Page 48

Free Fall

Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee

I wait until Sunday afternoon to text Isaiah. It’s a bullshit What are you up to? because I have no idea how to repair the bridge I demolished yesterday.

He’s usually quick to respond, but nearly thirty minutes pass before I get his answer: Nothing.

Crestfallen, I send Paloma a lengthy message with a synopsis of yesterday’s enormous screwup. While Meagan and Soph exist in a bubble of sugar-sweet happiness, Paloma and Liam bicker plenty. They challenge each other on topics large and small, but their loyalty runs deep. If anyone’s capable of giving advice on how to mend the rift I created, it’s Paloma.

She calls immediately. “Girl, you’ve got to talk to him in person.”

“What if he doesn’t want anything to do with me?”

“Then he’s not who we thought he was.”

“Paloma,” I say around the stone of worry lodged in my throat. “What if I broke us?”

Her answer is delivered with compassion that only compounds my guilt. “Then I’ll help you pick up the pieces.”

Monday at school, my stomach’s queasy. My schedule doesn’t merge with Isaiah’s until last period, and by the time Ceramics rolls around, I’m practically vibrating with anxiety. He saunters into Ms. Robbins’s garage as the period starts, quashing any chance I had at conversation before the bell.

Paloma gives me a sympathetic shrug.

Ms. Robbins reminds us of approaching due dates, then sets us loose to work.

“I think I’ll throw a pot,” Paloma says, popping up from her stool. She looks at me and tips her chin in Isaiah’s direction before heading for the wheels.

He gets up, too, but before he can step away, I clasp his hand in mine.

“Will you help me pick out a glaze for my project?”

His dark eyes are suspicious—he knows I’m full of shit—but he follows me anyway. I swing the glaze closet’s door shut just enough, the way we’ve done every other time we’ve come in here together, then turn to face him.

His apathetic air scares me.

“I messed up,” I tell him, launching into the dialogue I’ve been rehearsing since Saturday night. “I acted like you don’t matter, and that was so wrong and so the opposite of the way I feel. This is new territory, introducing a boy to my parents. It’d be weird under the best circumstances, but my situation— our situation—it’s complicated. I’m trying to figure it out, and I’ll probably screw up again, but I’m learning. I’m trying. And I swear, Isaiah, I will never treat you like shit again.”

His expression is indecipherable.

He says, “Have you been stressing about this all weekend?”

“I—yes. I was hoping we could talk yesterday, but you seemed checked out.”

“I was.” He focuses on me with such intensity, I have to fight the impulse to look away. “It was fucked, the way you acted.”

“I know.”

“I’m not gonna pretend to understand.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“I appreciate your apology, though.”

“I meant it.”

“I know. So…this is it? Our first fight?”

I think, maybe, there’s humor in his voice.

“I guess,” I say, hazarding a smile. “How about it’s our last too.”

He shuffles forward, resting his cheek on the crown of my head, and I sigh, letting go of the anxiety that’s been building since Saturday. Over the last few weeks, I’ve become swept up in him. If he decides to walk away—if I continue to push him away—I’m done for. I’ll be airborne without a parachute, free-falling toward an unforgiving Earth.

“Don’t give up on me,” I whisper into the cotton of his sweatshirt.

He kisses me, an abbreviated kiss, a kiss with an undercurrent of longing. He draws back slightly, as if distance is a need more than a want. Then he skims his palms up my arms, grounding me in the moment as he says, “Lia, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”