Page 63 of Break Your Fall

His stay gets even worse when he tries to control what I do around my own guest house. He’s on the couch now, playing another video game when I return from the court after another session with Mason, in the mood to throw my basketball into a dark, hidden place. I open the hall closet door to throw the ball inside and the door squeaks loud enough to make me almost miss my own bed at the main house. This squeaking started right after Banks moved in. Coincidence? No way.

“Stop opening the squeaky door,” he orders at me. “It hurts it. You can hear its pain.” He sounds serious, his tone conveying actual concern for this door, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face.

I’m already frustrated and he’s trying to provoke me.

“These things aren’t alive,” I burst, provoked.

“They sound alive,” he argues, his voice irritatingly calm. “You know that phrase, dead as a doornail? Okay, well, you have to be alive to then be dead. You can’t just start out dead. So explain how the nail died if it wasn’t living first.”

I explain nothing because my lame brain is trying to point out connections between the mice in my bed and Banks’s relationship to inanimate objects without my consent. There’s no connection. I’m not pretending that mice are living inside my bed. I don’t talk to the mice or act like they’re real, becausethere are no mice, but the semi-similarity I’m feeling provokes me even more.

I slam the door shut and point at it. “It’s not a person. None of these things are alive.” My hands wave around the space. “They can’t hear you and they can’t move on their own.”

Banks makes a face at my outburst. “Someone woke up on the cranky side of the bed this morning.”

My hands ball, rising to my chest in my frustration, and I tell myself to relax as I turn my back. Thissomeoneneeds a shower and a long nap.

The final straw comes when I’m awoken from that nap by a strong tickle in my nose, and as I jerk up in bed, coughing and spewing and pinching the hell out of my nose, I know right away it’s a gnat.

The gnat infestation started slowly and swiftly, a few of them here and there in—you guessed it—the bathroom before they multiplied and migrated one by one to the rest of the house. It hasn’t helped that Banks decided the perfect way to get rid of them was to chase them out with a blow dryer, which only encouraged their migrationinside.

It’s like two of them fucked, then had fifty million babies,he complained over his man-made windstorm.

I’ve tried to ignore him and them, but I can’t take thishim and themanymore. Especially when all of this happens over the course of only two days.

Two. Days.

Two.

I’m collecting Banks’s shit and shoving it all inside his duffel as he screams oblivious at the television. I manage to collect every trace of him I can find, other than his gaming console, the duffel zipped and ready to be tossed outside when he finally notices.

“What are you doing?” he hollers at me once I’m yanking open the front door. “Dude!”

I swing back to send the duffel flying into the yard and I’m tugged back, my hand gripping the strap harder as I spin on Banks who tries to tug the bag from my grip. I regain my balance and pull, walking backward as I do. He doesn’t let up, but I’m stronger, so through a slight struggle, I yank him out the door. He still doesn’t give, but at least now I have him out of the house and in the grass.

We struggle all the way to the end of my driveway where I convince him that Julian wants him back, and he finally releases the damn duffel so we can trek to the Fowlers like normal people. I keep a hold on the bag, though; he’s not escaping back to my house. Iwillchase him, and I’m not in the mood for a wrestling match tonight.

“He better want me back,” Banks says as we charge through Julian’s front door.

“He does,” I say as I fling the duffel across the floor. “Don’t you?” I look up at Julian with a pleading, warning stare from where he stands beside Camille at the island.

“Oh, great, look who’s back from the pound,” Camille snides at Banks before giving me a hard stare. Banks flips her off as Julian laughs and adds his own quip.

“I see those ‘Missing’ posters worked. I missed you, man.” He puts on an exaggerated cheery face as he rounds the island to meet us, and Banks beams at him.

“Hug it out,” I encourage them, poking fun, too.

Bankspffts at me. “More likechugit out. Let’s go, dude.” He waves at Julian to follow him back out, then literally barks at me.

Julian laughs again and pats me on the shoulder, calling to Camille, “I’ll be back,” before leaving the house with Banks, friendship restored.Again.

“You couldn’t have given me more time in peace?” Camille’s beside me now, her arms crossed, her stare accusing.

“At the expense of my peace?” I accuse back.

She shrugs. “It was Reyna’s idea.”

“She had her reasons,” I say. “You just want to share your hell.”

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