Chapter 38: Falling 

February

As I'm driving Bree home that night, I can't help but wonder how all our friends at the game seemed to already know we got engaged.

"It was so good to see everyone," she says.

I nod. "Yeah, our news spread like wildfire. How did everyone find out so fast?"

"Oh. Probably because I posted it on my profile."

"When did you have time to do that?"

"On our way to the game," she says, as if it were only natural.

Jesus, she sure doesn't let any moss gather.

"I wish you'd asked me first. I would have liked the chance to tell people myself."

"Like who?" she asks.

"Like some of the guys."

She's quiet for a few beats. Thinking. "You mean Peyton. Heard you asked her to prom. Got down on one knee and everything," she snarks.

Un-fucking-believable.

I just shake my head. "I should have told you about her. But this all happened so fast."

She shrugs. "No biggie," she says. "It was obvious she always had a crush on you."

It wasn't obvious to me.

"Besides," she says. "I hope you don't think I'm threatened by her."

I give her the side eye. Her tone has taken a definite turn, one I'm not all that fond of. 

"I mean," she continues, "look at her. And look at me. No contest."

"Yep," I say. "No contest." Peyton wins, hands down.

After I drop her off, I open up Instagram and scroll to Bree's profile.

It's a picture of us taken at the homecoming dance. I swipe to the next shot—it's her hand with my great-grandmother's diamond on her ring finger. Underneath the picture, her caption reads, "I said yes!"

Technically, she did. But it wasn't in response to any question I asked her.

This can't be real.

I'm in my bed later that night, staring at the ceiling. Can't sleep again. It feels like I'm in a waking nightmare sometimes, the kind where you've gotten yourself trapped somewhere high, and there's no way down except falling.

I go to bed thinking about it.

I wake up thinking about it.

I try to picture us walking down the aisle.

Visions of us in the doctor's office, holding hands while we look at an ultrasound.

I imagine us sleeping together and drinking coffee in the morning.

For the rest of our lives.

I hop out of bed, run into my bathroom, and vomit violently into the toilet.

I have to get out of here.

About ten minutes later, I find myself navigating the roads to Peyton's house. I have no idea what I'm thinking. Apparently, I've completely lost my mind.

I cut my lights and ease to stop about a quarter mile down their driveway. I shrug into my barn jacket and pull on my hat and gloves.

It's cold enough to freeze my nads off tonight. Really poor timing on my part.

Her window is dark, but that's not surprising since it's two a.m.

I search for a rock or something to throw that will be loud enough but not break the glass and finally settle on some coin-sized stones in the plant bed. I toss a couple up to her window and wait. I hear a squeak and look up sharply towards the sound. Is that the window opening? Is that movement?

"Peyton!" I whisper.

My heart skips some major beats. I swallow.

"What?" she clips.

I open my arms, in a pleading posture. "Please come talk to me."

The window snaps shut again. I wait some more.

She steps out through the back door to the patio, pulling a sweatshirt on over her head, then stands there shivering, probably waiting for me to speak first.

"I'm sorry it's so late," I say, my voice a little shaky.

She sits down on the lounge chair, still silent.

"It's just...you won't answer my calls or texts. I really need to talk to you."

She nods. "I blocked you. Didn't even know you were trying to reach me."

"You blocked me?" She fucking blocked me? Pretty hilarious that I'm upset about that given the circumstances. I walk over and sit on the chair next to her. The electricity between us charges the air. I want so bad to lean into her energy, to touch her skin, and hug her tight. 

"Congratulations on your engagement," she says, flatly looking out into the darkness. 

"Peyton..."

"What?" She closes her eyes. 

"Please talk to me."

She opens her eyes and studies my face. "Why? So you can lie to me some more?" 

"I didn't lie!" Stay calm. Be cool. 

"Well, you didn't tell the truth—a very significant truth—either."

She's right. I knew it was wrong not to tell her. But I couldn't see any other way. "I was worried that I'd lose you."

