Falling (4 page)

I look back to the window and the girl is gone. Maybe I’ll wait a couple more minutes, just to be sure he’ll be there.

Oh! he’s there!

I jump out of my seat, yank my bag up over my shoulder staring straight out the window, and run out the door.

“Oh, no.” I run straight past Keller. “Crap, I missed it. Damn.” I say a little louder than necessary, hoping he can hear me. I kick a stone on the pavement, then I take a step back still facing a random bus that is driving away, and stand on Keller's foot.

“Sorry.” I say turning around with what I hope is a genuinely surprised sound. I start laughing as he points to me. “What? No girlfriend I can knock over this time?”

“No, I’ve been at work.” He keeps smiling.

“Well, sorry for standing on you. You should probably avoid being near me. Next time, one of you will get run over or something.”

“Thanks, I'll keep it in mind.” He says looking at my face. He has a really nice smile. He has a really nice everything. I grin back at him when he doesn’t walk away immediately.

“Well sorry again.” I take a very small step, very slowly away.

“Did you miss your bus?” He asks, takes a small step to be standing next to me again.

I look up at him, trying to stop my grin spreading any further.

“Yeah. I was heading home. But I was waiting in the library and,” I point back at it, “I missed it. So I'll head back in and try not to miss the next one.”

“Where's home, then?” He asks slowing to match his steps with mine.

“Oh.” I say surprised.

“I don't mean like where do you live. I'm not gonna follow you home or anything.”

“It's all good.” I say quickly. “You don't look like the stalker type.”

“You never know. There are a lot of weirdoes out there. Especially around here.” He looks into the library as if to illustrate his point and looks at a creepy guy who’s sitting in the seat that I was just in.

“In Clapham.” I answer.

“Maybe I could give you a ride home? I am avoiding doing something I don't want to.” He says, looking a little embarrassed for admitting it.

“You're not avoiding saying goodbye to Hayden are you?” I ask, forgetting that I’m not supposed to know anything about either of them.

“How do you know her name?” He stops. “How do you know she is going away?” He asks confused.

Don't cringe. Just breathe normally. “Sorry I heard you talking when she bumped into me. I just heard you say you would help her pack. So I figured she was going somewhere.” I smile smoothing over my lie. He laughs nervously and rubs the back of his neck.

“She's going away to college. Tomorrow in fact. And yes I am avoiding going to help her pack. I spent the last day and a half sorting through her mountains of clothes, and now I want to poke my eyes out with the sharp end of a really pointy stick.” He is kind of squinting at me, but speaking clearly. I don't think he quite believes my story.

“Well, drive me home then, save your eyes, it would be quite inconvenient to not have them.” He laughs, shoving his hands deep into his pockets so it looks like he is shrugging, and the disbelieving looks melts away. “It would. How many closets do you have?” He stops. “Sorry. Wow, that's so inappropriate. I am not a weirdo. Please don't tell me.”

I burst out laughing at his expression. “One, well half, because I have to share with my roommate, and she has more than me. But I’m too poor to fill a whole one anyway.” I droop my shoulders and let my face fall into a poor-me look.

“So if you had the money you would fill a couple?”

“Maybe. Probably not. I'm more of a jeans and a hoodie kind of a girl.” I shrug, looking down at myself to illustrate the point. I’m wearing dark blue jeans and a purple t-shirt. “I could never spend two thousand dollars on a pair of shoes.”

NO, no, no, no! Shut up, stupid!

“Yeah that would be crazy.” He says it real slowly like something doesn't make sense. And it probably wouldn't help if I confessed that I’d been inside his girlfriend for most of the day on Saturday, following him around.

This is so painful, I can't be the first one to say something. It will sound too much like I am trying to cover what I just said. So now it’s just hanging there.

“So do you go to the library often?” He kills the nervous silence, while we keep taking small steps toward his car, with him looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Sometimes.” I shrug. Keep walking, I tell myself. Oh my goodness this is so hard, I can see his car just a few spaces a head of us. Don't look at it, I keep telling myself, but my head tells my legs to slow down because we are almost at it. I can’t let it look like I have ever seen his car before.

