Page 50 of When the Stars Fall
“I’ve got you. You’re not going to fall. I’ve got you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, relief flooding my body.
“Get a good foothold and push up. I’ll take it from there.”
I couldn’t even argue with him. He was leaning over the side of the roof, ready to grab hold of me and pull me to safety. It was either do as he said or risk a sudden death. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t die but it would hurt like hell to fall from the second story.
I dug my toes in and pushed up and at the same time his hands wrapped around me underneath my armpits. While he pulled, I pushed, my stomach scraping against the cedar shingles until most of my body was on the roof and I was able to get my knees underneath me and roll onto my back. Then I lay there on the roof, panting from the exertion, my pulse racing and my heart pounding out a crazy beat.
And for a long time neither of us said a word. I kept my eyes closed but I could feel him next to me. Not so close that we were touching but close enough to smell his sweat and feel the heat from his body.
Once again, he’d come to my rescue and I hated that. This was something that I’d wanted to do for myself. Something I’d convinced myself I needed to do. Now I wasn’t sure why it had seemed so important at the time.
Oh yeah, must have been liquid courage.
He was the first to speak. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
I huffed out a laugh. “Nobody asked you to rescue me.”
“How drunk are you?”
I shrugged one shoulder. I’d had a few peach iced teas with vodka. Buzzed but not drunk, and now I felt stone-cold sober but I didn’t tell him any of this. I didn’t tell him about the party at the lake or about the boy I kissed. I didn’t tell him that the boy was cute but that his lips felt all wrong on mine. His touch didn’t send an electric current through my body. My pulse didn’t race. My heart didn’t beat wildly. His lips, his hands, they weren’t Jude’s.
And it had made me so angry that I couldn’t erase the memory of my first kiss by replacing it with something better. Because maybe there wasn’t anything better. Maybe Jude was the very best and nobody would ever compare.
I didn’t tell him that I saw his fuck buddy Kylie at the party either. She’d asked me about Jude and wanted to know where he was tonight. I told her I had no idea which was the truth. I also told her I didn’t care which was a lie.
But why did he always go for blondes? They were always tall and willowy too, with big boobs, the opposite of me in every way. Oh right. Guess that was the whole point.
“Jesus Christ, Rebel,” he said, sounding exasperated. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time. If you were trying to get my attention, there were easier ways to do it.”
“Like what? Give you a blow job?” I laughed like that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. My laughter bordered on manic and he waited until I pulled myself together before he spoke again. He wanted to make sure his words were heard.
“Like by doing something that didn’t almost get us both killed.” His voice was low and angry and maybe a little hurt, I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell anymore. “But yeah, another blow job would have worked. At least I’d get something out of it.”
“I wasn’t trying to get your attention. I don’t want your attention.”
“Yeah. I got that. You made that pretty clear for the past ten months.”
I still had my eyes closed when I felt him leaving, taking my battered heart with him. When I opened my eyes, I was alone on the roof under a sky full of stars with only the bitter taste of regret and my salty tears for company.
I watched the stars reeling in the sky and I tried to find the brightest one. But I couldn’t. All I could think about was how disappointed my mom would be in me right now.
I didn’t even care if Jude had opened my present or if he’d read my stupid letter because if he had, it hadn’t made one bit of difference. He was going to hang on to his hurt and anger the same way I’d held on to my guilt and fear. Nothing had changed. And I was starting to think it never would.
Instead of trying to climb down from the roof, I crawled through the attic window. Jude had left it open for me. Not to be kind but to save himself from having to rescue me again, no doubt.
* * *
The next morningI went to the climbing wall, a little bit hungover and a little bit sadder but I climbed anyway and told myself it would make me stronger and braver and I’d be able to reach for the stars on my own. Without him.
Patrick had given me the membership and the climbing shoes last Christmas after a talk we had. He asked me what would make me feel stronger and I thought it was an odd question, but a good one. I told him I wanted to learn how to climb. It had just struck me as something I wanted to get better at. Like a good life skill to have. And that was how it all started. It was my thing. Not exactly a secret. Brody knew about it. Christy knew about it. But I’d never told Jude because we didn’t talk anymore.
As I was leaving the climbing wall, I pulled my backpack straps over both shoulders about to run the three and a half miles home when Brody’s truck stopped right in front of me. Literally. He narrowly missed running me over. That was Brody for you. Resident bad boy and serial heartbreaker at your service.
“Need a ride, Sugar Lips?” He leaned across the front seat and gave me that signature Brody McCallister grin through the open window, his teeth so white against his suntanned skin.
I laughed. “Stop calling me that.” The nickname wasn’t meant to make me feel special. I’d heard him use it on plenty of girls. I tossed my backpack in the truck and climbed in, pulling the door closed. His truck smelled like horses and leather and black licorice from the Twizzlers he was eating. He was the only one I knew who liked black licorice. I’d given him a case of root beer and jumbo packs of Twizzlers for his eighteenth birthday in April. He’d given me a case of Dr. Pepper and a bag of donuts for my seventeenth birthday.
