Page 21 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

Once I’ve started getting dressed in my bedroom, I find it’s impossible not to remember Maggie’s eyes being all over me in that fitting area.

She was checking me the hell out. No doubt about it.

My sharp liking of it was also obvious to me, taken aback though I was. It reminded me of her giggle from her apartment this morning. I couldn’t remember the last time a girl’s reaction to seeing me shirtless was so awed. Had any other girl ever been awed over me like that?

I felt—and still feel—caught by it being true for Maggie.

I shouldn’t have cared so much, given how she’s my fake girlfriend and my very real ex.

Also shouldn’t have felt such a damn delicious buzz from her hiding away in my little room with me. Shouldn’t have tuned in so attentively to how she was trying not to pay attention to my body, my closeness, my movements.

But boy, did I do those things.

I couldn’t really help it. It’s why I went for the first pair of sweatpants before I’d even put my shirt back on; I was distracted by her. She didn’t see that as distraction, just as me being bad at trying on clothes, and I was fine with her misinterpretation. Because like I said, I should not have been set so abuzz by her.

Don’t get me wrong, part of me was also nervous that she was in there. I’d offered for her to come in before that, but since she declined, the scenario left my mind. Having her end up there after all made the space feel more cramped, like the air had thickened or thinned or somehow both, and unless I wanted to show off my boxer briefs to the girl I’m at odds with, I had to be careful.

Not that I didn’t wanna show them off to her, though….

I’m an idiot.

I tsk at myself and my complicated thoughts. Then I finish buttoning the cuffs of my shirt, adjust my suspenders, and leave the room, grabbing a tie off my dresser on the way out.

And in the kitchen, I find Maggie messing around in the top rack of my dishwasher.

“The hell are you doing?”

I ask quizzically.

She waves at the rack with the measuring cup in her hand.

“You had this stuff arranged poorly.”

Oh, of course.

Scoffing and hanging my tie around my neck, I go up beside her.

“There’s no wrong way to load a dishwasher.”

“Sure there is.”

She’s carefully trying to find a home for the cup. I reach for it, but she holds it away.

Without much effort, I grab it anyway. She holds on tight, though, and tugs farther in the opposite direction.

It makes me sigh.

“I didn’t bring you here so you’d clean my kitchen.”

“I know.”

She adds her other hand to the cup, determined not to let me have it.

“Let go,” I insist.

“You let go.”

I swiftly step behind her and copy how she’s standing—my arms encircle her, and the sound of her surprised gasp hides my quieter one.

Now I can use both of my hands to pry the cup from hers. She fails at holding on this time. “Luke!”

“Admit defeat.”

I withdraw and step away again, then start jostling the cup into a small spot in the rack. Gotta be honest, though: thinking about the shape of her between my arms makes it hard for my fingers to manipulate the dishes she already resituated.

She swats lightly at my wrist.

“No. Stop. It doesn’t go there.”

I get the cup wedged between some plastic food storage containers.

“There is no wrong way—”

“If you don’t organize things, they’ll miss out on getting cleaned properly.”

I point at the cup.

“Well, it fits, so it sits.”

Maggie puts her hands on her hips and stares at the thing. She’s genuinely discomfited by its placement, I think.

In a way, I find that endearing. However, I want her to stop thinking she has to tell me what to do so often.

Her inhalation is slow.

I’m prepared for her to—

Yep, she rushes for the cup again and I stop those hands with mine, then pull them away from their target.

She stomps her foot, frustrated.

“Luke, come on!”

And even with my nerve endings sparking, I can’t keep from chuckling.

A lot.

Partly because my nerve endings are sparking—the way her skin feels rattles me.

But not in a bad way.

“Will you please let me rearrange this shit?”

she complains.

My amusement is short-lived.

I release her hands.

“I don’t need you to. I’m not hopeless or helpless. Do you think I eat off dirty dishes all the time ’cause I don’t know how to load my dishwasher well enough?”

Crossing her arms, she looks to the front of my shirt.

“I’m just trying to help. What’s wrong with learning something new?”

“What’s wrong with leaving this the way it is? It isn’t the worst setup in history.”

“Not everything should just be left the way it is. Sometimes that’s stupid ’cause putting forth the smallest bit of effort can make things better.”

That hits me unexpectedly deeply.

After a second, her spine straightens and her lips press together. The glance she flicks up to my face makes me think she, too, heard a potential second meaning in her words.

Unstoppable thoughts assail me: We can get along if we try even a little bit. Staying at odds is stupid.

“I just wanted to help,”

she says again, less heatedly. She slips a fingertip beneath her bangs and rubs at her scarred eyebrow. Her eyes move over my shirt, but it’s an absentminded study.

I remember seeing that eyebrow this morning when her hair was wet, and so many times long ago—as clear as ever, I can remember seeing it for the first time.

Though all these things in my head are rattling me further, I manage to match her tone.

“Thanks, but it’s fine like it is.”

The other potential meaning grips me tighter, forcing me to add.

