Fall From Love (7 page)

“What are you doing
here, man?” he asks with a bitter tone.

“I live here,” I
say, shouldering past him, not feeling like talking or hearing him complain to
me.

“Don’t be a smart
ass,” he says, following right behind me. “I asked you this morning if you were
gonna be around this weekend and you said you were going home to Denver.”

“Yeah, and I
changed my mind.” I turn around, facing him. “Am I not allowed to be here? Is
that it?” I challenge.

He flinches from my
tone and then changes his stance. “Shit, dude,” he says under his breath. “I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to just attack you like that. It’s just, Jenna asked me
this morning if you were gonna be here and I told her no. So, I’m—I’m assuming
that’s why Holly came.” He shakes his head and hangs it low. “I’m just gonna
keep my mouth shut.”

I relax my
shoulders and feel the tension ease from my jaw. It’s hard to be mad at him.
The last few months he’s had to juggle his new girlfriend and his best friend
not getting along.

“You know what? I
can feel that I’m not wanted, I’m just gonna go. I didn’t mean to cause a
scene,” I say, and it’s the truth. The last thing I want to do is hurt Holly,
or get Josh in trouble with his crazy-ass girlfriend. The only thing I want to
do is see Holly and maybe talk to her for a minute; make sure she’s doing okay.
As I start to walk off, Josh pushes against my shoulder.

“Hey, you don’t
have to leave, man. You are wanted here,” he says. “Just—just lay low and we’ll
see what happens, okay?”

The more I think
about it, the worse I feel for getting him in trouble with his girlfriend. I’m
about to apologize, but then I realize that I’m not sorry. If lying is what I
have to do in order to see Holly and try to talk to her, then I’ll do it again.

Holly and Jenna
have been gone for about ten minutes. I’m sitting on the picnic table talking
to Paul and Josh is sitting near the barbeque pit, manning the steaks, when I
see Jenna come back outside. She’s alone and heads straight for Josh. I fear
that she’s about to slap the shit out of him or something when, instead, she
lands on his lap and begins to whisper something in his ear. He smiles, grabs
her ass as they start to kiss, and I blow out the large breath I’ve been holding
in. Even though I’ve had to endure her coming over and being a bitch to me the
last few months, I still don’t want to cause any trouble between the two of
them.

Over the past few
months, I witnessed plenty of their make out sessions—among other things—and I
know that it will be a while before they come up for air. Pushing myself up off
the picnic table, I decide to head up to my room and avoid causing any more
trouble. I take the side door, through the garage, to escape Jenna seeing me
and tearing my head off. When I open the door and walk in, I’m shocked to see
Holly in there. Her eyes are closed and she’s leaning her head back against the
wall. I can’t help staring at her for a moment, thinking back to that night
when I first saw her—first held her in my arms. The night she cried in them for
over an hour.

That night, it took
everything inside me not to cry with her because I felt like it was my fault
she was crying in the first place, and because I knew what it felt like to have
someone you love stolen from you in the blink of an eye.

Even though
everyone tells me that what happened to Adam that night was an accident, that I
did nothing wrong, I still feel guilty as hell for what happened. It was also
that night that my worst nightmare was confirmed, that I was a curse and people
around me die.

I’m not sure what
to say, so I clear my throat to let her know that I’m there. She flinches and
her eyes open. It doesn’t take long for her eyes to find mine and I expect her
to say something—to turn and run away—but she doesn’t say a word or move an
inch. She just stares at me. I take a couple steps forward, shift my body
around the pool table, and then lean back against it, still keeping the
distance between us.

“You don’t like me
much, do you?” I ask, looking down towards the concrete floor. I’m not sure why
I chose those specific words to say to her, it’s just the first thing that came
to mind. After a few seconds of silence, I glance up, scan her features, and
then my eyes drop down to her waist. Her arms are wrapped around her midsection
in a tight grip. It’s as if she’s trying to protect herself from me and it’s
killing me.

“I barely know
you,” she finally whispers and my eyes are drawn back up to her face. She
shakes her head. “I mean, I’ve only met you once and, even then, I don’t think
we ever really met.”

I swallow hard.
Since I’m not sure what to say to her in return, I just nod my head. I want to
ask her how she’s doing, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate. When I asked her
that question at Sterling’s the other night, she looked at me like I was
actually causing her physical pain before Jenna pulled her away.

“Jenna doesn’t like
me much, does she?” I ask. Immediately, I feel like an idiot for asking that
question, but it’s the only thing I can think to say and the silence between us
is beginning to feel like a knife twisting in my gut.

“I think she likes
you.” She shrugs and releases the hold she has around her waist. I can’t ignore
the sadness in her eyes. It’s as if she’s holding the pain of the world on her
shoulders and, with everything that I have inside me, I want to take the pain
away. Just like I wanted to do the night of the accident.

“Yeah, well, she’s
kind of hard to read.” I can’t help smiling at my own understatement. “After
her and Josh started dating, she all but threatened to kill me if I came
anywhere near you… Actually, I think she did threaten death at one point or
another.”

A tiny laugh
escapes her and a smile tugs at her lips. My heart hammers when I hear it and
it beats even harder when I see the smile on her face. It feels like my heart
is being woken up for the first time in months.

“Sounds like her.
She’s pretty protective.” She clears her throat and the smile disappears from
her lips.

On the inside, I
smile again because protective isn’t the word I would’ve used. Something along
the lines of
crazy
or
psycho
comes to mind. “It’s good, you know,
to have friends like that.” She looks up at me and, as hard as I try, I can’t
tear my eyes away from her.

“Yeah, it is,” she
agrees.

