Page 90 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

Eric’s head jerks back and his eyes go wide in surprise. I leave before he can give me some bullshit answer.

Delilah’s already down at the corner when I step outside, so I jog to catch up with her.

She’s standing super still, like I’ve noticed she always does when a migraine is coming, like her head might tip off her body if she makes one wrong move.

“Listen—”

“I already called a ride,” she cuts me off, showing me the app on her phone. “It should be here in two minutes—oh, actually, one minute now.”

“Delilah, let me drive you home.Please.Let’s talk about this.”

“So there’s something to talk about, then? Something is going on?”

I consider smoothing this over, saying what I need to say to make this all smaller. The words flow through my head with ease, sit on the tip of my tongue. But I know I can’t keep doing that. Notif I want this relationship with her to be all that I know it can be.

“Yes.”

She looks at me, and it’s like time slows down and I can see the moment that her heart breaks. “Okay.”

“I promise it’s not as bad as it looks, though. If we could just talk about it, then I know—”

“How will I even know if you’re telling the truth? Because whatever that was in there—” She points toward the house. “One thing I’m pretty sure I gathered is that you haven’t been honest with me.”

“Delilah, I have been honest... about the important things at least.”

“Oh, and who gets to decide what’s important?” She exhales loudly and then holds her hand up. “You know what? We can talk, but not right now. I need to think.”

And of course, right at that moment, a silver Honda Civic pulls up to the curb, and a woman with curly blond hair and a turkey hat rolls down the window. “Delilah?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she says, rushing to open the door. She turns back to me and I don’t even recognize that expression she’s giving me, probably because I haven’t fucked up this much to deserve it before. “Can you tell your grandma I said thank you? And your parents too? Tell them I had a lovely night but something came up with my family.”

“Delilah, please don’t leave.”

“I’ll text you tomorrow.”

Then she gets in the back seat and is driven away from me. From us.

Black Friday

Reggie

After ignoring my pleading texts all night, Delilah agrees to meet with me at the park a block from her complex. When she walks up, she’s pulling her flannel around her like it’s freezing. Her curls, usually bouncing everywhere like they’re a sentient life force, are pulled back into a ponytail, and her eyes have deep bags under them. She looks like she got as little sleep as I did.

“Hey.” I wave at her, and she nods back, giving me that tiny smile with the side of her lips just barely upturned. But she quickly removes even that little expression from her face.

“Should we...” I start, pointing to a bench. We’re the only ones here—the rest of the world is probably shopping Black Friday deals from bed.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Her hand is in between us as we sit down, and I try to take it, like I always do. But she pulls it back to her own lap, clasping her fingers together as if to protect them from me. My heart plummets to my stomach, like I’m on the worst roller coaster ever, and thelittle hope I was grasping on to starts to slowly slip away.

“So.”

“So.”

She takes a deep breath and then exhales slowly, steadying herself. “So. Yesterday was really good. Until it wasn’t. Until it got just... very confusing. When we were with your cousins, that guy sitting next to me... it felt like I didn’t know him. And, Reggie, I really hated feeling like I don’t actually know you, my boyfriend.”

She finally looks me in the eye then, her brown eyes big and questioning, and I know this is my moment to save everything. I start talking fast.

---