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Except it didn’t feel like I was falling.
It felt like I was flying.
It bolstered me, fortified me, and a flush of conviction steeled my bones.
I had no doubts. And I wanted him to know it. I’d never wanted to fucking say three words more than I did right now.
“Pretty Boy?” I murmured, holding his eyes.
His lids flickered, widening briefly. “Yeah?”
I bit my lip and grinned. “I’ll see you at Danny’s tonight.”
His mouth formed a smirk, eyes dancing like he knew I was a fucking tease.
He’d find out soon enough, but I couldn’t make it that easy. He wouldn’t want me to.
I blew him a kiss and spun on my heel, floating down the sidewalk in a bubble of elation and last night’s clothes.
My mom’s car was in the driveway, which meant they were home already. Hopefully, since my car was still here, they’d assume I was upstairs sleeping. If I snuck back in without drawing any attention to myself, I might make it to my bedroom without them seeing me. The last thing I wanted was for them to catch me mid-walk of shame and then face an interrogation. I was technically an adult, but mothers and aunts were nosy fuckers, and I wasn’t much up for sharing.
Gripping the door handle, I leaned my weight down on it gingerly. The latch barely made a sound as it released, and I tip-toed through the door and across the short hall. My foot was on the bottom step when my aunt’s voice carried through from the open kitchen doorway, making me pause.
“She needs to know, Mel. You can’t make this decision for her. She’s nineteen now.”
“What if she hates me?”
The complete despair in my mother’s voice was like a bucket of ice-cold water to my system. Dread iced my veins, freezing me in position. And instantly, I knew. I knew they were talking about me. And I knew whatever it was, I wouldn’t want to hear i
t. The tone of my mom’s voice was enough to have me wanting to bolt, to start my brain screaming, begging me to just fucking run. But I couldn’t make myself move. I stood rooted to the spot, every muscle locked in place, preventing my escape, because running wasn’t the answer. Instead, I stood and listened as the ground beneath my feet rocked and swayed, giving way.
“She won’t hate you, Mel. She could never hate you. It’ll be hard for her to get to grips with, of course, but she’ll know none of this is your fault.”
“I’ll never forgive myself if Liss or Bella has it. If I’ve passed on this horrible disease to my babies.”
My butt collided with the bottom step as comprehension dawned.
“Don’t think like that. We could never have predicted this. Dad died young, before he would have shown any symptoms. There’s nothing we could have done, Melinda. No one is at fault. It’s just… it’s…”
“One of them will have it,” my mom choked, her tortured voice riddled with rounds of endless pain.
“They might not.”
“It’s a fifty-fifty chance. One in two.”
“It doesn’t necessarily work like that. Let’s just try to focus our energy on staying positive.”
“Positive?” She said the word as if she had no concept of its meaning, and not in the sense that she’d forgotten, in the sense that in its usual context, it had no bearing whatsoever on this situation. “Are you going to get the test?”
“I… don’t know.”
I was moving, my feet travelling soundlessly across the floor without permission, some unseen force propelling me forward. My instinct was still to run, to avoid pain before it could hurt me, but this time, I kept moving closer to it. And then I was at the kitchen door, staring at two sisters, one light blonde, one dark blonde, their heads bent together, almost touching, hands clasped tight atop the kitchen table that bore witness to their heartbreak.
“I might have it?” It was my voice, but it sounded distant, far away—eerily emotionless and echoing in the silent room.
They both jumped, heads spinning.
“Oh, Liss, honey.”
