Before We Fall

  “Down by Eighty-Seventh Street,” she answers, staring out the window as we roll down my brother’s driveway past the manicured lawns.

  “Calumet Heights?” I ask, picturing the older Chicago neighborhood in my head. She nods.

  “Wow, you still remember your hometown. Impressive.”

  I roll my eyes, not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not. “I’ll never forget where I came from.”

  The car’s engine purrs as we make our way toward the gates, and casually I glance to the side, expecting to see the green lawns, trees, and shadows of my brother’s estate. But something else is there, and I freeze, my hands tightening on the wheel as I slam on the brakes.

  “What the fuck?” Jacey sputters in confusion as her body jerks forward. But I’m already out of the car and striding toward the two people sitting on the bench to our left.

  My sister Fiona and my one-time best friend, Cris fucking Evans, look up at me in surprise from the dark. Her arms are wrapped around his neck. His tongue was down her throat thirty seconds ago.

  “What the—” Cris manages to say before I yank him off the bench and throw him to the ground. “What the fuck, Dominic?” he barks out, scrambling to get to his feet and balance on his lanky-ass legs, poised to lunge at me if he has to.

  I smile grimly and glance at Fiona. “What the hell is going on, Fi? Tell me it’s not what it looks like.”

  My sister sighs and calmly stands up, approaching me carefully.

  “It’s probably what it looks like. Cris and I are dating, Dom. I wanted to tell you, but with things the way they are between you… well, I was scared about how you would react.”

  I ignore the ice water that seems to pump through my heart.

  “Naturally,” I answer calmly. “Of course you are. Because obviously you wanted to find the biggest douche on the planet and date him. If that’s the case, you did a stellar job.”

  “Dom.” Fiona sighs again. “I don’t know what he did to you, but six years is a long fucking time to carry a grudge. You need to get over it and move on. I love him, and you’re going to have to live with that.”

  “You… what?” The words feel like wood on my tongue, dry and heavy. I can’t even believe what I just heard.

  Fiona stares at me, her green eyes assessing me carefully. “I love him.”

  I hear Cris breathing in front of me and see Jacey standing on the perimeter, but everything fades instantly away but this: Cris and Fiona. Together.

  The idea that my baby sister would stab me in the heart like this is unfathomable.

  “How could you do this?” I demand of her. “You know how I feel about him, Fiona. Does the phrase ‘blood is thicker than water’ mean anything to you? You’re way better than he is, and he doesn’t deserve you. He’s too fucking old for you anyway. Jesus.”

  There’s a brief pause while Fiona slides her hands to her hips, then she erupts.

  “Jesus Christ,” my baby sister snaps. “You’ve got to get over yourself. He was your best friend, Dom. Someone who I grew up with too. And for all these years, you’ve expected all of us to just take your word for it that he’s some sort of monster without telling us why. If you want us to have your back, you have to trust us with a good reason. If what he did to you was so fucking bad, then you need to tell me what the fuck he did.”

  I swallow hard, because the only way I can effectively warn her away from Cris is to tell her the truth. And I can’t do that. The wound is that fucking deep, open, and raw. It’s years old and it still stings as much as it ever did. I can barely even think about it, much less talk about it.

  I take a deep breath, then another. As I do, I notice that Jacey has walked up and is hovering in the shadows, watching us uncertainly. I look away from her and back to my sister.

  “Can’t you just trust me?” I finally ask slowly. “As your big brother, can’t you just fucking trust me?”

  Cris starts to say something, but I snarl at him. My sister holds out a hand toward him in caution before she looks back to me. She knows me well enough to know that talking to Cris is only going to set me off.

  “Dominic, I love you even though you’re bullheaded. I do trust you. But we grew up with Cris, and I trust him too. I know this somehow must involve Emma. But Dom, she’s gone. Whatever happened, it’s not relevant anymore.”

  Fuck. The mere mention of Emma’s name is a sucker punch to my gut and I want to bend over so that I can breathe. I also want to toss my sister over my shoulder and carry her away… far, far away from Cris.

  Not relevant? Untrue. It will be relevant until the day I die.

  Fiona stares at me, waiting for me to say something. But the words won’t come.

  I can’t tell her all of the things that she ought to know. I can’t force the ugly words out of my chest where they’ve been hidden for so long. It’s best to leave them buried. That’s definitely one thing I’ve learned in life.

  “Why don’t you ask Cris what he did?” I ask bluntly, staring a hole into my ex-best friend’s fucking forehead. “Just ask. See if he’ll tell you the truth.”

  Cris opens his mouth, but Fiona shakes her head.

  “We’re not doing this here, Dominic. We’ll discuss it when we’re calmer. And don’t you think I’ve asked before? He said if you want to talk about it, you will.”

  What a fucker.

