Page 2 of The Way We Fell

“That’s why I invited you.” She rolls her eyes, and I half-expect her to add ‘duh’ to the end of her sentence. “C’mon, Jay, you’re home. You’re here. You’realive. After all that, you made it out. Isn’t it time to just live?”

Just livingsounds good. Maybe if I could convince the nightmares to let mejust live, or the constant ache in my leg, the way it throbs at the barest hint of rain, the way knives stab hot and hard through the soles of my feet when I take my first steps every morning. Yeah, I’d like tojust live, if only I could manage it.

I don’t say any of this. Roo knows some of what happened, but there’s plenty I’ll never tell. She knows I was injured, and the severity of the injury itself, but if I have my way, she’ll never learn how it happened. She’ll never find out how it still affects me every day. From the day she was born, it was my self-imposed job to keep her safe, and I’ll protect her with my life, no matter the cost. I hope she never learns the extent of what happened out there.

Katy has been watching us intently. I’ve had half an eye on her beside me and half an eye on the club’s exits, and as Ruth and I bickered, Katy’s eyes darted between us. I pat Ruth on the arm and slouch further in my seat, feeling my body begin to tense as the bass becomes heavier, pounding in time with my heartbeat. Amie and Paloma wave from the edge of the dance floor and Ruth pats my shoulder as she stands, beelining for her friends. Katy takes the opportunity to slide closer, taking the glass from my hand and replacing it with her own.

“Taste this,” she shouts into my ear. “What do you think?”

I take a sip and hold it in my mouth, testing the flavours on my tongue.Huh.

“Too much citrus,” I shout back. “I don’t know if I like it.” I hold out my glass to her and she smiles into my drink as she tastes it.

“Oh, that’sgood.” She sighs happily, taking another quick sip before swapping our glasses back. “That’s really good.”

“It’s Belgian,” I tell her. I don’t know why I’m still talking. I don’t know a lot about beer, especially IPAs, but I have my favourites. And so does Katy, it would seem.

“Some of the best beers are!”

We lapse into quiet for a moment and I can feel Katy’s eyes on me the entire time. I take another long drink from my glass, savouring the bready, almost caramel-like flavour as I exhale heavily.

“You doing okay?” Katy nudges my shoulder. I turn to her, finally facing her after another beat of silence.

“I’m good,” I say with a tight smile. “Honest.” I might have crossed my toes inside my boots, because that is a big fat lie. I’m not good. But I think I might be just about as good as I’m going to get. I blow out another long breath and slouch even further.

“There’s a new brewery in Sunbridge,” Katy says. She’s even closer now, pressed against me from shoulder to knee. She’s warm and she smells sweet, and her eyes are bright. She’s even prettier than Paloma. “They have loads of IPAs and ales. Maybe… I mean—would you want to go? With me? For lunch, maybe, they do lunch I think. As friends.”

I turn to her and smile. At least, I think it’s a smile. It might just be a slightly constipated grimace.

“Friends? That sounds good. Nice.” God, what is it about Katy? She has me tongue-tied like a pubescent teen seeing a girl for the first time. Why can’t I get my words out? “It sounds nice.”

Ruth grabs my hand and drags me to the dance floor, and I dance with her—if you can call it dancing. It’s something more akin to a barely-rhythmic sway, and it’s done under sufferance, but a dance is the one thing my sister asked of me for her birthday. I manage half a song before my leg begins to ache, but for Ruth, I take a deep breath and power through, just about staying on my feet for the entire three minutes before I hobble my way back to Katy and Paloma, who are saving our table whilst Amie buys another round of drinks.

Between Katy’s conversation, and Amie and Paloma’s dance floor antics, increasingly wild as the night wears on… well, the evening isn’t nearly as terrible as I thought it might be.

A week after spending an evening with Ruth and her friends at Pacifica, I find myself chopping vegetables in her kitchen, helping her prepare for what she’s been referring to all afternoon asa celebration of margaritas and fajitas. I came over to lend her some tools and help her put together some new furniture, and she put me to work. Now, she’s sprawled out on her sofa—decidedlynotusing the brand new desk I’ve just built—clacking at her laptop keyboard and occasionally barking into the headset perched jauntily over one ear.

“No, Walter, you can’tdothat,” she says, and I smirk. She’s been politely tearing this Walter dude a brand new asshole for the last forty minutes, and my sister is not a patient woman. She covers the microphone and sighs heavily, before pulling her hand back. I sense she’s about to lose what little patience she has left.

“Because that would very much be grounds for unfair dismissal; they’ll sue and they’ll win. And frankly, Walter, I couldn’t evenbeginto defend your actions on that one because it’sbullshit. This is the bed we’ve made. Now we have to lie in it. Come up with something else.”

Damn, my sister is fierce when she wants to be. I return to slicing peppers as she turns to roll her eyes at me, lest she catch me eavesdropping on one side of her conference call.

“Fine, you do that, Walter. I’ll talk to you then.”

She tears the headset off her head and flings it to the ground, throwing her arms out dramatically.

“How does someone so obnoxiously ignorant become so important? How did that man become CEO when he doesn’t have the first fucking clue?”

“It’s the obnoxious ignorance,” I say. “It’s a free pass to unlimited power.” I wiggle my fingers in a piss-poor attempt at jazz hands.

“He’s a fucking moron.” Ruth slams her laptop shut. “I’m gonna have to go to New York again to fix this absolute clusterfuck. I can tell.”

I hum, moving from peppers to onions.

“What a shame for you, having to fly across the world in business class on someone else’s dime,” I comment wryly. “Being a highly sought-after corporate lawyer is such a tough life.” Ruth throws her pen at my head, but because my dear sister has the aim of a one-armed sloth taking a nap, it misses by quite a margin.

“Thanks for cutting the veggies,” she says, crossing the room and slipping into the kitchen. She pats me on the arm, rounds the counter, and opens the fridge, pulling out the tub of marinating chicken. My mouth begins to water from the smell of the spices. Sometimes I forget what a fantastic cook my sister is. I’m hardly a slouch in the kitchen—I guess that’s what you get for being the kids of a butcher and a pastry chef—our parents taught us both to cook as soon as we were tall enough to reach the kitchen counters.

---