Deeper We Fall

  “What happened?” That was the first thing Zack said to me when we got to the hospital. I stared at him, unable to comprehend how he couldn’t remember what had just happened.

  “You were in a car accident, sweetie,” the nurse closest to his head said. “Do you remember anything?”

  “What?” He tried to move, but, like me, he was strapped to a backboard and had a C-collar on. I remembered every single second in crisp detail.

  “Where’s Lexie?” I whispered. My throat hurt for some reason I didn’t understand. There were people all around me, but no one was listening to me. I had to repeat myself before someone took notice.

  “They’re doing everything they can. You just worry about you right now.” That didn’t answer my question, but when people said things like, ‘doing everything they can,’ meant things weren’t going well.

  It wasn’t until the next day I found out how bad it was.

  I ran as the sky went from washed out blue to a muted grey, to the brighter shade of a new morning. The rain stopped, and the rising sun sparkled on the moisture that clung to the trees. I stopped to rest, leaning against a large trunk. I glanced down at my chest, looking at the tattoo I’d gotten only a month before.

  The dark ink that intertwined with the scars that crossed my skin still threw me off every now and then when I saw it. The artist had done a beautiful job. My fingers traced the outline of a little mockingbird that sat in one of the branches of the tree that dominated my left side.

  It was really because of Boo Radley that I’d gotten a tree. Because of those magical little things he’d left for the Finch children in the tree in front of his yard. I hadn’t thought of what I was going to get before I went to the tattoo place, just that I’d know when he asked me what I wanted.

  My copy of To Kill A Mockingbird had be lying on the dashboard of the truck when Zack and I got in to go to Connecticut, so that was what I thought about the whole way. I didn’t think getting a giant mockingbird was going to cut it, or be very masculine, so I needed something else. While Zack was busy finding a radio station that wasn’t “gay,” I flipped through the book until I found something that struck me.

  There it was, as Zack sang at the top of his lungs to Satisfaction. Somehow I was able to describe what I wanted in enough detail that the artist did an amazing job, and it looked like a painting and not like a cartoon. Zack got one too, his baseball number on his left pectoral. I didn’t bother to point out that his number was going to change. Zack did what Zack wanted. Always.

  I came to a bend in the trail and turned to go back, even though I didn’t want to. More words from Rumi echoed through my head.

  ‘I run from body. I run from spirit.

  I do not belong anywhere.’

  Lottie

  “Thank God you’re here, Q of S is on a rampage,” Trish said when I walked into work on Friday afternoon. It was only my first week, and she’d already adopted me, but it wasn’t totally her fault. Within about five seconds of talking with her, it was like her soul and my soul did a fist bump and said, Hey, I know you!

  “Uh oh.” I punched in, being sure to avoid the office area before I donned my apron and got to the cutting counter.

  “Any more interactions with the B’s of D?” Of course the entire Zack/Zan saga had spilled out of me during my fifteen minute break on my second day. I didn’t mean to tell her, but it just sort of happened. Like most of my rambles.

  “Not since the thing in the rain that I’m not talking about.” The fact that I was limping had triggered the explanation in the first place.

  Trish narrowed her eyes at me and then swiped her hair back.

  “You know, if you wanted, I could get my brother to beat Zack up. Or just scare him out of his mind. My brother scares a lot of people.” How different hers was from mine.

  “No, I can deal. My own brother sort of has that covered.”

  “What is it with men and thinking that we can’t take care of ourselves?”

  “It’s the penis effect.” I made sure to say it quietly, so no customers overheard.

  “The what?” Her eyebrows disappeared into her side-swept dyed-citrus orange bangs.

  “The penis effect.” It was something Lexie had come up with. Basically, it explained anything stupid, or otherwise, that men did.

  Trish thought about that for a second before she bobbed her head in agreement.

  “You’re right. It is.” Chat time was over as Claudia called me to restock the cone thread. Trish gave me a sympathetic look, but two seconds later a grandmother with a cart full of bolts of pastel fabric walked up to the counter. That meant cutting a million tiny amounts from each bolt to make quilt squares, and it took forever. We didn’t get a chance to talk again until our breaks. Since the break room was full, we went outside.

  “So you want to hang out? My roommate will be gone for the weekend, so you won’t have to deal with her crazy.” Trish had already filled me in on her roommate who had a host of issues from food allergies to her issues with her boyfriend to her inability to vacuum or do the dishes or anything productive.

  “We could like totally paint our nails and then we could like, watch a movie with no redeeming qualities and then we could like, have a pillow fight or do shots and make out and put the video online so all the boys will like us. Like,” she said, grabbing a chip from the bag that we were sharing on the bench in the back of the store.

  “Oh Em Gee! We should totes do that!” We both laughed like morons for a few seconds.

  “Thank God you’re not one of those girls.”

  “Those girls?”

  “The ones that shop at that horrible store that I won’t talk about, but you know the one with all the naked people in the ads and who wear the latest that Bath and Body Works has to offer and who think that thinking is lame.”

  “Basically you’re saying thank God I’m weird.”