  Cris clears his throat and I stare at him, looking at him closely. He’s been gone for years, away at college and then building up a business. But he looks the same as he ever did. Longish blond hair, blue eyes, lanky form. The years haven’t hardened him like they’ve hardened me, something else that pisses me off about him. He speaks now, hesitantly.

  “Dom, we’ve got to stop this. It’s been years, years of blaming me for something that wasn’t my fault. It’s time to let it go.” He drops his big, lanky-ass hands and stares at me, waiting for a reaction, and all I can do is stare at him incredulously.

  For a minute, I don’t see the man in front of me, I don’t even see the boy I grew up with… the boy I played little league with, made forts with, caught frogs with. I see a name.

  His name.

  Spoken from my dying girlfriend’s lips. I wince as I remember how pale she was, how she was shaking and cold, how she could barely speak, but she still managed to say his name.

  I glare at him, trying like hell to not wrap my hands around his pathetic neck and squeeze.

  “Not your fault? Really? Because the last thing she said was your name. Your. Name. Not mine. Not her mom’s or her dad’s. Yours. We both know why your name was the last thing on her lips. And you honestly have the balls to stand there and tell me that I have no right to be mad at you?”

  Cris looks at me, his expression pained, his eyes guarded. I hear Fiona gasp, but her hand clamps over her mouth and she doesn’t make another sound. I’m sure this is the first she’s heard of any of this… of Emma’s last words.

  Cris steps toward me.

  “That’s not what I said. I said it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t say you didn’t have a right to be mad. You do. You have the right to be pissed at the whole fucking situation. But it was a long time ago. And you don’t know everything that happened. You wouldn’t talk to me before I left and you’ve never picked up the phone, so I can explain—”

  “And I’m not going to start now,” I interrupt. “I don’t give a shit about anything you have to say. And I don’t give a fuck that it was a long time ago. It happened and I’ll never forget it.”

  “I’m dating Fiona,” Cris says bluntly. “So you’ve got to try.”

  I shake my head. “Fuck you. That’s Fiona’s choice, not mine. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t do anything that I don’t want to do.”

  I turn to leave, and he says, “And you wonder why Emma did what she did?”

  That’s when I see red.

  It billows in from the corners of my eyes like red fog filling my vision, and I lunge at Cris with a r
oar. I can’t hear, I can’t think. All I can do is move. Everything is just a blur of fists, swearing, and grunts.

  I feel his hair in my fist and then my knuckles connect with his face, over and over; his jaw, his cheekbone, his eye. The next thing I’m aware of is Jacey thrusting herself in the middle of us, catching me mid-punch. The side of my fist grazes her cheek and her hand flies to her face, cupping it. But she still struggles to get us apart.

  Fiona rushes up to Cris, her fingers dabbing at his bleeding lip, her arms hugging him close.

  “What the fuck, Dom?” she shrieks, her arm wrapped around Cris’s shoulder as if she’s shielding him from me. “You’re a fucking lunatic. Get the fuck out of here.”

  I try to ignore the pain of the… the idea that not only would my sister date my worst enemy, but that she had the balls to bring him here, where she had to know I’d be.

  It’s definitely a betrayal and it’s something I would never do to her. I take a breath, ragged and raw, and stare at her, not wanting to say anything that I’ll regret.

  “I’m staying here while I’m in town, Fiona. You get the fuck out of here. And take that waste of space with you.”

  Fiona stares at me in hurt and rage and disbelief as she leads Cris away. Before we can get back to our car, red and blue lights burst to life around us. They flash against our faces, lighting us up against the night.

  “Holy shit, someone called the cops.”

  Jacey inhales sharply and stares at me, one hand limp on my arm, the other holding her cheek. She’s covered in blood now, and I’m not sure if it’s mine or Cris’s. Or maybe even her own. But I don’t have time to find out.

  Two cops are approaching us, and what comes next happens in a blur, both because of all the whiskey I’ve been drinking and the fact that Cris clocked me hard in the temple.

  How much have you been drinking?

  Who started this fight?

  Can I search your car?

  Son, are these your drugs?

  I glance up blearily now, to see one of them holding up a bag of weed. He blurs into three cops, then back into one as my vision comes in and out of focus.

  “I’m not your son,” I mumble. Jacey gasps and I hear her swearing that the drugs aren’t hers, either, and that I’m probably not thinking clearly right now, that I’m not myself. I want to glare at her for making excuses for me, but I can’t seem to control my facial muscles. I see her swat at a policeman when he grabs at her wrists, but it’s the last thing I see. My chin drops to my chest and my gaze fixes on the ground.

  Dew is forming on the grass. That’s something I notice as they handcuff me and stuff me into the back of a cop car. I hear my sister’s voice, frantic and pissed, but I can’t understand her words. It’s a bit too hard to stay conscious now, and I let my head fall back onto the seat of the cop car.

