The Upside of Falling

Where are you? it read.
Outside, I typed back.
. . . Why?
I shut my phone off and returned to my book.
A minute later, a shadow loomed over me.
“You stood me up,” Brett said, stealing one of my grapes.
“I don’t like eating inside.” I placed the bookmark on the page and looked
up. “And I really don’t want to eat at the jock table, Brett.”
“Oh.” His eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t even think of that. Give me a
second.”
Before I could ask why, he was running away, back through the cafeteria
doors. A moment later he burst through them, holding a tray of food in one hand
and his backpack in the other, this huge smile on his face.
“I’m not letting you eat out here alone,” he said, taking a seat. “We have an
image to uphold, sweetie.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sweetie?”
“No? You don’t like it? What about babe? Baby?”
I laughed, swatting his hand away when he reached for another grape. “First

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rule is nicknames are not allowed.”
Brett nodded. “Becca it is. What are the other rules?”
“No PDA,” I said.
He pouted. “Was the kiss really that bad?”
“I don’t like the staring.”
“We’ll come back to that,” he said. “You need to come to my football games
every Friday.”
“Every Friday? What about every other Friday?”
“Every Friday,” he repeated. “Nonnegotiable. And I want you in the stands
screaming my name. Remind me to give you my spare jersey.”
“Then I’m not eating lunch inside the cafeteria.”
“Oh, I already knew that much,” he said, taking a bite of his hamburger. “I
agree to relocate to this table. What about some kissing? Hand holding? No
one’s gonna believe we’re dating if there’s three feet of space between us at all
times.”
I tried to play it cool. My face was saying, “Yeah, I kiss boys for fun all the
time. Done it loads. Experienced kisser? That’s me, nice to meet you,” while my
insides were that black-and-white static sound televisions make when the
channel doesn’t work.
“Fine. Lessen the space and minimal touching. Got it.”
Brett grinned. “The best part.”
I rolled my eyes.
“We need to have the same story about how this started,” I said.
“We probably should have discussed this yesterday.”
“I was too busy running away from you,” I half joked.
Brett laughed. “Back to this story; what are you thinking?”
It took a second for my brain to sift through every romance book I’ve read
and piece together a situation that could work. “We met at the beginning of
summer break,” I said. “I was in the park reading and you were playing
football.”
“And I was obviously shirtless,” he added.
“Obviously.”
“Then you fell madly in love with me—” he said, ducking when I threw a
grape at his head. Then I froze because I had just thrown a grape at Brett’s head.
But he was grinning, so I don’t think he felt weird about it. “Nice throw. So, one
glance at you with your nose buried in a book and my heart was a goner? And
we kept our relationship a secret because you didn’t want all the attention once
school started?”
I nodded, absent-mindedly toying with the pages of my book. “Then I guess

---

that’s how our love story began,” I said.
“Now we just need to see how it ends.”
I only then noticed how long Brett’s eyelashes were. They grazed his cheeks
every time he blinked, long enough to cause a windstorm of their own. Blink.
Blink. Blink. They kept batting as we stared at each other. He had this goofy
cartoon smile on his face.
The sun disappeared after that, hiding behind a cloud. He looked different
out of the sunlight. It felt like the perfect time to ask the question that had been
weighing on me all day. “Why are you doing this?” I finally asked. “You know
most girls and plenty of guys in this school would date you. Like, real dating. So
why me? Why fake it?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, resting his elbows on the table and
planting his chin on top, “but I think your answer has something to do with what
you said in English class yesterday, about how dangerous love is.”
I shrugged. “My parents had a weird divorce. What’s your excuse?”
“The opposite. My parents have this perfect marriage—”
“So it seems.”
“See? Everyone knows about it. It’s like some citywide Cinderella story or
something. My dad always gives me these talks on how I should date in high
school, play the field like he never could.”
“Why couldn’t he?”
“My mom got pregnant with me when she was a senior. My dad gave up
football, his scholarship—everything for her. For me. It’s like he wants me to
continue living from where he left off. You know?”
I nodded, thinking about my mom’s persistence that I date and find the love
she lost. “Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”
“But I’m not interested in dating in high school,” Brett continued. “I’ve got
good grades and a good thing going with football. I have my parents and that’s
enough for me. I always wanted to leave settling down for after college. But my
dad doesn’t see it like that.”
“So a fake girlfriend is just what you need. Keeps your dad happy and takes
the pressure off you.”
“Kind of makes me sound like a dick,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “In a way, it’s like we’re mutually using each
other. And we can just be friends along the way.”
Brett pointed at my sandwich. “You gonna finish that?” I pushed the tray
across the table to him. “Thanks. So what’s up with you and Jenny? That
argument was intense.”
I explained the odd, unspoken tension we’d had since freshman year. Then

