Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Ok,” Skylar finally says, interrupting my inner turmoil. “If you say it was a mistake, then it was a mistake.”

“It was,” I assure her, but somewhere deep inside myself I know that I’m not as certain as I want to be. Evan’s presence has a power over me that I can’t explain. The fact that we will be continuing to work together after all of this makes me very nervous.

I sit down on the floor completely now and reach my arms out. She falls into my embrace and moves in closely. I brush the hair from her forehead and kiss her on the lips.

She kisses me back firmly, with so much force and necessity that I almost pull away, but I stop myself. I know that she’s only forcing the kiss because she’s scared that my feelings have changed. Instead, I return her need with an equal amount of eagerness and press my body to hers.

We both sit up on our knees as we continue to kiss. She reaches for the bottom of my shirt and begins to yank it upward. I put my arms up willingly as she pulls the shirt over my head. She reaches behind me for my bra strap as I begin to unbutton the front of her shirt. We shouldn’t be doing this out in the open, but making out in my living room instead of the confines of my bedroom is incredibly freeing!

And as each button of her shirt comes undone, I continue kissing the bare skin being revealed underneath, taking in the soft scent of her body wash. This is good. This is right. This isn’t Evan, and that’s how it should be.

Later that night, I awake from a troubled sleep and sit up quickly. It occurs to me that I’m sleeping on the floor, but I can’t remember why I’m not in my bed. As my heart rate begins to slow, and my eyes come into focus in the dark room, I realize that I’m not even in my room at all. I’m in the living room. I look over at the clock above the TV and see that it’s 2:26 AM. It feels like it should be later.

I pat the dark floor around me, trying to locate Skylar, but I can’t seem to find where she’s sleeping. Did she get up and move to the couch? I climb to my feet and fumble over to the lamp next to the couch, turning it on.

In the now dimly lit room I realize that Skylar is nowhere to be seen, but she definitely was sleeping on the pile of blankets on the floor with me, because there is still an indentation of her body next to where I had awakened.

“Skylar?” I call out quietly, trying not to wake my parents. She doesn’t respond, but a creak coming from the kitchen draws me in that direction.

As I turn the corner and enter the hallway that leads to the kitchen I see a silhouette of her on the wall ahead of me. I can tell by her shadow that she’s standing in front of the stove.

“Skylar,” I say again a little more urgently. I know she’s in there and is not responding to me on purpose. I just don’t know why.

The shadow moves all over the wall erratically and I pick up the pace to reach the entrance of the room. I am certain now that she is intentionally trying to hide something from me and I want to know what that something is.

I turn the corner and the minute that I do, I let out a gasp.

“I needed to do it,” Skylar says quickly, spinning around to face me. Her arms are cut all over. Droplets of blood fall from her fingers to the floor and she scrambles with some paper towel to wipe them up.

I move over to the counter and grab the roll of paper towel. I open the cupboard next to the sink, where my mom keeps some first aid items, and pull out the rubbing alcohol.

“Why?” I ask, my voice trailing off. I soak the paper towel in alcohol to clean up her self-inflicted cuts. I’m certain I know why she’s cutting again, but I can’t think of what else to say because I know that it’s all my fault.

She winces with the sting of alcohol on her wounds but only for a moment. This isn’t something new for her. “You weren’t supposed to see this,” she says after a few moments.

I take a seat at the kitchen table. “And how exactly were you planning on hiding it from me?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me why you did it.”

I know what she will respond, or at least I know what her response should be. I can’t help but ask the question anyway if for nothing more than confirmation from her own mouth.

“I’m losing you,” she says with a tremble in her voice and it physically hurts me. I knew the moment Evan kissed me that this would happen.

“No, you’re not,” I assure her.

She shakes her head as a tear rolls down her cheek. “It’s not fair for me to keep you away from something that might be right for you. You’ve never had a boyfriend. You’ve never even kissed a guy before tonight and that was all fine before because there was no one else. But you said so yourself, he makes you
feel
things.”

“I don’t care what he makes me feel,” I say. “I love
you
.”

“I don’t doubt that you love me. But what if you could love him too.”

“That’s ridiculous! Of course not. You’re all I want.”

“How can you be so sure of that if I am the only person you’ve ever been with? How can you possibly know if there is anything else out there for you?”

“I… I just do,” I stammer.

She shakes her head sadly. “You can’t.”

This isn’t happening. Skylar isn’t breaking up with me. This is
not
happening!

“So, what are you saying?” I finally choke out, somehow managing not to let a single tear escape my eyes.

She doesn’t speak for a long while and the silence is petrifying. How can she even consider ending us over something so small; over a mistake I swore would never happen again?

“I’m saying,” she finally says. “That you need to figure this out with Evan.”

“What?” I ask in surprise. That was certainly not the response I was expecting.

“I want you to figure out how you feel about him. I need you to figure it out, Bree.”

“And how exactly do you want me to figure it out?” I demand, with a tinge of annoyance in my voice.

“Get to know him,” she suggests. “And see where it goes.”

She says this with so much certainty in her voice that I’m taken aback for a moment. But when I see the fear in her eyes, I know that it took a lot of effort for her to work up the courage to ask this of me.

“It won’t go anywhere,” I whisper, defeated.

She smiles sadly. “Maybe it won’t.”

