Page 233 of Falling Backwards
“Are you serious?”I whisper, cutting off that memory the way younger me cut off Luke’s stammering with hands over her ears and a shriek for him to shut up and never talk to her again.“Jayden-Jayden?The guy you said—you said came up with…?”
He swallows his bite, too, then wets his lips.After a second, he sets his sandwich down and puts his plate aside.I do the same and realizemyhands are shaking, along with the rest of me.
The look that Luke turns to me isn’t all weird and distant and whatever like most of his others have been today.This one is reluctant.
It’sguilty.
The air huffs hard out of my lungs.
“Maggie,” he begins.
I shake my head.“No.No way, Luke.You’renotserious.”
“He’s….Believe me, I hate being reminded of what happened and I hate thinking about it, but he’s been my friend for so long.So it’s complicated, you know?And I don’t even wanna go for very long.He’s not actually my favorite person or anything.I’m just gonna see him for maybe two—Maggie!”
I can hear his concern through the gasps brought on by my rush to stand—shit,my knee—but I still wobble a couple steps backwards, away from his reaching hand.
His eyes had already turned imploring, and that intensifies now.“Be careful, will you?Come sit back down before you hurt yourself.”
I try to demand, “BeforeIhurtmyself?” but my voice comes out weak and breathy.
You’re the one hurting me right now.
Like I’ve said that out loud, an ache of a look spikes over Luke’s face.
He stares at me, and I stare at him.
Neither of us says anything else.
I don’t know whattosay.There are too many words ramming against the inside of my skull.I’m just…I’m—I’mstunned.
And the sting of betrayal is quickly taking me over.It’s coming on so strong and recognizable that I almost feel dizzy with it.With panic.Withheartache.
Part of me scrambles for calmness, tries to recall the whole,‘To hell with the outside world!’thing I was thinking in the car about nothing mattering as much as Luke and I do.But it doesn’t work.I can’t just brush this off, can’t just let it go.This is the opposite of the outside world—this is a home strike right to my chest.
I never imagined he’d do anything like this after how things have changed between us.
I tune in to how thin my breaths are in the silence.How shakyhisare.
This is not happening.Luke has not actually made this choice.
He finally says, “I’m not trying to hurt you, Maggie.I don’twannahurt you.”
‘This stupid bet Jayden came up with….’
The jagged pain and mortification from that day come back to me in full.
It helps me to finally keep talking, too, around the lump growing in my throat.“Whatareyou trying to do?Pretend like none of the bad stuff from high school was real?”
“I—”
“Are you trying to pretend like everything’s fine and nothing ever hurt like hell and—?”
“We agreed on that, didn’t we?We said we’d put up a wall between then and now!Glazing over the past is what we decided to do!”
“But not like this!”
My sudden yell bounces around the room and leaves him frowning in surprise for long moments.Then he’s outright unhappy as he gets to his feet too.
