Falling for Seven Read online

  Only one stall door was closed and when there were no incriminating sounds of peeing—or worse—I knocked against the door and called out, “Angel?”

  No answer.

  “I’m not going anywhere till you tell me why you were crying in the middle of class. I mean, we all hate Marcus, but crying about it?”

  Still no answer.

  The bathroom door opened. “Oh!”

  I whipped my head up. A girl stood in the open doorway and then checked the sign on the door to confirm she’d picked the right bathroom. She looked at me, a smile forming. “You’re Julian Lawson.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Her smile grew hesitant. “In the girls’ bathroom…”

  “This is kind of important,” I said, “do you mind?”

  She shook her head, hesitancy gone. “No, not at all,” she said, perking up.

  This girl just didn’t get it. “Listen,” I stepped away from the stall, “could you maybe give us a sec?”

  She looked past me at the closed door, then chewed on her lip. She might have been offended but I was guessing she was too bold for that. “Who’s in there?” she asked.

  “My girlfriend,” I deadpanned.

  “Kit’s in there?”

  “Did you hear me say her name?”

  “But—”

  “Would you leave already?”

  The sour look on her face made me think she was going to argue how she had more right to be here than me, but in a bout of defeat she turned and left.

  Well that was fucking hard work.

  The sliding of a door lock had me turning back to see Angel coming out of the stall with a giant wad of tissue in her hand. “You had no right to make that girl leave. It’s you that doesn’t belong in here.”

  I ignored her display of righteousness. “Are you going to tell me what’s happened?”

  The door opened again behind me and I swore loud enough to make Angel scowl. “Sorry,” she said to our new acquaintance, “we’re leaving.”

  “That’s okay.” The blonde’s eyes followed us as we walked past her and out the door.

  I kept quiet, walking by Angel’s side. She hadn’t told me to fuck off, so that was something. Outside, near the park benches, she sat down on the grass, resting against the trunk of a tree. The shade was a cool escape from the morning sun. She never said she wanted me there, but I threw my bang down and sat next to her, my back hitting the rough bark.

  She offered me nothing but silence for a while, the sound of our breathing the only real noise between us.

  “He dumped me.”

  Her revelation hit me with the force of a brick, and I squinted against the sunlight. “What?”

  “Don’t make me say it again.”

  I side-glanced her, noticing the bobbing of her throat and the slow build of tears in her eyes. I had a mountain of reasons why crying over a loser like Jordan was a total waste of time, but I could see she was too upset to hear any of them. I dropped my legs and relaxed against the tree.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Angel stared at the ground, occasionally swiping at her eyes and nose with the tissue. “Because he meant it when he said he wasn’t ready for anything serious.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “I can’t see him changing his mind. I always knew it would end. Eventually.” The end of that sentence was swallowed up in a choked sob that Angel tried to cover up with a deep breath, but it still had me frowning.

  “Don’t you think you got off easy? I know you saw him checking out Kit last night. You telling me that you’re okay with that shit?”

  “He wasn’t perfect,” she said, “and neither was I. He made me happy. Now I don’t know how I’m supposed to be happy, and it hasn’t even been an hour. I don’t think it will feel real until I see him.”

  “Tell me he did not breakup with you over the phone.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  God, I wanted to strangle her so bad. It was just as well I didn’t hit women or I would have my fingers around her neck so fast, sense would kill her.

  Neither of us spoke, and how much time had passed was a mystery. For the most part, Angel kept her shit together, but then I made the stupid mistake of asking how she was and her shoulders shuddered with ugly sobbing. “Whoa,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder, “someone might see you.” I pressed her face into my shirt, her tears steadily soaking into a damp patch under her cheek.

  When the sounds of her crying eased up, I said, “Angel, is he really worth this?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She lifted her head, hair stuck to her wet cheek. She looked a fucking state. An utter mess. “And I don’t need you to sit with me.”

  “It doesn’t feel right to just leave you.”

  She scraped her hair from her face. “I’m better now. I feel better.”

  I didn’t believe her. Her eyes were blotchy and puffed up, her lashes stuck together with tears, but I’d sat here long enough. I thought the guy was a dick, and she was no better, crying after him. “I’ve got stuff I need to do anyway.”

  I stood up and Angel’s eyes stayed fixed on the grassy floor. I wanted to say something but there was nothing to say that wouldn’t make this morning any worse for her.

  “You aren’t going back to class?”

  “No. What’s the point without my partner?” That was bullshit, but I wanted to soften her up a bit now that Jordan was out of the picture. “When you feel better, come see me, yeah? And I’m telling you, you will feel better.”

  I leaned down to pick up my bag and she slowly raised her doubtful gaze to look at me.

  “Not today,” I said, “but you will. One day you’ll wake up, and you’ll be okay.”

