Don't Fall (6 page)

That night when Mom came home, I showed her the photo of the clothes on the line, now finished. It was quite striking in black and white. Or, at least I thought so. The contrasting patterns really stood out without the colors to compete with them, and the light hit the skirt just right, shining through the lace at the bottom, making it glow. I was actually pretty proud of how it had turned out.

“Oh,” she said, leaning closer to the screen. “Yes, that’s much better.”

And that was it. She walked away into the clean, white kitchen and grabbed a box of pasta for dinner. Not a word about the patterns, or the light, or the composition. My finger hovered over the delete button. This picture would never find a place on the wall. I clicked “delete” and watched the digital image fly into the tiny trashcan on my screen.

Chapter Nine

Zander

With careful steps, I snuck up on Anya. She was standing next to the window, her back to me and her nose in a book. I leaned in close. “Baby Cakes?”

She spun around, turned red, and looked at me like I was crazy. Then she saw the box. “Oh! You brought more cupcakes?” She laughed, and I realized she’d thought I’d called her baby cakes. My ears burned.

“Yeah…” I stammered. “You just seemed to like the other ones so much.”

“Yes, thank you.” She beamed.

“Plus, we’re celebrating. I got a job at the college bookstore. I start two weeks before classes begin.”

“That’s great! Congratulations!”

“Should we take them outside? I don’t know if cupcakes are allowed in the library.”

“Sure.”

“Is it, um, okay?” I glanced at the front desk.

“Yes.” She looked down, twirling a braid between her fingers. “My mom’s already checked in.”

I nodded, trying not to think about it. I wanted to ask a bunch of questions, but then Anya would pull away again.

We sat behind the building, leaning up against the bricks. I untied the string, and lifted out the cupcakes. The frosting was purple and covered with what looked like little silver balls and glitter, but I’d been assured by the woman selling them it was all edible. “Their flavor of the day was blackberry cream,” I said, holding one out to her.

She just looked at me for a second, not saying anything. I ran my tongue over my teeth, worrying I had stuff stuck in them or something.

“You really are swoon-worthy.” She smiled, took the cupcake, and started peeling off the liner.

“Thank you?” I said, because I had no idea what else to say.

She laughed, her nose crinkling up like always. “No, I mean it. You’ve got it so together. A job, heading off to college, getting your own place. I feel like such a kid.”

I didn’t feel together. Every time I looked at her, I felt less and less together. But in a very good way.

“I don’t know why you’re so nice to me.”

“And here I thought that was obvious,” I mumbled. I took a deep breath, drawing the courage to ask the one question I needed an answer to. “Hey, Anya, can I ask you something?” She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. Her mouth was full of cupcake. “Um, well, when do you think you’ll be allowed to date? Is it, like, when you turn eighteen or something?”

Her face fell. She swallowed and said, “I don’t know. I’ve never actually asked her when.”

“Oh.” All the air blew out of my lungs, and I just felt sunk
.
“Never?” I’d hoped she wanted to date me, if not as much as I wanted to date her, then at least a little. The fact she hadn’t even asked her mom made me wonder what I’d been doing wrong.

“It’s kind of a sensitive subject.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and avoided eye contact.

“Anya, do… do you even want to go out with me?” I forced the question out.

“Zander—”

“No, I mean, if you want to just be friends that’s fine. I just thought—”

“Zander, I do want to go out with you.” She reached down and put her hand on mine. Without thinking, I flipped my hand over and held hers tight. Her touch was like a switch, and my palm pressed against hers was the light.

We sat there like that, backs leaned against the library wall, looking at nothing, saying nothing, fingers entwined, and all of me wanting to grab her other hand and pull her to me. But I didn’t. We sat. Eventually Anya spoke.

“I’ll talk to her tonight.”

I turned to look at her profile, and slowly she turned to match my gaze. The big, goofy grin I could feel on my face was reflected on hers.

“I should probably get going, though.”

Her hand felt so good in mine. I wasn’t ready to give it back. “Can I walk you home?”

