Page 69 of Break Your Fall

“It’s myass, not mypeepee.” Banks turns the face to me, gesturing to Camille like she’s the stupid one.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him through a laugh despite myself, then gesture behind me. “The counter’s that way.”

“I’m here to rescue you,” he says through a beam and open arms.

“I don’t need to be rescued,” I reiterate, my eyes dragging over to Spy Girl.Do I?

Banks’s chest visibly collapses, and I stifle a smile. “I need a damsel in distress.” It’s after this declaration that he notices Spy Girl at the table and he faces her, leans down, ups the flirtation. “Are you a damsel in distress?” He straightens immediately after asking. “Wait a minute. It’s you. Jesus’s Bell.”

“You know her?” I ask Banks at the same time the girl asks me, “You know him?”

I meet her eyes as Banks answers with bitterness in his voice, “She works at the theater. Had a say in my play not winning.”

“I wasn’t designing human-sized socks,” the girl says back to him, and my head spins.

Banks and this girl knowing each other.

This girl spying on me.

“Jesus’s Bell?” Camille asks now through a disbelieving chuckle.

“You have to do that on purpose,” the girl says to Banks next. “Youhaveto.”

Banks rolls his eyes and waves his hands around his head. “It’s all there. But I don’t care enough when I’m talking to care if I use the right one.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” the girl says with a nod, her tone a little mocking, pulling a little smile from my lips.

“I have other things you can appreciate,” Banks flirts, leaning down at her again, and I tug him back up.

“Okay, that’s enough.” I give the girl an apologetic stare.

“What?” Banks complains with a face at me. “Youwon’t date me. Date me.”

“She’d have to knock off a few brain cells to do that,” Camille quips.

“So, who are you?” I question down at the girl, my eyes narrowing in on her paint splattered shorts again. She’s absolutely an artist. I would’ve recognized that in her without the obvious rainbow stains.

“Jessabelle Wescott,” she informs us, then lets us know what she’d rather be called. “Jessa.”

“Well, I’m Reyna,” I say, omitting my last name, because even though this Jessa just told us hers, she’s still been spying on me. “And this is Camille,” I add with a gesture to her, which I think is mostly harmless, considering, but the hard stare she shoots my way is disapproving.

I give her a shrug as Jessa says to me, “I know who you are.” She sounds almost mad with a tinge of sadness.

“So. . .” I drag out the word, growing impatient as I eye her shorts again, thinking she’s heard of me from the places I was able to submit my artwork. Maybe she works at one of them, too. And maybe she also had a say in the denials I’d received and has since changed her mind, wanting to correct her mistake in person. She looks a little young, though. Around my age, a year younger or a year older, perhaps.

“Who are you?” I ask again as that familiarity strikes, unsettling now, a sick feeling in my stomach. It’s like my body knows and is waiting for my mind to catch up.

The girl—Jessa—hesitates as if she can sense my sudden inner struggle, then says the words like she’s sorry to break the news.

“I’m your sister.”

My world shifts, the axis breaks, everything I’ve always known, the way I’ve always seen my life, my existence, changes completely with those three words.I’m your sister.Noises die down, voices fade, everything seems to drift away except for me and this girl.My sister.

I have a sister.

"Itoldyou someone else had to get a sibling,” Banks proclaims, his hands motioning around in my side vision, then he’s dashing off, leaving me to deal with … my sister.

I blink, and my surroundings slowly refocus; kids hollering, people chattering, Violent Femmes playing through the speakers. My sister piercing me with her unwavering blue eyes.

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