“This is me.” He stops at his car.

“Oh right.” I hold myself back from screwing up my face. I know that sounded weird. I wait while he goes around to the other side of the car. I get in, but I don't know what to say. He smiles at me, starting the car without saying anything. He seems shy now that we are off the street.

He pulls out into the traffic and smiles at me again. He is amazing looking. I breathe in deeply and look out the window to smile where he can't see me.

He flicks on the radio, at least something is breaking the silence.

I drag my eyes back to look at him. “So, you work in a record store?” I have to say something. I am not a comfortable with long silences person, and this one is reaching epic proportions.

“I do.” He laughs. “So where about in Clapham are we heading?” We are at the intersection to go across to the western suburbs. “Twenty Fifth Street.” I say.

“Cool. You want me to drop you at home? You don't have to. Sorry, I don't usually sound so much like a stalker. I am honestly not trying to find out where you live.” He lets out a laugh that shakes his chest.

“Please stalk away.” I look out the window so I can't see his reaction, screwing my eyes shut. I didn't mean to say something that sounds so, I don't know, needy.

“Good to know. So where's home then?” He says like what I said was perfectly normal.

“It's the only thing on the street, so just the front gate is fine.”

“You said roommate before, do you live at home or?” He leaves his sentence hanging while he looks at me.

“I live at school.”

“You're a senior?” I guess he's hoping he hasn't just picked up a fifteen year old.

“I am. And you? You're not off to college with Hayden?”

“Nope, I don't have a bank account big enough for Princeton.”

“Wow, Princeton. That's impressive.” I say, but I would have thought even with a big bank account, you have to be actually smart to attend as well. But he must like his girlfriend somewhat, so I won’t say that.

“He laughs. Her Dad went there and wanted her to have the same education.” I watch him out the corner of my eye.

“That's awesome. Princeton is a great school, she must be really smart.”

“Yeah.” He turns the corner and makes it look like his pause is from the concentration of driving. It's sweet that he is defending the smarts of Princess Duh.

“Here you are.” He pulls up at the curb and looks into the school. “Does it completely suck living at school?” He asks suddenly.

“Yip. Even if it is the best boarding school in the country.” I put on my best showing someone important around the school voice. I know what he's thinking. How can I not afford every piece of clothing I want and get to go to this school?

But I don't get the money my parents left me until I'm twenty one. Until then I live on what aunt Kelly gives me. We made an arrangement that she would give me thirty dollars a week and I would pay her back out of my inheritance. Mum and dad had money put aside in their will to pay for school fees if it was ever needed.

“So where is everyone else?” He looks around at the empty campus.

“Everyone else is gone. It's a compulsory out weekend, so it's just me here actually.”

“Man, that's got to bite, your folks couldn’t come get you?”

“Something like that.” I half smile.

I never tell people about my folks. It is just too sad. People want to pity me, and it just makes me feel worse than I already do.

“So what are you going to do now?” He suddenly turns his whole body to face me. “Do you have to be back right now?”

“No. I just had nothing better to do. I might read a book. One of my teachers is following me around after I kind of,” I cough. “Um, had an incident on Friday night.” I give my best guilty look.

“Really?” He lifts his eyebrows at me. He has such pretty eyes. They are brown, like clear blue tropical water, only brown.

“Come with me.” He says excitedly.

“You want me to come help you pack Hayden's clothes? I doubt she'll want me touching them.”

He snickers, “Not to Hayden's. I don't know where. I have always wanted to take Highway 58, and just see what's out there.”

I sit back in my seat. “Let's go.”

He looks so excited. Maybe he is a crazy person. “Hayden really is your girlfriend, eh? You're not really a crazed stalker are you?” I joke.

“Hayden really is, for today. But I probably am a bit crazy.” He pulls back over. “I can let you out if you want.”

I look him dead in the face and hold it for a full second openly staring at him, searching his face for something and he just sits there letting me with a slight smile at the edges of his mouth. “No I'm good.” There is pretty much no way I’m getting out of this car. I push my body back into the seat and wind down my window the whole way so the warm wind rushes in around my face. I close my eyes and let the sun beat on my skin.

