Fear of Falling(117)

“Please, Kam? This girl needs you. You could potentially save her life.”

I let out a resigned sigh. I imagined myself in one of those old cartoons where Elmer Fudd morphs into a giant lollipop after Bugs Bunny makes a total sucker out of him. “Fine, fine. See if she’ll come to the next origami class. I’ll stay after and talk to her then. But I can’t promise anything.”

Dom attacked me with a huge, wet kiss on the cheek. “Thank you so much, Kam. I swear you won’t regret this; you’ll see.” He climbed to his feet and stretched his broad, muscular body and yawned. “I’m gonna try to grab a nap. Gotta date tonight. Thanks, Kam. Love you.”

He was at my door when I called out to him, stopping him in his tracks. “Hey, Dom?”

“Yeah?” he asked, spinning around.

“I love you too.”

Even from across the room, I could see the tears shining in his eyes. He smiled and looked away, trying to compose himself, then nodded. Moisture was already bathing his cheeks before he could turn and escape my bedroom.





I was cooking an early dinner on a Friday night when Angel entered the kitchen before heading to Dive to perform. Her expression was unreadable though I knew something was bothering her.

“Spit it out,” I finally said, as she munched on a slice of the red bell pepper I was slicing for the stir-fry.

“What do you mean?” she answered with her best doe-eyed guise. I could see right through those big baby blues and pouty, glossed lips.

“The thing that you’re just itching to tell me. Go ahead and say it. What happened? Seduced another lonely housewife in our building? Corrupted someone’s daughter?”

“Now why do you always think the worst of me? I’m not some sexual deviant!” she scoffed with a hand on her narrow hip.

“Could’ve fooled me,” I laughed.

“Hmph. Well, for your information, it’s about you. So there!” She turned on her heel to make her dramatic exit.

“Wait! What about me?”

Slowly, again for dramatic effect, Angel turned to face me, wearing a mischievous grin. “I don’t know if I should give it to you. But I’m running out of time, and, with what Dom and Dr. Cole said, it could really get me in trouble. And you’ve been doing…”

“What? Ok, back up. What are you talking about? What did Dom and Dr. Cole say?”

I set down the knife I was holding and sat down at the breakfast table, motioning for Angel to do the same. With a deep breath and a quick glance over her shoulder, she reluctantly did the same.

“Now spill it. And start from the beginning.”

Angel took a deep breath, as she nervously fingered her blonde hair. “After what happened to you, after the attack, you were adamant about us not mentioning…um…Blaine. Like you really wanted nothing to do with him. So we tried to just act like he never existed. You know, anything to help you get better. So when, uh, Blaine gave me something to give you a few weeks later, I went to Dom about it. To ask him what I should do.”

“Wait a minute. Blaine gave you something for me?” I squeaked. It was a miracle that I could even get the words out. Just hearing his name nearly stole my breath.

“Well…yeah. But it’s weird. I don’t know; I just don’t get why he’d want you to have that. But anyway, let me finish. So I tell Dom about it, and he told me not to give it to you. Said that Dr. Cole thinks that any reminder of what happened to you or the events leading up to that could trigger some mental breakdown. I had to agree. I mean, you were pretty scary for a while there.”

I couldn’t argue with her there. The weeks following my attack had been a blur. Like a total out of body experience. I wasn’t all there. It was like my subconscious had created this steel cocoon that no one could penetrate while my mind digested what had happened to me. Between the drugs from the surgeries to fix my mangled face, and then accepting the new me, I was a zombie. I was dead inside. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to think. And I damn sure didn’t want to talk about it. Only the arrival of my mom, the only person that was probably more broken than me, snapped me out of it. Seeing her face opened the floodgates. All the emotions that were battling to reach the surface came bursting out. And for days, they didn’t stop.

“So now you feel like you’re running out of time to give it to me?”

Angel shrugged. “Yeah. I kinda am.”

I chewed my lip, wondering if I wanted to open this door. Yeah, my heart was still undoubtedly Blaine’s, but I had accepted the end of us. I was moving on and getting better. I needed to stay on this path. Straying from it could seriously be dangerous for my recovery.