Here's to Falling

  "I have an early day tomorrow," I said, looking down at my watch. I ran through more excuses in my head in case I needed them. I have cramps, a headache, food poisoning, another chapter to read... He always asked; I always refused. I don’t enjoy spending my time with a bunch of drunken slobs.

  A cab pulled over to the curb and Bren yanked open the door. "What is wrong with you? Everybody's asking where you've been. People think I have an imaginary girlfriend," he said with a curt tone.

  He placed a hand on the small of my back, a gesture that used to send warmth through my body. Now it did nothing but make me cringe.

  "Bren. It's eleven o'clock. I'm exhausted. I worked all day," I said.

  "Oh, I get it," he snapped. "I do nothing all day, right? Suddenly, I'm a bag of shit." His breath was heavy with the tang of beer and his eyes were bloodshot.

  "Yep. Those where the exact words that came out of my mouth," I hissed, shutting him up.

  No words passed between us in the cab. All I did was scream at him in my head. About how sad and shitty he seemed to always make me feel. How much he messed up everything. How much stress and tension he had filled my life with for the last few months. How the only time I felt better was when he was gone. But we owned a business together, and it had been years since I really let myself believe I deserved to be happy.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of his building, he slammed the door without a goodbye or a glance back in my direction.

  When I got home, I stripped down to my bra and panties, not even bothering to put on pajamas, and fell right into my bed. The minute my body landed, I was asleep.

  Sometime around the ass-crack of dawn, I felt a warm body stumble into the bed and snuggle up behind me, wrapping strong arms around my stomach, embracing me in a tight hold. “Mmm, babe. You up?” Bren whispered, moving his hand heavily to my chest and squeezing. I swear I saw stars; he never has any clue how heavy-handed he is when he drinks. Nuzzling his face into my hair, his warm breath tickling my ear, he whispered again, “Babe?”

  “Well, I am now that you almost ripped my boob off.”

  You want to know what the sad part is about all this? I could tell you word for word, exactly, what was going to happen before it even happened when Bren and I were alone. I could write the script and sell the rights to it. Bren had, like three moves, that’s it. He’d tweak my nipples two or three times, rub his fingers over the place he thought was the most important spot on a woman’s body, but wasn’t (he missed it by an inch so he always ended up playing with my inner thigh), then he’d pull himself out of his pants and pump his hand up and down himself, waiting until I can get myself undressed. Then, he’d jump me.

  Or, even better, is what had been happening for the last four months: nothing. As in, his man parts just didn’t work, no matter how hard he tugged on it.

  Hello whiskey dick. At that point he usually fell asleep, limp dick in hand, snoring loudly.

  God, it was so sad.

  I used to love sex, everything about sex. I loved the anticipation of it, the flirting and teasing. I loved the kissing and tasting that goes on, the fun, the laughter and dares. I loved the way a man looks at you, like you’re the only one in the universe to make him feel like this. I loved the slow, hot caresses and the fast hard need. I even love the angst, the fighting, and the make-up sex. What I didn’t like was how detached and disinterested we both became toward each other.

  Bren was like a complete stranger lying next to me in that bed; a two hundred pound dead weight beside me, holding me down.

  I tried with Bren, I really did. In the beginning, when we were just friends and I knew how he felt, I wanted it to be love. But right now, it just feels like a burden; some obligation that I’m stuck with; an albatross around my neck that I just cannot shake. I knew it would never be that crazy-love they wrote about in those angst-filled books I loved, but I’ve been through that kind of love and when it’s gone, you’re just never the same. You know the love I’m talking about, right? The one with kisses that spark fires, touches that ignite your soul, and the whispers, God the whispers, that make you believe you can fly. The problem with that love is I was still left in ashes, burnt little embers, charred remains of things that could have been. I needed to just settle for one of those loves that was mild and tepid against my lips, and non-flammable to my heart. I didn’t want to be singed again. I'd never live through it.

  Bren didn’t fall asleep with his dick in his hands this time, though. He just lay next to me, our backs turned away from each other. Neither of us wanted to seek warmth from each other’s bodies in the dark room, because, I don’t know, maybe it would take too much effort. Or, maybe, neither one of us wanted to feel as rejected as we already did.

