in place over my forehead. It’s dried enough, and I wouldn’t want to resemble Banks even if it was Halloween.

The door opens again, and Camille immediately shoots out, “No.”

“Forgot my shoes,” Banks defends as he passes us again, starting a rush to the guest room about halfway there and closing himself back inside. We all wait a moment, but he doesn’t come back out.

Camille faces Julian. “I’m getting another job as soon as possible, and we’re getting our own place.”

“He’ll just come to that one, too,” he says with a laugh.

“Not if he doesn’t know the address,” she says back, a subtle threat in her voice, the final word that he’ll let her have.

Julian laughs again. “Okay.” He stares down at her a moment, his laughter lolling to a warm smile.

Iamhappy for them. I’m not happy with how they became athem. What it’s done to Reyna. What keeping my mouth shut has done to me. What it’s now doing to all of us. My happiness is buried, poking its fingers through the dirt still on their hands. My hands might’ve been clean, but I might as well have been holding a shovel.

I’m backing toward the exit again. “I have to try to find her.”

“Why?” Camille says, and the nerve she has to even ask causes me to snap back at her.

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