Lessons in Falling Read online

I could have the worst practice at the gym, an argument with Dad, radio silence from Richard. Then I get in the passenger’s seat of Cassie’s car, walk through the pavilion teeming with little kids and ice cream cones, and run across the sand. Something about the incessant beating of the waves against the shore can make anything feel lighter.

  I watch the waves until a tiny bit of the embarrassment ebbs away. Who needs gymnastics? Who needs a license, dammit?

  A gaggle of my fellow seniors tosses a Frisbee back and forth. Several girls lay out in bikini tops, either impermeable to the wind or not caring. In solidarity, Andreas Alvarez scampers around with no shirt on. “Put down the damn metal detector and have some fun already!” he shouts at Marcos Castillo, whose metal detector skims the ground near the Frisbee game. When Marcos shakes his head, Andreas fires the disc at him anyway. Classy.

  Next to the rocks that jetty into the foaming water, a girl is barefoot and crouched low on the sand, pink skirt flowing around her legs as the ocean sweeps against the shore. The cold is nothing to her. Long blonde ringlets flap against her face as she raises the camera and points the tremendous lens at me. In that exact instant, I stumble over a piece of driftwood. Graceful. She should turn the camera toward herself. I’m the one who’s a mess.

  “You did it!” she shouts, lowering the camera. “My baby girl is all grown up.”

  “Yeah, about that.” I wipe bits of dried seaweed from my jeans.

  “No burritos? It’s okay, I’ll forgive you this once.” Cassie trails behind me as I climb onto the rocks. They’re slick with spray, but I’ve spent so much of my childhood leaping across them that I barely notice.

  “More like nada,” I say to the ocean. I should have just texted her. Despite the thundering of the waves and that familiar clamminess from the salt air, there’s no drowning out the way it feels like shit to voice the words.

  She scampers next to me and extends to her full height, nearly six feet and slender as the single birch tree in her yard. “No.”

  “Yes.” Failure to use proper judgment. I glower at the blue-green waves. They’re just as riled as I am, crashing against the rocks and spraying with a hiss.

  Her arm loops around me. We look ridiculous side by side, something people at every party this summer made sure to point out to us. Without fail, someone would toss Cassie a beer and then spot me. “Cass, is this your little sister?”

  I reached five feet when I was twelve–with a victorious shout in the nurse’s office when she read off the number to me–and haven’t grown since.

  Cassie squeezes me close. She’s not laughing at me, although she probably wants to. Heck, I would if it were anyone besides me. “The DMV sucks,” she says. “They know nothing.”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t need your license. I’ll drive you.”

  “Forever?” I raise a doubtful eyebrow.

  “Who needs art school when I can be a professional chauffeur?” she says, and although I roll my eyes, I can’t help but laugh.

  “I’m going to move where I can use mass transit for the rest of my life.”

  Cassie’s smile slips as her eyes widen, like I’ve said something truly profound. “That. Is. Brilliant.”

  “It’s for the common good, I think.”

  Her words sprint now, almost as fast as she waves her hands. “Think about it, Savs. You, me, New York City. Roommates.”

  “I wasn’t planning on applying to any schools in the city.” In fact, I still don’t have a clear plan on where I’m applying besides where I’m not going: Ocean State.

  “NYU. Columbia.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “You know you’ll get in.”

  “How about the gazillion dollars in tuition?”

  She doesn’t bat an eye. “We’ll get jobs, obviously.”

  That’s the thing with Cassie. She says something totally unreasonable–that she’ll drive me around for the rest of my life. That she and I can just move to the city and get jobs–and she says it with such confidence that it actually sounds possible. For the first time all day–in months–hope blooms in my chest. I might have a future that isn’t a failure.

  A tiny part of me still asks, What about gymnastics? After all, there are no NYC colleges with teams.

  Well, what about gymnastics? I haven’t stepped foot in the gym since I blew out my knee right in front of the Ocean State coach. There’s no point. My body has given up on me one too many times.

  When I don’t counter with another question, she squeezes me closer. Despite the salt air, she smells like lavender and cinnamon as always. “It’ll be so awesome that they’ll send a reality TV crew to record our shenanigans.”

  I focus on that blossoming hope. Living together in an apartment the size of a closet, surviving off Ramen noodles–with Cassie, it’ll be an adventure, shimmering with possibility. I’ll walk briskly over cement sidewalks instead of on four-inch-wide balance beams.

  “Gymnastics is the boyfriend you need to get over,” Cassie says firmly, as though she knows exactly where my mind has wandered. “You would have had to quit eventually.”

  I’d wanted to finish at the final meet of my senior year of college, teammates surrounding me. Not like this.