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Brett said, “That kiss must’ve really pissed her off.”
“I think so.”
Brett finished the sandwich, brushed his hands on his T-shirt, then reached
across the table. “So we’ll pretend to be dating for a few months, then have a
mutual breakup, and part as friends. Deal?” he asked.
For once, I tried not to overthink this. I shook his hand. “Deal.”
Brett grinned. “Great,” he said, then pointed back to the book between us.
“So, if this were one of your books, who would we be?”
“That depends,” I said. “What kind of book is it? A romance? Mystery?
Fairy tale?”
“Fairy tale,” Brett said very seriously.
“I’m guessing you want to be the prince?”
“Only if you’re the princess.”
I left school that day with a smile on my face. I wasn’t the best actress—I
nearly failed sophomore drama class—but, together, we could pull this off. Brett
seemed to be nailing the fake-boyfriend role already. I was starting to think he’s
one of those people who’s naturally good at everything.
After last period, Brett met me at my locker and offered to drive me home. I
refused, saying I wanted to walk. My mind was nearly reaching overdrive, and I
needed a few minutes to be alone and think the day over. This was only day one
and I was overwhelmed. Why couldn’t I just stick to reading romance books?
Why did my life have to become one? Luckily, like my romance novels, this was
all fake. And there was no danger in that.
It was kind of like getting the best of both worlds: a relationship without the
risk of heartbreak.
Lost in thought, I didn’t even think about where my feet were taking me until
I was passing the park that connected to the street my father lived on. Part of me
was ashamed to know the directions to his house by heart. I saw the address once
on a letter that came in the mail addressed to my mom. I think it was a check he
sent for child support. I scribbled the address down, then pretended I never saw
it.
I was thirteen the first time I walked here. The house was empty. There were
no cars in the driveway. I felt so guilty that I didn’t return for another year. It
was like a betrayal to my mom to be here, chasing after him when he left us. The
next time, he was sitting on his porch. I had to hide behind a tree so my dad
wouldn’t see me.
I started visiting once a month after that. Eventually there was another
woman. She’d open the door when his car pulled into the driveway and kiss him
hello. She had long, curly black hair. Nothing like my mom’s short blonde bob. I

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never told her he was dating someone. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Or if
she even cared anymore.
Now I was standing at the end of the street, six houses down, behind a bush
that came halfway up my knees. His house was on the corner, with a wraparound
porch and a two-car garage that was painted the color of the sky.
I never got close enough that my father could look out a window and spot
me. I didn’t want to risk him seeing me. Ever. I wasn’t entirely sure my dad
would even recognize me now. I had changed a lot in five years. At least on the
outside.
It still hurt to think about how he left. How he never looked back. My mom
got full custody of me too. They never even went to court. He just agreed. They
signed the papers and then it was done. I didn’t really understand it when I was
twelve. I thought I’d spend weekends with my dad and weekdays with my mom
like I’d seen in movies. But then months passed by and he never picked me up.
Whenever I asked my mom, she said he was busy. I later learned my dad wanted
what was considered a “fresh start.” And you couldn’t have that with a twelve-
year-old, a walking reminder of your past.
The hardest part was that it was so unexpected. My parents never fought.
There weren’t any signs. Then again, I was a kid and probably would have
missed them anyway. But there was nothing that stood out in my mind. I
remembered my mom leaving for work in the morning—back when she was a
nurse—and my dad kissing her goodbye. He was home during the day and
worked night shifts at a warehouse in town. He picked me up from school. He
bought me ice cream in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. There were
no bad memories. No moment that I can pinpoint and say yeah, that’s where