Falling Harder (4 page)

But for whatever
reason, I don’t mind Conway’s touch. In fact...it’s kind of nice. I don’t know
why, but I feel like I can trust her. Imagine that...an actual friend for the
first time in years. Maybe there’s a happy birthday headed my way after all.

Conway leads me
down the front staircase and down a shadowy hall. Up ahead, the glaringly
fluorescent light of the kitchen shines bleakly. I sneak a peek into the tiled
space and spot Nancy and Paul sitting at a worn wooden table. They have tall
glasses of clear liquor in their hands, and they sip dispassionately as I look
on. Nancy looks up and catches my eye with a bored grimace.

“Tell those
idiots to be quiet,” she growls at me, swilling some booze.

“Yeah, yeah.
We’ve got it, Nance,” Conway says, wrenching open a door leading down to the
basement. As we head down the dusty stairs, I hear a slurring string of cusses
spilling from Nancy’s lips. Conway’s brazen bravery amazes me.

“Aren’t you
scared to talk to your foster parents like that?” I ask.

“Nah,” the small
girl shrugs, “I’ve been with these guys long enough to know where the line is.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning on crossing it anytime soon. But you can’t
take shit from people, otherwise you’d go nuts, right?”

“Right,” I
agree.

Three

Nadia

Him

The blaring
music gets louder with every step we take, until the staircase opens up into
the basement. I peer around the small space and can’t help but smile.
Multi-colored Christmas lights hang along the ceiling, charmingly mismatched
furniture populates every spare inch, and scores of quirky keepsakes are
scattered throughout. The basement is the ultimate teenage hangout that I’ve
always imagined sharing with my nonexistent friends.

It takes me a
minute to notice that Conway and I have company. I spot two pairs of sneakers
peeking out from beneath a heap of beanbag chairs, and realize that they must
belong to my new foster brothers. The music fades down suddenly as Conway
adjusts the stereo’s volume, and indignant cries rise up from somewhere around
the disembodied feet.

“What the hell,
Con?” a boy’s voice groans from the floor, “We’re trying to listen to some
goddamn music.”

“Turn it back
up, for Christ’s sake,” says a second voice from under the rubble.

“Nancy’s going
to come down here and rip you each a new asshole if you don’t keep it down,”
Conway says, “And where the hell are your manners, anyway? You just gonna sit
there and not say hello to our new housemate?”

Two faces
comically pop up out of the pile, and I fight to stifle a laugh. The boy
nearest me picks himself up from the ground and gives me a critical once over.
He’s taller that I would have expected, for someone my age. He definitely
clears six feet, and it doesn’t seem like he’s done growing, either. A fitted
black tank top and dark jeans cling to his body in just the right way.

I have to say,
he’s pretty fit. I don’t often find myself in the company of cute guys, and I’m
not entirely sure how to handle myself. I’m relieved to see that, despite his
manly physique, this guy still has something of a baby face.

“She’s cute,”
the boy says, folding his muscular arms over his chest.

“I’m standing
right here,” I remind him.

“That you are,”
he says, grinning crookedly. “Your name’s Nadia, right?”

“That’s right.
And what do they call you? The Hulk?”

“Funny,” he
says, “But no. I’m Garrick.”

“Nice to meet
you, Garrick,” I say, extending my hand. I immediately feel like an idiot as
the other kids burst out into involuntary laughter.

“You’re so
sweet,” Garrick says, pulling me into a crushing bear hug, “We don’t see sweet
very often around here.”

“Thanks...I
guess,” I say, extracting myself from Garrick’s embrace. As I step away from
him, my eyes fall on my other new housemate. I feel my heart throw itself
against my ribcage as he straightens up and levels his eyes at me.

I’ve never
thought this about anyone before, especially not a boy, but he is...just
beautiful. He’s not as crazy tall as Garrick, but he seems much older. His hair
is sandy blonde and just a little bit shaggy, and even in the low light of the
basement I can see a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. His
intent eyes are a dark green, and as I meet his gaze it’s like they’re
bottomless. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s had a particularly
rough go.

The gorgeous boy
tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugs a little bit. His
plain white tee is just fitted enough that I can see how defined his chest his
between his broad shoulders. Just as my eyes start to wander down his
well-balanced body, I realize that I’ve been staring at him like a goddamn
idiot. Heat rushes to my face as I snap my jaw back into place. I must look
like a such a freak, already.

