Page 69 of Falling Backwards
Also strange is that my hands had seemed to stop shaking when I was touching her, but they’re back at it now.You’d think the opposite would be true.I cross my arms once more and, heart hammering, keep talking.
“I felt better after we all left the bar last night and Kyle wasn’t around.I got you through the night, you know?You asked for my help and I gave it and we were successful and you were breathing better and everything was fine.Then you girls came in here, so Pax and I left, and I didn’t feel better anymore.I guess it was because you were out of my sight, I don’t know, but as my night went on, it got to where I straight-up worried about you—I barely slept, Maggie.I couldn’t stop wondering,‘What if he honestly didn’t care that we sat together?What if it wasn’t enough and that’s why he stuck around?Was he just waiting me out?Is he gonna go back to following her the first chance he gets?What if he corners her alone somewhere again?’And I kept thinking I should’ve done more—you hadn’t asked me to, but I should’ve, and—”
“Luke.”She’s officially overwhelmed in a different way from when she was babbling about him.“I-I’m confu….”
Well, that’s not an outright no.She also hasn’t smacked me for my audacity or kicked me out of her place.
It gives me some hope.
I breathe for a few moments and try to calm my heartbeat.
“Look,” I say slowly, “we hoped a few hours of me being with you would turn this guy off, but for whatever reason, it didn’t seem to.I haven’t been able to shake how much that disturbed me, because I remember how disturbedyouwere.So I came here to see how you feel today and offer this idea even though it might’ve been too early to tell if he’s gonna back off.But now, after what happened at the store—even if hedidn’tknow you were there—and how worried you got that I was him showing up at your door, I know for sure that you’re still afraid.If you were relaxed at all when I left you here last night, that’s not true now.Right?”
Her brow is creased with bewilderment and dismay.
But she nods.
I tell her, “It’s not okay for him to keep you from living comfortably, and it’s not a problem you have to deal with by yourself.Us putting on a relationship sounds absurd ’cause of who we are to each other, but—”
A weak laugh escapes her.“Itisabsurd.”
“Okay, but I’ve thought about this.If he didn’t believe that you’re with someone else and that he needs to move on, we can try harder to make him believe it.We can do better than the bare minimum.”
I swallow hard.Gather my last bit of courage.
“We’ve dated before.We can pretend to do it again.”
Although I’d planned the words and practiced them many times before this moment, they still send a heavy ache through me.
The stumble in her inhalation tells me something similar is happening to her.
Our past is a difficult thing to talk about.Sometimes it’s difficult to even think about.I had to mention it, though; no matter how cracked our foundation is, we do have one to stand on, and that’s worth noting.
Carefully, I continue, “I don’t mean we should try to seek him out and intentionally show off in front of him.I’m talking about doing this for the sake of‘just in case he’s around.’If we go to work together and I run your errands with you and we do normal-looking things with each other, wouldn’t it kill two birds with one stone if he happened to be watching?You wouldn’t feel threatened ’cause you wouldn’t be alone, and he’d see more proof of you being unavailable.”
Maggie hasn’t broken eye contact with me for whole minutes, and she doesn’t start now.
I can see a lot of things churning in her expression, but she’s still listening, still not telling me to fuck off.
So, more quietly, I ask, “What do you think?”
She continues to give me her undivided attention, silently, motionlessly.
I settle in for the wait while she processes this.It tookmeall night and the first part of today to get a grip on it.I even had to ask Paxton’s opinion.He was on board pretty fast—‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’he’d said—but he’s not Maggie.He doesn’t even know our history, only that we’ve been at odds over some ugly stuff from years ago.
Even the quickest thought of it brings up how much she hurt me, how angry she made me.
If she isn’t remembering the ways I wronged her, too, I’d be shocked.
But same as last night at Merritt’s, her current situation feels more important to me than turmoil from high school.I can’t seem to help wanting to do something about it, even if that means taking a route neither of us anticipated.
The question is, does she feel the same way?
“Joy….”
At the faint word, I tune in to the contemplation on her face.
“At the bar, when Joy told me her idea for you to sit with me…she said she had faith in it because we were nice to each other at work the other day.She said we could get along if we tried just a little bit.”
