Don't Fall (7 page)

“Hello, darlings,” the woman behind the counter said. “What can I get you today?”

Anya stepped around me and leaned close to the case, peering up and down the line at all the different kinds. “There are so many! I can’t decide.”

“Well, our flavor of the day is key lime, and it is divine. But my personal favorite is the tiramisu.” The woman pointed to a cupcake with white frosting, chocolate powder, and a raspberry sitting on top.

“Yes.” Anya nodded once. “That is the one I want.” She grinned at the woman as she handed her the cupcake.

“And you?”

“I’ll have the same.” I had no idea what tiramisu was, but I figured I’d go for it. We sat down at the table close to the window.

“Can we come here again next week?” Anya asked, gazing around the bakery. “I want to bring my camera. This whole place is just too cute.”

“Sure.” I watched her amazed face. Her blue eyes were wide as she took everything in, and a smile played on her lips. I wanted those lips pressed against mine. “How did you get into photography?” I asked. “I mean, it seems like an odd choice for someone who doesn’t get out much. No offense.”

“None taken. Actually, my mom wanted me to be a painter. She got me a little camera to take pictures of things I wanted to paint, but it turned out I stunk at painting.” She crinkled her nose and smiled. “The photography was fun, though. My mom got me a better camera, a digital one, for my birthday a few years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Last Christmas she got me a photo printer so I can print them myself. But I don’t print out very many.”

She took a bite of the cupcake. Her eyes widened for a second, then closed like she was in ecstasy. It was sexy as hell, and I leaned closer, my body demanding to be near her. She opened her eyes and pointed at the cupcake.

“This is amazing.”

I took a bite of mine and almost spit it out. “It’s coffee flavored!” I said, my hand covering the cupcake in my mouth.

“Um, yeah. It’s tiramisu.” Her lips pressed together, holding in a laugh. I mushed the cupcake around in my mouth and swallowed.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked.

“It’s not bad,” I lied, trying not to make a face. “I just wasn’t expecting that. I guess it’s pretty good.”

“It is my new favorite thing in the whole wide world,” she said with a perfectly straight face.

“Well, then I guess we will be coming back next week.” And any time she wanted to. It was great to be out of the library. It was starting to feel like a trap. Like we were stuck on the same page of our story, repeating it over and over and again and never moving forward.

Anya

Guilt tugged at me as Zander and I headed away from the library, but I pushed it away. Fear pressed against me like a strong wind, but I kept going. I didn’t want to give him up, didn’t want to see him with someone else. It was selfish. He’d be better off with someone else. But he wanted me.

I saw it on his face, the way his dark eyes looked at me. In his eyes, I was someone else. Someone interesting and beautiful. I wanted to be that person for him, and if that meant braving the world, or at least a cupcake shop, then darn it, I’d do it!

That afternoon I danced the whole way home, the taste of tiramisu on my tongue. Thinking about him, my heart did pirouettes. I couldn’t sit still, so I grabbed my camera from my room and headed out to the back yard. Normally when I was in a good mood, it was easier for me to find things to photograph. Everything I saw made me happy. But that day, it all looked too ordinary. After the afternoon I’d had with Zander, I was feeling extraordinary.

I’d already shot everything in the yard a million times. I figured my mom wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, so I slipped into the woods. I’d made my own little narrow trail walking through so many times. Going into the woods wasn’t the same as going into the world. It was the opposite; I was retreating even further away.

The sun was just starting to set, making the light warm and rich. Dark yellow coming through the trees, perfect for taking pictures. The woods were magical and perfect for the way I felt. I took pictures of flowers, the sun behind leaves, and even a bunny that hopped into my path a few feet ahead of me. A few of the shots actually turned out pretty neat.

