Page 3 of Break Your Fall

“Because I’m not just thinking about myself right now.” Julian puts his arm around her shoulder—a protective gesture, and I sigh out some of the tension. “I wanna do this alone, anyway.”

“At least take this,” Naomi says, stepping up with one of her umbrellas she must’ve retrieved from the drawer in the small table near the door. It’s the orange one—the one I always pick when I have to head back home during a few of these unexpected storms. My favorite color.

The color of a basketball.

I shove it away, trying to put space between me and another one of my screwups, but I realize I’ve just shoved the umbrella into Naomi’s chest.Way to go, asshat.

“Sorry,” I quickly amend, reaching for the umbrella, accepting the gesture as an extension of my apology. Her smile is pity. “Thanks.” I’m already wet, but I’ve stopped shivering. It’d be nice to not have to start again. “Sorry about this, too,” I say with a motion to the puddles around me.

“That’s what the hardwood’s for,” she says with an unworried smile, but I’m still leaving her to clean it up. To pacify my guilt, I tell myself it’s a mess that wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Julian and Camille, and promise myself to make it up to Naomi. I’ll cook her another meal before she has time to turn it down again. “She’ll be okay,” she assures me with a comforting squeeze of my arms. I hadn’t seen her reach out. Just like I’d missed her rummaging through the drawer.

Reyna is still my priority, still the main thought in my head. She’s all I can focus on now that I’m ready to get back outside. I feel closer to her out there than I do in here.

Naomi’s the only one who has given me any assurances since I bolted in here. Nothing from my friends. The friends who are supposed to be Reyna’s friends, too.

“Take the Jeep,” Julian offers next. “Better shelter.”

I don’t respond, turning down this gesture with no acknowledgment, not even a stare. I know he’s had Reyna in that car. Possibly the girls before her. The Caves might be this town’s hook up spot, but that Jeep is Julian’s. And even if I did borrow his car, I’d have to bring it back, and I only planned on returning one thing tonight.

“Tommy.” Camille tries to stop me when my back is turned, my hand wrapped around the doorknob, and I spin on her.

“She has my whole heart, Camille,” I snap through a tired voice, tired of having to defend my choices, to defend myself when I’m trying to be a friend—a concept that’s been lacking around here for a while.

I’m everyone’s brother and I’m everyone’s friend, but I can only go one direction here. I can’t be everything to everyone right now.

I finally meet Julian’s stare again, and he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, biting back any argument because he doesn’t have one. He’s the guy who got the girl. The girl I’ve always wanted. Then he let her go for the girl he’s wanted. He knows the heart is the only choice.

“I was just gonna say thank you,” Camille says, pulling us from our silent musing. Her voice is lowered, her stare soft through her puffy lids. “For bringing Grumbles back.” Her appreciation shows in the words and the smile that jolts the corner of her mouth. I almost smile back, but end up snapping again before walking out the door.

“I did it for her.”

The door slams shut against my ass, pushing me forward when I stop to take a breath, the downpour welcoming me back. It hasn’t let up, slashing through the night, harsh and steady. The air smells clean, salty. I pop open the umbrella, blocking out the shine from the porch light, and meet the rain.

The storm has emptied the beach of the night crowd. This is another one of our spots. It’s more everyone’s spot, moreReyna’sspot, but I see it as ours, too. Anywhere we’re together is our spot.

I found her here a lot just this summer. She’d be sitting on the sand, close to the shore, hugging her knees as she stared out at the ocean. She’d sometimes sit close enough that the foam would rise up to touch her toes. One time, she was gripping the sand so tightly as she cried, I asked her to give the grains to me. It confused her enough to distract her and she transferred the sand from her hand to mine. I held the sand out and let it slip through my fingers, away from us.

There, it’s gone,I said. She laughed and I smiled. Her problems weren’t actually gone, but for that moment, she was laughing instead of crying, and that’s always the goal. To give her happy moments within the sad moments. To help remind her there’s still beauty in the ugly. Shecreatesbeauty from the ugly. She has someone who will always be here to try to make it better.

Me. Someone—Me.

And now, whenever I find her here, Reyna sometimes puts whatever she’s feeling into the sand and gives it to me to take away.

So, I come here first, knowing it’s fruitless. But there’s no point in trekking all the way back to the lighthouse, knowing the light isn’t there anymore. And I feel a pierce in my gut of also knowing that Reyna won’t be waiting at my house, either. I’d find her in my room some of the nights it had gotten bad at her mom’s. Valerie was drinking too much, or they’d had an argument, or one of the perverted man-children was there and she didn’t feel safe, or all three at once. She’d mostly go to Julian, but on some of thereallybad nights, she’d come to me. I tried to find meaning in her placing me slightly above Julian on those nights, another sign that she could see me as more than a best friend, but Julian was still there at the forefront. Still the star of this show.

I stop walking, my shoes digging into the wet sand. She doesn’t want me finding her again. She doesn’t wantanyoneto find her now.

I’m not going to find her again.

For the rest of the night, Reyna’s chosen a much better hiding spot.

She wouldn’t be out in the water, I think with a worried look at the dark, curling waves, ruffled by the storm, then chastise myself. My head is all over the place, thinking of every worst-case scenario that’s not Reyna. I’m losing grip on the faith I had. She might dress up as Camille, because she’s hurting and needs assurance, but she wouldn’t hurt herself physically. . .

I cast a last worried glance at the ocean.

I don’t think Camille is weak, but I do think Reyna is stronger.

The thought wraps itself around me as I continue along sticky sand.

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