  “Obviously. Have you ever noticed that the weird people are the ones we remember? I mean look at Jane Austen. She didn’t sit around and fritter her life away with needlepoint or marry that creepy dude who asked her. Look at Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Picasso, Da Vinci, Joan of Arc, Michael Jackson. All weirdos. All geniuses in their own fields. As far as I’m concerned, unless you’re weird, you’re nobody.”

  She shrugged and lit a cigarette, cupping the lighter with her hand against the wind.

  “All I’m saying is weird is good.”

  “Weird is good. I feel like that should be on a bumper sticker,” I said.

  “I’ll get you one.”

  “Well, you’ll also have to get me a bumper. Preferably one with a car attached.”

  “Bummer. Hey, if you want, my brother is like, a car genius. He could find you a junk bucket and pimp it out if you want. All you have to do is pay for parts,” she said.

  “Seriously?”

  She blew a smoke ring. Not that I’d ever wanted to smoke, but that was pretty damn cool.

  “He gets off on it. Guess it’s the penis effect,” she said.

  I nodded. “Exactly. We should go in. You working tomorrow?”

  “Bright and early,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette and rolling her eyes. “Fuck my life,” she muttered.

  ***

  Will was still in the depths of despair about Audrey at dinner, and Simon was MIA at another club meeting. We ended up sitting with a group from our dorm that Will had made friends with. He was already working his magic, even when he was all moody and weird.

  My eyes still scanned the room, looking for either of the Parker brothers, and breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t see their dark heads of hair.

  I’d gone two days without seeing either of them. My luck was bound to run out sooner or later, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Granted, if Zack even breathed near me again, he was going to have a broken penis on his hands, and probably some other injuries when I got done with him.

  And then there was Zan. Yes, he’d sort of been nice. If he
wasn’t Zan Parker, things would have been different…Maybe.

  I shut the lid on the Zan box in my brain before that line of thinking could go any further, kicking it into the farthest corner of my mind.

  Katie was actually doing homework when I got back. I almost fell over when I walked in the door. It was the first time I’d seen her crack a book. Also, she was wearing hipster black-framed glasses. That was the first of those I’d seen. Her hair was sloppy, and not the sloppy that took two hours to meticulously arrange, just sloppy.

  “Hey,” I said, closing the door. Her eyes took a second to focus on me as her pupils adjusted.

  “Oh, hey.”

  “What’s up?” I really wanted to ask what the hell she was doing, but that would have been rude, right?

  She shrugged, pointing to her book. “I have a test next week and I haven’t done any of the reading.” I had to jam my mouth shut so I wouldn’t say it was because she was too busy getting drunk and banging her asshole of a boyfriend.

  “Do you need any help?” I startled myself as much as her when I said it. “I mean, we could go to the library or something.”

  “Um, I think I’m okay. I just need a few hours and I’ll be fine.”

  “If you need to stay up late and keep the light on, I don’t mind. I could sleep through a fireworks show.” This was completely untrue, but I figured she didn’t know me well enough to spot the lie.

  “Thanks.” Her eyes drifted back to her book and I decided to take a shower and make myself scarce so she could focus.

  Of course, I didn’t remember to grab my pjs and realized that when I was already in the shower and completely wet. Great.

  I didn’t want to put my other clothes back on, so I just wrapped my towel under my arms and hoped I the hallway was empty.

  I was just turning the corner to go to my room when I slammed into something tall and human-shaped. I went flying, my shower stuff went flying and so did something else.

  My towel.

  I felt it ripping itself away from my body, and my fingers were too busy trying to break my fall to worry about it. I also may have cursed, before my damp and naked body was stopped from becoming intimately acquainted with the floor by two strong arms.

  “Are you okay?” The world started to move at normal speed again. It went from slow motion to unbearably fast and I had to blink a few times so things would come back into focus.

  “Where’s my towel?” My voice sounded like a roar in my ears.

  “Right here,” he said, letting go of me like I was a burning him, and handing it to me. I was too flustered and freaked out to appreciate that he kept his eyes on my face and not on other areas.

  My hands shook as I wrapped the towel around myself. Zan looked away and started gathering up my conditioner and soap, etc. My clothes were scattered, but my underwear was right by my foot, so I snatched it up and stuffed it under my jeans.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, handing me my basket of shower stuff. “I didn’t see anything.” Yeah, and my name was really Scout Finch.

  I started to say something, but realized I should probably just get out of the damn hallway and go back to my room so I could die. He stepped aside as I rushed by him, my face no doubt turning a brilliant shade of red rivaled only by a tomato.

  Zan. Parker. Saw. Me. Naked.

  The words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. Shaking, I walked back into my room where Katie was still eyeballs deep in her book.

  Where were my effing pajamas? I tore through my drawer, desperate for anything to cover my body.

  “Whoa, what’s wrong?” My frenzy to find something attracted Katie’s attention.

  “Nothing,” I squeaked.

  “Okaayyyy,” she said, closing her book.

  Why couldn’t I find a damn pair of sweatpants? Finally it clicked that I had a laundry basket full of clean clothes that I hadn’t put away yet. I ripped through that and found my sweatpants, some underwear and a large t-shirt.

  I kept my towel wrapped around me as I dressed. Didn’t need yet another person seeing me.

