Page 39 of Break Your Fall

Camille nods, then says, “This doesn’t belong on the floor,” with a raise of the picture in her hands before setting it upright on my nightstand. “None of this does.”

I follow her stare around the room, expecting her to judge my destruction, make a snide remark about the way I’ve grieved in my own space. I dip down to grab the bag of new dresses I’d bought with that Greta girl from their spot near the door and carry them to my closet.

I can addRiding in a car with a strangerto the list of things I’ve now done.Go shopping with a strangerright under that.

Get in, Blondie.

“What are you doing here?”

Camille doesn’t respond, so I drop the bag under my old dresses already on hangers, then face her again.

When her eyes meet mine, she sighs and says, “I’m showing up.” She shrugs. “You have to start somewhere when you’re trying to start over.”

Start over.I’m familiar with that phrase. “Let me guess,” I say. “Tommy asked you to do this.” I’m filled with warmth over the confirmation that Tommy has been having my back, after everything, and anger at myself for questioning if he would. But my voice is laced with disappointment for Camille, that she needed that push to show up after being so dismissive.

She gestures to her presence. “Notthis, specifically. But you know it doesn’t matter what someone else wants me to do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” Her pointed look pushes my stare to my scattered drawings and paintings at my feet, these ones mostly resulting from class projects.

I bend and gather up my artwork. “Where’s Julian?” I blame the picture that was in her hands for my asking, for framing his name in my head.

“Trying to give you space.”

My hands shuffle through my creations, stopping once my painting of a message in a bottle, washed up on the shore lands on top. I’ve often thought about that message—what it would say, who would find it, how it would change their life.

“I can’t be sorry for being with him.” Camille’s words become the message, forming in cursive along the piece of paper until I erase them away. “I can’t, Reyna. I needed him. I need him.” I stand and face her, pulled in by her openness, the burning in her voice, and my own need to understand. “I’m finally happy again. That part of my life feelsrightagain. And we both know how important that is.”

“Don’t be sorry for being happy,” I quote her, my voice low, before adding my own. “But be sorry if your happiness causes pain for somebody who doesn’t deserve it.”

Her brows flick up in acknowledgment as her eyes avert from mine. “I am sorry you’re hurting.”

“Wow, youmustbe happy,” I gibe as she meets my stare again and chuckles. Then I drink in her apology, let it coat the cracks in our friendship, but not fully repair them. “Porch light?”

“Still glowing,” she says with a sigh, then brushes it off. “I’ll get there.”

I nod. “You will.” Then I raise a pointed brow, taking advantage of this moment for the more important apology. “Where’s the rest?”

Camille rolls her eyes, but there’s a small smile attached. “I’m sorry I cut you out. Even when I was here.” I would encourage her to never cut me out again, prove her apology true, but we’re not exactly friends right now, and her next statement tells both of us why. “We aren’t good at each other.”

My stare falls to the picture of us now back on my nightstand—Happy and Grumpy; our dwarf names that we once playfully assigned each other. There’s never been a better representation than that photo.

Our friendship was more wrong than right, because we were more wrong than right. When we weren’t loving each other, we were resenting each other, trying to make each other into the person we needed the other to be, instead of seeing our differences as a way to learn and grow together. We were selfish. We couldn’t balance. We were younger and dumber.

I’mnotLittle Miss Perfect. We both could be a better friend. And maybe now we can be. If we both just give and let go, we can be better.

“But we can be goodforeach other,” I say, and Camille’s brows flick up, this time in doubt, but then she holds my stare as her face relaxes into a small smile that slowly shifts to a teasing smirk.

“You gonna make me become an emotional wreck like you?”

“If you’re open to it,” I say back and she catches my double meaning with a laugh. Instead of saying a gibe of my own, I quote her again. “And you can make sure I stop letting people fuck me over.”

She chuckles at my pointed stare, then states, “I think you’ve been doing that pretty well on your own.” The words are both a judgment for what I’ve done to her and an approval for what I’ve just done right outside in my kitchen, a subtle gesture toward my closed bedroom door.

“Well,” I say, my smile growing warm. “I’ve learned from the best.”

Her smile reflects mine, then tightens, her stare roaming my room again, at what still remains.

We’re both not ready.

Camille begins to pick up more of my things scattered at her feet in silence and my hands squeeze around my artwork, tense and unsteady over her hands touching my stuff, her presence so seemingly casual in my room.

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