She hesitated, and for a second I thought she was going to say no. Finally, she nodded. I stood without letting go of her hand and pulled her up next to me. With her other hand, she pulled out her phone and began texting.

“Who are you texting now?”

“I have to let her know when I leave, too.” She pressed send and slid the phone back into her pocket. I didn’t get it. My mom had been less protective of me at ten than Anya’s was of her at seventeen.

She led me farther and farther from the center of town. I hadn’t realized she lived so far out. “It’s quite a trek, huh?”

“Yeah, a bit. When I first talked my mom into letting me walk it alone, she made us walk it together and timed how long it took. That way she knows if she needs to start worrying, if I haven’t texted her by a certain time.”

“What if you forget?”

She shook her head. “I never forget.”

“Here it is.” We’d reached a small house set back from the road at the end of a dead end street. The kind of place Mom would call adorable and go all crazy over. The neighbors weren’t too close, and there was nothing behind it but woods.

Anya pulled out her phone again, sending the “I got here safe” text, I assumed.

“Where is the window you take the pictures from?” I asked when she was done.

We went around to the back of the house, and it was almost surreal, being in her backyard and seeing all the things I’d seen in the pictures. There was a whimsical quality to the photographs that made it look like more than just your average yard, but that’s really what it was. I mean, it was pretty, nice gardens and stuff, but nothing overly amazing.

She pointed up to a window on the second floor. The window to her bedroom. I wondered what it looked like inside. Wondered if it was covered in pink or yellow, or if she had a bunch of stuffed animals or unicorns or other girly stuff like that.

I hoped someday to get to see it.

“Thank you for walking me home.”

“No problem.” The way she smiled at me made me feel brave. “Hey, can I get your phone number?”

“No.” She shook her head, totally straight-faced. My mouth just sort of fell open, but I didn’t know what to say. She finally laughed at me. “Sorry. But my mom would freak out if I suddenly started getting phone calls from a boy.”

“What if I just text, no calls?”

“She’d see a strange number on it, and I’d get a million questions. Let me talk to her about the dating thing. If it goes well, then I can give you my number. Okay?”

“Okay.” I couldn’t imagine having a mom that controlling, but it didn’t seem to bother Anya. She always talked about it like it was no big deal. Maybe it wasn’t to her. I guess if you’d lived your whole life that way, you just got used to it. But I wasn’t used to it, and irritation twisted in my stomach. I clenched it down.

“I’ll see you Thursday?”

“Absolutely.”

I almost leaned in to kiss her. I wanted to, but she let go of my hand, and I worried maybe she didn’t want me to. I said goodbye and left, kicking myself the whole way home for chickening out.

Anya

I stirred the peas on my plate, running the conversation I wanted to have through my mind. The problem was, even in my head I couldn’t seem to get it to go the way I needed it to.

“Is everything okay? You seem distracted.” Mom’s eyebrows drew together as she assessed my face. She leaned forward a bit, and I could tell she wanted to reach up and touch my forehead to see if I felt warm.

“I’m fine,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “I just… well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about something.” The words came out just above a whisper.

“Okay, what is it?” She leaned back in her chair. I set down my fork so it didn’t drop right out of my sweaty hand.

“I was wondering when I could start dating.” I stared at one of the little green peas that had rolled away and gotten stuck in my mashed potatoes. She was silent. I knew she had heard me, so I just stared and waited.

“Is there someone you want to go out with?” she asked slowly, each word thought over before it came out of her mouth.

Yes. “No. I was just wondering.” I bit my lip and mentally scolded myself for being such a chicken.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the boy at the library, does it?”

Mrs. Marsh had told her she’d seen me talking to Zander.

“What boy?” I tried to look genuinely confused. She tipped her chin up, assessing me like I was a painting on the wall.

Finally she sighed. “Let’s not worry about it yet then. Okay?” She started eating again, clearly thinking the conversation was over.

“But—”

She looked up at me. I looked back down.

