Page 39 of The Weight Of Falling
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Joel stands in my living room, jaw clenched, hands fisted at his side. His body radiates barely contained frustration. “What were you thinking?” he demands.
My fingers twist together in front of me. “I wasn’t.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m sorry,” I confess, feeling two inches tall. “I don’t know what happened... The words just popped out.”
He stares at me, incredulous. “Something like that doesn’t justpop out.”
He’s been pacing for the past five minutes, raking his hands through his hair like he’s trying to physically pull the situation back under control.
My stomach rumbles. It’s well past lunchtime, but food feels impossible. I’m tied up in too many knots to eat.
After my impulsive announcement to Liz and Lucy at the studio, there was no way I could face another second of work. Tess and Sofia had about a hundred questions lined up, but I told them I needed to go home and lie down. Maybe, if I was lucky, a miracle would happen and I’d be teleported twenty years into the future, where today would be a distant, faded memory. My friends were plainly torn between bursting into laughter and staging an intervention. In the end, they decided I was too much of a mess to interrogate properly. After extracting a promise from me for a ladies’ night tomorrow, they practically shoved me out the door, looking far too amused for two people who were supposedly worried about me.
Joel, on the other hand, does not look amused. He’s agitated, unhappy, and about a dozen other adjectives I wish didn’t apply to him right now. And it’s all because of me.
Finally, he stops pacing and faces me with a scowl. “Why would you tell the two biggest gossips in Brown Oaks that we’re engaged?”
I clasp my hands tighter. “They were tearing you apart, saying things that weren’t true. All because they thought you were the reason I was upset on Saturday.” My eyes squeeze shut for a moment. “I couldn’t stand it. I felt so awful that I had to say something that would show you in a better light.”
Joel pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me exactly what you said.”
I let out a guilty breath. “I told them that my tears on Saturday were from sheer happiness because you asked me to marry you.”
Disbelief pulls at his features. “And they bought that?”
“They loved it,” I admit. “They thought it was so romantic. And they totally understood why we wanted to keep it a secret for a while.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t believe this.”
My throat is so dry I can barely swallow. I’m desperate to ease the tension that’s swirling thick and heavy between us. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Juice? What about coffee? Do you want coffee?”
“What I want,” Joel says tightly, “is for you to fix this.”
“I want that too,” I say, remorse twisting in my chest. Everything’s spiraled out of control and it’s all my fault. I reach for my heart pendant and hold it tightly. “I want to take back those words more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. But I’m not sure how to fix this.”
“Tell everyone you were joking,” he says evenly, but I can pick up the note of strain in his voice. “Tell them you got carriedaway or that aliens temporarily took over your body. I don’t care. Just fix it.”
Heat stings my cheeks. “I was only trying to protect you.”
He lets out a harsh, joyless laugh. “Protect me? By announcing a fake engagement?”
“Maybe we need to look at this differently,” I suggest, trying for a positive take. “We already had a fake date, so technically a fake engagement is only one step up from that.”
“One step?” Disbelief floods his eyes. “That’s not a step. It’s five hundred giant leaps straight off a cliff.”
“Well, that seems like a slight exaggeration,” I say stiffly.
“Kenzie, if our fake date failed so spectacularly, think of all the things that could go wrong with a fake engagement.”
He has a point. I chew my lip. “I know I went too far,” I admit in a small voice. “But I felt terrible on your behalf, and I just wanted to help.”
He points a finger at me. “That. Right there. That’s your problem.”
I stare wide-eyed at his finger, as though it holds all the answers. “What’s my problem?”