The stare we’re
holding on each other is interrupted by the door to the house swinging open. My
eyes fly towards it and I see Josh standing there, sticking his head through
the opening. “Damn, dude. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. There’s a code
three on Berthoud Pass, you in?”

I nod my head a
couple times and then my eyes float back over and focus on Holly.

“Shit,” Josh
breathes. “I didn’t see you back there Holly.”

“It’s okay,” she
tells him, but her eyes never leave mine.

“Um…” Josh
hesitates for a second. “You and Jenna are welcome to crash here tonight, but
Carter and I gotta run out for a while.”

I can’t ignore how
he doesn’t tell her exactly where we’re going or what we’re doing. I’m sure
he’s trying to protect her, but I can see it in her face that she’s not fooled.
She knows exactly where we’re heading.

Finally, she breaks
away from my gaze and turns to Josh, smiling, but the smile isn’t real, it’s
forced. “Thanks. I’ll talk to Jenna and see what she wants to do.”

Josh leans back
inside the house, blocking Holly’s view of him. He tilts his head, giving me a
strange expression before shutting the door, and we’re alone again.

“It was good to see
you, Holly,” I say.

Her lips stretch
out and form a smile, but again, it’s forced. I’ve only been in the company of
this girl for a few minutes, yet I can tell the difference between her fake
smile and a real one. “You too, Carter; be careful up there.”

I propel myself off
the pool table and head for the door, but stop just a few feet shy of it. A
part of me is telling myself to just keep focused—keep walking, go get dressed,
and head to the mountain—but there’s another part of me, a large part, that
doesn’t want our conversation to end like this. If I’m being honest, I don’t
want to leave this room until I see her smile again; a real one that lights up
her eyes and breathes some life back into me.

Without even
thinking about it, I turn back around and find her looking right at me. It
catches me off guard and, for a second, I lose my train of thought. I shove my
hands in my pockets and take a couple steps towards her. “Hey, would you like
to have some coffee sometime? With me?” I mumble.
Shit, I can’t even believe
those words even made it out of my mouth.

For a moment she
just stares at me, but then she finally speaks. “I’m, uh… pretty busy… you
know, with school just starting back…” her voice trails off.

I nod and turn back
around, wanting to kick my own ass for even asking her.

“Hey, Carter,” she
calls as I reach for the door. I turn around and find her looking at me again.
“Coffee sounds good.” She smiles—a real one this time—and it happens, my heart
proves it’s still there; the pain in it lifts just a little.

❧

Josh and I are
driving up the mountain road and we haven’t talked much since we got in the
car. My mind has been focused on one thing since we left the house—or
really—just one person. I can’t stop thinking of the way Holly’s face lit up
when she smiled. Not the fake smiles, the real ones that chip away the pain in
my chest and allow me to feel free for the first time in months.

“Dude, where’s your
head right now?” Josh asks and my thoughts of Holly fade away. I shove my gear
shift down with more force than is needed and glance over in his direction.

I take a deep
breathe in and slowly blow it out. “Nowhere, man.”

“Well it needs to
be focused on what’s about to go on up there. Are you sure you’re ready for
this? You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”

My eyes focus back
on the road and I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. I tell
myself to calm down, to not let myself get worked up. Not now. “I know, and I’m
ready,” I say, relaxing my hands and letting out another large breath.

“So what were you
and Holly talking about in there?” Josh asks. “Jenna would’ve freaked if she
knew you were in there with her.”

“Yeah, I know.” I
sigh. “But we were just talking. We weren’t alone very long before you came
in.”

“Sorry, man, I know
Jenna can be a little harsh sometimes, but she’s just protective over Holly.
You understand, right?”

“Yeah, I get it.” I
tell him and it’s the truth. I get sticking up for your best friend and not
wanting them to be hurt more than they have to. I know because the dude sitting
beside me has been that kind of friend to me my entire life.

“I guess Jenna’s
not mad at you then?” I ask.

He laughs. “Nah,
she’s good.”

In my peripheral
vision I see him tilt his can of red bull upside down and chug it. When he’s
done, he burps, crushes the can in his hand, and throws it on the floor.

“Dude, pick your
shit up.” I shake my head at him.

“Do you really
think one little can is going to mess up this piece of junk car you have any
more than it already is?”

“An ’83 FJ Cruiser
is not a piece of junk; it’s a classic,” I correct him.

He bends down and
picks up the can. “Whatever, man.”

We pull up to the
mountain rescue headquarters and, before I shut the car off and jump out, I
glance out through my windshield to look up towards the mountain in front of
me. There’s a large part of me that is scared out of my mind, scared that maybe
I am cursed and bad things will always happen when I’m around. I’m scared that
I will have a flashback to the night of the accident, freak out once I get up
there, and cause something terrible to happen. There’s another part of me that
is desperate to get back up there, knowing that it’s the only way I’m going to
get past this.

After agreeing to go
out for coffee with Carter, I stare at him until he disappears back into the
house. When he’s out of sight, my head falls back against the wall and there’s
nothing I can do to stop the memories from coming back at full speed.

Carter guided me
to the chairs a few steps away. I remember not wanting to reach the chairs,
knowing that when we got there, he would tell me what I felt like I already
knew. A part of me felt thankful that he was holding onto me now because I felt
as though my legs were about to give out at any moment.

Finally, we
reached the chairs and he gently guided me down to sit. For a moment he didn’t
say anything. He could barely even look me in the eye. It’s as if he knew what
he was about to tell me was going to shatter my world into a million different
pieces.

“Holly,” he
finally said, his voice was guarded and soft. “Adam was in an accident while we
were coming down the mountain and he... he... he didn’t make it.”