  <>

  I walked away, leaving the campus an hour earlier than I needed to. I drove to Dorchester with my music loud, trying to block out what had happened to Angel. I didn’t feel sorry for her because she saw it coming a mile off, and she was an idiot for even putting up with his shit. But her devastation was real. She looked like she was in pain. My mom looked like that when my dad walked out seven years ago, and seeing it again made me really fucking pissed. Pissed at someone I hardly knew for being so weak, and pissed at my dad for sending my mom into months’ worth of depression. She was still depressed for all I knew. I heard her cry when she was supposed to get her few hours of hard-earned sleep. I couldn’t ignore it, as much as I wanted to. Whatever my dad had done to our family and my mom’s confidence, it hadn’t made her love him any less. She never dated, never took his pictures down, all because she refused move on. He didn’t want her, but that didn’t make a blind bit of difference.

  His hold over her had me pumping the gas, sending me over the speed limit. When I pulled up at Kristina’s, the skin of my knuckles stretched to white where my hand was choking the steering wheel. I flattened my hand, flexing my fingers to regain some feeling.

  I got out, jogging up the stairway to her apartment. She opened the door before I got a chance to knock. “You’re early,” she said, opening the door wider so I could come inside.

  “Guess I am.”

  “You look stressed. Everything okay?”

  I took a seat on her couch, not getting comfortable so she knew I was in a hurry to get going, even though that would mean turning up early to a pre-natal appointment that I didn’t actually want to go to. “College assignment,” I said. “I really need to pass this one.”

  “Got it,” she said. “Say no more. There was a reason I skipped college and you just mentioned it.” She pushed sunglasses up onto her hair and picked up a bottle of water. “Shall we get this over with?”

  The waiting room at the Doctor’s Office was full. So full I expected to look around and see someone I knew. “You coming in?” Kristina asked when her name was called.

  I stared at her blankly. Did she expect me to go into that room with her and listen to the midwife discussing her baby with the guy she cheated on me with? �
��I’ll wait here,” I said.

  It was the wrong answer, that was clear in her eyes, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was changing my mind.

  “Okay. I shouldn’t be too long.”

  When she was gone, I took out my phone to read latest NFL news. The waiting room was stuffy as hell and I pulled at the collar of my T-shirt to circulate some air. I read all the football updates, then moved onto hockey. I avoided soccer purely because of Jordan, and then somewhere along the line I had Angel’s name up on my screen and I had pulled up the keyboard to send her a message.

  Me: Text back if you have managed to go a full hour without committing suicide.

  No reply.

  Me: I’m worried. Answer or I’m coming to find you.

  I waited a few minutes and then her name flashed up on my screen.

  Angel: I’m fine. DO NOT come and find me. I’m turning my phone off now.

  “Who you texting?”

  Kristina stood looking down at my screen without trying to hide her curiosity. I slipped the phone into my back pocket as I stood up. “No one. Everything go okay in there?”

  “Yeah. Midwife seems nice.”

  We started walking together and I was glad to reach fresh air. My skin was crawling with imaginary germs from the cramped waiting room. I unlocked the car and turned over the engine.

  “She said I’m nearly sixteen weeks along. Four months, can you believe that?”

  I looked down at her flat stomach. “No. I can’t,” I said, still staring. “You ready to be someone’s mom?” It was hard to visualize. Kristina was mature, but she enjoyed her freedom more than me.

  Her smile turned down and she lay her hand across her belly. “No. Not really.” She looked out the side window. “In my head, I didn’t picture it like this. If I’d have thought before—” She glanced at me as I put the car into reverse. “—Before I fucked things up with us and completely lost my head over some guy that I’ll probably never see again. If I’d have known this would happen, I wouldn’t have let myself end up in someone else’s bed.”

  Her hand dropped onto my knee. “I’m sorry, Julian. I’d go back and change it all if I could.”

  I wasn’t opening up old wounds, not today. Not any day. I was over it, even if she wasn’t. “Forget about it,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “You got something better now. You’re gonna be a great mom.” The next part was stuck on my tongue, but it was the truth so I might as well say it. “And you’ve got me, you know that right? I won’t just turn my back on you.”

  Kristina’s fingers trailed higher up my leg, making me shift like that would help me get away. “I wish—”

  “No. No wishing. It happened, and yeah, I wish like fuck it never. But it did and now you’re pregnant. Wishing won’t change anything. You’re scared, but us getting back together won’t fix a damn thing. Leave the past in the past.”

  Kristina sighed, her hand disappearing from my thigh. “I miss you. I still love you, Julian.”

  She was fucking killing me here and there was nothing I could say that she would want me to. “I love you, too,” I said. “As a friend.”

  “But you were in love with me, weren’t you?”

  She wasn’t letting it go.

  “I don’t know anything about love,” I admitted. I slowed down for the traffic, waiting in line at the red light. “But, yeah, I felt like I was in love with you.”

  “But not enough to take me back.”

  I felt the muscle in my neck spasm. “No, Kristina. That’s got nothing to do with whether or not I loved you. You fucked someone else while you were still fucking me. We already tried once to make it work and I can’t forget what you did. I will always think about his filthy hands on you. I can’t pretend you lying to my face doesn’t still piss me off when I think about it. What we had is ruined now, so just forget about it. I’m trying to.”

