Free Falling

Chapter 3-1

Chapter Three

The box of tissues bounces off the side of Christopher’s head and lands with a plunk onto the carpet.

“What the—?” His hand shoots up to the spot on his head where the box clipped him.

“You’re lucky the paperweight was out of reach,” I snap.

I glance at the paperweight, and Christopher uses one hand to move it closer to him while he rubs his head with the other.

“What did Jason tell you?” I ask.

He drops his hand from his head. His skin is pink from where the edge of the box hit him. “Jason wouldn’t tell me anything about that night. He said I didn’t deserve to know.”

“He’s right.”

“So, you’re not going to tell me, either?”

I want to give in, want to reveal every detail about the night he squeezed what he’d left of my heart into a pulpy mess for his brother to clean up, but I don’t. I don’t want Christopher to think I still care. Don’t want him to think it still hurts. “Bottom line, Jason was there for me when you weren’t.”

Christopher pulls his loosened tie through his shirt collar and flips it onto his desk, then takes a seat. “I was eighteen, Free. There was so much more going on than you could have possibly known. We all made mistakes back then.”

I lean across the desk and jab my finger at his chest. “A mistake is grabbing a diet soda when you want a regular one. It’s forgetting to tell your server you want your salad dressing on the side. You and that . . .” I take a deep breath to compose myself. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter anymore. You and I are ancient history, and I’m not here for a walk through the ruins.”

I point to the papers on his desk. “We’re . . .” I begin, hesitating because I know that saying “we” is stretching it. When I left the restaurant less than half an hour ago, my mother had already given up. I go with it anyway. “We’re going to sign the lease, we just need a little more time. The freezer at the restaurant is acting up, and I’ll need to replace it soon. And there are a few bills I need to get ahead of, but I’ve got a couple really promising catering gigs in the pipeline.”

I look around the office before returning my attention to him. The office, the suit, the slick hair, all belong to a Christopher I barely recognize. But those eyes. When he leans back in his chair and looks up at me, I finally get a glimpse of the Christopher I remember. The pre-heartbreak, pre-corporate Christopher. It gives me just enough hope to ask him for help. “Look, I didn’t know what would happen when I got here today. I didn’t know you were the man I’d be meeting. I just knew I had to try and save the restaurant.” I rest my hands on his desk and lean forward. “So it’s just you and me now, and regardless of what happened between us in the past, my father was good to you. His memory deserves better than this. If you could just . . .”

Christopher looks down at his watch, a watch that could probably pay the rent on Cecelia’s for the next few months. When he looks up, he stares past me, stone-faced. Ice.

I step back, then say the words I know will thaw him. “When your own father didn’t give a damn about you, mine did. When you didn’t know if you had food at your house, he sent you home with food from the restaurant. And your father? Before he showed up that summer of our junior year, you didn’t even know who he was.”

The ice cracks, an almost audible snap that, for a split second, makes Christopher look shaky. But he recovers quickly. “Yet this,” he says, standing and surveying his office, his arms spread wide, “will be my father’s legacy to me.” He takes me in slowly, from the top of my disheveled bun to my road-weary Converses. He glares at the papers on his desk and points at them. “And that mess is what your father left you.”

The blow lands where it hurts most. Right to my pride. Right to the spot he left raw so many years ago. But I don’t react to his words; I don’t even flinch. Instead, I grab a pen from my bag, drag the lease agreement toward me, and flip to the last page. “I don’t need your favors, and I don’t need your help. I don’t now, and I didn’t back then.” My hand shakes as I sign the line above the word Lessee. I’ll beg Mom for forgiveness later.

Christopher and I stare at each other. The whir of the air conditioner kicks in as we stand inches from each other and miles away from the kids we were when we first fell in love. I’m halfway to the door before it dawns on me that I haven’t asked the question I wanted to ask the minute I realized he was C. J. Eubanks.

“Why did you change your name?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at him.

He pauses as if weighing whether or not to answer. “Eubanks is my father’s last name.”

I nod, letting out as derisive a laugh as I can muster.

“What?” he snaps.

“Before you met him, before you knew what kind of man he really was, you used to say you wanted to be just like your father. Well congratulations, Christopher, now you are.”

A twitch in his jaw is the only sign that my words affect him. I throw the door open and head down the hall, past the Bun—who obviously didn’t heed her boss’s order to leave—through the glass-windowed doors, and across carpet that now feels as heavy as quicksand under my feet.