Page 101 of Falling Backwards
The action makes my own fingertips tingle.
“I didn’t mean to seem rude in your kitchen,” she goes on, confirming my inkling.“It’s just that you apologized for how messy it was because of the thing with your aunt, but when I went to check it out, it wasn’t as bad as you made it sound.But I wanted to be helpful anyway ’cause you told me I could do whatever I wanted while you got dressed….I promise I didn’t walk into your home and start making a list of things I thought needed changing.Ilikeyour home.”
Her sincerity is clear.
And…kind of sweet.
All too late, I wonder if I made too big a deal out of all that.Obviously, she was as resolute as I was, but still.
Maybe we both made too big a deal out of it.
I tell her, “It’s okay.”
“I don’t think you’re a slob or whatever,” she adds.“I don’t think you’re too stupid to operate a dishwasher and that you have to eat off dirty dishes.”
When I said that, I hadn’t been sure if she really believed it—I was just countering her.But it’s pleasing to hear she doesn’t.
It also pleases me that she likes my place.I didn’t think she’d outright hate it, but she’s Maggie.I know how much she enjoys things being orderly, and I know how disorderly she often thinksIam.
And I know the way she hurt me in high school can’t simply be forgotten about, but to be honest, I’m starting to realize how deep-seated the desire for her good graces is.
I didn’t want her to think badly of me when we were young, which is why I didn’t come clean to her about the bullshit before she could find out on her own; I didn’t know how to say it in a way that wouldn’t sound as awful as it was.And bitterness aside, I seem to still not want her to think badly of me.Even ifshe’snot completely inmygood graces, I….
But there’s no time to ponder all that.It feels so complicated.
“Thank you,” I say belatedly.“My mom taught me the importance of a clean house long ago, actually.”
She keeps avoiding my gaze, but hers goes soft.She keeps rubbing her scar.
Is it just me or has she been doing that more often than usual lately?
Yet again, I recall seeing the remnants of that deep wound up close for the first time.Recall how it felt for her to let me touch them.Recall howsheseemed to feel.
And how she looked.
I touched a place she thought was ugly and informed her it wasn’t, and the way she looked melted my fucking heart.
Here and now, the urge overwhelms me—before I can stop them, my fingers are up and bumping hers out of the way, swiping that chunk of her bangs back while they’re at it, causing her to start and me to flash hot as hell in my black clothes.
Our catching breaths are loud in the sudden silence.
And the world slows down a little.
I swear it does as, for the first time in all these years, I dare to brush my shaky thumb over that rough scar interrupting the arch of her eyebrow.
Maggie’s exhalation is soft and uneven, like mine, like her skin in this one place.She still doesn’t meet my eyes, but she doesn’t jerk away or shove me back either.
Maybe because she still likes this as much as I do,I also dare to hope.
Or maybe because she’s in shock that is mere moments from breaking and turning into anger.
My stomach doesn’t like that second possibility.Over the last several months, there have been times when making her mad gave me a sense of triumph, but this wouldn’t be one of them.
I don’t push my luck any further.
Pulling my hand away, I look at the clock on my dashboard just as it ticks up a minute.“We should go,” I note lowly.
“Yeah,” she agrees, voice weak.She clears her throat.“Yeah.”
