Page 52 of The Problem with Falling
Most of my life was spent pretending. Living in a fairy-tale state of delusion to get through every single moment of every single day. That was why I surrounded myself with people;pretending when others were around was easier. It felt like drowning when I was alone with only my mind and thoughts.
I knew I drove around a lot on my own, but most of the time, I had to find other people in other places to experience life with them. That was why I jumped at the opportunity when Theo offered to let me stay with him at his place instead of in Big Bird.
My thoughts would become too heavy when I was alone, and I’d struggle with remaining…happy.
I wanted to be happy. Not pretending to be happy but happy-happy. The kind of happy that a person couldn’t fake, no matter how hard they tried. Maybe that was what I wanted most in the world, but sometimes life felt like such a foreign concept. I’d only met a few truly happy people in my lifetime, and my former best friend Anna was one of them.
I always called her my clementine. Clementines had the brightest burst of joy filled with so much tenderness and sweetness. They were gentle, and I didn’t think enough humans came across clementines in their lifetime. If anything, I felt as if life killed off the clementines, breaking them in ways that were so cruel and cold.
When we were younger, Anna and I loved to dance. It was our favorite thing to do ever since we were kids. Unlike me, Anna was a fantastic dancer. She had dreams of becoming a ballerina and traveling the world on her tiptoes. She was so flawless with her dance moves, each movement appearing like artwork. On the other hand, I danced like a person who just discovered how to walk poorly. I didn’t care, though. I loved how powerful it felt to allow music to move your body in ways it wouldn’t otherwise.
I wasn’t sure what became of Anna after our friendship ended. She still lived in Honey Creek, which was probably why I never liked going home. I didn’t like to cross paths with the shadows of my past. If I saw Anna today, I wasn’t even certainI’d know what to say to her. But still, whenever there was an opportunity to dance, I’d do so, and I’d think of Anna.
The idea of dancing that evening was one of the main reasons I’d agreed to go with Peter. So you could’ve imagined my disappointment when we arrived.
Peter Langford’s house was not a dance party. It wasn’t a party at all, to be honest. As we pulled up to the darkened house, my stomach knotted from the uneasy feeling that rushed over me. There weren’t cars parked outside or people moving about inside the home. There wasn’t any trace of music to be found. Maybe I misunderstood what exactly a dance party had been.
Something was clearly lost in translation.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as he parked the car in front of his home.
He put the car in park. “There was a change in plans. We are going to do a party next week. But since you seemed so excited about dancing, I figured we should still have a dance party for two.”
That was the last thing I wanted to do.
I had a gut feeling earlier that I should’ve stayed home that night. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t always one to trust my gut. I’d rather put myself in situations that would’ve stressed my father out extremely. My current one would’ve probably put Avery into labor.
“Maybe it’s best if we have a rain check on the dancing,” I said with a smile, not wanting Peter to sense my discomfort. “Next week sounds much better for a party.”
“You’re probably right,” he commented, still shutting off his car and climbing out of it. “But maybe we can have a nightcap to get to know one another better.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I told him, those gut instincts hitting a new level. He shut his door and walked over to mine toopen it for me. I didn’t climb out. “Plus, I’m feeling a little sick. I think I should get back.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Come on, Willow. You don’t have to play innocent.”
“Play innocent?”
“It was clear we had a connection earlier when we met in town.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not—”
Peter’s sinister smile made my skin crawl.
I swallowed hard, not wanting to say the wrong thing but wanting to make it clear that whatever he had in mind, I didnothave in mine. “Peter, I think I’d like to go home.”
He snickered and shook his head. His eyes, though the same color as Theo’s, didn’t hold the same light. “Willow. Just come inside.”
Every hair on my body stood straight up from the deep, serious control of his voice. The last thing I wanted to do was push him to a level of discomfort because he was a stranger to me. He was the kind of stranger that I went out of my way to avoid, truthfully.
I’d traveled all over the world since I was eighteen years old. I’d met a handful of people, an array of personalities, yet my least favorite of all types were ones like Peter. The personalities that acted as if they deserved to have whatever it was that they wanted. The ones who expected people to bend over backward for them, no matter what. The ones who flipped the switch out of nowhere.
People like Peter were why my father feared me traveling alone.
People like Peter made my stomach turn.
I climbed out of the car, not wanting to make him angry, and I held my phone tight in my hand. He smiled as if pleased to gethis way. I wondered how often Peter had heard the word “no” in his life.
We walked up to his front porch, and the moment I reached the top step, I asked him if we could enjoy the drink on his porch since the weather was so nice. I used my sweet-as-pie voice to make him unaware that I was two seconds away from booking it down the road.