“But what if I do meet someone? What’s the rule, exactly?”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.” I shrugged.

“Anya.” My name came out of her mouth on a puff of cold air. “You’re young. You don’t need to worry about this yet.”

“I’m seventeen.” There was more steel in my voice than she was used to. Her eyes narrowed.

“Seventeen is still young.”

“Most girls my age date. At least, I think they do. Seeing as I don’t really know any girls my age, I can’t be sure.”

“What has gotten into you?”

I didn’t know. I’d never really argued with her or challenged her rules. Not since I was a little girl. Certainly not since I found out the truth about Lauren. But suddenly the rules were too much. It was all too much, and I wanted out of it.

“How am I supposed to even meet someone to date when you don’t let me go anywhere?”

“Anya—”

“What if I did meet someone?”

“What?”
“If there was someone I wanted to go out with, would you let me?”

She looked down at her plate and shook her head. “You’re too young.”

“When will I not be too young?”

“I don’t know. Maybe when you can act a bit more mature than you are right now.” She didn’t raise her voice. A master at keeping her cool, she didn’t lose her temper; her anger only made her colder. She stood up, and her eyes flicked up to the portrait on the wall of a red-haired girl. It was only for a half a second, but I noticed. She grabbed her plate and stared down at me. “All of my rules are in place for a reason, Anya. To keep you safe. That is all.”

All the fire that had been burning up in me died out. Her words and the look on her face were a bucket of cold water. She took her plate into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the dining room.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Again, I looked at the pea. Stuck. I scooped it out of my mashed potatoes and ate it.

Chapter Ten

Zander

On Thursday Anya was waiting for me at the front door of the library. Her yellow flats tapped against the sidewalk, and she kept tugging at her blue flowered sundress. I had almost reached her when someone tapped my shoulder. I spun around to face a red-haired girl whom I’d gone to school with, but whose name I couldn’t remember.

“Hey, Zander,” she said, smiling up at me. “How’s your summer going? I haven’t seen you around much.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy.” I looked over my shoulder at Anya, who stared at us. “Actually, I have to get going. But it was nice seeing you.”

“You, too! See you around.” She gave me a little wave as I started to turn away, and I nodded back at her.

Anya’s face was tight, her eyebrows drawn together and her lips pursed. “Let’s go to Baby Cakes,” she said when I got closer.

“Really? Did your mom say you could date?” Baby Cakes wasn’t exactly my idea of a first date, and I’d been thinking about our first date for the past two days. Well since I first met her, really, but
non-stop
for the past two days. But if she wanted to go to Baby Cakes, I was more than willing to take her.

She crinkled up her nose. “Not exactly.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Can we go anyway?” Her wide blue eyes sparkled with the question.

“Whatever you want,” I said, and I meant it more than she probably realized. She bounced her shoulder to her cheek and grinned.

“But…” I hesitated, scraping the sole of my shoe against the concrete. “What if your mom calls?” I didn’t want her to change her mind, but I didn’t want to get her in trouble, either.

Her smile vanished, and she tapped her mouth with her finger. “I’ll be right back.” She ran into the library, and when she came back, she was smiling again. “Shannon said she’d cover for us. Come on.” She led me partway down the sidewalk, practically running away from the building. Then she stopped, glancing back and forth. “Which way is it?”

I laughed. “This way, come on.” Her enthusiasm seemed to wane as we made our way down the sidewalk toward the bakery. She took smaller and smaller steps, walking a little closer to me, her hip smacking into mine. Not that I was complaining. I didn’t know if she was nervous, or what, but when we stepped through the bakery doors, her face lit up.

“It’s adorable!” She squeezed my hand. We walked to the counter, with her half-hiding behind me.

It was a small bakery with cream and white checkered floors. At the front stood a glass case filled with cupcakes. Each tray held a different flavor, indicated by a different color of frosting and its own set of decorations. Strings of white lights hung from the ceiling, and there were two small, round, cast iron tables set up to the side. Each table had two chairs. Apparently most people got their cupcakes to go.