How We Fall by Kate Brauning Read Free Book Online Page A

strange feeling constricted my stomach, just like yesterday morning. He sounded like he meant as friends, but he didn’t.
    “You’re pretty sentimental for a dude, you know that?” I had to get him off this topic. “If you like this so much, instead of making out next time, we can come out here and pull dandelions.
    Sound good to you?”
    He laughed. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of commitment.” He sat back on his heels and his grin faded. “I mean it, though. I like doing things like this with you. That’s all I meant yesterday. I just wanted to hang out with you some place that wasn’t home or the stand or school.”
    For some reason, my face flushed. After everything we’d done, I was turning red at this. “Maybe you need more guy friends.”
    “I have plenty of guy friends. But we don’t talk about anything, really. We play video games. But you and I, we talk about stuff.”
    Of course, I said the dumbest thing possible. “Well, then you need more girl friends.”
    His eyebrows drew together. “Girl friends or a girlfriend?”
    My stomach lurched. “I don’t know. Whatever you want.”
    Irritation thinned his voice. “I like having you for a friend, Jackie. I like that you’re around and that we get along. If that’s a problem, if I’m not supposed to actually like hanging out with you, then whatever. I don’t know how this is supposed to go anymore.”
    40
    Kate Brauning
    I hadn’t meant to shut him down. I wasn’t entirely sure why he was upset, so I didn’t say anything. I really liked that he liked hanging out with me, but the lines were getting blurred. Maybe I was worrying for nothing, but it didn’t feel like it.
    “Yes, you do,” I said. “And you keep pushing it.”
    He stared at me. “What is going on with you lately?”
    “I’m just saying, we have to stick to our rules.”
    “Jackie. Come on.”
    I rubbed a clod of dirt between my fingers until it crumbled.
    “Fine. I want to back off a little. You said you didn’t want to hurt me, and you’re not.” I took a deep breath and steadied my hands on my dirt-streaked thighs. My voice turned into a whisper. “But I feel so guilty all the time. Like Uncle Ward and Aunt Shelly can see it on me. I hate sneaking around. I hate being angry that you’re the reason for it. It’s not your fault, exactly, but—”
    “But what?” His voice was flat, but I couldn’t look at him or I wouldn’t be able to say it.
    “I don’t like what it does to us,” I said. “All the guilt. All these things we can’t do. Feeling like we break up every time we go inside. I can’t keep it separate. It’s making me resent you.”
    “Resent me.” His voice dropped off on the last word.
    “Not for real. It’s just getting hard to keep things separate,” I said. I finally looked at him, and his face was completely blank.
    No expression whatsoever.
    He didn’t answer me. After a few minutes of nothing but the pop of roots, he stood and strode to the house. He disappeared inside and let the door bang.
    I sank onto the grass and stared at the laces on my shoes. It would be so much easier if we weren’t friends. If he was just a guy from town I barely cared about.
    He shouldn’t be mad. Everything I’d said was true. We needed more than our rules if we were going to keep things 41
    How we Fall
    from getting screwed up between us.
    My sister would know what to do, if I could just talk to her about it. I wanted to text her, but there wasn’t a thing I could say about the situation that would make sense. If Ellie had stayed in town, I couldn’t have told her, but I would have wanted to.
    I should have kept up with Ellie. She’d been my only friend my first year out here, and my closest friend until she left. A little quiet, maybe, but I liked that. She’d always tried to set me up with her guy friends, because she always said unless I had a boyfriend, I wasn’t really in high school. I’d laughed it off as a joke, but