Page 77 of Feels Like Falling
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MONTANA
It’s been a long time since I walked the path from the Mills’s home to mine. It’s different than I remember but familiar all the same. My breathing is ragged, even to my own ears, and I know it’s got nothing to do with trekking through the still present heat.
I want to strangle Evan Mills with one of those pretentious neckties he wore back then for creating the shitstorm of the century. I know Ellison was projecting her emotions onto me more than she was accusing me, but it hurt all the same.
The longer the words were hurled back and forth, the harder it was to ignore those teenage emotions I’d buried deep in the recesses of my soul. I am a grown man, but standing in that house took me back to that night. I know we were young, but my love for her had run through my body as surely as the blood in my veins.
And that hasn’t changed.
It never would.
My boots are heavy as I climb the porch steps, barely registering how I’d gotten here. Grandad’s eyebrows climb up his forehead as I give him a nod and move past him toward my room. I can’t talk about it—not right now.
My body collapses face down on the comforter, and I don’t hold back the muffled outburst at smelling Ellison’s perfume on the fabric.
Rolling onto my back, I stare at the ceiling, my phone vibrating in my pocket forcing my eyelids to squeeze shut as I wrestle the device from where it’s sandwiched between the denim and the bed.
Groaning, I swipe open the group message and pray for patience.
VIENNA: I cannot believe you!
ASPEN: I already booked my plane ticket
MONTANA: No one is gettin’ on a plane
MONTANA: How the hell do you even think you know something?
ASPEN: I can’t hear you they’re starting to board
MONTANA: I swear on Nan’s pot roast you better not be getting on a plane
VIENNA: Then why don’t you reassure your favorite sisters why we shouldn’t come home when you told us that Ellison Mills would not break your heart?!
ASPEN: And that we had nothing to worry about
MONTANA: Seriously—what the hell?
ASPEN: We have spies everywhere
VIENNA: You left with Ellison for dinner, went to her dad’s, and now you’re home instead of at said dinner
VIENNA: Looking miserable and heartbroken
MONTANA: Nothing is wrong
VIENNA: No one believes that lie
ASPEN: Seriously what is the matter with you big brother?
Draggingmy hand down my face, I take a couple of deep breaths and relax the grip on my phone. If I could launch it across the room right now I would, but then they’d really get on a plane, and I don’t have the mental capacity to endure that right now.
VIENNA: STOP IGNORING US!
MONTANA: Stop yellin’ at me
ASPEN: Stop making us yell!
