Page 1 of Break Your Fall

1

Summer Storm

Thomas

I stop dead in my tracks as a downpour lands right on my head. Our first summer storm and it happens when I’m outside, standing in the middle of a sidewalk, in the middle of the night, trying to return a twice stolen cat to its second ownerafterthe girl I’m in love with just told me I can’t do anything to fix my screwup.

The sky knows it’s all downhill from here.

I’m soaked in two seconds.

“Are you kidding me?” I scream up at the blackness, the last two words a blubber through water straight to the face.Nope, not kidding.

At least I still have my wits about me.

The humorous kind.

Nothing I’ve really done up to this point can be labeledsmart.

I feel like Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character inI Know What You Did Last Summer,screaming at the sky, on the heels of finding a dead body in the trunk of my car.

There’s no dead body in the trunk of my car, last I looked, but the night’s still young.

Grumbles releases her own distress call down at my side, and through the glow from the street lamps, I can see rain slashing at all the holes of her carrier. “Oh, shit,” I mutter as I set her down, then start removing my hoodie. It sticks to my undershirt, which is sticking to my skin, so I’m not left half-naked when I force off the hoodie. Rain pelts my newly exposed arms like falling rocks as I drape my only form of shelter over the carrier, then haul our asses the rest of the way to Julian’s house.

I bolt through the front door, stop right inside to catch my breath. Water runs into my eyes from my hair, and I wipe at it to clear my vision and the wet strands from my forehead. At the island, Julian and Naomi flank a still crying Camille, their hands paused on her back with gaping mouths at my appearance. I’m shivering, my clothes are sucked to my body, exposing every secret, my hair is now sticking up, and I’m dripping all over the floor. I might laugh if I could feel my face.

“Tommy,” Naomi chirps with concern at the same time Camille spots the carrier still in my hand.

Her body jerks up, and I feel a lift in my chest at how quickly her eyes dry with hope, and she rounds the island, rushing at me. “Is she—”

I manage a nod and set down the carrier as she reaches my side. She crouches and I hear rather than see the carrier door being opened, the deep, rumbly sigh of her relief, because my eyes are locked with Julian’s. He sighs in acknowledgment that I was right, that Reynawouldn’tlet Grumbles go, and my chin lifts a little higher.

Grumbles meows as Camille picks her up and hugs the cat to her chest, clicking her tongue twice—all happening in my periphery as my stare remains locked with Julian’s. It won’t be me who looks away or backs down now. This all started with him.

He gets the message and finally breaks, joining Naomi in crowding around Camille, all three petting and smiling at Grumbles as best friends are reunited.

Minus one.

All’s well in the Fowler household. Thanks to me, a fixer of everyone’s problems but my own. I’d picked up that quality from Reyna. I don’t always try as hard as she does, but I’m just as uncomfortable with change. Life throws loops and I avoid catching them. Lemons, lemonade, it’s all sour bullshit.

But I’m getting a sense, more loops I’ve been trying to avoid, that I won’t be able to stop the change coming. The change that’s already happening.

It used to be us against the world. Now it’s us against each other. The world’s winning. And as I watch my best friends and my family, I’m unsuccessfully ignoring the loss.

I feel like an enigma, standing here. A sore thumb. The drowned rodent who did what he had to do and is now overstaying his welcome. I’m an outsider, holding on to a string that’s already come untied. I’m standing in Reyna’s shoes, seeing how she’s felt. An outsider on the inside.

Camille was never made to feel like that, I’m realizing. Julian tried, but his true feelings always came out. And I’m wondering if she should’ve. IfIshould’ve given her the tough love she deserved when she came back. Her cutting us out hurt me, too, but instead of showing it, I nested in the good feelings of finally seeing her again, of having a best friend back. I knew she needed us, and I had to make sure she felt less alone after her brother died. I had to restore our friend group, have one less wrong in my life, salvage what I could.

But I didn’thaveto do any of that. Julian sure as hell didn’t. I should’ve made a home in the resentment underneath, allowed myself to be bitter, leaned into the anger.

My head rebels from these thoughts as my legs take me backward toward the exit. Any exit.

“So where was she?”

Julian’s question pulls my feet to an abrupt stop. “The one place she knew you wouldn’t find her,” I say as I lift my stare, a slow, heavy drag to reconnect with his, like I’m losing the energy or the will to keep looking him in the eye.

“Where is she now?”

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