If You Fall

Thirty Nine

Ari was gone in the morning, "done a runner" as Dane called it. She took some of her clothes that had just arrived from their house in San Luis Obispo, but left everything else, most notably all her meds. No note, and she wouldn't answer their texts or calls.

The next day was the same, and then it was my birthday and her voicemail was full.

There was no celebration for me turning twenty-three, which I understood. Bella got flourless dark chocolate cake and we all ate it but it tasted bad. She also gave me new paints and brushes.

Reed gave me a necklace with an infinity sign and Bella wisely kept her mouth shut. I treasured it quietly.

Bella went back to my old house that night. I woke up at three and Reed's side of the bed was empty. It was raining. I got up and pulled on sweats, then a hoodie, and went to get him.

He was sitting on the little four inch high slab of concrete that made up the porch of our little cottage, smoking. An awning was over it but it dripped in several places and the area was less than dry. I stepped out and closed the door behind me, sitting by him.

He leaned his head on my shoulder, and sighed. His cigarette met his lips and he blew the smoke out into the rain. Everything about him claimed defeat.

"Has she done this before?"

He raised his head and shrugged a little. "Oui, several times. Once for two weeks. We found her in a hospital three hours away, in a fugue state. She was a Jane Doe." He exhaled sharply, almost a laugh. "We don't even know her real name, t'sais? Malone picked 'Arianna' out from a soap opera she followed that Ari would sneak in and watch from behind the couch."

Cold wind blew the rain in on us for a few seconds. I pulled my hood up, wishing I had on a jacket. "She's never told you?"

He shook his head. "She doesn't know. Don and Malone know, bec--" he realized his mistake and corrected himself with a small shake of his head. "Malone knew, and Don knows, because after we found her they searched for her family. First they thought she was French, so that took up a year, and then they searched for families missing from America when they realized she was American. They established she had no other family." He took the last drag off his cigarette and ground it out. "She made them promise never to tell her or anyone else her real name, and if she remembers, she has not let on."

I pictured the nameless, broken kid she had been and my mind shied away from it. I wanted to say something, anything that would make a difference. But I had nothing. "C'mon, let's go in." I said instead, gently. I coaxed him to his feet and he obediently followed me, beyond thinking for himself at that point.

In our room, I peeled off his soaked coat, and he just stood and watched me numbly. A week's worth of stubble coated his chin. The dark smudges under his lower lashes looked like bruises. "You have to sleep," I told him. He was shivering as the warmer temperature of the house hit him. I thought of all the blows he'd sustained over the last month and winced inwardly. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head, lifting his arms automatically to let me pull his shirt over his head. His forlorn eyes continued to hold mine, as if to look away would mean he would lose his anchor. But no pressure. He reached up to readjust his charms as the shirt came off and then unbuttoned his jeans and stepped out of them when they pooled at his feet.

I held up the blankets and he got in where I had been, where it was still warm, moving as if he were full of lead. The haunted look in his eyes as I pulled up the blanket worried me. "Be right back."

I got one of his sleeping pills and used the bathroom. He took the pill without complaint.

"I'm sorry about your birthday," he said drowsily, rolling over onto his stomach so I could have my side back. His face was turned away.

"I'm sorry about yours." I ditched my sweats and got in, laying on my side in order to scratch his cold back under the covers.

"Me, too," he mumbled into the pillow.

I traced a circle on his back, then a star, then a rectangle. Lightning lit up the room like a camera flash. Immediately thunder boomed and sent a thrill through me, even as he jumped slightly in response. He was not a big fan of thunder. What thrilled me about it on a primal level scared him on the same level.

Of course, I'd never willingly hidden outside in a raging storm as a small child to escape unspeakable horrors, so there was that.

"It's okay," I said absently, resting the weight of my hand for a moment on his back before continuing to trace shapes. I made a stick person, a heart, a flower. I brushed his hair back from his forehead, a totally unnecessary move. He was getting warmer, his breaths slower and deeper.

Lightning flashed again, but the thunder was a little more distant this time. He still started awake and turned his head to face me, closing his eyes again. "It's going away," I observed, my voice low.

I drew a square, a lazy infinity sign to match my necklace, the letter I and another heart and the letter U.

"Love you too," he murmured, and I was really glad he wasn't awake enough to see me blush as much as I did.

Malone's and Joey's funerals were held the next day in San Luis Obispo, but only Don went. I didn't know how it would have otherwise been handled, but with Ari missing it made it an easy decision for Reed and Dane.

On New Year's Eve we sat on top of the water tower and watched the fireworks. We were the only climbers so it was just us, though Dane and Bella waited below with some of Bella's vodka.

Needless to say there was no New Year's kiss.