Page 29 of Fall Hard

“You seem… cozy.”

“Can’t two women who also happen to like other women be friends?”

Bryn walked back in the room and blinked at my words before wordlessly passing around the pizza.

Kat opened her mouth and shut it quickly when I pinched her arm.

“Ready to have your heart wrecked?” I said cheerfully and Bryn settled in beside me as I hit play.

“Bring it on.”

CHAPTEREIGHT

Bryn’s placewas absolutely fucked.

“How the heck did this even happen? Like, this was a serious flood. Doesn’t the landlord have to do checks or something? Maintenance?”

Bryn stood in the doorway to her room, looking somewhat hopeless and I understood why. The carpet was so soggy it had swelled and squelched unpleasantly when we took a step into the room. The stench of mildew and old water was thick in the air, as well as dust where the ceiling had partially fallen in. Unfortunately, her desk had been hit the worst because of its proximity to the hole. Puddles of water still pooled on the cheap surface and the books that had managed to dry out were crispy and stiff—some didn’t open at all.

I hesitantly placed a hand on her back. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be okay.”

She was unnaturally still and I realized she was holding her breath to fight back tears when I saw the glossiness of her gaze. A pat on the back was not going to do the trick here. We’d come to assess the damage now that the water had been shut off and the room had been somewhat aired out, to see if there was anything we could salvage, but the majority of her stuff was wrecked. The clothes she could probably dry clean, but the few nicknacks and photos she had were too waterlogged to save.

I hugged her hard and ran my hand through the ends of her long hair as she shook against my shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry.” She breathed deeply and wiped her eyes. “Stupid to cry over stuff.”

“No it’s not. This wasyourstuff, you have a right to be upset, to be mad, even.”

“Honestly the biggest loss is my textbooks, I think I can save a lot of my clothes and my laptop was with me at the time. I didn’t really bring much with me when I moved here.”

I understood that. I’d traveled pretty lightly when I’d left St Agatha’s too. “Bet you wish you’d stayed in Cali now.”

“Cali is overrated and overly expensive. Besides,” she gave me a watery smile that I returned, “the company here is much better.” She pulled out her phone and took a video of the room, as well as a few pictures presumably for evidence.

“Flattered,” I said lightly. “You know you can stay with us for as long as you need, so don’t worry about that, but I don’t think there’s much for us to collect here. Why don’t we go shopping? Get you some new clothes? You must be running out of stuff.”

Bryn shrugged but then her eyes lit up. “This is perfect, actually. If we go to the mall we can check another thing off your list.” Ah. The list. I’d almost forgotten… and kind of hoped she had too. No such luck. “Why don’t we invite Jamie and Kat as well?”

“Sure,” I murmured, digging my cell phone out of my back pocket and shooting a quick message off to them both. “I haven’t really told them anything about the list, or you, yet. Kat knows a bit but…”

Bryn shrugged. “That’s fine. You don’t owe anyone anything, Liv.”

I swallowed hard. “I guess.”

Bryn walked over to her desk, her shoes sinking into the floor oddly as it bubbled beneath our feet, and picked up a photo that still had a pin sticking out of it where the water had knocked it from the board on her wall.

“Kind of wish this one hadn’t been ruined,” she said softly, fingers delicate on the edges of the mostly-ruined picture. “I’m not sure I have it in digital.”

She put it back on the desk and busied herself on the other side of the room, checking on her small bookshelf to see if there was anything she could potentially dry out properly, and I quickly slipped the photo into my pocket. Bryn wanted me to find new hobbies, and she was helping me so much for nothing in return, so maybe I could find a way to restore this for her. I certainly couldn’t make it worse.

Bryn pressed a hand to the wall by the shelf as she stood up from looking at the bottom shelves and then cringed when some of the yellow-beige paint peeled off on her palm. “Let’s get out of here before this place falls on top of our heads.”

I nodded to myself a little as we left her building, a small bag of stuff all that we could take out of there. Bryn didn’t live far from the mall, so we crossed the road and sat on one of the benches in the park as we waited to hear back from Jamie and Kat. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“As okay as I can be.” She cleared her throat. “So, we never really had this conversation before, but when I said it’s silly to cry over stuff I meant it. Kit and I… Well, we had a lot growing up, but we didn’t really havethings.Our parents prioritized trips and experiences and taught us to value the same.”

“Okay?” I was a little confused as to why she was telling me this. A short guy walked past us, a beer in hand and I wrinkled my nose when he leered at us.

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