  I was completely exhausted with my life, and I was only twenty-four.

  We were both silent for a few minutes when Bren let out a low sigh. I wished he’d just fall asleep so I could climb out of bed and get the hell away from him. But, I know I can’t—won’t. I’m chained here, to him, to obligations and promises I can’t ignore—won’t ignore.

  “Come over here, baby. Put your mouth on me,” he slurred.

  I climbed out of bed, laughing angrily, “Bren, I’m not wasting fifteen minutes of my sleep to suck on a limp dick that’s too drunk to get hard. Besides, you’re gonna pass out any minute.”

  Grabbing my cell phone off my nightstand, I walked to the door and turned to start yelling at him.

  Bren was already snoring.

  I hated to think that there was not one part of him I liked anymore.

  Not one.

  Suddenly, the walls of my small apartment felt suffocating to me, and I needed some sort of escape. The choking, overwhelming feeling of hopelessness clamped its knotted claws around my heart; was there any way that we could ever fix the indifference, resentments, and silence that had become our relationship?

  I didn't want to look at him any longer. He disgusted me.

  With my messenger bag slung over my shoulder, I walked out of the apartment, down the street, and into the crowded coffee shop. Tapping my foot impatiently, I waited in line for ten minutes to order my crack. I mean my coffee. Oh, all right, hello…my name is Charlotte Stone and I’m a coffeeholic. It absolutely is my crack, just like my books.

  God, I wished my life were more like my books.

  I was practically frothing at the mouth when I got up to the register, so I ordered two. And right about now is the time where you think that Mr. Right swooped in from behind the counter, the gazillionaire who owned the store, no, the chain of stores, and I was his new infatuation. He yanked me into the back of the café and licked every spot on my body while promising me enough free caramel lattes that I could bathe in them, right? Just like in one of my romance novels.

  Ah, no.

  A pierced up, pink-haired teenager theatrically told me how much I owed her and smiled her perky, wide smile, while bouncing around extremely way too happy to serve me that early in the morning. I waited for the rays of sunshine to burst forth from her ass cheeks as she handed me my coffees.

  Yeah, that didn’t happen either.

  I walked away from the counter a little more depressed than when I got there. My books were so much better than my reality.

  A huge, yellow, neon sign boasting free Wifi service hung over the front doors. Smiling at my own foresight to bring my bag with my iPad inside, I decided to sit at a table and read. Sipping at my coffee, I tried blending in with the everyday working people frantically ordering coffees and the moms with the SUV sized strollers wearing giant mom bags that matched in size to the ones under their tired eyes. I was an expert in blending in. People didn’t look at me anymore; they just looked through me. Complete invisibility. Some people suffered in their lack of being noticed; me, I knew the worth of people NOT weighing and measuring you and forming their opinions of you the minute they saw you.

  After a few chapters of my book, and one whole coffee devoured, my phone buzzed softly in
my pocket. I opened the text and smiled.

  J: Hey you. How’s life?

  Me: Can’t complain. How are you?

  J: Crap night at work, just got in. Needed to see your little smiley face on my phone.

  Me: Well then…

  And just like that, my mind went back and stood right over the ledge of what ifs that have attached themselves like heavy chains around my thoughts through all the years. Someone sitting at the table next to me was eating a blueberry scone and I’m nine again, walking to the first day of school with my best friend Joey, each of us chewing on three pieces of blueberry bubble gum—even though my mom said that it would make us choke.

  Fourth grade, room 404, Mr. F. Krueger’s classroom (we called him Freddie Krueger, and it might have been his real name. We never did find out).

  For the first day, all the classes lined up in the schoolyard, behind smiling teachers holding up their class numbers—all except for Mr. Krueger, who was frowning, probably because he hadn’t eaten enough kids for breakfast that morning.

  As we made our way through the crowds of screaming and crying students, Joey yanked on my school bag, hard, and I stumbled back, arms flailing. Turning my head quickly, I saw Joey’s eyes were wide with fear, “It’s that kid, look!”

  He was right. A few steps away from us stood my evil alien neighbor, right next to our new teacher. Great. This was going to be the worst school year EVER! I think I may have stomped my foot on the ground for emphasis, but I still looked cool, because nobody noticed me anyway.