“I’m Trace,” the
boy says, lifting one corner of his mouth just a hair. A man of few words, I
suppose.

“H-hey, Trace,”
I stammer, smiling nervously.

Garrick steps
around me to throw on some new music as Conway sinks down into a well-loved
armchair. I watch as Trace reaches into his back pocket and produces a pack of
cigarettes and a Zippo. He tucks a smoke between his lips and flips open the
lighter in one swift motion. Clearly, he’s not new to cancer sticks.

“Want one?” he
asks, offering the pack to me.

“Oh. No thanks,”
I saw, lowering myself onto a rickety rocking chair across the room from him.
“I don’t smoke.”

“Anything?” Conway
asks, her eyes wide.

“Not really,” I
say.

“Weird...”
Garrick says, cranking up the stereo’s volume once more. The hardcore metal
that was playing when we first came down has been replaced with gangster rap. I
personally prefer Top 40, but I have a feeling that these kids aren’t really
into Taylor Swift.

“We’ve got beer
too. And whiskey,” Trace continues, taking a pull of his smoke. I smile
sheepishly, and he lets out a low groan. “Don’t tell me you don’t drink
either?”

“Sorry,” I say,
“Guess I’m kind of a prude about all that stuff.”

“How the hell do
you get through the day?” Garrick asks. “This is the only thing any of us look
forward to. Sitting around together, having a couple of drinks, getting stoned
out of our goddamn minds, and waiting until our eighteenth birthdays roll
around.”

“Eight more
months for me,” Trace says with a smile, “And thank the fucking lord.”

“Don’t take the
lord’s name in vain,” Conway sniffs, “And give me one of those cigarettes. I’m
jonesing like nobody’s business.”

“Maybe you’re a
Jesus freak like Conway here, then?” Garrick says, “One of those
abstinence-only types?”

“How does
believing in God make me a freak?” Conway asks.

“If it doesn’t
make you a freak, it makes you a goddamn moron,” Trace says. “Look around. You
think there’s some guy up there who has a plan for us? If there is, he must be
a real dick to have stuck us all in here.”

“Amen,” I say
sarcastically. Trace nods in approval, and I can feel my hands begin to tremble
a little bit. Something about him sets me on edge, in the best way possible.
I’d better watch myself around this one. The last thing I need is to get a
massive crush on my new foster brother. That must be against some kind of rule.

“How much longer
do you have, Nadia?” Garrick asks, pulling a hidden flask from among a stack of
CDs.

“Until what?”

“Until you’re
free, obviously.”

“Oh...until I
turn eighteen, you mean? Two years, tomorrow.”

“Huh?” Garrick
says.

“Oh my god,”
Conway squeals, letting out a puff of smoke, “Is tomorrow your birthday? Your
sixteenth freakin’ birthday?”

“Guilty,” I tell
her.

“That’s so
cool!” she says excitedly, “We can have a sweet sixteen for you!”

“You don’t have
to do that—”

“Are you
kidding? It’ll be the most exciting thing to happen around here in forever.”

“I can’t even remember
the last time someone acknowledged my birthday...” I say, “Since my parents, I
mean.”

“They still
kickin’?” Garrick asks.

My chest
tightens painfully, but I manage to keep a straight face. “No,” I tell him,
“No, they died when I was twelve. Car accident.”

“Drunk?” Garrick
asks.

“No!” I say,
more forcefully than I meant to, “No, of course not. Someone hit them. Never
found out who.”

“Why aren’t you
with your grandparents or something, then?” he presses.

“I don’t know
who they are. It was just me and my parents.”

“That’s so
rough...” Conway says sympathetically. “I was only three when my parents gave
me up. I can’t remember anything about them. I think they were super young,
though. Way too young to have a kid. I don’t really blame them for wanting to
get rid of me, I just wish they would have done it when I was a baby so I would
have had a shot at getting adopted.”

“Hey, I was only
a couple of months old when I got thrown into foster hell,” Garrick says, “It
didn’t help me any.”

“Well no shit,”
Conway says, “Who would want to adopt a baby as ugly as you?”

Garrick chucks a
CD at Conway’s head, but she ducks and misses it without skipping a beat. I
turn to Trace, waiting to hear his one-sentence life story.

