Page 72 of Falling Backwards
Another small stretch of silence.
“And how long do you intend to play this out for?”she asks.
Yet another thing I’ve already thought about.“Couple weeks or so?I don’t know.I figure either until Kyle backs off on his own or until he gives us a reason tomakehim back off.”I gesture between us.“This idea seems like a strong plan for the interim.We wait to see whether he acts right, and while we wait, we both know you’re safe and comfortable.”
“What if it takes longer than a couple weeks?”
I shrug.“Guess I’ll have extra time to teach you it’s okay not to live by every set of rules in existence.”
She narrows her eyes.“Oh, thenI’llhave extra time to teachyouhow valuable rules can be.Stop signs are stop signs for a reason, you know.”With a tilt of her head, she muses almost innocently, “Or maybe youdon’tknow?”
“Ha.”After a beat, I add, “At least I won’t be a bore like that dude Marcus, though, huh?”
Mild surprise touches her and she straightens up.“Why do you think he was boring?”
“Because he was.”
“Whydo you think that?”
“Well, I dozed off every time I saw you two having a conversation.No real smiles, no big laughs, no contagious fun.”
“You and I don’t have those things either.”
“But we used to, so I know what happiness looks like on you.”
She blinks slowly at me.
I blink back.
“Well, really, though,” she says, “what if we fake-date for longer than you expect?You can’t hang in there with me forever.”
“Sure, but I wouldn’t have suggested this if I only felt like doing it for three days.”
“What if you meet someone you wanna date for real?”
That redheaded girl from the self-checkout drifts into my mind.
She was pretty and interested, but I looked at her and somehow thought of Maggie.
Maggie, who’s gotten ten times bigger in my mind since then.
Feeling oddly calm about it, I answer, “Nobody’s gonna take my focus off of you.”
I’m ready for her next question, but it doesn’t come.She keeps studying me, her hands clasping, her bottom lip tucking into her mouth.
All right, that little action is growing on me.It’s not something she does to be cute, but it still makes her look cute, and if she keeps slipping it into our encounters, my shoulder drop addiction is going to end up with a friend.
And though it seems like a good sign that she hasn’t done the shoulder drop since I’ve been here, I do rather wish—
“O-okay,” comes her soft stammer.
The word springs me from my thoughts.She seems to be torn between relief and reluctance where she stands over there.
I understand that.I’m more relieved and resolved, but it’d be a lie to say part of me isn’t wondering what I’m getting myself into.It does wonder if I’m really ready to be around her so much…even though I have no other option because being around her is the only way this plan will work…and even though this plan was my idea.
However, I say, “Okay,” back to her, and nothing in me whispers that I’m making a mistake.I feel a lot of things, but a sense of outright wrongness isn’t one of them.
It’s nice.These days, I’m well aware of what being a dumbass feels like, and for once, I’m unburdened by it.