"Welp, you lost me, Chaplin." Her voice is eerily calm. It's a little unnerving.

"Can't we be friends?"

"Friends?" 

"Yeah."

"I like to be able to trust my friends." She may as well have stabbed me in the gut.

"You can trust me," I say. "I swear."

"A good friend I once knew told me that trust isn't so easy to fix, once it's been broken."

I'd forgotten about the conversation we had, the one time I actually told her some little thing about my troubled past with my dad. I told her how hard it was to trust him again, after the way he'd behaved. "That was me," I say. "I said that." 

"Exactly. It was you. It's not you anymore. I was so wrong to trust you, to let you in, especially since you never had any intention of letting me in."

"But you weren't even my girlfriend when Bree and I...you know..."

She clenches her jaw. "Yeah, I guess that makes it all okay, Chaplin. Very comforting. Thanks for reminding me."

"And I never would have been with her that night if you weren't making out with Logan Lowery for the whole world to see."

"That night? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I was drinking at the homecoming dance." 

"You don't even drink, Jack," she says, rolling her eyes. 

"Exactly. But I did that night because I was so jealous that I couldn't see straight. If it weren't for you, I never even would have been in that situation."

She lets out a tiny mocking laugh. "You're blaming me." She shakes her head, disgusted.

"No! It's not what I meant. I'm just trying to make you see that it wasn't what I intended. I was thinking about you the entire time, and that's how my head got so messed up. And I can't take it back. I can't go back and undo it."

"Let me get this straight. You're saying you had sex with Bree once." She puts a single finger in the air. "One time. And, bam, she's pregnant."

"Yeah."

"That seems highly unlikely, Chaplin."

"Well, apparently I have very bad luck."

She shakes her head again. "There's a difference between bad luck and bad choices. Either way, I don't want to be friends with someone who not only lies to me but makes very bad choices and then blames it on bad luck. Or me."

"I didn't lie!"

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

I'm so damn frustrated right now. She's just not listening. 

I take a deep breath and exhale forcefully. "What...how...how would things turn out any different if I had told you, and she still turned up pregnant four months later?"

She's quiet for a long time. Her voice finally has the slightest bit of emotion in it when she says, "It would be different because I never would have let myself believe that you were really mine. I wouldn't have let you close enough to hurt me. That's my fault. My mistake. I won't make it again."

"Pease don't say that. I need you to forgive me. I need you to be my friend."

"What do you want me to say, Jack? Why are you here? What do you want from me?"

"I guess...I want you to tell me that it'll be okay. That you'll be okay."

She draws her knees up to her chest and tugs the sweatshirt over them like a blanket, trapping her body heat underneath its shelter. She buries her nose in the collar of the hoodie and breathes deeply.

"You cold?"

"Pax is keeping me warm," she says, her voice muffled beneath the fabric.

"Did you say Pax? Your brother?" I glance around at the night air, but I have no idea what I'm looking for.

She nods. "When we moved, my parents got rid of most of his stuff and all of the painful memories that went with it. But they must have overlooked this hoodie. Maybe they thought it was mine. It still smells like him—oranges. And vanilla. He loved to eat clementines. My mom would get so irritated because he'd stuff the peels in his pockets." 

She pulls something from the front pocket of the hoodie and hands it to me. It's a very old, dried orange rind.

I hold it, feeling its rough edges. Then I whisper, "I miss you." 

"I miss you too," she says, putting her whole face into the neck of the hoodie. "But I guess I should be used to it by now."

"Used to what?"

"Abandonment."

"I'm not abandoning you."

After a very long stretch of silence, she lifts her head from her knees and says, "You remember what I told you that one time? About not being a vase?" Clouds of vapor from our words hang in the air between us. The cold is seeping into my bones, making me shiver uncontrollably.

I raise my eyes to hers. "Yeah. You said that I couldn't break you."

"I was wrong," she whispers, breathing in the ghost of her brother's scent.

"About what?"

She looks up at me through the tears in her eyes. "That you couldn't break me." Her voice cracks. "You broke me."