Page 55 of Don't Fall

Chapter Fourteen

Tessa

It doesn’t take long for us to find our own groove and before I know it, weeks have gone by and I’m navigating this roommate/sex-buddy thing surprisingly smoothly. It’s quite straightforward really. When we’re naked, we do naked things, and when we’re not, we don’t. It’s as simple as that. No pointless make out sessions when we’re dressed, no deep conversations (anymore) when we’re naked. Though, we have plenty of both within the proper perimeters of our arrangement.

“Hey, wait up,” Drea calls out just as I’m about to start down the stairs.

“Where are you going this time of morning?” It’s weird to even have to ask, but there’s still an odd, unacknowledged distance between us that keeps me out of the basic loop and vice versa.

“Just the parking lot,” she says, catching up to me. “Figured we could walk and talk.”

“We’re going to do that? Talk about it?” It’s not really our thing. But then, neither is fighting. The usual squabbles we have are easily ignored the next day and then life just carries on as normal. Didn’t quite work out that way for us this time around and it’s been really strange not having her bursting in at all hours of the day and night.

“Ignoring it and pretending it just went away hasn’t worked.”

“Weird, right?”

She laughs, slapping her thigh in exasperation. “Yes! What went wrong, man? That’s how we process! Ten years of friendship have taught us this.”

“I think we both kind of jumped the rails where the usual process is concerned,” I say, sighing when we hit the second landing. “First, I went all crazy, then you went all crazy, and the crazy was all crazy and so not our usual crazy, I think it’s only natural we screwed it up a bit.”

She hooks her arm into mine as we hop the last few steps to the bottom the same way we did when we were twelve and she came over every day after school while her parents were at work. “I’m glad I understood all that. Must mean we’re fixed again.”

We bump shoulders when we reach the pavement, both giggling like neither of us has a care in the world. Sometimes being reminded you still have your best friend by your side is all it takes to feel that way.

“There’s just one little thing,” I add as we’re about to part ways in the parking lot.

“Lane,” she groans, “You’re going to make me not hate him, aren’t you?!”

“He’s not who you think he is,” I reason.

She rolls her eyes, but it’s more in surrender than anything. “I know,” she mumbles begrudgingly. “I talked to Jules. Well, it was more like she came venting to me. Bitching about how he must be gay because she used all her best moves and not one worked on him.”

“Did you tell her...?”

“That he’s not gay?” Her brows rise to meet her hairline. Speaking in code brings out all of her most animated expressions. “No. Decided it was better for everyone if she continues believing she’s got nothing he wants. Which, clearly, is true anyway.”

I nod, perfectly happy to leave it at that. No need to expound any more on what Lane does or doesn’t want and whether or not he’s still getting it.

“Thanks.” I give her a hug before I start to walk the last few feet to my car. “I’m glad we did the talking thing.”

“Me too. But let’s try not to need it again. It’s yucky.” She shudders, as if trying to shake off the ick of feelings and such.

“Yes, let’s,” I agree, amused with her antics to the point I’m still grinning when I get in my car and take off. Or maybe that’s just the giddy feeling I get when I know my best friend and I are back to normal.

Normal is a relative term of course, and tends to apply itself so sparingly to my life. Kind of like now, as I’m headed to my first class. Seems normal enough. I come here every week. I like the class. As far as I know, I’m doing well in it. And that’s not counting all the extra credit I’ve been doing.

Still, nothing ever feels normal anymore about reaching for that handle and walking in. Not even the sight of an empty classroom, which greets me plenty on my day to day life given my inclination to arrive early for things whenever possible.

Today he takes one look at me and, “Out!”

“Excuse me?” I’m too stunned to add any sort of feeling to my reaction.

“You can’t be in here,” he says flatly, very intently stacking up sheets of papers that have been stapled together in small bundles. In other news, I think we’ve got a pop quiz coming at us today.

“I can totally be in here. And I can sit in the back row. And I can shut my mouth and you can stop talking to me and then neither of us will even know the difference,” I rationalize my way through his ridiculousness.

His stack of papers hits the desk with an intentional wham. “I’ll know.” He lifts his head just far enough for his eyes to meet mine. “I can smell you. And that’s a problem. Because if I can smell you, I want to look at you. And if I look at you, I want to do other things...things I can’t even think about wanting to do while we’re here, where we’re supposed to ignore each other, except I can’t because I can smell you.”

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