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong? Because you’re acting like if you don’t get those clothes on, you’re going to catch fire.”

  “I’m just cold. I forgot my pjs and I’m freezing.” Once I was clothed I didn’t feel any less naked so I crossed my arms in front of my chest and sat down on my bed and pulled my blanket around me.

  “Uh huh.” She squinted at me for a second behind the giant frames of her glasses. They looked adorable on her.

  “I didn’t know you had glasses.”

  “Just for reading,” she said, taking them off.

  “You should wear them more often. They’re cute.”

  “I look like a total dork with them. Zack thinks they’re stupid.” He would, the asshole.

  “Where is he tonight?” I wasn’t going to say his name. I’d probably choke on it, and suffocate and die.

  “Out with some guys from the baseball team. Some sort of male bonding ritual that probably is just all of them getting wasted. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of drunk texts when I get up tomorrow. Although, he’s a lot sweeter when he’s drunk. He’ll say romantic things he never would when he’s sober.” Somehow I found that easy to believe. I’d never seen Zack as much of a romantic guy. Charmer? Definitely, but only to get what he wanted.

  “Is it weird for you for me to talk about him? I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.” No, what made me uncomfortable was knowing that she was headed down the same path as Lexie. Sure, the chances of the accident happening again were like, a bazillion to one, but that didn’t mean something else couldn’t happen.

  “It’s fine. Everyone gets second chances.” Okay, I lied. Those were the words that choked me.

  “Okay, good.” She let out a breath that she’d probably been holding since she found out about my history with Zack and Zan.

  Ugh, Zan.

  Nonono, go away memories! I wished I had a giant fly swatter that I could just smash them with.

  I pulled my blanket tighter and prayed to God to give me amnesia.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Zan

  That was not how I pictured seeing Charlotte naked the first time. Not by a long shot.

  And I’d imagined that far more times than I’d ever admit, especially lately.

  I knew if I went up there, I had a chance of seeing her. I knew it, and I did it anyway. I tried to justify it by telling myself that I wanted to see if her ankle had healed, or if she had broken it and was now on crutches. Also, my roommate was still sleeping off his binge from the night before and my room stank, so I wanted to stay away from it as long as I could.

  She probably knew I was lying when I said I didn’t look. My eyes were drawn to the bare expanse of her skin like a moth drawn to the world’s biggest bonfire. As she started falling, my hands, of their own accord, reached for her.

  It was her voice that made me pull my eyes away from her damp glowing skin to her horrified face as she asked where her towel was.

  That sure snapped me out of it, and I let go of her. She probably wanted to take another shower after having me touch her. I gave her back the towel and helped pick up her shower things and put them back in the basket while she gathered up her clothes. Even with most of her covered, there was still way too much skin that I wanted to look at.

  Being so close to her made thinking and breathing difficult. With every gulp of air, a little bit of the perfume from her clean skin invaded my nose and imprinted itself on my brain. Jasmine. Coconut. Freshly melted snow.

  I didn’t even remember what was said, but I remembered walking back down the stairs to my room, trying to get her out of my head again.

  It was getting harder and harder, in more ways than one.

  By the time I got back downstairs, I had to head for the shower too. I turned the water on as cold as I could and threw myself back into shitty memories of Carter so I would stop thinking about how much I wanted her.

/>   Fuck.

  Once I’d gotten dressed, I sat on the stairs and tried to control the explosion that was going on in my brain.

  Maybe this was another part of my punishment from God or whoever. Putting this beautiful unattainable thing in front of me and then pulling it away.

  Fuck you Zan Parker; this is what you can’t have.

  Her brother would probably rip my eyeballs out and shove them down my throat if he knew. Something told me he wouldn’t find out. That she wouldn’t tell anyone. Not that she could keep a secret.

  She was so free with words, always saying what was on her mind, whether it was appropriate or not. I especially loved it when it wasn’t appropriate. She wasn’t like those girls who say things just to shock people. Charlotte said what was on her mind, without even considering if it should be said or not. We were opposites in that way. I held my words in, she let them spill out of her.

  Charlotte was so free about so many things. Except her body.

  Her body…

  God dammit, I had to stop thinking about it.

  Easier said than done.

  ***

  “Good weekend?” Stryker said when I walked into class on Monday.

  I’d spent my weekend trying to get the vomit smell out of my room as my roommate tried to avoid me and I tried to avoid thinking about Charlotte naked.

  I’d done a lot of running.

  Zack had also convinced me to go out with him, but I ended up sitting in a corner with a passed-out guy next to me. I’d only had one shot of tequila, and the burn felt so good that I wanted to grab the bottle and down the rest.

  I’d told Miss Carole I wasn’t going to drink, but it was just one shot. “One shot leads to two shots, which leads to trouble,” she’d say if she knew. I heard her voice in my head as the alcohol slid down my throat. At least it had been a week since my last slip up.

  There were a few girls that stopped by the party, and a few tried to talk to me, but after my one-word answers, they moved on to more talkative companions. I watched them go with a little regret. I hadn’t gotten laid in a while, and the need to lose myself in someone burned even hotter now that I’d seen Charlotte.