Page 24 of Well, Actually
The boys sent me up the ladder first, claiming it was for my safety and they’d catch me if I fell or slipped. The garage wasn’t tall, probably no more than ten feet off the ground, but I might as well have been scaling the Empire State Building for how badly I was trembling as I climbed each rung. After what felt like an eternity, I hoisted myself over the gutters and onto the hot shingles, lying flat on my belly and straining my neck to peek over the edge. My stepbrothers’ grins greeted me from below, but it created a sinking feeling in me instead of one of comfort.
The world sprawled below me was too big, the patch of roof too small, my heart beating too hard, and my head spinning too fast.
“I need to come down!” I screamed, tucking into a ball as my vision tunneled. “Help me get down!”
They laughed in response, and the shriek of the metal ladder being lowered pierced through my haze of fear.
“No! No! No!” I scrambled closer to the edge, bile rising inmy throat as my stomach pitched from the sudden movement. My stepbrothers continued to cackle as they walked away.
“Enjoy the view, Eva!” one of them called.
I screamed my head off, slicing my voice to ribbons as I begged someone, anyone, to save me. I dug my fingers so hard into the shingles of the roof that my nails cracked to the quick. My ten-year-old mind was fully convinced I would die up there, alone and afraid and suffocating from fear. I don’t know how long I was up there—it felt like hours but was probably only a matter of minutes—but eventually my dad came out of the house, propped the ladder to the side of the garage, and climbed up until his shoulders surfaced over the edge of the roof.
“Eva, come here,” he’d said gruffly as he stuck out his hand. I continued to wail, unable to do anything else. With a few mumbled curses, he reached out, looping his strong arm around my middle and dragging me to him. The shingles scraped against my skin, burning my bare arms and the tip of my chin. I was so inconsolably afraid that I threw off his balance on the ladder, making us sway. I clung to him in a white-knuckle grip as he worked to steady us.
Somehow, he got us safely down, depositing me without ceremony in the grass. I reached for him again, wanting to bury my face into his huge frame and hold on to his sturdiness, but he held me at arm’s length, mouth pressed into a firm line, brow furrowed in frustration.
“Stop crying,” he commanded, shaking my shoulders. “There’s no reason to be crying.”
I tried to choke back my tears, but they were pouring outof me with such force that I started gagging on the tangle of emotions. He shook me again.
“You can’t be afraid of heights,” he said, fixing me with his harsh look. “Do you hear me? It’s a stupid thing to be afraid of. Understand?”
He stared at me so hard, I realized he was waiting for an answer, and I managed to nod, my body still vibrating with fear. He shook his head in disappointment, sparing me a final, skeptical glance before releasing his grip. “Only the tough survive, Eva,” he said, not bothering to look back at me over his shoulder as he marched toward the house. “One day you’ll have to get that.”
I stayed rooted to the spot until the sun went down.
But Cooper doesn’t know this story. He doesn’t know the dreams I have of falling or the way looking out windows on certain floors of buildings makes my knees buckle and palms sweat. Cooper doesn’t know anything about me, so I can’t really fault him for planning a date that revolved around my worst fear. Except I’m nothing if not spiteful, and he roped me into this, so fault is what I cling to as I get off the train in Brooklyn and drag my feet to his brownstone in Park Slope, his silver PT Cruiser with wood paneling marking the spot on the street in front of his house.
Of course this shithead nabbed a prewar building. I bet he also has a washer and dryer hookup and crown molding and a kitchen that doesn’t triple as a shower and living space. Stoking the coals of my resentment, I climb the stoop and aggressively ring his doorbell six times. He opens the door with a brilliant smile.
“Hey,” he says, voice laced with warmth. “I honestly didn’t think you’d show. I’m glad you’re here.” His eyes skim over me like I’m some precious piece of pottery that just crossed an ocean and he’s checking for scuffs and damage. Where does he get off looking so…caring?
“Believe me, if my job wasn’t riding on my participation in this disaster, your doorstep is not where I’d be right now.”
“Ah, really?” His face falls into a look so devastated my breath catches. “And here I thought I’d won you over by involving you in a car crash and inducing a panic attack over the course of a single morning. I’m not sure where I misread things…”
A genuine bark of laughter erupts from me, startling us both. Cooper seems to catch the sound, absorbing it as he blinks, that smile returning as his hand absently rubs against his sternum.
“Come in,” he says after a moment, stepping aside and gesturing me through the door.
I hesitate, a jangle of nerves and something close to— Excitement? Animosity?—curling through me. In college, the only glimpse I got of Cooper’s domestic world was the infamous frat house. And even then, I was starved to see more, wanting to collect endless snapshots of him in his simplest, most mundane moments so I could piece them together on a reel and study him over and over.
There’s something so jarringly intimate about the ease of how he’s welcoming me into his space now when this was all I wanted then; not a whisper of the hesitation and distance that would wedge between us when I would even hint at hanging out at his place. That old craving in me licks its chops.
But I’m being ridiculous and idealistic. This is for work—his need to save face on the internet and my need to grab at any flotsam that might keep my career afloat. With a steadying breath, I step inside.
I only have a second to take in the foyer that leads into an open-concept living space (frosted with crown molding, called it) when two people zip down the stairs to my left, staring at me with very different vibes but equal intensity.
One is a tall and burly white guy, with a body like a linebacker and a strikingly full beard to round off the look. His size would be intimidating if he weren’t bouncing up and down on his (ginormous) toes with a puppy-dog eagerness, eyes glinting as they flash between me and Cooper.
“She’s real,” he hisses to Cooper, his smile wide.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen Cooper embarrassed, and he fixes the man with a stony gaze. “Eva, uh, these are my roommates,” he says slowly, like he’s scared of setting off a bomb. “I was under the impression they wouldn’t be here while we recorded.”
“We wouldn’t miss this,” the bearded guy says, throwing an arm around the Latina woman next to him. Her expression stays steady and cool. As tall and jolly as he is, she’s compact and reserved, midnight-black hair falling in perfect layers around her golden-brown skin and intricately winged eyeliner accentuating her delicate features. There’s something vaguely familiar about her face, and I work to place her.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, holding out my hand to her first. “I feel like I recognize you from somewhere… Did you go to Breslin?”
