Page 27 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

I stand in my shower with hot water streaming over me and Maggie ruling my thoughts.

The texts I woke up to….

Falling asleep last night was hard enough because the quiet truths we shared on the phone wouldn’t quit ringing in my head. Then I woke up to those texts.

My heart races now at remembering it all, just like when it was fresh.

I hadn’t meant to say that stuff about myself last night—some of it hadn’t even occurred to me before, only right then. It poured out of me before I could stop it. This morning, though, there was no longer anything surprising about those self-aimed slights. There was no, ‘Where did they come from?’ anymore because I recognized the hollow feeling they left me with. It’s been years since the last time I paid attention to it, sure, but it wasn’t unfamiliar at all.

The last time I felt it? When I cried in Maggie’s arms about my dad choosing a new family over me.

The girl I hadn’t meant to fall for held me and gently sank her fingers into my hair while I let out how much it hurt that my own parent had replaced me with two kids my age that he liked better than me.

It has dawned on me that both back then and last night, I….

Felt like I wasn’t important.

I stare at the condensation building on my shower wall, and I swallow at the tension overtaking my throat.

I think again about current-Maggie’s words. Last night I told myself, by way of telling her, that I’m not anything special…and she disagreed.

Her encouragements were a comforting embrace all over again.

Now I want a real one so badly it’s making me feel crazy. And my craving for it is so strong that it has set off a chain reaction of other things I want her to give me more of.

Her hand in mine.

Her laughter.

Her eyes looking over me with liking she can’t hide.

Her plans for the future.

Her random conversation topics.

Her late nights and first-thing-in-the-mornings.

And…more.

She gets under my skin and I haven’t known how to stop it, but now I don’t think I even want to anymore. More and more all the time, it feels like under my skin—so close I can’t shake her—is exactly where she belongs.

These things are all I can think about while I finally shower with intention, and while I get dressed, and while I head to her apartment to pick her up for our walk.

I do still check for Kyle’s unwelcome presence when I get here. I do still feel pleased that there’s no sign of him and freshly angry over his audacity from yesterday—I can’t believe my recent random mental scenario came true and he really asked someone for her address so he can send flowers…. But even he doesn’t stay on my mind for long.

I’m soon outside Maggie’s door, damn near trembling with readiness and nervousness and longing because I have never wanted a hug so intensely—not even when I was young and wrought with sorrow.

She answers my knock with a sweet-voiced, “Hi,”

and a green gaze that’s visibly happy to be landing on me.

The tension comes back to my throat, constricting enough to keep me from being able to echo her greeting.

So I just step forwards, take her shoulders, drag her into me, and wrap my arms around her.

I feel her soft gasp as much as I hear it, as much as I register her soft curves all against me, as much as I smell the lightly luscious scent of the soft hair I’m helplessly turning my face into.

Then her arms are around me too—around my waist, locking me in right back.

God.

My God, it’s exactly right.

Between the emotion-driven tightness in my throat and how it feels to have her body pressed to mine, I have a hard time getting a good breath.

At length, I find my voice and tell her.

“Thank you.”

Her slow sigh against the front of my hoodie spreads through it and my shirt and warms my chest, and I try to hide my slight shiver with a tighter squeeze of her in my arms.

She squeezes me back and I instantly wish she wouldn’t stop.

But of course she does, and she replies.

“Thank you too.”

I don’t seem to need to explain my thanks. Guess it’s obvious that her over-the-phone words have meant a lot to me.

She doesn’t need to explain herself either. I know she’s grateful for the time I’ve spent with her lately.

And I’m going to choose to believe she’s grateful for this hug as well, just like I am, because she still hasn’t let go of me or tried to inch back.

“Luke?”

leaves her now. It sounds like her tone has shifted towards hesitation—uncertainty, maybe—though her embrace doesn’t falter accordingly. She keeps hanging on to me, keeps her face next to my chest.

I don’t mean to whisper, “Yeah?”

but that’s how it comes out.

Please don’t make me let go of you. I don’t want us to let go of each other again.

The silent pleas both surprise me and feel as natural as if I’ve thought them at her a thousand times.

She doesn’t manage to keep talking before noise sounds inside the apartment, followed by singing. An interruption of our unplanned quiet moments, in the form of one of her friends.

We finally unwind ourselves from each other, and she shakes her head a little as if to clear it.

“Um…nevermind.”

I’m struck with worry that she’s trying to clear her head of being so warm towards me, but she gives me a smile I believe, so I don’t worry for long.

“Ready to go?”

she asks, reaching for the water bottle and purse just inside the door.

“You, uh, got your powerwalking shoes on?”

She doesn’t check my feet since she’s not actually asking—of course I’ve got the right shoes on now that I own the right shoes. She’s just mentioning how we agreed that today’s walk at the park won’t be as leisurely as yesterday’s. We’re going to try to push ourselves.

I say.

“Yep, I’m ready.”

As I remember it, I dig into one of my hoodie pockets, then extract the package there.

“And I’m ready to eat my gummy worms…but only if you’ll eat them with me.”

I think Maggie was about to turn and call a goodbye into the apartment, but she pauses and looks at me and my candy with surprise.

Then she shifts into the shoulder drop—and grins at me.

Holy fuck.

My jaw gaps loose. Abruptly stunned, I stare at her.

I’m so overcome with love for this new variation that I drop the gummy worms.

While I fumble to catch them and keep them from going all the way down, I hear her reply brightly.

“Are you serious? You wanna share them with me?”

“Y-yeah. Yep.”

I get them safely returned to my pocket and get one last look at her still-there, not-annoyed stance.

Then I make myself act right and smile decisively, like there’s nothing utterly fucking incredible about these moments at all.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,”

I say.

“Unless you hate gummy worms now?”

“I don’t. Actually, I was craving some the other day. Didn’t get any, though, so….”

She lifts her shoulders with cute excitement, as if to say, ‘Yay.’

A girl after my own heart.

“Oh, nice,”

I practically sigh.

“Mmhmm.”

She calls out to Joy that she’s leaving with me, and Joy sings back a goodbye from wherever she is. Then it’s time for us to go.

A few steps into our walk to the elevator, I’m about to stick my hand out to her when she sticks hers out to me first.

God knows I don’t hesitate to slip my fingers through hers.

And that her eagerness matching mine only strengthens everything I’ve been feeling.