The Hardest Fall

I reached out and rested my hand on her arm. “Don’t apologize, please. You have nothing to apologize for anyway. I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I’ve been saving money, yes, but I can’t afford to move out on my own yet. I still need to save money for New York too, as lame as that sounds, and you know I went back because he kept promising me it would be different this year. If things don’t change and I can manage to stash away the amount I need, I’m getting out of there around April or May. Also…you know what I want from him, Jared. Don’t be like that.”

“That’s the time you’re giving him? Almost another full year?” Shaking his head, Jared reached out and covered my hand with his long, thin fingers, his features hard. “Look, I know this hurts you, but he’ll never tell them about you, Zoe, not his wife, and definitely not his son. He is a pig. You deserve better than that.”

But Mark had promised, and I wanted nothing more than to believe him.

When I didn’t say what I knew he was waiting to hear, what he wanted to hear, he sighed and drew his hand back. “If I can get that part-time job at that gallery next year, I’ll move in with you. You will get out of there, right?”

I gave him a silent nod.

“It’ll be great.”

“Even though I couldn’t leave the love of my life to come live with you guys, I’ll come visit so much that it’ll feel like I’m living there.”

She’d come only if Keith let her, but she wouldn’t say that. She’d been with Keith since she was sixteen and still loved him enough to believe he could and would change. I could see an intervention happening in our future.

I felt a little sick, both in my stomach and in my heart, as I did every time Mark was the subject of our conversation. Jared’s statements were not news to me, but unfortunately, that didn’t help lessen the pain. I managed to force a genuine smile on my face. “Thanks, guys.”

“You still want advice on what to do with the hunk in your apartment?” Jared asked after a few moments of heavy silence.

I huffed out a breath and fell back in my seat. “Yeah. Hit me. God knows I could use all the help I can get.”

His next question made me question that. “Are you attracted to him?”

“I mean…he is attractive, sure, and I have eyes. I like his smile too—I’ll give you that much—but I don’t know him well enough to say if I’m attracted to him. I don’t have a crush on him…let’s say that instead. I’m attracted to his looks, but I don’t have a crush on him. He seems nice, so I like him as a person—that sounds even better. Even if I did like him and by some dumb luck he was interested in me too, though I doubt that—”

“Of course you’d doubt it, because you’re paper bag ugly,” Jared repeated again, slowly shaking his head to emphasize his disappointment in me.

“Annnyway,” I drew out the word then, ignoring Jared, continued. “We’ll be staying in the same apartment for crying out loud, and there is no way Mark wouldn’t find out about it.”

“So it all comes back to Mark.”

Frowning, I lowered my voice and leaned forward. “No, it doesn’t, Jared. I said he is hot, and yeah, he does sound like a good person, but just because he is those two things doesn’t mean I’m gonna fall at his feet and confess my love—or lust, for that matter. I’m only acting all weird around him because of what happened freshman year and because…okay, yeah, I think he is good-looking, but that’s about it. You know that’s not a good combo for me. Don’t you remember how I was when you first talked to me in that art history class? Was I in love with you? No. That’s just who I am, how I am until I warm up to people, and what I also am is embarrassed around him. First I ask him if I can kiss him like some kindergarten kid, and then the next time he sees me, I knock over some guys’ model building and get yelled at right in front of him and his friends, including Chris, as if things couldn’t get any worse. If all that’s not enough, another year passes and here I am dropping my towel and showing my tits and plastering myself to him. I’m not mentioning the part where I attacked him because I was right to do so.”

“So, being his friend is the best idea here—we all agree on that, yes?” Kayla looked at Jared and then me. “You’ll get used to having him around. If I know you as well as I think I do, there’ll be a lot of nervous laughing and hiding out in your room in your future if you don’t do something about it. So, actually try to be his friend since you’re so adamant about not having a crush on him. Jared is good-looking and you’re not a blubbering mess around him anymore,” Kayla offered, gesturing at our friend.

“If I was interested in girls, this one would be all over me by now, so I’m not sure if I’m a good example in this situation, KayKay,” Jared chimed in.

I snorted. “Oh, please. As if. That’s all I’m saying to you: as if. Also, you wish…and last but not least, in your dreams.”

* * *

So, instead of acting casual—as Kayla had so nicely suggested—and hiding in my room whenever I could, I was going to become friends with Dylan Reed. Sounded easy enough.

It was around five in the evening when I managed to make it back to the apartment after spending several long hours in the photography lab. Before I got to turn my key and step inside, the door at the end of the hall opened and Ms. Hilda peeked out from behind the cracked door.

“Miss Clarke, is that you?”

She was eighty-five years old and her eyes worked better than mine—she knew perfectly well that it was me.

“Yes, Ms. Hilda, it’s just me,” I yelled over my shoulder, my movements urgent.

I turned the key and opened the door, hoping she wouldn’t ask me anything else and I would get to throw myself face first on the couch for a few minutes and then maybe force myself to get up and make a quick sandwich for dinner afterward before Dyl—

“Could you be a lamb and—”

Oh, not the lamb. I never wanted to be a lamb.

Please don’t say hang the curtains. Please don’t say hang the curtains.

“—hang the curtains back up?”

Hanging my head in despair, I closed the door, cursing myself for completely forgetting about her and making enough noise to wake up the dead while walking up the stairs. I walked back to stand in front of her now fully open door. “Did you wash your curtains again, Ms. Hilda?”

She grunted and raised a brow at me as if to say, What’s your point?

“I’m only asking because you’ve already washed them five times this month.” I had been chosen as the worker bee who hung the clean curtains back up because she just couldn’t manage to do it herself. It was fine, because she really couldn’t, and it only took me ten minutes to hang them all back up anyway, but I always wondered who else she cornered to take them down every other day.

“I like a clean house, Miss Clarke.”

Of course she liked a clean house. She roped me into vacuuming her apartment almost weekly, not to mention her never-ending list of other small tasks. If you weren’t quiet enough and that door of hers opened, she had chores she wanted you to handle. If she had been one of those sweet old grandmas who gave you warm chocolate chip cookies for helping her, or maybe sometimes offered you a home-cooked meal because you were a student who missed having home-cooked meals, she would be so lovable. But, no. She was…I had no idea how to be polite about my choice of word, but she was basically a witch. As I said, if she caught you, she always roped you into helping her out with something, and on top of that she basically sucked all the energy right out of you while she was at it. That was why I always tiptoed when I reached our floor.