Page 93 of Break Your Fall

Reyna

“Reyna.”

My eyes snap open with a start as the blare of my mother’s voice echoes through the hall. I feel a familiar heat next to me, then a shift, and I look over to see Tommy waking up, too, his sleepy eyes blinking at me, a tired smile on his lips that pulls one from mine, right as my bedroom door flings open.

“Reyna—” Mom’s voice cuts off at the sight of us, her stare bouncing from me to him until she settles on me with a look that taps at my stress. It’s the one that says,You’re no different than me.

I know what inaccurate conclusions her brain is trying to come to. Banks had gone flying naked from my room, and now Tommy is in my bed. It doesn’t matter that we’re both still clothed and on top of the covers. My mother has already assumed Tommy and I have had sex, because she has a hard time comprehending how a guy and a girl sleeping in the same bed can be platonic.

And it always has been until last night.

But she can’t sense how I’m still feeling Tommy’s kisses, his hands, the movement of his pelvis against mine.And it’sverydifferent, Mom.

I’ve come a long way to separating myself from my mother, and she’s not causing me to relapse now. I give her my bestfuck offeyes, but of course, she ignores the message, and when she says her next words, I’m thankful she does.

“Why is there a girl who looks like us standing at my front door?”

“She doesn’t look like you,” I say immediately, thinking of my sister as the first part of Mom’s question hits me first. “She looks like me.”

“Youlook like me,” Mom argues.

“Not as much as you wish,” I spit out, and the second part of her question finally sinks in, and I jump out of bed. “She’s here? Why is she here?Don’tlet her in.”

“Trust me, I haven’t,” Mom spits back before telling me totake care of it, then disappearing from my doorway.

Tommy’s propped himself up with his palms, meeting my panicked state with raised brows and a concerned stare.

Before I open my mouth to ask for his help, he glances toward the outside door and offers it himself as he hurries out of the bed. “I’ll distract her.”

I give him a smile he doesn’t see as he’s heading for the door, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Thank you,” I call to him. He knows that I don’t want my new life tainted by this one.

Once he’s gone, I run my fingers through my own hair and meet my mom in the kitchen. “What did you say to her?” I ask with my focus toward the front of the house, trying to spot where Jessa and Tommy could be.

“Your name,” my mom says and I eye her, watching as she pours herself a glass of wine. The past comes knocking and my mother starts chugging. “What do you think, Reyna? I didn’t say anything. I yelled your name as soon as I opened the damn door.” She takes a drink and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Should I expect a pop in from your father, too?”

“No,” I say, assessing the fear I heard in her voice with an undercurrent of hope that draws me physically closer while still verbally pushing away. “He doesn’t even wanna talk about you.”

She licks wine from her lips. “Is that where you’ve been? With him? And”—she twirls the glass on a swallow—“her?”

“Getting a new family?” I add to her list of questionings and she freezes with a hard stare. “I learned that from you, too.”

I turn on my heel and I hear the wine glass clink against the countertop before she rushes up behind me, her hand grabbing my arm to pull me back.

“Stop doing that,” I say, yanking from her grip, and she crosses her arms, shifting on her feet.

“And are you learning how happy he is? How handsome he is? How all of his dreams have come true?”

I shake my head at the snark directed toward me with just enough self-loathing to try to reel in my sympathy. “All of your dreams could’ve come true, too, Mom.”

“They’re getting there,” she says as a pointed reminder of Aspen and Riley that makes me proud of having not given in to the heartbreak she’s trying to hide under her sleeve.

I start to leave again. “So are mine.”

“I’d rather not see that man again, Reyna.”

I turn back to the harsh point of her finger, to the red rimming her widened eyes, and I see the wound that’s been reopened just by talking about my father. Just by seeing my sister at our front door, a girl she doesn’t even know.

“Dad broke your heart and it’s still broken all these years later.” I voice the words she won’t. My mom can hide behind her wine, use her fairytales with Aspen and Riley against me, and pass her judgments of me trying to have a life with my dad, but she’s not fooling me. Even when she tries to, anyway.

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