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BREAK MY FALL Chapter Thirteen
Josh
Class couldn’t end soon enough. It should have been an interesting discussion. Violence and belief discussed in cool, academic terms. Emotionless. Rational.
And yet, it was exactly that cold, academic level of the discussion that set me off.
Violence isn’t cold. It’s not rational.
It is hot. Burning. Thrashing. Tearing at everything and everyone around it until there is nothing left. It is not helpless. It is not passive.
It is action. It is motion and energy.
It is alive, a force of its own.
It’s one thing to discuss it in class. It’s another to have lived it. To have squeezed the trigger of your weapon and know that another’s life has ended directly because of your actions. And that if you do not act, then someone you care about will die.
It sounds so simple in class. Away from the violence and the chaos.
But it’s not. And the legacy of it is twisted and complicated, and I’m afraid it will never, ever let me go.
I have to fight this. I want to come home.
I want a chance. A chance with Abby.
I want to be with her. I want to take her back to my place where it’s quiet and dark and try to forget about the war and what it’s done to me.
But it’s robbed me even of that. The simple pleasure of lying skin to skin has been stolen from me.
“What happened back there?” she says, falling into step with me. We walk out of the old gothic building and into the construction zone of central campus.
I shrug, not sure how to answer. It’s a long moment before I respond, wondering how much of the reality she’s willing to absorb. “It’s just hard to talk about violence like you’re getting a tooth pulled, you know?”
A simple, uncomplicated version of the truth.
Her hand is warm on my shoulder, and I want to pull her against me. To bury my face in her neck and breathe her in.
“I get that,” she says quietly.
I look at her, watching her silently. “I hope not.”
Her smile is flat, her vibrant golden eyes sad. “We all have stuff in our pasts we’re trying to outrun.”
There is more she’s not saying. A sadness in her eyes that makes me want to ask her what she knows about violence. A fear in my own heart that her answer will not be “nothing”.
I don’t want to think of her hurting.
But now isn’t the time. I suppose it never is.
“Not Parker.” I deliberately try to shift the conversation.
Her eyes sparkle brightly. “Even Parker,” she says.
Her arm brushes against mine, and I seize the moment to thread my fingers with hers.
“Who hurt you?”
Her fingers spasm. “Let’s just say Mom didn’t make good choices after my dad died.”
I take a step closer and cup her face with one hand. She practically purrs against my touch. Something opens inside me, like a live thing reaching for the sun after a long winter’s sleep. “I’m sorry for your pain,” I whisper. “But without it, you wouldn’t be who you are today.”
She presses her lips together and looks away. “I think I’d be okay with that.”
The world passes by around us. There is only Abby. The sadness in her eyes. The painful truth that both of us are more damaged than either one realizes.
“Don’t say that.” I lean closer, the need to taste her overpowering any notion of common sense. “I like you the way you are.”
Her lips part beneath mine, a quick huff of breath a moment before I claim her. Slowly, her lips part and I capture her tongue, sucking gently, so gently. Her gasp is a thing of beauty, hitting me square in the chest and pulling me under in a wave of pleasure that is more potent than the strongest drug.
Making me want.
It takes everything I am to ease back, to put space between us. Her fingers flex on my sides. I want more. I want the rest of the afternoon to just explore her mouth with soft kisses and gentle strokes.
“What do you have next?” I ask. I’m amazed my voice is even working.
She takes a single step back. The distance might as well be a mile. “Work. Some alumni function, so I’m working an extra shift.”
Slowly, she shifts back into the Abby I know from class. Polished. Professional. No hint of the passion in her touch. I’ve been given a hint of a secret thing. And it is not enough. “Do you ever have any problems at those things?”
She offers a wry smile. “Is ‘problems’ a euphemism for drunk groping?”
See? I told you she was perceptive. “Maybe.”
She shrugs. “Not really. Most of the time people behave.”
I swallow and grip her fingers a little tighter. “Would I be setting feminism back a century if I admit that I’m uncomfortable with the idea that you’ve had to fend for yourself?”
We turn down a wooded path toward the country club that rests just off main campus. People don’t often associate country clubs with college campuses but this one has been here since the university’s first building was erected. Old money and all that.
She surprises me when she stops in front of me and slides her arms around my neck. I rest my fingertips along her sides, wanting more. I want to back her up against the hundred-year-old oak tree and lift her legs around my waist. I want to kiss her for hours and hours. I want. And I know I can’t. She’s going to work. She can’t show up with tree bark in her hair at a place where they serve twenty-five-dollar martinis and hundred-dollar scotch.
She presses against me, her body soft and strong and infinitely feminine. “It’s probably setting feminism back a hundred years if I admit that hearing you go all caveman protective does something funny to my insides.”
A bolt of heat spikes down my spine and tightens in the vicinity of my balls. The sharp, sudden pleasure is unexpected and oh so welcome. It’s the closest thing to arousal I’ve felt since before things went to hell in my life.
“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” I whisper near her ear.
“Maybe.” She makes a warm sound. “Maybe it’s been a long time since I felt like this with anyone.”
I tug her close and breathe in the scent of her, clinging to the normalcy of the moment. Wishing it would last forever. Knowing that it won’t.
“Can I walk you home tonight?” I ask. I brace for her to say no again.
She brushes her thumb across my bottom lip. “I’d like that very much.”
I don’t want this time to end. I’m like a starving man, dying and hungry for her. Just her and the way I feel when I’m around her.
And I let her go. Because I have to remember how to live without her.
Abby
I’m supposed to be doing my homework. I’m on a break at the Baywater and I’m trying desperately to focus on my assignment for Quinn’s class.
This week’s readings are quite literally hitting too close to home.
It’s a section on domestic abuse.
