Page 14 of Fall Over You

I already see her outside the shop window, the weight of the world coming back into her expression. An ache like a poked bruise. I feel that ache sometimes too, and wonder if she feels it the way I do.

But my moment of humanizing someone I’ve demonized stops short. She pulls a cigarette from her jacket pocket and pops it between her lips, shielding the lighter from the wind as she lights up.

Becca Martin is still, underneath it all, a hazard.

I line up my fingers with the football’s laces and throw it high. Dustin drops back to catch it and gives me some lip about the bombs I’m passing these days. It’s hard to keep up friendships when you’re a single parent, but Dusty and I get our girls together in the park every Wednesday. We toss a ball and catch up, and it’s one of my favorite things about living in the town I grew up in. Dusty and I were inseparable growing up, always up to something we shouldn’t have been. In our teens, we did odd jobs together for extra cash, cash that fed into our bad decisions.

“Hey, guess whose truck is in my shop?”

“Who?” He throws the ball back to me, and I glance over at the girls playing in the sand on the baseball diamond. No one’s eating or throwing dirt, so we’re good to keep playing catch for a little while longer.

“Your sister.”

Dusty’s expression darkens. “Wait, what’s wrong with her truck? How’s she getting around? She should know how to fix anything⁠—”

“She does. It’s the timing belt. Said she can’t do it on her own.”

Dusty grunts as he catches my throw. “Are you playing nice?”

The corner of my lips lifts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He cocks his head at me before throwing the ball back to me. “You usually make a buzzer noise when I start talking about her. It’s actually pretty shitty of you⁠—”

“Language!” I scold him right as Ellie comes running over.

“I want to go on the swings, Daddy!”

I point at Dusty with the football. “Yeah, see? It’s time for the swings anyway.”

He’s undeterred. “Why do you hate Becca so much?”

Ellie whips around where she’s leading us to the swings. “You hate Miss Becca?”

I put my hands out. “I don’t hate anyone. Hate is a very mean word.”

Her eyes start to fill with tears. “I love Miss Becca.”

Dusty rounds his eyes at me and pouts his lip. “I love Miss Becca too. Tyler, can’t you love Miss Becca?”

I glare at him. “Of course you love her. She’s your sister.”

“I want a sister,” Ellie says and I sigh. Add “sibling” and “loving woman figure” to my list of fatherly shortcomings.

“I know, shug.”

We arrive at the swingset and I lift Ellie into one of those bucket swings. My thoughts darken, and all I can think about is all the things CJ said Becca told her. That she wasn’t fit to be a mom. That she was too messed up. That she “had options.”

Well, I guess Becca’s prophecy fulfilled itself in a way. CJ tried to be a good mom, but ultimately left anyway. But did Becca plant that idea in her head, or was CJ already destined to fail?

I push Ellie in her swing and Dusty pushes Ada, his two-year-old daughter. We’re godfather to each other’s daughters, and I could probably do a better job of playing with Ada.

“I want to go to Miss Becca’s fall fest,” Ellie declares. “I’ve never been.”

“Tyler,” Dustin gasps. “You haven’t taken my goddaughter to my sister’s pumpkin patch?”

I sigh and lean back on one hip, crossing my arms. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t, I just haven’t.”

“Push higher!” Ellie reminds me and I put my hands back out.