Page 10 of Fall Hard

“And you don’t?”

“No,” I said after a pause. “I really, really don’t.” We were quiet for a few minutes as we walked and I could feel his eyes on my face until I sighed and stopped moving. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Xander…”

“It’s just, I don’t know. You seem sad.”

That was one of the things I liked about Xander, it wasn’t often that he minced his words or refused to say what he was really thinking. I avoided him more than I should, purely because of his crush on me, but he knew I liked girls and had never had an issue with it. I guess we couldn’t help who we loved.

“I’ll be okay.” I smiled a little and he studied my face before nodding firmly and we carried on. “What’s new with you?”

He shrugged. “I feel like this is the first time I’ve left the house in ages, every time I blink I see textbook pages.”

We laughed and fell into an easy rhythm as we got to the end of the park pathway, then he headed toCocoa & Rumand I turned towards the apartment half-dreading finding Jamie there, and yet also half-hoping to see her face. She spent a lot of her time at Ryan’s lately. I got the impression she thought I wasn’t okay with him coming to our place, so I really never knew when she would be there. Though, I supposed that with the addition of Bryn to the space it wouldn’t be as quiet when Jamie was gone. I couldn’t decide whether that was an appealing thought or not.

We didn’t really have much in the way of neighbors, just a couple of people semi-adjacent to our apartment, and I always thought it was funny that there was this idea of college being a place where you made friends, met people, fell in love. It was true that I’d done all of those things, and yet it was still one of the loneliest experiences of my life—that much hadn’t changed between transferring from St Agatha’s to Radclyffe.

I pushed open the door to the apartment and froze as the sound of loud Lo-Fi practically slapped me in the face. Jamie only listened to Lo-Fi when she was smoking, and I couldn’t smell the tell-tale tang of weed, so I had to assume it was Bryn with the volume cranked right up in the living room. Strange, I’d had her pegged for more of an indie-pop kind of girl, but I wasn’t really sure why—it wasn’t like we’d ever discussed it.

I expected to find her studying, or working out or something, but instead she was curled up on the sofa with a textbook open under her arm as the music blared. If my ears hadn’t felt like they were about to rupture it might have been cute, but as it was I scowled as I grabbed the controller from the coffee table and turned it down to a more bearable decibel. Bryn didn’t even stir.

I watched her for a second, hesitating, before sighing and grabbing the bookmark she’d left on the floor and stuffing it inside the textbook as I pulled a blanket up over her. My phone vibrated in the back pocket of my skinny jeans and I reached for it as I snagged an unopened box of Lucky Charms from the kitchen and headed to my room. I didn’t look at it until my jeans had hit the floor, replaced with my PJs with the fluffy lining inside for optimal coziness. Then I froze.

One missed call. Dad.

I hadn’t heard from them inmonthsand now I had a missed call? My mind immediately focused on all the possibilities for why he would suddenly call now—was one of them sick? Dying? Or had it been a butt dial? I stared at the name on the screen for longer than was probably healthy before holding down the button on the side of my phone to turn it off. He would either call back, or he wouldn’t. But I didn’t want to give myself the temptation of checking it every five seconds, waiting for a call that might never come.

I laid back in bed, switching on the small bedside lap as I did so, and stared up at the ceiling. Bryn’s music played softly through the walls as I tried to get my thoughts to stop churning—it didn’t work. I couldn’t help but picture the way my mom’s olive skin had turned chalky white after St Agatha’s had broken the news to her, or the way my dad’s hands had grabbed the sides of his chair like he’d been about to go head first into freefall. It was their problem, not mine. I’d always been who I was, they just hadn’t known about it until that moment. Or maybe they had, and were finally forced to confront it. Either way, it wasn’t me who needed to change.

The longer I laid there, the more my thoughts swirled. Caught between the past and my present, worried for my future. Everyone seemed to have apassion,some idea of what they wanted to do or where they wanted to go, everyone except me. Jamie had her music and Bryn had the law, Ryan wanted to work in psychiatry or something and Kat… Well, I guess she was still figuring things out too, but she would be graduating soon so I had to imagine she was feeling almost as much pressure as me.

I didn’t notice the sun going down outside of my window, didn’t remember falling asleep. I must have reached to turn off the light at some point and by the time I was awake again my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I blinked, but the world didn’t change. The backs of my eyelids were as endless as the room around me, no hints of shapes or vague outlines, just darkness that numbed the places inside I hadn’t even realized were still sore.

A timid knock half-stirred me, bringing me back onto the cusp of the world as the sound seemed to ripple through the darkness. A moment passed, two, then the faint sound of retreating footsteps reached me. I eased back into myself, letting my mind fall silent once more until another, louder knock hit the wood of my door incessantly. I didn’t respond.

A bright light seared through the room and I blinked repeatedly as my eyes watered. A silhouette walked towards me and I couldn’t make out their face with the light behind them. The bed dipped as they sat down on the edge.Jamie?

“Get up.” Bryn. I would have bit back my disappointment but found that I felt absolute, blissful nothingness.

“Why.”

“Does it matter?”

“Where’s Jamie?”

“Ryan’s.” Oh. Of course. “Get up. We’re going to drink.”

“I don’t want to go out.”

“Then we’ll drink at home. You have tequila, right?”

I considered her words, a stirring of intrigue slowly trying to form inside me. “Why?” I asked again and Bryn seemed to go very still, like she wasn’t even daring to breathe.

“Because you’ve been in your room for a full day and I’m worried.”

That couldn’t be right. A full day? Hadn’t it just been early afternoon a second ago? “Can you just leave, please.” I saw her shoulders slump but couldn’t even bring myself to feel bad even though I wanted to. Of course, that was before she stood up and, quicker than I thought possible, ripped the sheets off of me.

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