“It’s just a slightly messy arrangement of dishes. Nothing important.”

Many moments pass before she nods.

Then she swings her gaze to the dishwasher, pushes the top rack back in, and reaches down for the door. I step away so she can close it up.

“Ready to go?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

I catch sight of my tie hanging loose around my neck.

“In a minute, anyway.”

“Okay.”

She turns and walks off. While my fingers start working on my tie, I watch her go.

And I catch sight of my trash can, next to which sits a full, neatly tied bag. My fingers pause what they’re doing, because I know I didn’t have anything to do with that.

Yet it’s amusement that comes back up in me, not irritation.

“Magnolia, I swear….”

“What?”

she asks from my living room.

“Did you also deal with my trash can while I wasn’t looking?”

She hesitates.

I peer over the counter-slash-bar and see her fidgeting with her purse while she paces the other room.

“Nope,”

she says lightly.

“I don’t know who might’ve done that and then thrown away your empty juice bottle so you wouldn’t have to.”

I resume fixing my tie, once again unable to keep from laughing a little despite it all.

The sound of her doing the same doesn’t escape me.

—

We park in the side lot at Lucent six minutes before we’re supposed to clock in.

I expect Maggie to unbuckle and exit the car in a rush, but the only thing she rushes through is saying.

“I didn’t mean to seem rude,”

with her natural softness. It breaks the silence we drove in while music played.

I turn off the car and unfasten my seatbelt, then settle my eyes on her. This may be the first thing either of us has said since leaving my place, but somehow I know my kitchen is what she’s talking about.

Has she been dwelling on it this whole time? She already kind of explained herself when the whole thing happened. The only thing I’ve dwelled on is when I finally got the measuring cup from her; that unique embrace was fleeting, but it’s been hanging around my mind like so many other moments from our hours together.

She looks up from her lap but only meets my gaze for a second. She glues hers to the front of my shirt again.

After a breath, she’s also back to touching her eyebrow beneath her bangs.

The action makes my own fingertips tingle.

“I didn’t mean to seem rude in your kitchen,”

she goes on, confirming my inkling.

“It’s just that you apologized for how messy it was because of the thing with your aunt, but when I went to check it out, it wasn’t as bad as you made it sound. But I wanted to be helpful anyway ’cause you told me I could do whatever I wanted while you got dressed…. I promise I didn’t walk into your home and start making a list of things I thought needed changing. I like your home.”

Her sincerity is clear.

And…kind of sweet.

All too late, I wonder if I made too big a deal out of all that. Obviously, she was as resolute as I was, but still.

Maybe we both made too big a deal out of it.

I tell her.

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t think you’re a slob or whatever,”

she adds.

“I don’t think you’re too stupid to operate a dishwasher and that you have to eat off dirty dishes.”

When I said that, I hadn’t been sure if she really believed it—I was just countering her. But it’s pleasing to hear she doesn’t.

It also pleases me that she likes my place. I didn’t think she’d outright hate it, but she’s Maggie. I know how much she enjoys things being orderly, and I know how disorderly she often thinks I am.

And I know the way she hurt me in high school can’t simply be forgotten about, but to be honest, I’m starting to realize how deep-seated the desire for her good graces is.

I didn’t want her to think badly of me when we were young, which is why I didn’t come clean to her about the bullshit before she could find out on her own; I didn’t know how to say it in a way that wouldn’t sound as awful as it was. And bitterness aside, I seem to still not want her to think badly of me. Even if she’s not completely in my good graces, I….

But there’s no time to ponder all that. It feels so complicated.

“Thank you,”

I say belatedly.

“My mom taught me the importance of a clean house long ago, actually.”

She keeps avoiding my gaze, but hers goes soft. She keeps rubbing her scar.

Is it just me or has she been doing that more often than usual lately?

Yet again, I recall seeing the remnants of that deep wound up close for the first time. Recall how it felt for her to let me touch them. Recall how she seemed to feel.

And how she looked.

I touched a place she thought was ugly and informed her it wasn’t, and the way she looked melted my fucking heart.

Here and now, the urge overwhelms me—before I can stop them, my fingers are up and bumping hers out of the way, swiping that chunk of her bangs back while they’re at it, causing her to start and me to flash hot as hell in my black clothes.

Our catching breaths are loud in the sudden silence.

And the world slows down a little.

I swear it does as, for the first time in all these years, I dare to brush my shaky thumb over that rough scar interrupting the arch of her eyebrow.

Maggie’s exhalation is soft and uneven, like mine, like her skin in this one place. She still doesn’t meet my eyes, but she doesn’t jerk away or shove me back either.

Maybe because she still likes this as much as I do, I also dare to hope.

Or maybe because she’s in shock that is mere moments from breaking and turning into anger.

My stomach doesn’t like that second possibility. Over the last several months, there have been times when making her mad gave me a sense of triumph, but this wouldn’t be one of them.

I don’t push my luck any further.

Pulling my hand away, I look at the clock on my dashboard just as it ticks up a minute.

“We should go,”

I note lowly.