  “Come on, Joey. Let’s just get in line and ignore him.”

  Smiling at Mr. Krueger, I lined up behind Ava Marie Trebisky. The alien boy narrowed his laser beams at me and stared. It wasn’t a normal stare either, because he didn’t look away at all. He just looked straight into my eyes. So I stared right back at him until the first bell rang, and we had to follow Mr. Krueger into our new classroom. Where, to my horror, Mr. Krueger assigned the alien (whose name was Jase Delaney, probably from the planet Uranus) to the seat ACROSS from me. That meant that we would HAVE TO work together in reading groups, math teams, and all the other team building sharing/caring/Kum-ba-ya-la-de-da stuff they had us do.

  The whole first day of school, whenever I looked at him, his eyes squinted at mine, and his mouth did this mean, twisty thing. I hated him. I hated him so bad. I hated this class, this teacher, and even dumb Rachel Jenson who sat next to me digging up her nose, collecting her little yellow-green treasures, and sticking them lovingly on her gold-glittered star pencil.

  Even worse, Joey had to sit next to Slate Marshall, the worst and MEANEST kid in the whole school, no, the whole state of New York. I DID NOT understand either, because every year that Slate Marshall had been in my class (since kindergarten), our teachers pulled his seat to sit next to the teacher’s desk, far away from the other kids. He was THAT bad. I heard his father was in prison or something. I guessed Mr. Krueger didn’t know that—yet.

  By the end of that first day, Slate managed to “accidently” put gum in Joey’s hair, steal all of the girl’s snacks (it had to be him even though no one saw him do it. He went to the bathroom, like five billion times, and every time he came back with a ring of cheese around his mouth!), and Jase Delaney and I got stuck being partners in relay races in gym.

  Are you there, God? It’s me, Charlotte. Do you hate me?

  Yes, I think you do!

  Because for the rest of the month of September, the same things happened EVERY DAY! Slate “accidently” stuck gum or sticky peppermint candy in Joey’s hair. It happened so many times that his mom had to give him a buzz cut. All his long, floppy, beautiful, black hair was completely shaved off. Slate started “accidently” sticking gum in Juliana Crispin’s hair next, and her haircut was just awful. I thought she was a new boy in class! And Jase Delaney still made faces at me every day, but refused to talk to me. And he was just as bad as Slate. He always acted out in class. He never worked with anybody. He stole snacks from the lunchroom (and Mr. Krueger’s jar of chocolate bars, which was only for the GOOD STUDENTS), and he even visited with the counselor! Not only was he bad, he was CRAZY!

  Plus, each day he bounced that stupid ball against my fence, making a huge racket while I was in the tree house trying to do my homework. I’d never even seen Jase Delaney turn in homework! And if he wasn’t slamming his basketball loudly, he was playing his music really, really, really loud.

  I hated him!

  I know I keep repeating it, but honestly, I can’t say it enough. I think I need to make bumper stickers.

  Then, three weeks into the school year, was the dreaded ‘Meet the Teacher Night,’ where you go to school at night with your parents so they could meet your teacher! All our parents filed into our classroom and crammed their adult-sized bodies into our kid-sized chairs and listened to Freddie Krueger talk about student goals, correct behaviors, and state standardized testing. My classmates either stood next to their parents, or hung out in the back of the classroom where we stuffed our faces with the goodies Mr. Krueger left out for our parents. I ate four chocolate glazed donuts, and Joey ate three. I was immediately sick to my stomach.

  My mom sat in my seat and kept pulling out her mirror to reapply her lipstick—see how boring my teacher was? He couldn’t even keep the adults entertained. Jase Delaney stood next to both of his parents. His mother sat in her wheelchair with a far-away look in her eyes, and his father was dressed in a fancy suit. He had the same color alien eyes as Jase. Both of his parents looked so much younger than all the other parents. Maybe they really were an alien family!

  Even Slate’s mom showed up. She had a crying toddler on her lap that she kept on telling to shut the hell up and had a tattoo of some man’s face across her entire chest (she wore a really low cut shirt, one of those ones that had all the other mothers tsking about and shaking their heads).

