Page 46 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

How can I be this upset over someone and still want so badly to be in their arms that the distance between us makes me feel like half of me is missing?

I’ve wondered it for twenty-four dragging hours.

One by one, they’ve passed without Luke reaching out to me and without me knowing whether or not I should reach out to him. I’ve been left heavy and gray and crying and wrought with memories old and new—been full of anger and pain and exhaustion because this is just….

“Hey.”

I blink out of staring at the coffee table and look up at the only person whose voice could ever be so soft. Joy’s eyes are soft, too, as she sits on the edge of the couch, where I’ve been lying for probably too long.

Well, what can I say? I didn’t have to work today, my knee hurts, and my heart feels cracked to the point that it just might shatter if I move too much.

Emma appears as well and kneels on the floor by the couch. She doesn’t say anything, but she reaches out and rests a hand on my head. Silence notwithstanding, I know what she’s thinking because it’s in her expression; she’s torn between wanting to comfort me and wanting to find Luke so she can make him pay.

I love her for it.

But he’s not the only one who’s done something wrong here.

She knows that. So does Joy. They both know about my fight with Luke and what was said, and they remember as well as I do what I did to make him pay in high school.

God…. For a long time, when I thought back on that, there was a feeling of righteousness or something, like he had deserved retaliation and I had not one single reason to feel bad for delivering it. But the rawness of my anger and heartache faded—they didn’t fade, just how fresh and burning they were—and I’d sometimes think of those flyers my friends and I posted everywhere, remembering how many times I heard people making fun of him even in the next school year, and my stomach would sink so hard.

I know it wasn’t the cruelest example of revenge ever. It wasn’t me, though. It wasn’t like me to do something like that.

But I’d also never had my heart broken before because I’d never given it to anyone before him. The only feelings I could separate from the rubble were the hard ones. I became close with the feeling of loathing and let it spur me into action.

No, I’m not innocent in this mess.

And I’m…I’m….

Swallowing hard, I finally speak into the silence my friends have been sitting in with me.

“I’m stuck.”

My voice sounds like I feel: worn, weak.

“I’m so mad at him, but I’m tired of being mad at him. I want to do something to bring us back together and I don’t know what it is. Because I know he’s mad at me too.”

I close my eyes on the new sting building in them.

“I don’t know what to do to try to earn him back when we’re both still hurt.”

Well, talking to him would be a start.

My heartbeat does something uncomfortable.

There’s no way we wouldn’t start arguing again if we tried to really talk about things.

Couldn’t it be helpful in the end, though? Couldn’t the fight lead to even better peace than what we manufactured before yesterday?

…What a wonderful notion.

And what a scary one.

How do you do it? How do you sort out whether it’s right to try to make amends when parts of you don’t even feel ready for it and the parts that do aren’t sure the other person is ready? How do you think about forgiving and asking for forgiveness when you’re still upset and you know the other person is too?

I wonder if my friends are thinking the same things. Joy is sighing. Emma starts playing with my hair, gentle and soothing. They stay quiet.

Until Emma says.

“Well, I’m no expert on love. I haven’t had good luck with it.”

My eyes drift back open. I look at her and see the slightest of frowns between her brows, touching her pretty brown eyes as she keeps focusing on my hair.

“But I know honesty.”

Joy gives a hum of agreement tinged with amusement. I just nod at Emma.

“I’m pissed at him,”

she goes on saying. At first, I think she’s talking about Graham, but of course she’s not. At least, not consciously.

“But despite my instinct to tell you to tell him to fuck off, and despite everything that goes into the fight you had…I know you two matter to each other. Which means honesty is what will get you unstuck from this. You gotta tell him how you felt in eleventh grade and how you feel now. You gotta put it all out there.”

I wish she could apply that advice to herself and start healing from the Graham thing. But it’s not the same situation, I know. Graham doesn’t even live in this town anymore and I watched her delete all his information from her phone when things with them went south; she can’t talk to him the way I can talk to Luke.