And holy shit it is hard to read.
“You look like you’re reading an obituary. Did someone die?”
I look up at Graham as he walks into the break room, then do a double-take when the joking tone of his voice stands in stark contrast to the damage on his face.
His left eye is swollen and purple. There’s a small cut on his cheek. And his eyes, normally smiling and laughing, are bleak and filled with sadness.
I’m on my feet, assignment forgotten. “What happened?”
He shrugs and offers a sad smile. “Walked into a door.”
My skin goes cold. My dinner turns into a solid ball in my stomach. I want to make a joke. I want him to laugh and tell me it’s not what I think.
I cannot stand there and look at one of my best friends with a black eye and not think the worst.
Please don’t say anything, Abby. It’ll just make it worse.
I am eleven years old again. I am standing helpless in the kitchen where my mother is holding a frozen bag of blueberries wrapped in a towel to her split and bleeding lip.
My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I can’t form a coherent thought.
“My resident makeup artist friend is out of town for a fashion show or I would have asked him for help hiding the bruise.” His voice breaks, and with it, my control.
I wrap my arms around his waist and just hold him. He’s stiff for a moment, then relaxes into my embrace. Graham has been a rock for me and it breaks me a little bit to see him hurting like this.
A shudder runs through him. I blink rapidly, trying so hard not to fucking cry.
“Men really suck sometimes,” I whisper.
He makes a strangled sound and straightens, stepping back out of my arms. “Don’t I just know it.”
“The boss isn’t going to be happy with you behind the bar with a shiner.” I take his hand. “Come on. Let’s see if the apprentice has become a master.”
It feels like a lifetime ago when Graham took me under his wing. He had Mitchell, his friend who did makeup at the local department store, show me how to do my own makeup so that I looked polished and posh. Over the years, I’ve passed that skillset on to new friends who arrived here, looking out of place.
Passing comes in all forms. And those of us who are first generation have a better chance of making it if we stick together.
Graham sits at the small table. I try to move my book before he sees it but I’m not quick enough. The silence is so strange without him making a joke or some sarcastic comment. “How’s that for ironic? A college course on violence.” He looks over at me. “Bet there’s not much about the gay community, is there?”
I shake my head as I start laying out the supplies I’ll need to conceal the bruising. “It remains very much a woman’s issue.”
Which sucks because real people get hurt when we pretend that the issues simply don’t exist in other communities. “Want to talk about it?” I carefully apply green tinted primer to his skin, patting as gently as I can to avoid causing him any more pain.
I hate this. I hate the bruise on his skin. I hate the dark stain beneath his eyes and the red rimming them.
I hate the pain that love causes.
I stop myself. It’s not love that does this. It’s never love.
This is hate. And it uses love, twisting it and drawing it close until it can destroy it or turn it into something unrecognizable.
He winces and I pause, giving him time to pull everything back in. “Turns out Mr. Wonderful isn’t a vegan body builder after all. He’s been juicing the whole time and I don’t mean carrots.” Graham winces as I pat the first layer of concealer in place. “I caught him and called him on it. You don’t really need the details. Just pull up every stereotype about ‘roid rage you can think of.”
I hold up a couple of different pots of concealer to his face, hoping that I’ve got one that’ll be close to his skin tone.
“Guess I’m lucky you have an inner RuPaul and not an inner Martha Stewart, huh?”
I choke on the strangled laugh and lower my forehead to his. “That’s not even funny.” But I’m smiling through tears as I start patting concealer into place with a brush, being as gentle as I can. I will not fall apart on him. He needs me to keep my shit together. And that’s exactly what I will do. “Are you going to report him?”
He shakes his head. “Do you know what happens when a gay man walks into a police station to report domestic abuse?”
I make a noise. “It’s probably on par with what happens when a girl from the wrong side of the tracks tries, huh?”
“Probably. You get all of the ‘what did you do to deserve it?’ I get ‘that’s what you get for sucking cock.’ And you don’t have to say it. I know it’s not all cops.” He presses his lips together and blinks rapidly.
“Don’t cry. You’ll ruin your foundation.”
He laughs quietly. “That was my biggest fear.”
I set the concealer with a translucent powder then hand him a mirror. “I’m not as talented as Mitchell but I think it’ll get you through the night without our boss freaking out.”
He turns his head and inspects my work. “Very nice. Now I don’t have to use it as small talk behind the bar.” He tugs me down on the small chair next to him. “Thanks, hon.”
“For doing your makeup?”
“For not pushing me to report him. For just listening.”
I rest my head against his shoulder for a moment. “That’s what we do, right? We stick.” I shift and look up at him. “Want me to go with you when you get your stuff out of his place?”
He smiles. “While I realize you are a badass, I’m not sure you’re going to intimidate all two hundred and fifty pounds of not vegan body builder.”
“No but I could at least hope that he’ll behave in front of company.” I squeeze his hand. “I don’t think you should go back alone, that’s all.”
“You’re probably right but shouldn’t you be making plans with Sergeant Sexy Pants?”
Graham is entirely too perceptive. “When did he stop being Mr. Tall, Dark, and Depressed and start being Sergeant Sexy Pants?”
I want to tell him how, for the first time in my life, a man didn’t make me feel bad for being who I was.
“Nice dodge.” I look over at him. “You don’t get to say no. I’m not letting you do this alone.”
He squeezes my hand. “Maybe I’ll go back tomorrow or something. Not tonight.”
I nod and we both head out to work. I smile and nod and make all the right noises.
But I am pulled away. I can’t think, can’t focus.
And when the alumni event ends an hour early, I clock out. Escaping the polish and glossy life at the Baywater for something else.
Something real.
And I only hope I can find it.
**ONE CLICK BREAK MY FALL**
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