  But Slate didn’t go near his mom; he stood off to the side, staring at Joey and cracking his knuckles, trying to scare everybody away from the donuts. Well, no matter how sick I felt, I wasn’t moving away from the donuts, and if he tried sticking gum in my hair, I would hit him in the you-know-what with a cream stick!

  When Mr. Krueger was finished putting our parents to sleep, they were asked to sit in the school auditorium, so Mrs. Beverly, our principal, could speak with all of them. Some of the students followed their yawning parents and some of us just roamed around the hallways, looking at the displays and bulletin boards. I mean, come on, we were in school at night. We wanted to look around!

  Joey and I walked past the main office and into the music room, my eyes zoning in on the upper grades’ band drum set. I always wanted to play the drums, but everyone told me they were way too loud.

  “Hey, Drake, look who it is. It’s Piss Pants and his girlfriend, Four Eyes!” Slate’s voice echoed with the acoustics of the music room. Oh no. I felt Joey stiffen next to me.

  When Joey and Slate were in preschool, Joey couldn’t get to the bathroom fast enough, and he had an accident. Slate still teased him about it. Slate teased anyone about anything. He called me four eyes because I had to wear glasses to see what the teacher was doing in the front of the classroom. I didn’t care though, because last year in third grade, when I first got my glasses, my teacher, Mrs. DeMarco, told me about a surgery I could get when I’m older to fix my eyesight. So, I won’t always have to wear glasses, but he’d always be mean. Slate Marshall and his little sidekick, Drake Fischer, were the dumbest, meanest jerks ever.

  The two boys moved closer to us, each of them walking and circling to the side of us. “Nice haircut, Piss Pants. What are you guys doing in here? You going to try to kiss your girlfriend?” Slate teased.

  I stepped in front of Joey, pushed the sleeves of my sweatshirt up my arms, and crossed them in front of me. “First of all, I’m not his girlfriend. I’m his best friend. Second of all, you both need to leave us alone or else I’m going to tell on you!” I knew I was about to die, but I was going to m
ake sure I got at least one good kick at him.

  Slate shoved me out of the way and grabbed Joey by the collar of his shirt. I tried to kick at him as I flew back, but all I managed to do was get him in the back of his leg and fall on my butt. Next to me, Drake started laughing so hard he had to bend down and grab at his stomach while loud hiccups belched from his stupid mouth.

  Slate raised his fist and held it in front of Joey’s face like he was about to punch him. I jumped up off the floor and moved forward, grabbing at his fist to hold it back. Drake still rolled on the floor, he was laughing so much.

  “I don’t think it’s that funny,” a voice called from behind us.

  The four of us turned our heads at the same time to see Jase Delaney looking at us with that mean ugly scowl. Oh no, now there were three boys against us. Joey and I were so going to die.

  Slate let go of Joey, who slumped down onto the floor with watery eyes, and walked up in front of Jase. “I don’t care what you think,” Slate said.

  “I think it’ll be funny if she beats the crud out of you for pushing her. That’s what I want to see,” Jase said, pointing toward me and stepping closer.

  “Get out of here, loser. Go back inside to your freaky mommy and daddy.”

  “At least I have a dad; one who isn’t in jail,” Jase said.

  “Yeah, well, at least I have a mom with legs that work!”

  Jase’s eyes scanned over to me, then to Joey, and the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile. It was pure evil. I’m not kidding. Then, his fist came out of nowhere and punched Slate square in the nose.

  “Hey, did having a mom with legs help you out at all when I hit you? Nah, it didn’t help you one bit, did it?” Jase snarled angrily as he stood over Slate.

  Slate was screaming and crying and blood gushed from his nose.

  Coolest thing ever.

  Hearing all the noise, Mr. Krueger came running in and demanded to know what was going on. Fighting in school was an automatic weeklong suspension. And not one of the fun ones where you got to stay home all week; nope, you had to go on a special bus to attend another school for the week. I didn’t care about Slate getting suspended. He deserved it, and it would be great to be in school without him for one whole week. But, Jase Delaney just punched Slate in the face for bothering Joey and me. The alien just saved our lives.