“Yeah,”

she agrees, voice weak. She clears her throat. “Yeah.”

Both of us rush out of the car now.

Once we’re fully in the cold, she says.

“Here’s an opportunity for powerwalking, I guess, so that we aren’t late.”

I’m relieved she doesn’t sound upset and I’m appreciative of her idea.

“Yeah, good point. Let’s do it.”

We hurry away. Her fingers comb her bangs back into place in that one spot even though the breeze from our pace is blowing them around a bit.

Something else our pace is doing is quickly pissing my legs off.

But I don’t slow down. Not because I don’t want to be late clocking in, but because I don’t want to give up on this—I’ve only just gotten started.

After all, Maggie was right: if you don’t make any effort to change things in your life, they can’t get better.

—

Many long hours later, I get back to my apartment after dropping Maggie off at home with her friends. I’m hungry and tired, but at the same time, my mind feels awake.

Our shared shift was somewhat on the awkward side, and I know it was because of how things unfolded for us today. There were more pleasant ups and annoying downs and pulse-skipping in-betweens today than there have been recently.

As far as conversation goes, the drive away from Lucent was almost as quiet as the drive there had been. All we exchanged were light words about tomorrow’s shifts being staggered, with mine starting a few hours before hers; she’ll see if Emma or Joy can take her to work.

But even with us being free of each other for the time being, she doesn’t leave my thoughts—especially since I decide to finish cleaning my kitchen while a frozen pizza bakes.

She’s so in my thoughts as I stand in this damn kitchen.

I’m sluggishly drying the clean frying pan when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I dig it out and see a text.

MAGGIE: My friends can take me to work tomorrow. I’m gonna spend the morning with them, too, so anywhere I might go, they’ll be with me

Sounds good to me. Since I open at Lucent with brunch hours, there wouldn’t be much time for me and her to, say, try to continue our hunt for exercise clothes together.

ME: Okay, cool

After a moment, I decide to only partly joke:

Don’t finish shopping for workout stuff without me, though, eh?

In general, I don’t give much of a shit about shopping for clothes, but today wasn’t bad. Even with her.

Or because of her.

I think about her standing in her short green bathrobe while she apologized for prying into my bad mood—the bad mood she ended up pulling me out of despite that I didn’t expect she would ever again make me feel better about something to do with my dad. For the last eight years, I’ve believed her incapable of soothing any kind of pain he might cause me, since she apparently knew exactly how to make it worse.

But now I’m certain my day would’ve taken much longer to improve if she hadn’t been a part of it.

I managed to amuse her—managed it more than once, even, as the hours went on. Then I caught and held her attention like a moth drawn to flame when I burst out of my fitting room ready to fight whatever had spooked her; she tried to avoid that flame while she was in there with me, but her struggle was palpable and I couldn’t help that it meant something to me. Then she tried to clean my kitchen out of thoughtfulness, not to be overbearing.

And not one of the times I touched her ended with her yanking away from me.

Touches are part of our fake-dating agreement, I know, but we didn’t even have a potential audience for all of them and she still didn’t stop me.

By the time I’m sitting down with my pizza and turning the TV on, I feel even more wired and tired than before.

Especially since that one thing she said is trying to grow in my mind: ‘Not everything should just be left the way it is.’

I sigh at my plate.

Sometimes it’s easier to leave things like they are. The painful things. The confusing things. The twisted-up things.

‘Sometimes that’s stupid,’ I replay her saying next.

Yeah, I agree with those notions for the most part. But I don’t know how to feel about them when it comes to the things we did when we were young.

Talk about stupidity.

From beside me, my phone vibrates again, so I look over and see Maggie has finally answered my last message:

Wouldn’t dream of shopping behind your back. You’re too good at picking out leggings for me

I smile about that and almost, almost ask when she’s going to let me see her in those shimmery green ones, because hot damn, I already know they were made for her.

Though I refrain from that, I do follow a similar thought.

ME: Glad to hear it. Hey, maybe look online and see if the brand you got has a good sports bra that matches?

She sends back the mind-blown emoji.

I smile even bigger to myself, proud of the idea, and send the emoji back to her.

And I think about the little looks and fleeting smiles we sent each other throughout tonight’s work shift, not quite timid, not quite easy.

Also remember her pacing this very room, almost playfully saying she had no idea who changed my trash bag.

Dishwasher drama aside, it felt strangely nice to have her here.

Nobody would think she’d bring any sort of welcome energy to my home, but she did.

I look over to the door and see my work shoes right by it, where I toed them off after I walked in a little while ago. They’re the same shoes she nearly tripped on when I brought her over.

I’m struck by the urge to get up and move them.

In short moments, they’re closer to the TV. That means they’re only away from the door by two or three feet, but it’s a big improvement safety-wise and looks-wise. The entryway is tidier now.

Satisfied, I sit again and finally take a bite of pizza.

And while I decide what to watch, my mind replays Maggie’s quiet chuckles from the end of her visit here, as if her spirit approves of what I’ve done.