I open them after a minute, and Keller is watching me with a funny look on his face, so I poke my tongue out at him. I can't think of anything better to say.

* * *

We drive down Highway 58, passing fields and fields of corn interrupted only occasionally for a house or a paddock with some cows or pigs. Other than that for the last hour it has been a green blur of corn.

I suddenly lean forward in my seat, we are coming up to an intersection in the road. “Turn down here.” I say just as we reach it, it takes Keller a second to react and we are almost passed it when he slams on the brakes and turns the steering wheel hard, sending the back of the car swinging out, kicking up gravel and a wave of dust. I hold on to the dashboard as the car slides into the side road. “That's impressive driving skills you have.” I say breathless. I wasn’t sure if he was going to get onto the road before we ploughed into the pole holding up the road sign.

“Thanks.” He says proudly. “Hayden doesn't let me do that. She would have freaked out and made me stop to call someone to pick her up.”

“She sounds like the best girlfriend ever.” My heart skips a beat as I realise what I said.

“She's a nice person. I shouldn't have said that.” He pauses and stares out the windscreen, concentrating on driving. “So, where do you want to go? What's down this road?” He says, covering the change in atmosphere.

“I don't know. It just looked like a good road. Really, I just like its name.” I admit. “Eggilston Peak Road. It sounds like someone important made it up.” I grin up at his face.

“Cool. Just tell me when you want to turn around.” He laughs controlling the car smoothly through the twists of the road.

“Hey look, there's a lake.” He points over the steering wheel, almost touching the glass of the windscreen to a spot a couple of miles up the road. We pull out of a corner, and the thick stand of oak trees moves into alignment. I can see through them down to bright blue water.

“You want to have a look?” I ask.

“Absolutely.”

We drive down a small hill and pull into a rough gravel carpark and climb out, stretching our legs after sitting for so long. It's not huge, but it's still pretty big.

I don't say anything, walking off to the side of the lake while Keller locks his car and follows after me quietly. I feel so nervous. I clamp my eyes closed for a second while he is still behind me, feeling butterflies filling my stomach.

There are huge old oaks towering around the edges. “It's so blue.” I say quietly holding onto an oak trunk leaning as close to the water as I can get.

I lean too far over and all the blood rushes to my head. “Whoa,” I say stunned as the light shuts off. I stop and close one eye trying to force them both to adjust to the dizziness. I pull myself up from leaning over the water quickly, which makes it worse, and I can't see anything. Keller stops right behind me. I can feel the warm of his skin.

“Sorry. Can't see.” I say. “Didn't mean to stand on you, again.”

His grin grows bigger. “No problem. I expect you to trip people over. It's just part of being in a ten feet radius of you I figure.”

I laugh out. “You are actually the privileged few. I don't trip many people over. Or trip over them. I'm on the swim team, I'm not usually a clumsy kind of person.” I hold on to my head, looking at him through one eye until I can see straight again.

“Swim team, eh? That's impressive. You want to have a race? I bet I could still beat St. Maria's finest.”

“In your giantest, bestest dreams could you beat me. I am a lean mean swimming machine.” Just to illustrate my point I stretch my arms down my back just like I do before a big race.

“It's funny you should say that.” He says with the calmest, sweetest look on his face. “Because I had my giantest, bestest dream just last night. Isn't that random?” He says edging closer to me keeping the sweet look plastered on his face, but now there's something else there.

“Is that right?” I narrow my eyes at him, but he just chuckles gently.

“I did, it was amazing actually. I met this girl who thought she could beat me.”

“Really? That’s fascinating. And had you met this girl before?” I step back, but he is square in front of me now. “I could beat you any day, Keller, but I don't have anything to swim in.” I say holding my hands up.

“Of course you don't. Why would you say that?” It's not a question, my back hits a tree and I skirt around it, but I'm not fast enough. My hands fly up to grab him as he gently nudges me into the water, but I miss after he moves back at the last second. My head is under water before I can think of anything else.