Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park Read Free Book Online

next to impossible.
    Matt held the door to the T station open for her. Julie thought that it seemed awfully crowded for a weekday afternoon, and the top landing by the stairs was mobbed with people talking on cell phones, bumping into her, and blocking her view. The heat from the swarm of commuters added to her increasing exhaustion and discomfort. She stepped closer to Matt so she wouldn’t lose him and followed him onto the staircase. Or what she thought was the staircase.
    And then her heart started to pound. “Wait, no! No! No escalators. Matt, I don’t do escalators.” Julie tried to step off, but she was too late, now feeling as though she were plunging straight down, unsecured and helpless. She glanced at the bottom of the landing, aware of the hideously steep incline and the slow pace of the escalator. Dizzy and overwhelmingly anxious, Julie could see shapes begin to blur and felt her knees tremble as the vertigo took over.
    “Julie? Julie?” She was aware of Matt’s voice, but it sounded foggy and unnatural. She could make out his green T-shirt as he turned toward her, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her in as she started to drop. “I got you,” he said. “I won’t let you fall. Just hold on.” He held her tightly against his chest, and she briefly wondered if he was wearing Axe body spray.
    “Boooo,” she murmured.
    “What did you say? Are you OK? Just hold on for another minute.”
    And then suddenly they were off the horrible escalator, Julie still awkwardly slumped in his arms while people swarmed around them.
    “Oh. Sorry.” Alert enough to know that she didn’t want to faint in a T station, she pulled back a bit, trying to steady herself against Matt as she forced her legs to work. He was surprisingly strong for someone who likely spent most of his day hunched over a scientific calculator. Slowly the world came into focus again, and she found herself staring at his shirt, which enthusiastically announced
FTW!
    For. The. Win
, she mouthed and shut her eyes in dismay.
    She felt drunk, the way she had after those three shots of putrid peppermint schnapps at the prom. She wasn’t a big drinker (as evidenced that night, when she hurled up chickendivan in the ladies’ room at the Hotel Carnegie), and she didn’t care for the similar feeling she had now.
    She poked her finger into his chest. “Matthew, my friend, you need some new clothes.”
    “Thank you.”
    She looked up at him dizzily. “Do you have one geeky shirt for every day of the week?”
    “More than that. Don’t worry.”
    “I am flooded with relief.”
    “Are you OK now?”
    “Oh.” Julie realized she was still slouched into him. “Yes. I’m…I’m perfectly OK. Brilliant.” She dropped her hands from his chest and took a step back. There. She could see normally, and her knees were no longer comprised solely of gelatin. “Sorry about that. Let’s go get our train.”
    Matt looked at her skeptically. “If you’re sure.”
    “Yeah. I’m fine. See?” She jumped up and down. “All motor function has been restored. Physiological integrity is intact. I can now continue not finding an apartment.”
    “You’re very goofy.”
    The underground platform area was cool and helped Julie feel human again. The downside of which was that she could now fully appreciate how embarrassing her near-fainting spell was. She was very good about avoiding situations that brought on an attack, but she hadn’t been able to see that damn escalator through all the T riders.
    They had to wait only a few minutes before the next train screeched to a halt. She and Matt stepped onto the train and sat down in seats that faced the center of the car. Julie crossed her legs and tried to appear as composed as one could after such an incident.
    She tucked her hair behind her ears. “So now you know that I don’t like escalators. Or elevators, I imagine, although Ihaven’t been on one in years. Maybe I’ve improved. It makes me fall