If I Fall (25 page)

I hoped she couldn't see me blushing in the sun. The way she put it, I'd been an idiot for not realizing Case liked me. Or maybe I just thought there was no way he'd like me. I wasn't sure. But listening to her, I'd been about as blind as could be.

“And one other thing, Meg,” she said.

I looked at her. “What?”

She pointed her finger again at the house. “That kid showed up.”

“
Showed up?”

She nodded. “He showed up. He came over here, not knowing me and knowing you were in trouble. And he showed up at your door because he was worried about you. No one else has come over. No one. But Case?” She smiled again. “Case showed up.”

THIRTY FIVE

Case showed up again at six on the button.

After I'd talked with Sara, I'd gone in, showered and spent way too long worrying about what to wear. I was nervous, but I wasn't sure why. Case was a friend. Maybe the dynamics were changing, but he was still a friend. Nonetheless, I spent the better part of the afternoon being nervous and when the doorbell rang at six, the butterflies in my stomach morphed into bats.

He'd changed in to a navy T-shirt and khaki pants. His hair was damp, looking almost black against his collar, and his cheeks and chin were smooth, like he'd just shaved. I tried not to stare. He was beautiful—inside and out—and I wondered why I'd never really noticed before.

He smiled at me through the screen door. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said, opening the door. “Right on time.”

“
Am I?” he said, still smiling. “That alright?”

“
Yes,” I said, returning his smile and waving him in.

He stepped past me and I caught the scent of soap and something else that gave me goosebumps. No alcohol. No cigarette smoke. Nothing that smelled remotely like Aidan.

Sara walked into the room, a dishtowel in her hands. “Hi, Case.”

“
Hi, Sara,” he said, holding up a hand.

“
Where are you guys headed?” she asked.

I looked at Case.

“I thought we'd just grab some food and head down to the beach for a little while,” he said, looking at me. “That sound alright?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

He looked at Sara. “That sound OK?”

She nodded. “That sounds fine.”

“Be home by like nine?” he asked.

She smiled. “Nine-thirty is fine.”

He nodded. “Got it.” He looked at me. “You ready?”

“
Since you two have it already figured out, I guess so,” I said, a little disgusted. I hated being discussed like I wasn't there.

“
Be nice or I'll make it eight thirty,” Sara said, raising an eyebrow.

I headed for the door. “I'll be nice.”

Case followed me outside. His truck was parked at the curb and he held the door open for me.

“
Thanks,” I mumbled, stepping up and into the truck.

He walked around the back of the truck and got in on the driver's side. He turned the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled to life.

He turned and looked at me. “You sure you wanna do this?”

“
Why would you ask that?”

“
You aren't terribly enthusiastic,” he said. “I mean, I feel like you should be thanking me.”

I frowned. “Thanking you?”

He smiled. “I got you out of the house for a night. That was no easy task. Even if this date ends up being a dead-end, you at least get to get out for some fresh air. All thanks to me.”

I stared at him for a moment, then I realized he was kidding with me. I was so tense and so unnerved that I was missing his sense of humor.

I finally smiled back so he would know I wasn't a complete idiot. “Thank you, Prince Charming.”

“
Just call me Case,” he said, chuckling as he pulled away from the curb.

We stopped at a small sandwich shop and grabbed sandwiches and drinks and then headed over toward La Jolla and the Cove. He'd stashed a blanket in the bed of the pick-up and he grabbed this as we walked down to the shores.

Being with him was easy. I didn't feel like I had to say the right thing or do the right thing or act a certain way. We ate and talked about school and music and it felt like we'd done it a hundred times. There was no pressure to be anything other than who I was with.

“
Have you heard from your mom?” he asked as we tossed our sandwich wrappers in the paper bag.

I shook my head. “Not yet. I don't think she can actually communicate with anyone outside the facility for another week or something.”

“It's usually a month,” he said.

“
How do you know?”

He leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs out on the blanket. “My mom. She was in, too.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “Seriously. It's why we moved here. So she could kind of start over.”

I remembered what he'd told me about his dad being in jail. Maybe I didn't have much to complain about, after all.

“
Started out as a bunch of stuff,” he said, watching the water. “Alcohol was her thing, too. But after my dad got arrested, it just got out of control. She started messing with uglier stuff. My grandparents threatened to take me away if she didn't get clean. They paid for her to go in.”

It was remarkable how similar to me it sounded. Not the specific details, but just the rock-bottom our moms had hit.

“When she got out, they wanted her to get as far away from her so-called friends as possible,” he continued. “My grandfather has a friend out here who owns a restaurant. He offered her a job if we wanted to come out. So we did. And so far, so good.”

The waves crashed out beyond the shore and the birds squawked as they buzzed along the water line.

“But it's always gonna be one day away, you know?” he said, glancing at me. “One fuck up and it's back to square one. There's like this pressure that we always feel. You try to dance around it, but you really can't. So every night, when it's time to say goodnight, I think we both breath a sigh of relief that we made it to the end of the day without her having a setback. Then it starts again the next day.”

I hadn't really given much thought to what it was going to be like when my mom came home. I didn't even know if I'd be living with her. But I hadn't even thought about what the day to day things would be like. He was giving me a pretty clear picture of what was in store for me.