“Are your
parents gone too?” I ask him. He shoots me look, and the others fall dead
silent. Clearly, this is not a topic of discussion that we’re going to be
touching on tonight. “I’m sorry. That was rude,” I say.

“No worries,”
Trace says, crushing out his cigarette. He brushes past me, crossing the room,
and I can’t help but let my eyes linger on him. His jeans are cut just right,
and I have to say that I like the way he looks in them.

I feel like a
creep, ogling him like this, but it’s like my eyes are addicted to the sight of
him. I’m sure I’ll get over it once I’ve been here a couple of days. I’d
better, anyway. I don’t want to be the weird, clingy girl in the house. I’m
already the odd girl out because I don’t drink like a fish and smoke like a
chimney.

Trace cranks the
music up to an earsplitting level, and I have to sit on my hands to keep from
throwing them over my ears. The others don’t even seem to mind the noise.
Probably, they’re used to far worse chaos than this.

I try to imagine
spending my entire life bouncing from one foster home to another, like they
have. I wonder whether it would have been better than having loving parents for
twelve years, only to have them snatched away. Maybe, if I never knew what I
was missing, I wouldn’t still miss them so much.

A sudden bright
light sears my eyes, shocking me out of my reverie. I blink up at the harsh
fluorescents overhead and watch as my housemates’ eyes snap toward the
stairwell. Nobody moves a muscle as Paul’s burly form lumbers drunkenly into
the space. His face is beet red, his eyes swimming.

The other three
kids still stock still as Paul scans the room, and their alertness scares me
more than Paul does. If even Garrick and Trace can be rendered silent just by
this guy’s presence, he must not be someone piss off.

My new foster
father storms across the basement toward the stereo. Before anyone can say a
word, he’s taken the machine in his thick, solid hands and hurled it against
the concrete wall. I let out a little shriek as the stereo cracks against the
hard surface, sending little shards of metal and plastic everywhere.

“What the hell,
Paul?” Trace shouts, dragged out of his silence, “Do you know how long I saved
up for that thing? What’s your problem?”

“Shut the fuck
up, kid,” Paul snarls, glaring at Trace, “We told you...to turn down...the God
damn music.”

“You didn’t have
to break it, asshole,” Trace says, squaring off with Paul across the room.

“Watch your
mouth,” Paul says, taking a menacing step forward.

“Or what?” Trace
challenges him, “You gonna hit me? I dare you to try. I’ll have child services
here before you can even think about sobering up for a hot second. You don’t
want that, do you Paul?”

“Don’t threaten
me in my own house, you ungrateful little prick,” Paul says.

“Name calling,
huh? Pretty immature,” Trace grins, “If you’re so tough, just hit me. Come on.
Be a man.”

“I don’t hit
children,” Paul says, his voice gravelly, “But you’ll be grown soon enough. And
I’ll have your sorry ass on the curb in three seconds flat. See how long it
takes before you get to be a dirty fucking junkie just like your worthless
parents.”

Garrick flies to
Trace just in time to hold him back. Trace thrashes against his friend, trying
like hell to get to Paul. I watch in silent horror, sure that Paul is about to
get his throat ripped out. But Trace forces deep breath after deep breath into
his body, and manages to get a hold of himself.

“Pathetic as
always,” Paul laughs, “You girls, go upstairs. I want all of you in bed like
good little kiddies.”

“It’s only,
like, ten o’clock,” Conway complains.

“Go. Upstairs.
Now,” Paul says.

Conway rolls her
eyes and stands, nodding to me to follow her lead. I hurry after my new foster
sister, stealing a glance at Trace as I go. He’s practically trembling with
frustrated rage, and I don’t blame him.

Paul herds Conway
and me up the basement stairs and slams the door behind him. Supporting himself
on the wall, he staggers into the living room. Nancy is in there too, passed
out on the couch with a bottle of vodka clutched in her hand.

“Is it always
like this?” I whisper to Conway as we make our way up the stairs.

“Nah,” she
answers, a bit sadly, “This is a good night.”

I crawl under
the bright pink but threadbare comforter and close my eyes. Try as I might,
though, I can’t seem to lure sleep to me. It’s ages before I manage to lose
myself to my usual bleak dreams. I sleep fitfully in the strange new place I’m
supposed to call home. As much as I can, I avoid thinking about how many more
nights I’ll have to spend here. I can’t dwell on how awful this place is—that’s
the best way to lose hope there is.