I reached the clearing that had been my favorite place in the world before discovering Baby Cakes. I put my camera around my neck and lay down in the grass, the camera resting below my chest. I closed my eyes to the sun, which was setting behind my toes. I breathed in the scent of the grass and thought about Zander. His dark eyes, his smile, his mouth, the way sparks flew up my arms every time he held my hand. I imagined his lips on mine, imagined the warmth from the sun was really his body lying next to me. I wished there was a way to see him somewhere else. Somewhere dark and romantic, maybe with stars shining and a full moon. It was a perfect fantasy.

There was no way my mother would ever let it happen.

My mom.

I sat up. The sun was half-hidden by the horizon. I checked my watch; she’d be home soon. I jumped to my feet and ran back through the woods.

The guilt that went along with doing something I wasn’t supposed to do was not enough to quell the joy that came from doing it, but the guilt was still there. Especially at dinner when my mom asked me what I’d done that day.

“Not much. I went to the library.” Not a complete lie. I did go to the library. I just didn’t stay there.

“That’s nice,” she said, even though she already knew that. I thought she’d ask me more questions, but she didn’t. She looked tired, carefully lifting each bite of asparagus to her mouth. There was no room for conversation. It was a long commute into the city and back again every day; it wore her out.

I was ready to go to bed, too. But not to sleep. To dream. I couldn’t wait to go stare at Zander’s photo some more.

I looked around us, at the pictures on the dining room walls.

There were six, three on each side of us. Two of Lauren’s original paintings and one photograph taken by me on one side, and on the opposite wall three portraits. The first one was of my mom when she was young. The middle portrait was Lauren. Then one of me. It was like that Sesame Street game. One of these things is not like the other.

Lauren’s sunset-red hair framed her pretty face, just like Mom’s. They also had the same brown eyes and fair skin, although Lauren had freckles. Not a lot, just a few tossed onto her perfect skin like stars tossed into the sky. A lovely constellation. When I was young, I would run my finger from one to the next like connect the dots.

Once I got into my mom’s makeup and used her eyeliner to freckle my own face to match. Mom’s face contorted when she saw me, her lips drawing together until they formed a little button on her face. She forced them open and pushed out a laugh. But even back then I could tell it wasn’t quite right. I remember thinking her eyes looked sad. She quickly washed the makeup off my face.

Even though she tried to make me more like her all the time back then. That’s why she got me into painting. Watercolors, like Lauren. She had a way of making things float on paper, the colors light and beautiful. Her two original paintings in the dining room were stunning. No one would guess they’d been done by a teenage girl. Mom was so proud of them.

She had hung one of my photographs, too, but just to be nice. I knew she didn’t think it was quite as artistic, but she pretended to. Somewhere along the line she gave up on the idea that I would be like Lauren. Sometimes she seemed to be fine with that.

Sometimes she didn’t.

Chapter Eleven

Zander

We met in front of the library, where she reached out and took my hand. “Baby Cakes again?”

“Of course,” I said as we started down the sidewalk.

She leaned closer to me, her nose tipping toward my chest. “Are you wearing cologne?”

“Um, maybe.” I’d never worn cologne before, and suddenly, looking at her face, I wondered if perhaps I’d applied more than necessary.

One corner of her mouth turned up, and she raised her eyebrows.

“I thought I’d try something different.” I tried to shrug it off. She smirked.

“Really? Are you changing on me, Zander? Are you preparing to be a studious young English major? Next week will you come with leather patches on the elbows of your cardigan? Are you going to start smoking a pipe? You’ll be writing very serious prose before the month is out.”

I stopped and tugged down on her hand, causing her to lose her balance and bump into me. I wrapped my other arm around her waist. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“All right then.” I gave her a quick squeeze before letting her go. “And next week elbow patches.” I winked, and she laughed.

The flavor of the day was Death by Chocolate, which seemed safe, so that’s what I got. Being far more daring than I am, Anya ordered the zucchini ginger cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

“Is it any good?” It sounded disgusting.

“Not as good as the tiramisu, but good,” she said with a shrug. She licked frosting off her pointer finger, wiped her hands on her napkin, and picked up her camera.

Then she aimed it at me.

“What are you doing?” I lifted my hand in front of my face to protect myself.