“So when I see you hanging around with Aidan and doing who knows what,” he said, glancing at me. “It sort of freaks me out.”

“
Why?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Because I know what can happen. Because now I know your mom has issues which means you're way more likely to be susceptible to having problems. I don't want to see that happen to you.”

“Case, you barely know me,” I said.

He shrugged. “I know enough.”

“Enough about what?”

He stared at the ocean for a long moment. “Enough about you to know that I like you. Enough to know that I've been willing to watch you spend time with some asshole who isn't worth your time. Enough to know that I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Enough to beg your aunt to let me take you out.”

“You had to beg?”

He shrugged. “Somewhere between asking and begging.”

I laughed and laid my hand over his. He looked down at our hands, smiled, then looked back at the water.

“
Did you mean what you just said?” I asked.

“
What? That I sorta had to beg? Yeah.”

“
No, no,” I said. I chose my words carefully. “I mean, about liking me.”

“
Oh.” He glanced down at me, then back at the water. “Yeah.”

I felt the butterflies again. “What about Jada?” I asked.

“Jada?” He glanced down at me, confused. “What about her?”

“
I don't know.” My free hand drifted toward the sand and I scooped up a handful. “I just thought you might be interested in her. I think she likes you, you know.”

He chuckled. “Nah. She doesn't. We tried going out.”

“You did?” This surprised me. “What happened?”

“
We found out that we make really good friends,” he said. “And that's it.”

I wondered if that had been his conclusion or if Jada had felt the same way.

“Besides,” he said. “I think she's finally coming around. On Logan.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

Case nodded. “Dude is persistent. And he's obviously crazy about her.”

I couldn't argue with that. Logan had been in love with Jada since forever.

“OK, my turn to ask a question,” he said. His hand was still underneath mine and he shifted it just a little, so only our fingertips touched.

“
OK.”

“
Why are you with him?” he asked.

He didn't have to ask anything else. I knew who he was talking about.

I picked up another handful of sand and let the grains fall through my fingers. “I don't know that I am.”

“
You are,” he said. “Or at least you have been. Why?”

A dog hustled down the beach in front of its owner, a tennis ball squeezed into its mouth, his ears pointed straight in the air, something that looked like a smile on his face. The owner fired another ball down the shoreline ahead of him and the dog took off like he was shot out of a cannon, dropping the ball he'd held in his mouth. The owner picked it up and followed along behind him.

“Because that night we all went down to the bonfire,” I finally said. “That night you guys didn't want to leave me, but I was being a total bitch and said I was staying. That night I was a mess. You know? It was like everything was falling apart—everything—and he was nice to me. And, I don't know. I think I just wanted some attention. I was tired of being alone and feeling hurt all the time. And, with him, I didn't hurt anymore. And he's not a jackass all the time. He can be sweet and nice and different when we're alone.”

He nodded, but didn't say anything for a long time. The sun had set, sinking beyond the horizon, and the sky was streaked pink and gray as night tried to take the reins.

“When my mom first went in rehab, I was a total pain in the ass,” he said, smiling at the memory. “I quit doing schoolwork. I quit the football team. I quit, like, everything. I quit my friends, too. And I started dating this girl. For all the wrong reasons.”

“
What do you mean?”

He kicked off his flip flops and dug his toes into the sand at the edge of the blanket. “She was an escape. She was two years older than me. Don't ask me why she liked me, I have no clue. But she did and we started hanging out. She got me a fake I.D. She lived by herself. She had this totally screwed up life where she'd been emancipated and basically did whatever the hell she wanted. So her house? Everyone just hung out there and there was always alcohol, always weed, always a ton of other crap.” He shrugged. “And it was an escape from my mom.”

The breeze picked up off the water and his hair fluttered as it wafted over us.

“
Everything I shouldn't have been doing, I was doing,” he continued. “And then after a month of doing all this stupid crap, I sorta woke up and started wondering what the hell I was doing. When I brought it up to this girl, she just looked at me like I was crazy and stopped talking to me. Dropped me like a rock.”

“
Well, that sucks.”

“
Actually, it didn't,” he said, glancing at me. “It made it easy. To step back out of it. She didn't give a crap about me. The people I was hanging out with didn't give a crap about me. It was easy to just leave it. I got out of it, cleared my head, and got my act together.”

I wondered if that was the stage I was in, the stepping out of it. I was so confused and everything just seemed blurry, like I couldn't see anything clearly.

“And before I end up sounding like some preachy grandpa, I will shut up now,” he said, smiling at me.

I squeezed his hand. “No. No. It's OK. I think maybe I need to hear that stuff.”

“I'm not some goody-goody,” he said. “But I think there's a difference between having some fun and just putting yourself in a position to totally screw up your life.”

I nodded. “There is a difference. And I think maybe I'm starting to see it.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Just don't let anyone take advantage of you, Meg. Don't let anyone care that little for you. Especially when there are people right in front of you who do care. Who care a whole fucking lot.”

I leaned over and before I could think better of it, I kissed him. His lips were soft and warm, both sweet and intoxicating at the same time. His fingertips traced the side of my face, brushing at the strands of hair near my ear. My stomach flip-flopped, but in a different way than it ever had with Aidan, like it was never going to stop twisting and turning.