Page 1 of Catch My Fall (Catch)

Prologue

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway

The punches flew through the air, almost no time passing between the loud sounds of fist hitting skin again and again. Iscreamed for it to stop, for everything to stop, but my screams did nothing, did not even cause a pause in the beating. Wherever he had gone, he couldn’t hear me.

Forcing my sore and broken body up off the tile floor, I stumbled over to where they were. Lurching forward, I grabbed his arm with both hands as I tried to pull him away. My hands on his skin seemed to bring him back to reality, at least for a moment, but I feared that he would go back to that dark place again if I didn’t ground him somehow.

Iheard the distant sound of sirens, and although ten minutes ago I had been praying for that sound, now I was terrified. There was no doubt in my mind that the police would arrest him and take him away from me if I didn’t calm him down and get myself together enough to tell the police exactly what happened. Even scared and injured, I knew that I needed to force myself to stay strong for him. I’m more afraid of losing him than I am of anything else.

His eyes… the beautiful eyes that I’ve come to love so much were full of rage and pain, and Iknew he was far away in his head. Letting go of his arm, I lifted both of my hands up and cupped his face, forcing him to look at me.

I could barely croak wordsfrom my sore and swollen throat, my screams having depleted my voice to almost nothing. Still, I managed to force the necessary words out, needing him to listen to me so that the police wouldn’t find him wide-eyed and raging.

“Stan, you have to pull yourself together. I need you.I. Need. You.”

My words broke through whatever fugue state he was in, and my heart broke as he crumbled. He dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face against my stomach before he forced out one word.

“Mimi…”

Chapter One

Wringing her hands as she looked around my dorm room, my mother was the very picture of someone who was uncertain and unsettled.

“Are youreallysure you want to go to school here? We’ve never been this far apart…I don’t like this.”

The truth is that I’m not looking forward to the distance from my mother at all, but if I had my way I’d be more than five hours away from our hometown. Reaching out, I pulled her to me and hugged her tight.

“I have to do this. You know I can’t live there anymore, and when Macy gets out I want to be here for her.”

Hershoulders shook gently as she quietly cried in my embrace, and it broke another piece of my heart to know that my mother was suffering.

“I know, baby,” she sniffled. “I just hate being so far away from you. Neil is looking for a new job in Amarillo and the surrounding area. With any luck, we’ll be here by the end of the school year.”

“Mom, it’s okay. Neil doesn’t have to pick up his entire life and move across the state because of me. I feel awful.”

Stepping out of my embrace, she shook her head emphatically. “Do you think for one second that wewantto live in that town anymore? Neither of us wants to be there a second longer than we have to be. I just wish you didn’t have to move before we found a way to get out here, too. You’ll always be my baby, Mia.”

I swallowed hard to hold back my own tears. “I know, Mom.” Setting my hand against her still flat stomach, I rubbed in a circle. “But in six months you and Neil will have this new baby to take care of, which means that you can’t be stressing yourself out about this. It isn’t good for my baby brother or sister.”

Right at that moment Neil came through the door with the last of my suitcases. He set the cases down and put one arm around my mom’s shoulders and one around mine. “Is your Momma giving you grief about the fact that we’re going to be five hours away from you, honey?”

Letting out a little laugh, I shook my head as I wiped under my eyes with my fingers. “She’s not giving me grief, she’s just sad.”

Turning to address my mother he said, “Now darlin’, I promised you that I would get you out here near our girl as soon as possible. We can’t have our baby growing up without his a big sister to spoil them rotten. You just stay calm and we’ll be here before you know it.”

I can’t even count the ways that I’m grateful to have Neil in my life. He’s been amazing with my mother and he had no problem with her “love me, love my child” edict when they began dating a decade ago. My biological father is a sorry-ass disappointment, but my mom nailed it when she chose Neil.

We were interrupted by a firm knock on my door. Stepping out from under Neil’s arm, I walked across the room to answer it. As I had expected it was my father’s brother, my Uncle Jesse. My stomach cramped up in that first second of seeing him and that made me feel horrible because I love him to death. Uncle Jesse has always been my rock, but right at the moment he’s also a reminder of someone and something that I wish I could forget.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said with a smile of his own as he held up two car keys to me. “I parked the new car in the lot. Since I’m the one who came down with the check, I got the color thatyouwanted instead of the one that John demanded. The car is parked in the B section, fifth space in. I went to the campus office and paid your tuition, room and board and food plan for the year. You’ve got the best plan they had.” Holding out an envelope to me he continued, “He said to tell you that this is your credit card for the year. There’s a twenty thousand dollar limit, but he says if you find that you need more, you should call me to take care of it.”

I could hear my mother and Neil making sounds of disgust from behind me at the same time that I was rolling my eyes at my uncle. “Twenty thousand dollars for a freshman in college is ridiculous! Does he think I’m going clubbing and paying for a family of ten to eat every day? He’s never known me at all. You can go ahead and tell him that I don’t need the extra money to keep silent. I’m not stupid.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Jesse blew out a breath of frustration. “My brother’s a piece of shit. I’m sorry; you know that I hate this. The only reason I keep speaking to him at all after everything that went on is to make sure that nothing else happens. I’m keeping a close eye on him. I should have known that…”

I steppedtoward him to cut off the rest of his sentence with a hug. I literally can’t talk about that anymore. I need a break, and Evermore University is my way forward.

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