  Kristina pressed her head against the rest, her fingers rubbing at her belly, already protecting her unborn kid.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said. The light changed to green and I took the next left for the highway to our neighborhood. “Well, I did. But I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

  “No, it’s the truth. You should be allowed to say it. I fucked someone else and this is my punishment. Now I can live with it for the rest of my life.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not a life sentence, it’s a fucking baby, Kristina.” I cupped her chin in my fingers, nudging her cheek so she would look at me. A smile split into her pitiful expression. “I’m here for you. I said that, didn’t I? Have you ever known me to lie?”

  “No,” she said, and I dropped my hand.

  “So yeah, I loved you and you loved me, but it didn’t work out and we still have each other’s backs. You can’t be happy with that?”

  “I want to be.” Her honesty ripped at my chest. I couldn’t ever get back together with her, but I couldn’t switch off my feelings like I wanted to.

  “I have practice tonight, but I’m done at seven. You wanna go see a movie or something?”

  “My choice?” she asked, brightening up.

  “Sure, if that’s what it takes for you to stop fucking moping.”

  “And you’re buying. Popcorn, hotdogs. Oh, and nachos?”

  I tuned onto our street and stopped the car outside of my house. “Sounds like you’ve already decided.”

  “What’re you doing now?” It was more of a plea than a question. I had Sport Science in a half hour, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “Want me to come up?”

  11: Angel

  IT HAD BEEN FIVE DAYS since Jordan dumped me by text. The worst text of my damn life. It still didn’t feel real. The pain was still fresh, the anxiety still followed me around all day every day, and I stared at my phone like I would get a follow-up message telling me he was wrong and he’s sorry and can we just forget the whole thing? He misses me and he’ll be better. For me, He’ll do better. But that text never came. Five days and I’d already made up my mind that between visiting Nellie, skating, and classes, it wasn’t enough. I had to fill every minute of every day with something productive.

  I needed a job.

  So I got one. At players. I was underage so it would only be waitressing on weekends and two school nights a week, but I’d snatched at it immediately.

  Time. I had too much of it. Five days and all I had done was think and analyze. Think and analyze, even when I was actively doing something: Talking, moving, learning, driving, brushing my teeth, skating, eating. Ugh, I couldn’t eat. Marilyn had tried to coax me through that first night with a Chinese takeout, but I lay on her lap and cried. Cried for a solid two hours until I fell asleep. Then I cried again the next morning in the shower before I dressed to go over my routine with Calvin like nothing had ever happened. During daylight hours I wore a disguise, but once I was alone and I had no one to pretend for, I cried quietly, searching for some level of release, no matter how small.

  But there wasn’t one. When I slept, I dreamt of the pain. Then I woke, and felt it all over again. I was waiting for the day when I would finally run out of tears.

  That day came when I let myself forget about it for a split second, my mind wandering to my next heart-numbing fix.

  It was Sunday morning and I knew Julian would be at practice. I had two choices; I could wait till the back end of never for him to write out his life journal, or I could be brave, go out there and find it out for myself. Or I could go find Sidney and unload Julian on her. I stacked my pen on top of my notebook and put them both in my bag. I let myself into Marilyn’s room, the creaking of the door instigating a ruffle under the sheets. “Marilyn?”

  She made a noise that sounded like a last-dying breath.

  “Do you know Sidney?”

  More shuffling and then her head emerged from her pillow. She opened one eye, squinting at me. “Sidney, two doors down, Sidney?”

  Bingo.

  “That’s
the one,” I said. “Thanks. Go back to sleep.”

  Marilyn and morning were two M’s that did not go together.

  At my desk I wrote out a note asking Sidney if she took Professor Lucas’s Monday and Wednesday Sociology class, and I would trade her partner for Julian if she was interested. I left her my number and slid it under what I hoped was the right door. Then I put my hair up into the highest and messiest of all buns and didn’t bother to take off my reading glasses. I kept a pullover in the car that I sometimes used for ice-skating. I would cover up my crappy, faded T-shirt with it.

  Walking to my car, my phone lit up in my fingers. Wow, she was fast. It was a long shot, her taking the same class, but I was desperate for a break.

  Jordan: I miss you. I’m so fucking confused. I thought I didn’t want a girlfriend but I want you.

  I read the message and then re-read it, again and again waiting for the words to change. When they never I almost squealed on the spot. He missed me. Jordan missed me.

  I was floating so high, not even Julian was going to burst my sweet little bubble. I sent a message back telling him I missed him too. Unless I’d got it all wrong, I’m pretty sure he was saying we weren’t breaking up.

  We weren’t breaking up.

  There had been a weight on my chest for the past five days, and I was now taking my first real breath. I couldn’t get enough air without Jordan and it was a scary truth how much I had aligned myself to another person. I felt a stab of irritation amongst my elation for losing myself so readily somewhere along the way. I hated how badly I wanted him, it couldn’t be healthy. It wasn’t healthy, because I’d felt what it was like to try and survive without him.