Page 104 of Break Your Fall

“You can do one of two Gs. Grow up, or get out,” Camille snides at him as she passes by after she, Tommy, and Julian have dispersed.

Banks says something back to her, but I’ve now tuned them out, smiling at my sister as she plops down next to me. “So what are you listening to, anyway?”

“Rihanna.” Jessa hands me an earbud and I press it into my ear as she starts the song from the beginning. I’ve listened to Rihanna, but I haven’t heard this one. A song like this would’ve affected me before, but now I’m just glad it’s not me anymore.

My head sways like hers did as we listen together, and I spy her smiling at our same motioning in my periphery.

Once the song finishes, I give Jessa back the earbud, thinking about Banks’s heartbreak comment and how now is as good a time as any to ask her about Kayleigh.

“I asked Dad about your mom. He told me how she died.”

Jessa leans up and slides her phone to rest on the coffee table, the earbuds making a smallclicksound when she drops them onto the screen, and I immediately take the motion to mean she’s mad at me for bringing this up. Dad did say her mother’s death is a hard topic for her. But I want to know more about the woman our dad loves through my sister’s eyes. And I want my sister to know that I’m someone she can open up to.

I’m expecting her to brush me off when she settles back against the cushion and simply asks, “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“It just came up,” I say, the words feeling like an excuse, jumping to defend myself as I breathe a laugh. “I was nervous while he considered my work and became Motor Mouth. It was one of the first things I thought of. I’m sorry,” I add quickly, for possibly intruding too soon and for the loss of her mother.

Jessa stares off, gripping the top of her hair and pulling it back, the pink strands falling back down around her face when she lets go. “Eight years later, and sometimes it still feels like today.”

“Do you wanna tell me about her?” I ask, trying not to press through my desire to discover this woman. To know what it’s like for a daughter to grow up with a good mother. “I’d love to know who she was.”

My sister studies me like she understands what I’m really asking as she gives me a smile, but then she says, “Another night.”

I nod through a sting of disappointment. “Okay.”

Camille passes by again in my periphery, which prompts me to say, “Camille’s brother died in a car crash, too.”

And now I want to slap myself. My sister needs to know she’s not alone, but I want her to not feel alone withme. To come to me, to open up to me. If she knew my history with Camille and how much I need this closeness, she wouldn’t even consider the idea of going to her.

But just in case, I hear myself add, “Oh, but she’s not someone to really talk to about these things.”And it’s true. I’m essentially saving my sister the trouble and disappointment. Because if she’s anything like me in this regard, that’s all she’ll find with Camille.

“When?” Jessa sounds curious, but not exactly intrigued, which relaxes my fidgety insides.

“About three months ago.”

She watches Camille laughing with Julian as they wash their plates together. “She looks better than I did after just three months.”

“She’s not,” I murmur, remembering her breakdowns over Caleb, the rare occurrence of her crying in my arms. “She hides it. Well, she hides anything that makes her seem less of a bitch,” I half-tease with a laugh.

“Yeah, I got that,” my sister says with her own half-tease. “The bitch thing. It comes out strong with Banks,” she says with a wide-eyed chuckle. “Some of her best lines are directed at him.”

“It’s so funny,” I agree with another laugh. “But yeah, she prefers to deal with the hard things alone.”

Jessa sees my grudging and raises me aHmm. “She’s one of those people.”

My sister’s like me,I think with a pursed smile and a raise of my glass. “But not us.”

“You done with this?” Camille asks as she steps up, picking up my empty plate from the coffee table. I open my mouth to tell her I can wash mine when she’s done washing hers, but Jessa speaks first.

“Hey, we’re looking for some new actors down at the theater. You should come by sometime. I hear you’d be good at it.”

I spit the sip of water I just took back into the glass and look up at Camille who’s now eyeing me with a smirk.

“I bet,” she says, then shifts her stare back to my sister. “Theater’s not my style.”

“Sheisan artist, though,” I tell Jessa whose interest shines now as she looks at Camille. My smile is playfully pointed when I say, “An ASMRtist.”

“A what?” Jessa asks with a face, but it’s Camille’s returned pointed look at me, flat and unamused, that makes my smile deepen, her wrist slacking with the plate. “Oh, are you one of those people who eats on camera? I love watching people eat.”

---