I think about doing what she’s suggesting, and again I feel the fear.

“It would be scary to do that,”

I whisper.

Both of my friends say, “I know.”

Joy adds.

“I know you guys tried to avoid talking about the past because you thought that was the safe thing to do. The wise thing, the mature thing….”

She doesn’t keep going, and she doesn’t have to. I know what she’s thinking.

I do know the truth.

I remember the other day when Luke cleaned the ugly, bloody scrape on my knee for me. Yeah, it hurt like hell. Yeah, I cried. But it had to be done, and once it was, I knew I was on the path to getting better.

We shouldn’t have covered our broken things up and hoped they’d never hurt us again. It’s like we bandaged our wounds without cleaning them first, not giving them the attention they needed so they could heal properly, and all that did was trap little bits of ugliness in them.

You can’t live like that.

But it’s true: we just didn’t want to risk losing each other. Was that so wrong? So stupid?

A tickle on my face tells me a teardrop has gotten loose. I wipe at it, then sniffle.

I say.

“I don’t like thinking about what happened in high school. With the bet.”

Emma pauses playing with my hair to give it a comforting pat. Joy does the same to my shoulder.

“You never got the whole story, right?”

Joy asks.

“You never heard Luke’s side?”

The weight that puts in my chest is so awful and heavy it has my eyes watering in earnest.

“No, I didn’t,”

I answer weakly.

“because hearing even part of it hurt.”

In an instant, I’m wrapped as tightly in hugs as I can be with the way the three of us are situated.

“Oh, honey, I know,”

Joy rushes out soothingly.

“Of course it did.”

Emma says.

“It hurt me and Joy to watch you be so heartbroken. What you guys had together seemed so special and genuine.”

As I hug them back the best I can, I try to compose myself. I don’t want to snot all over these girls.

“Yeah, so—so I’m scared to hear about all of it now. I’m scared that so much honesty is just gonna hurt me all over again and then he’s gonna be hurt all over again because you can’t think about the bet without thinking about how I retaliated, which I feel so bad about. What if we air all of that out and the only thing it does is ruin us because we realize we can’t get over it after all? Or what if I decide I can get over it, but he can’t? What if he can never trust me again? You can’t have a relationship without trust.”

Joy rocks me back and forth like the sister she is.

“What if it doesn’t go like that at all, though? What if things only go well?”

Emma hums, “Mmhmm.”

Then she murmurs.

“If you wanna fight for him, don’t let anxiety stand in your way. Just get in the ring and fight. He makes you happy and we want you to be happy, so fight, girl.”

“Yeah. It might hurt like you’re worried it will, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna actually end badly.”

Cleaning wounds is a good thing. It hurts, but it’s how they heal.

My friends are right. The half of me that can think straight is right.

A terrible tremble is starting up in my bones, though.

All our hugs unravel and the girls sit back. I wipe my face again and sigh—then jump a mile and send my knee into a screech of pain and gasp sharply—

“What?”

Emma asks.

“What’s wrong?”

I unearth my phone from where I’ve apparently been lying on it.

“Ugh, God, that hurt. My phone vibrated and startled….”

As I read what’s on my screen, I feel my eyes go wide.

My friends question this, too, their tones blending curiosity and concern.

And I feel those things myself.

LUKE: Can we talk in person? I’m free at any time tonight and tomorrow. I can wait longer than that if I have to, but I’d rather not

Yeah, my pulse is quickening, flooding me with that curiosity and concern. My stomach knots up again and again and again because I don’t know if his message is a good sign or a bad one.

As I show it to Emma and Joy, the thought, There’s only one way to find out, pings around in my head.

“Oh, damn,”

Emma says.

“Well, there’s that.”

Joy looks between the phone and me.

“What are you gonna do?”

I wrap my arms around myself even though I’m suddenly feeling warm.

“Good question,”

I whisper.