Page 44 of Break Your Fall

“I want some pecans, please.”

“We don’t make it that way,” Shelby says automatically from behind the register as I clean the machine behind her. “The pecans come special with their own flavor of ice cream, they can’t be added to different flavors.”

I glance over my shoulder just in time to see the younger brunette girl pout down at the cone in her hand. It’s not a look we’re used to with customers, but it happens with the pickiest eaters, or the newbies, see: mostly tourists.

“Well, that stinks,” she complains with doe eyes. “You can add everything else.”

“Can’t add that,” Shelby reaffirms, and we’re both thankful when the girl just pays instead of argues, the reflexive tension that readies us for a fight in these situations releasing us from its clenches, a smile spreading on Shelby’s face.

Good news: I wasn’t fired from Hold My Scoop Ice Cream Shop.

Bad news: I have to work extra hours to make up for the time I’ve lost.

Mitch had called me back for one of hiswordswhen I reappeared, but the words were all mine. I spilled my heart out, admittedly giving him more information than he needed without taking a breath. His jaw had fallen lower and lower as his brain tried to keep up with me. I imagined myself in those bunny ears Banks suggested I wear, because I was going and going with verbal energy.

Okay, okay, okay, just get out on the floor,he said as he shooed me away. He went easy on me because it was my first offense. It’snotbecause I have himwrapped, as Camille would say while twirling her finger in the air.

I have himscaredof being victim to another bunny attack.

Finished up with the machine, I turn to see Shelby has faced me, her unwavering stare now holding mine. “What? Do I have ice cream on my face again?”

“No,” she says with a slight smile. “Just wondering what graveyard you dug that out of.” Her eyes trail downward over my dress and I look down, too, my hands gripping and swaying the skirt around over my thighs. It’s a black dress with harness-like straps and skeleton arms pointing up from the bottom—one of several that I’d bought with Greta and finally decided to start wearing.

Dark goes better with your hair,she told me as she held it up against my chest. The blackdoesmake my wavy blonde locks stand out more. My hair was always the best thing my mother gave me. And I was drawn to the design, related to the reaching skeletons.

The whole time I was picking out dresses with Greta, I felt guilty that I wasn’t picking out dresses with Camille. And instead of hating myself for wishing she was the one at my side in that little shop just outside of town, I told myself the feeling was normal. To feel nothing at all in that moment wouldn’t make sense and wouldn’t be me. I felt the same way when she was gone. She was one of my best friends. Of course I’m going to think of her when I’m doing something I would do with a best friend, especially if what I’m doing involves clothing as black as her heart.

I snicker at the mental gibe as I picture her smiling, taking it as a compliment.

I don’t want to be or look like Camille. I’ve been trying to erase the whole of that particular day from my memory. I want to be me,with a twist, as Greta had said. No matter how much it hurts to be me, the alternative hurts worse.

“Did Tommy pick that out?”

“What?” I jerk my head up. “No.”

“He’d totally be into that,” Shelby says with a confirming sway to the words. She’s been slipping those into our conversations ever since she and Tommy broke up. I’m seeing that now, too, catching them all.

I step up to the counter for my impending questioning—a conversation I’ve been needing to have with her, separating myself frommyknowing to focus on hers.

“Your face looks like it’s going to explode,” she says before I can speak, and I breathe a laugh as my eyes trace over the few customers enjoying their treats at the tables. “He finally confessed, didn’t he?”

My eyes meet hers as I turn to her. “Why didn’t you? Why’d you date him? Why would you be with someone who couldn’t love you?”

If I wasn’t still avoiding that glass, I should be looking in the mirror right now, asking myself these questions, examining my own choices more than I already have. But Shelby’s reflect mine, so I’m not standing alone.

“Same reason you were.” She flips her braid over her shoulder and shrugs. “I liked him, for one. And he liked me back. But also. . .” Her stare fixes and softens to mine. “We all want to be the girl who changes the boy’s heart. Who replaces the other girl. It never works.”

I glance toward a girl shoving a spoonful of sprinkles into her mouth, thinking Ihadchanged Julian’s heart. Because he made me feel like I could.

“But even though he couldn’t give me his heart,” Shelby continues, “he still felt for me. He cared about me, and he showed it every day.” She nudges my shoulder until I look at her. “He’s one of the good ones.”

I know,I think around a small smile. Tommy isn’t Julian.

Julian isn’t Tommywhispers close behind.

“He’s never wanted to lose you, Reyna.”

“Yeah,” I breathe, my smile slowly fading when tears threaten my lids. I blink them away as they pool.He doesn’t want to risk that, either.

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