Page 21 of Fall for Me

Chelsea

Itook the back stairwell to make sure I didn’t run into my dad and brother. Just like she promised, Mia was waiting for me in the back parking lot. She stood next to her car, her red hair done up in a messy bun. She looked exhausted. But clearly, I looked much worse, because her jaw fell open when she saw me. She snapped it shut again quickly and put on a smile. It didn’t matter. I was grateful she was here, no matter what she thought of my appearance.

“Thank you so much, Mia,” I said, giving her a hug. “I owe you one.”

“Of course.” As she moved aside to open the door for me, I was surprised to see she hadn’t come alone. A fluffy brown dog bounded around in the back seat. She looked like a chocolate lab, and not fully grown either. A big puppy. Not that I knew anything about dogs—we could never have them at the staff apartments. The chef Cass had hired for our restaurant, Jacques, lived there, and was terribly allergic to anything with fur. Cass said Jacques was irreplaceable, and Reese, our restaurant manager, was always paranoid he was going to quit, so everyone bent over backward to make him happy. We couldn’t risk a pet in the building, even on different floors, just in case.

The dog opened her mouth and barked, then sat there with her tongue hanging out. I could swear she was smiling at me. My heart swelled, just like it had with the bird. It was ridiculous, but the way the animal looked at me with nothing resembling pity or pain—only joy—made me laugh out loud.

Maybe I was an animal person now.

When I looked back at Mia, she looked quickly away. She’d been staring. And even as she looked back, she was trying not to fix her gaze on my bandage. She pulled her expression into a smile. “You cut your hair!”

“And you got a dog.”

She grimaced. “That’s Lola. Mike’s dog.”

“Mike?”

“The guy I’m seeing.” She blushed, smiling again. “He’s from Greenville.”

Greenville was the next town over, in an adjacent valley.

“I met him the night…” She looked down, her cheeks definitely pink now. When she looked up, her chin was wobbling. “He took me home. But… I should have gone home with you, Chelsea, I’m so sorry…”

“Mia, it wasn’t your fault.”

“But if I’d stayed—”

“You were too drunk to drive, anyway.”

She nodded.

I didn’t actually remember. Only bits and pieces, and what Cass had told me. Mia still looked like she was shouldering all the blame for what happened. As if she had anything to do with it.

“Mia, if I’d gone with you, we might have been the ones to T-bone someone else.”

“I know,” she said quietly. I could tell the thought made her as sick as me. “I haven’t been out since that night. I haven’t even talked to any of the other girls.”

The ones who hadn’t bothered to check in on me like she had.

The dog whimpered and scratched at the glass, bringing me back to the present. Once Eli found out I’d left, he might just throw me over his shoulder. “Should we go?” I asked.

Mia nodded, thankful, it seemed, to have a task.

We got in the car, which smelled like a strange mix of vanilla from the air freshener on the vent and happy puppy. The dog bounded around in the back, dropping into the leg well and then back up onto the seat, whimpering.

“Hey girl,” I said, turning around and scratching her behind the ears.

“Her name is Lola,” Mia said.

Lola gave a little bark, as if in confirmation, and I laughed. “I like you, Lola.” I was so absorbed in the little puppy, I didn’t realize until Mia had pulled out of the spot that being in a car again after the crash could have potentially been nerve-wracking. When I’d rushed to Seamus’s with Jude, I’d been so frantic with worry about what Eli was going to do to Seamus, but either the dog, or this runaway act, seemed to have made it a non-issue. I hadn’t had time to overthink it.

As we passed the main parking lot out front, I saw Eli heading toward the main entrance. “Oh shit.” I shrank down in my seat.

Mia grinned, for the first time. “I can’t believe we didn’t hang out in high school,” she said. “You’re doing a perfect impression of me at fifteen.”

Lola barked again.

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