“Well, I was going to take your picture, but if you’re going to be a baby about it.” She stuck her tongue out at me, pushed back her chair, and started walking around the little bakery.

It was fun to watch her. She moved around a lot, standing on her tiptoes, twisting around to get the angle she wanted. Bending over, not that I stared. She’d take a few pictures and look at them, crinkling up her nose. Sometimes she’d adjust things on the camera, take some more. Other times she’d just move on to something else. And, more rarely, she’d smile. Just a little, like someone had whispered a secret in her ear.

When she finished, she plopped back down in the chair next to me. “Well, that was fun.”

“Do I get to see what you took?”

“Not yet. I’ll edit them and show you next week.”

“Yeah, about that.” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to relieve the sudden tension there. “I kind of have to go visit my oldest sister and her family next week. It’s a long drive, so we don’t go often, and when we do, we stay for few days.”

“Oh.” It came out in a disappointed sigh that made her bottom lip stick out a little. I resisted the urge to smile. I was certainly disappointed I wouldn’t be seeing her next Tuesday, and it was nice to know she felt the same way.

“So, how long is a few days?” she asked.

“We leave Tuesday morning and don’t come home until Saturday afternoon.”

We sat in awkward silence for a minute, then she plastered a smile back on her face. “Well, I hope you have fun. Are you excited to see her?”

“Yeah, I guess. But I’ll miss seeing you.” I reached out and put my hand on hers, an electrical current running up my arm from across the table.

She laughed, her face turning pink. “I’ll see you the following Tuesday. Right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” She nodded once as she said it. “Tuesdays and Thursdays are by far the best days of my week.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. They contain all my favorite things. Books, cupcakes… and you.” She smiled when she said it, then immediately looked away. I squeezed her hand tighter.

“I’d be happy with just you.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was grinning, too.

Anya

I held Zander’s hand extra tight on the walk back to the library. I didn’t want to go a week without seeing him. I didn’t want to go a day, truth be told. Thursdays were already harder to say goodbye than Tuesdays. Knowing it would be a whole week made it that much worse.

I didn’t know what I’d do for a whole week without him. He’d expanded my circle. I didn’t even get nervous on the walk to Baby Cakes anymore. With my hand in his, I could go anywhere.

But not without him. On my Zander-less days I did the same things I’d done for as far back as I could remember. Read, take pictures, edit pictures. Maybe make dinner for Mom and me, but she usually preferred to do that herself. It was a very boring life. I didn’t realize just how boring it was until Zander came in and spiced it up. Now life was measured by him. My good days and bad days depended on whether or not I saw him. When we reached the library, I didn’t want to let go of his hand.

His fingers were long, and his knuckles large. He had a small freckle between his first and second finger. I often had an urge to kiss it, but it wasn’t nearly as big as the urge to kiss his mouth. That urge was especially strong that day.

“I’ll see you in a week,” I said, trying not to sound as miserable as the words made me feel.

“In a week.” He lifted my hands to his mouth and kissed my fingers. I wanted to slow down time and memorize the feel of his lips on my skin.

My cell buzzed in my purse. Regretfully I let go of him.

Mom: On your way home?

I sighed, snapped a picture of the front of the library, and sent it along with my message.

Me: Just leaving.

“Bye,” I said, starting down the sidewalk.

“I miss you already,” he called out, and I laughed.

The walk home was gray. Gray sky, gray sidewalks. I kicked a rock with the toe of my shoe, keeping my eyes on it as I went, effectively avoiding eye contact with anyone who might have passed.

Chapter Twelve

Zander

I would have been looking forward to visiting my sister and her family if it hadn’t been for two things. One, I wouldn’t see Anya for a week. And two, my oldest sister, Zoey, was incredibly nosy.

“So, are you seeing anyone?” she asked. She was kneeling on the floor, changing the diaper of her youngest, Sam.

“Do you have to do that right there?” I asked, avoiding her question.

“What? Does it bother you?” She wrapped up the poop-filled diaper and threw it at me.