Evan

She’s
with
Skylar.

No matter how many times I say it over and over to myself it just doesn’t want to register. When Bree told me this last night, I was completely frozen with disbelief. And I just stood there like an idiot, trying to figure out the right words to say back. It was so embarrassing. How was I supposed to know she was gay? She acted the same way as other girls at school do around me…Flustered, but seemingly interested. Not that I ever paid much attention to any of them since Adrienne, but I’ve always noticed it.

The minute I walk through the doors of the school the next morning I feel uneasy. What if I run into her and Skylar? What if she told Skylar about the kiss? How awkward would that be? I head over to Derrick and Kelsie who are both sitting in our usual morning spot on the floor in front of our lockers.

“So?” Derrick asks when he spots me.

I want to look indifferent about the whole thing. I want to pretend that it doesn’t bother me when I think about it, but I know my friends can see it written all over my face. There is no point in pretending I’m not disappointed, they can already tell.

I take a seat across from them. Kelsie’s looking at me expectantly and she’s probably already figured it out. “She’s seeing someone,” I say, not wanting to beat around the bush. Tell them and move on, that’s the goal.

Kelsie takes in a quick breath and then lets out a loud sigh, “I’m sorry Evan. I didn’t know.”

I shrug, “It’s not your fault.”

“Did you kiss her?” Derrick just had to ask. It’s not something I had planned on telling them, but now that the question is out there, I might as well just get it over with.

“Yeah.”

From the corner of my eye, I can see Kelsie’s brow rise and a little smirk emerges on her lips. I’ve made her very curious now.

“Awesome man!” Derrick bellows.

I look at Kelsie pointedly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She nods, saying nothing. She knows when not to push.

Derrick, on the other hand…

“What? You gotta tell us,” he says so loudly that I’m sure the entire school hears him.

This is Kelsie’s cue to escape before Derrick makes a fool of himself or worse, a fool of her. “I have to get going, I have a bio lab due in twenty minutes that I need to finish. I’ll talk to you guys later.” She gets up and gives Derrick a hurried kiss on the cheek before taking off down the hall. She spins around just before turning the corner. “And Evan,” she says, “It’s her loss.”

Such a cliché, but coming from Kelsie, it feels good. “Thanks,” I say, forcing a smile.

Once she’s out of sight and earshot I turn back to Derrick. “I need to talk to you about this without Kels. I don’t want her knowing just yet.”

Derrick sits up eagerly, a smile stretched from ear to ear. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

I shake my head. “You think maybe you could take this seriously for, I don’t know, like two seconds?” I ask.

Derrick laughs. “I’ll give it an honest effort,” he lies, making a terrible attempt at a serious expression as he does so.

“Ok,” I say, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Bree told me she’s involved with Skylar Hale.”

“No way!” Derrick roars.

I nod, motioning for him to relax and lower his voice. He has a tendency to get loud when people confide in him, I’m not sure why, but I’m grateful no one is standing close enough to hear him.

“So they’re lesbians,” he says in a whisper that’s still too loud, but it’s as good as I know I’m going to get from him, so I let it go.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what to think they are.”

“I hate to break it to you, but in my experience with chicks, ‘involved’ means sex. Two girls having sex with each other, that’s what people call lesbians … or drunk straight chicks, like Ginny Peterson and Kendra Cartwright that one time at Brad Larson’s party, remember?”

Seriously? How does this guy’s mind function well enough to get an education? He can’t stay focused for longer than a minute.

“What exactly did she say?” he asks when I refuse to acknowledge his previous statement about Brad Larson’s party. Sure I remember it, everyone was talking about it for weeks. But Ginny and Kendra weren’t in a relationship, they were like he said, just two drunk straight girls. I really don’t think that’s the case with Bree and Skylar, as much as I wish that it were.

I sigh. “She said that the kiss was a mistake because she’s involved with Skylar and that she loves her.”

“Ouch.” Derrick takes a sharp breath between clenched teeth. “Love. Especially lady love. I don’t know, Ev, sounds like she’s pretty much off-limits.”

“But when I asked her if I could kiss her, she said yes.”

“You asked her if you could kiss her?” he laughs, and I give him a dirty look.

“Yeah, but that’s not the point, the point is that she wanted me to.”

“I mean, are you sure? Maybe she was just being polite.”

I shoot him a condescending look, and he grins. “She wasn’t trying to be polite,” I say. “She said yes, She even kissed back. I swear to God, she was into it. And then she pushed me away and said it was a mistake.”

Derrick scratches his head for a moment. He actually looks like he’s searching his mind for advice, which is scary in and of itself, but it is the reason I came to him so I wait patiently for his reply. “I think you need to talk to Kels,” he says finally, looking emotionally drained from the effort it took for him to come up with it.

I shake my head and attempt to hold back a smile. He’s terrible at serious talk, it’s no wonder I also have a girl best friend. “I already know what she’s going to say. She’s going to tell me to leave it be and not get involved.”

“So what’s wrong with that advice?”

“I’m already too involved. I can’t walk away now, Derrick. And even if I could, I don’t want to.”

He sighs. “Well, if you tell Kels I told you to do this I will kill you, but I think you need to try to be her friend and see if she has the same feelings back. If it turns out that she does, then make your move.”