Page 42 of Make Me Fall (Water, Air, Earth, Fire 2)

“Hey, hey.” I grab a box of tissues and try to mop up some of the mess. He still hasn’t moved. When the box is empty, I reach out my arm without thinking to wipe the rest with my sleeve.

“Jonah,” Gray snaps, and I stop myself just in time. He stands up, like the threat of a ruined suit brought him back to life, and heads for the door. “I’ll get some paper towels. Just leave it.”

Once he’s gone, I perch carefully on the edge of his brown leather swivel chair and rearrange the items on his desk to keep them out of the expanding coffee lake—his business cards, a crystal cube that looks like an award, a picture frame. There’s nothing in the picture frame, but I save it anyway. When I’m done, I sit back and pretend I’m Gray, looking for anything that might make me spill my coffee and not clean it up even though I’m such a tidy person my house doesn’t even look like anyone lives in it. It doesn’t take long for me to notice the news article on his monitor.

New York Transit Company Appoints New Defense Attorney in Tunnel Lawsuit. There’s a photo next to the article, a slender man about Gray’s age with thick, dark curls. That’s all I can process before Gray comes back. He drops a pile of paper towels in front of me and stands there, watching me watch his computer screen.

“Is he a good lawyer?” I ask, sliding out of the chair and dabbing at the carpet stain while Gray works on the desk.

“Yes.”

“Are you worried he might beat you?” He doesn’t say anything, just holds out his hand for my dirty towels. “You might have to hire someone for the floor. That’s not coming out.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to leave for a few hours, but you can work on the transcription.”

“Is everything okay?”

He blinks at me like those are the first words he actually heard in the last five minutes. “Of course.”

The man has panic in his eyes and half a week-old salad in his fridge and a sleeping bag under his desk that he thinks I haven’t noticed. Of course he’s okay. If he’s not, that’s for him to talk about with his family and his friends and his therapist. Because he definitely has those.

By the time Gray sets up a laptop and chair at the end of his desk for me, he just seems grumpy in the normal, everyday way that’s almost comforting.

He goes to hand me some earbuds, then pulls them back at the last minute. “Jonah?”

“What?” Something about his tone puts me on edge. It’s the way someone brings up an awkward topic they’ve been thinking about for a long time.

“Do you know what dyslexia is?”

My heart sinks. The way he asks that, the way he watches me from behind his fancy glasses, this smart as shit guy who has apparently spent his time researchingeverything wrong with Jonah. “Not exactly. But I already know I’m dumb. Labeling me with a bunch of four-syllable words won’t make me any less of a disappointment.”

I jump when he smacks the headphones down on the desk. “You know what? I’m getting really fucking tired of that line.” He sounds a lot more like the Gray who held me down and fucked my mouth than the Gray who sits in his office giving me chores to do because he feels sorry for me.

We stare at each other for way too long. “It’s not a line. It’s the truth. What’re you going to do about it?” If I made him mad enough, if he just decked me across the face, that would be the most anyone has ever believed in me, the hardest they’ve fought for me.

But he steps back, straightens his tie. Grabs his jacket and pulls it on. “Get to work, Jonah.”

As soon as he shuts the door, I loosen my tie and undo the top button of my shirt. I keep shoving the earbuds deeper and deeper as I work, because apparently I need my boss’s quiet, focused monotone as far down inside me as it can go.

An hour passes with me not really listening to the words exactly, just getting them written down, pausing when I need to catch up. It feels good to focus on something because I’m enjoying it and doing a good job instead of because I can’t understand it.

The recording goes silent and, just before I flip to the next one, I notice there’s still thirty seconds left at the end of the file. Stretching out my cramped fingers, I let it play.

“Two hours. That’s better, I think. Is it?” His groggy voice catches uncertainly. “The doctor said if I can’t get three or four hours a night, I’ll need to go on Ambien or something before my heart fucking explodes. I got a book today, about sleeping, and it says I should record my dreams. I have no fucking idea why. So, uh, this time I dreamed about work. I’m such an interesting person.” The recording cuts in and out, brief pauses as he turns it on each night to describe his dreams. He has a separate folder for personal recordings that I don’t think I’m supposed to touch; he must have forgotten to edit this one out.

“I dreamed about a dinosaur last night.” A long pause. “I don’t even know what kind it was. Should I look it up? Does that mean anything?” He sounds so genuinely concerned, all earnest and sweet and exhausted. “It was orange, if that helps. I re-read the chapter in the book, but I don’t get it. I don’t know if I’m doing this right.”

Another break. His voice gets quieter, closer, like he has the recorder sitting on his chest, and I turn up the volume. “It was him again, from the plane. Iwishit was a wet dream. I fucking hate this. We just talk and drink coffee and sit really close while he puts his hand on my leg.” He sighs. “I don’t understand how he fucked me up this much.” His voice suddenly becomes cool and brisk again. “I’m done with this. It’s not helping. Why the hell do I want to remember my dreams?”

When the file ends, I scroll back to the beginning of the clip and play it again, not writing any of it down. The third time, I rest my forehead on the desk and close my eyes and focus. I memorize every change in his breathing, the way his voice touches each syllable of every word, solemn and soft in a way I’ve never heard. None of this belongs to me, any version of him, but I want to know that someone out there listened to him, heard him, and cared. Even for just a minute, even if he never knows. Even if we never sit together and drink coffee and talk with my hand on his leg.

Describe your greatest learning challenges and at least two steps you will take to address each of them.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t fucking be here, would I?” I roll onto my back and hang my head off the end of the bed. When I let go of the academic improvement plan, the pages drift and twirl in different directions like a really depressing snowstorm.

Avery put this together and emailed it to me with a note—You’ve got this. Please submit by Friday. I intended to tell Gray the truth before things got this far, but he printed out the forms and handed them to me with such satisfaction that I lost the words.

One page slides under the bed, and I roll off the mattress with a thud to retrieve it. My fingers skim the side of a cardboard box, and I pull it out, cocking my head to listen for Gray–Mr. Freeman. I never hear him during the evenings, because sitting in one spot reading doesn’t make any noise. I only hear him at 2 am, pacing around for hours.

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