Page 10 of Free Fall

He ignores her. “Tomorrow I want to see regular clothes. I mean it.”

“These are regular clothes.”

“Something presentable.”

Sasha snickers. “Who cares? Let her look like a homeless person.”

“Fuck off, Sasha,” Jules snaps.

Both Reid and Sasha stop to stare at Jules. I can tell Jules is shaking, but she crosses her arms over her chest and lifts her chin in the air. That’s the only thing that gets me to move. Both Reid and Sasha are too shocked to say anything, so I take her forearm and we walk into class right before the bell rings. The teacher glares at us until we take our seats in the back, but I don’t care. Jules may finally be getting her voice back.

In lunch, Jules doesn’t sit with the football table. She and I take over the end of the table I found yesterday and spend the whole hour chatting quietly or just in silence. She’s one of the only people I can stand to be around after Brady died. I don’t feel like I have to fill the silence when we’re together. There’s no pressure to talk or be quiet or to try to figure out the right thing to say. I wish it was the same with my parents.

“Let’s hit up the boutique shops after school, okay?” Jules asks.

My brows pull together. She’s not even looking at me. She’s dangling her fork into her mashed potatoes. “You want to go shopping?” Then it dawns on me. “You want me to buy clothes I’ll wear, don’t you?”

Her head snaps up. “No. No, of course not. I don’t give a shit about that. I was going to look for something, but we can do something else. Maybe get some ice cream or a bite to eat. I’ll drive you home afterward.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Jules hasn’t been to my house since Brady died. I figured she didn’t want to because it would hurt too much. I know for a fact she lost her virginity to him in his bedroom. Maybe she’s finally ready. Maybe this is just the way she’s broaching the subject. “Sure. Fine. Whatever you want.”

“So, you’ll be around at the end of school? You’re not going to skip again?”

“I don’t have any plans to skip at present,” I tell her with a short smile.

She rolls her eyes in a moment of normalcy. But then it’s as if we both realized that we forgot for a second, so we go back to the all-encompassing sadness instead.

Behind me, I can hear the football table going crazy like normal. Because I was Brady’s sister and because I was friends with Jules, I got to sit there last year. We laughed, talked, and joked. I actually had fun, but as soon as Brady died, I didn’t want anything to do with it. In fact, when I finally came back to school to finish the year, I didn’t even eat lunch in the cafeteria at all. I ate in the library. We—my parents and me—figured I had so much studying to do anyway. No one wanted me to fall behind since I’d already skipped a grade anyway.

Yeah, that’s right. The one who doesn’t want to even think about school anymore skipped a grade. In middle school, I was a year behind Brady and his friends, but I skipped eighth and went right to the high school with him in the same grade. He was proud of me. We walked into Freshman year together with his arm slung over my shoulders. It’s one of my favorite memories. It felt like the Pages were about to take over Spring Hill High. He was the big shot, soon-to-be captain of the football team, and I was destined to be Valedictorian.

Without thinking, my gaze wanders the cafeteria to find Theo Laughlin. He’s off in the corner at the smart kid table. His glasses are pushed up his nose as he reads his Chem book. He was the only true competition I had to get Valedictorian. When I look at him though, I can’t muster up any of the warrior in me to want to challenge him for that spot. I used to stare at him before, and it would make me want to work harder, do better, especially if he was doing schoolwork during lunch.Who does that?

Freshman year, I came out ahead, but last year, he beat me, and not by just a little either. He slaughtered me. My grades from before Brady’s death were so good that I wasn’t in much danger of failing, but my whole average went down by the time school ended.

The bell rings overhead, and Jules and I go our separate ways for the last classes of the day. Then, we meet out in the parking lot next to her car after I talk with the counselor and serve my detention. She just happens to be parked right next to Lex’s silver Honda Civic. I stare into the passenger seat, imagining how I would’ve looked from an outsider if they’d spied us in there yesterday.

With a quick shake of my head, I get in her car and she drives us down to the small downtown that Spring Hill boasts. It’s just a few boutique shops, a small dessert place alongside a hairdresser, a pizza shop, and a diner with terrible food. I have no idea how they stay open, but I see a bunch of elderly in Spring Hill still eat there, so my only guess is that the place used to be really good and they just can’t seem to let it go.

We go into a few of the clothing shops. I finger a few of the tops. Some of them are really pretty despite the small selection, and I have no problem helping to pick out outfits for Jules, but not for myself. When we get done, we walk down to the dessert shop and get small ice cream cones before getting back into her car.

There’s no mistaking it now. The tension in the air has skyrocketed since Jules pointed the car toward my house. She’s driving extra slow and super carefully as if to put off the inevitable. “Jules,” I say, unable to keep quiet about it any longer. “You don’t have to do this. Just drop me off down the road. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Drop me off. I’ll walk.”

She shakes her head like she has no idea what I’m talking about. “Oh, no, I’m fine.” This time, she makes an effort to press down on the gas a little harder to appear normal, but the tension never leaves the inside of the car. She even makes my stomach queasy like I’ve downed an extra shot of adrenaline.

When we come around the corner and we’re within seeing distance of my house, her foot on the gas falters a little. I look up to see what she’s staring at and notice a bunch of cars in the driveway. “W-what’s going on?”

Jules shakes her head. “Nothing.”

I look from her to the house and back again. Her free leg starts jumping up and down. “What the hell is this, Jules?”

She doesn’t answer until we pull into the driveway. I see Lex’s silver Honda Civic, and even Reid’s Escape sitting there. My stomach flips over itself. I’d actually been feeling a little better this afternoon after the talk with the counselor and then the little break with Jules after school, but I feel like my life is about to turn upside down…for the second time.

The front door opens, and my parents step out, staring into Jules’s car. “What’s going on?” I say again, my voice breaking. Sometimes it feels like there’s so much inside me that needs to be felt that I don’t know how to feel it unless it’s in tear form.

---