Page 95 of Break Your Fall

“He’s everything,” I murmur as we watch him pass us behind the wheel, his dreamy gaze only for me.

Tommy’s halfway down the street when Jessa questions, “So what’s stopping you?”

What did he say to her?I ask, “What’d he say to you?”

“That he’s waiting for you.” She smiles, and it’s both intrigued and comforting. “What’s the hold up?” She says this like I’m crazy to make a guy like Tommy wait.

I am crazy.I’m so crazy about him that I have no idea where we go from here. I can’t even make sense to myself. I want to keep him, but I can’t lose him. I want to be with him, but I don’t want him to leave me.

We’re different,I remind myself.

We’re forever,Tommy reminds me next.

You’re leaving town soon,I argue back. So what about that? Tommy’s supposed to attend Blareton, become famous, and forget all about the little people.

I smile despite myself when I remember the moment I said those words and the next moment when he said back,There’s no one better than you.

But I can’t ask him to stay. He’s been struggling enough as it is.

“First time feeling this way?” Jessa’s voice draws me back.

“Yeah,” I answer through a breath, that one admission hitting me at once. My heart fills, and it hurts and it heals and it’s real and so good.

“Love is a risk,” she says like she’s agreeing with my unsaid thoughts. “But when you find someone worth it,really worth it, you take the risk.” The words are urging, said to me in a way I would have said to anyone else.

Take. The. Risk.

Jessa changes direction to my silence. “So, I talked to dad about getting your work up on the walls.”

My eyes bulge. “What? But I never said—”

“You think you had to?” That smile’s back again—the one with the purse to her lips. I guess shesensedmy desire to be featured in our father’s gallery during my mini-rant on her own work not being on the walls.

“Well, um,” I stammer, nervous excitement cascading through my veins. “Thank you. What’d he say?”

Jessa laughs at the sudden bounce of my body. “He wants you to bring in what you’d like to use for a showcase. Hint? He likes themes.”

I think of the series I’ve been working on that’s almost complete and my smile grows twice its size.That could work.

“I have something,” I confirm to Jessa, and to me, eager to get back inside and finish right now. “I’ll call him and set it up.”

This prompts her to pull her phone from her shorts pocket. “Give me your number.”

I race back inside for my phone to also call Dad, my feet in such a frenzy that I almost trip over everything in my path.

28

I Am

Reyna

I twiddle my fingers, rocking in the chair, as my father looks through my portfolio from behind his desk.

I completed the series on canvas, and then presented my idea through sketches; a motion piece consisting of unique eyes, noses, and mouths to make different faces and expressions to convey different emotions. I even added in extra pieces in a separate portfolio and a couple of my canvases just because it’s him, and I want him to see my range.

I’m about to rub a hole through my skin the more he scrutinizes without saying anything. I’m dying on the inside. Literally every organ is collapsing.

I never felt this tumultuous when I submitted my work to places before. And I’m trying to treat this like any other professional meeting, but this is my father. Do or die.

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