  Flashes and bits of what just happened run through my head. Jacey’s startled eyes, the way she jumped into the fray and tried to help… the way I clocked her in the face and she didn’t back away.

  He’s not himself, she told the cop. I almost smile. Is that what she thinks?

  I feel the blood from my knuckles drip onto the handcuffs and down my back and I think about Cris’s words.

  And you wonder why Emma did what she did?

  Jesus. My stomach balls up into a knot, and I will my throat to stay open and my fucking lungs to keep working.

  Emma.

  The mere thought of her brings a million emotions—that I can’t name and can’t process—to the surface of my skin, where they crawl along, and then dig their claws into my heart. They stab it over and over until I can’t feel anything at all.

  This is what happened to me. This is why I’m so empty.

  So unable to feel jack shit.

  Emma.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to picture her, trying not to see her lips smiling at me back then or imagine what she must look like now… buried in the ground, rotting away into nothing.

  Fuuuck. I can feel my airway close, tighter and tighter, and I lean my head back, taking slow breaths.

  I don’t wonder why Emma did what she did. I know why. It involves a whole lot of fucked-up ugliness that I can’t think about without breaking out in a cold sweat. It’s fucked up, but it’s just the way I am.

  Whether I like it or not, I am the way I am because of her. Because I loved her and because she did what she did.

  Chapter Three

  Jacey

  Oh. My. God.

  I close my eyes against the catcalls and lewd comments, although what the hell did I expect? I’m sitting in a freaking jail cell dressed in nothing but a bowtie, a bustier, and boy-shorts. My ass cheeks are hanging out, for god’s sake. And I’m sitting right smack in the middle of a group of prostitutes.

  Fun fact: they’re all wearing more clothing than me.

  Another fun fact: I’m the only one here whose face is swollen and whose clothes are covered in blood. To them, I probably look like my dealer (or my pimp!) beat the shit out of me.

  Resting my head against the cool wall behind me, I pretend that I’m anywhere but here. I’m at the beach, I’m shopping on Michigan Avenue, I’m getting a manicure.

  But I’m not. The cold concrete bench pressing into my thighs and the musty smell of this cell remind me of exactly where I am.

  “Jacey Vincent! Time for your phone call!”

  Thank god.

  A cop unlocks the door and I rush for it, thankful for a chance to get out of this cell.

  He leads me back to the booking desk, where I’d been fingerprinted earlier, back when the phone had been in use by someone else.

  “You’ve got two minutes,” he tells me brusquely. His eyes skim over me and I can see what he thinks… that I’m just another used-up whore like the girls in the cell.

  It makes me want to throw up in my mouth. But I don’t. Instead, with shaking fingers, I dial the only number I can think of. The first name that comes to mind when I need help nowadays.

  Brand.

  My childhood friend. My brother’s best friend and business partner.

  Since my brother Gabe married my best friend Maddy and they moved to Connecticut a couple of months ago, I don’t have anyone else to call. But that’s for the best. Both Gabe and Maddy would kick my ass for this anyway, although I’m not a hundred percent sure that Brand won’t either.

  Regardless, he’s the only one I can trust to come get me out of this godforsaken shit-hole. Just like he was the only one I could trust to come pick me up off the freeway when I’d had a flat tire a couple of weeks ago.

  He answers groggily on the third ring. “Yeah?”

  “Brand?” my voice quavers. I steel myself and swallow hard. “I need your help.”

  “Jace?” Brand’s at attention now, his voice sharp. “Are you okay?”

  I glance around at the police station, at the yellowed walls, the stern cops, the criminals waiting to be booked. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Yeah. No. Maybe. I was arrested. Can you come get me?”

  There’s a brief, loaded pause.

  “You’re at the police station?” Brand finally asks, and I have to give him credit. His voice is calm and even. “What were you arrested for?”

  “Possession of marijuana and assaulting a police officer.”

  Brand’s not calm now. He erupts into a storm of profanity.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” he finally demands. But before I can answer, the cop next to me taps my shoulder.

  “You’ve got twenty seconds.”

  My heart speeds up. What if Brand won’t come?

  “Brand, I’ve only got twenty seconds. Can you please come get me? I don’t have anyone else to call. They weren’t my drugs. I’ll explain when you get here.”

  “Time,” the cop says firmly, taking the phone from me and replacing it in the cradle. I stare at it, aghast.

  “But I don’t know if he’s coming,” I tell the cop limply.

/>   “Sounds like a personal problem,” he answers, gripping my elbow and guiding me back to the cell. Every fiber in my being fights against stepping back through the bars, but I’ve got no choice.

  The cop shoves me in and locks the door behind me.

  I stand alone and dejected, and the women all erupt into howls and catcalls, and for a confused moment I think it’s because of me, because I got thrown right back in here and they think that’s funny.