  I need to channel the same spirit that took Dad’s car and turned left out of the school parking lot. To make a bold plunge that doesn’t involve hurtling over the vault or swinging from bar to bar. If I have a definitive future plan, then my father will have to accept it when I tell him I’m moving on to bigger and better things outside of the gym.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  Cassie lifts me in the air and stumbles on the rock. We both scream and then burst out laughing.

  “We almost died!” I yell.

  “Sorry!” she yells back. “I’m just so glad you’re not ditching me next year.”

  The guys stop playing Frisbee and watch us curiously. On the outskirts of their circle, Marcos passes the disc from hand to hand like he’s contemplating his next move.

  “I was never going to ditch you.” The spray catches my ankles, and I step back.

  She shrugs, popping off the camera lens cap. “Rhode Island, same thing. Strike a pose. We need to capture this moment.”

  “Rhode Island, same thing” prickles at me. So does the cool water seeping through the bottom of my jeans.

  “Something cool,” she says. “Do a handstand.”

  I can’t count how many handstand photos I have, taken by Cassie, now stowed away in a folder on my computer. It’s as natural a position as walking on my feet.

  She already has the camera raised to her eye. I press my palms to the cool rock and kick up. As soon as I’m up, I know it’s going to be a good one. I split my legs, my fingers twitching as they shift their weight to keep me steady.

  Click. “Point those toes, Savannah Banana.”

  “What are we, seven?” I mutter to my hands, which slowly turn red from the cold and the strain.

  When we were seven years old and glued next to each other on the bus, Cassie had said, “I wish I had a normal name like Kaitlyn. Cascade is so weird.”

  I hadn’t known what Cascade meant. “My middle name’s Savannah.”

  “Savannah.” Her eyes had lit up. “I love that. I’m calling you Savannah from now on.”

  Ten years later, everyone’s adopted Savannah as my name. Besides the DMV. And my dad.

  The shutter snaps again. “Here marks the day that Savannah and Cassie decided to get out of this shit town forever, amen.”

  “It’s not that bad.” The familiar head rush hits me, blood steadily flowing to my forehead.

  “That’s like saying the guy with that ‘Jobs for Americans’ sign outside of 7-Eleven should run for president. Doesn’t compute.”

  A thud against the sand. “You think I can jump that high?” Andreas squawks. The shuffle of feet, the shouts of a few guys, and then one voice calls above them, “Savannah, watch out!”

  Thwack. The Fr
isbee hits me straight in my surgically repaired right knee. I cry out, more from shock than pain, and then I’m tipping, my hands scrambling to find purchase.

  On land, this would be no problem; I’d bail out and flip over.

  Up here, there are two choices: land on a rock or fall into the ocean.

  Stay up, stay up! Gravity makes the decision for me. My legs flail, my left hand walks forward and slips, and I plunge straight into the water.

  The cold consumes me so quickly that I can’t breathe. My arms and legs swing into action, moving automatically to the surface, fighting the tug of the receding tide. I throw my hand to touch the rock and instead find more water.

  Get out!

  The blurry distant sun is eclipsed by the crash of a wave. I battle the burn in my lungs and try to coast on the momentum of the next incoming wave that roils at my back. My arms are strained from exertion and my legs kick furiously. Up. That’s my only goal. The sun’s still too far away, my lungs are heavy and my arms are heavier–

  A strong hand grabs my arm and yanks me to the surface.

  I gasp in gulps of air and turn to Cassie. “Thanks–”

  Except my rescuer isn’t Cass. She’s still on the rocks, staring down at us with her mouth open and her camera hanging around her neck.

  It’s one very damp, very flustered Marcos Castillo.

  “Are you okay?” He treads water and breathes just as deeply as I do. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead and his eyes don’t move from mine despite the wave that ripples against his neck.

  Those words move Cass to action. “Get out of there, Savs! You’ll get hypothermia.”

  A small crowd gathers around the rocks. Great. “Damn, Savannah, that was awesome,” Andreas crows. “Do it again.”

  “It was your fault.” Cassie extends her hand to me. Although I can climb out on my own, I take it anyway. Her blue eyes are worried and her voice is strained. “Stupid Frisbee.”

  Marcos climbs up after me. His red shirt and jeans might as well be painted on. Meanwhile, I feel like I’ve just gained a thousand pounds in water weight. “I am so sorry,” he says. “It was my fault. I thought Andreas was gonna catch it–”

  “Nobody could have caught it!” Andreas calls back. “It was like ninety miles over my head.”

  “When you didn’t come out, I was like, holy shit.” Marcos runs a hand through his hair, trying to squeeze out some of the water. Instead, it sticks straight up.

  I hug myself, shivering as the wind blows. I’m colder now than I was in the ocean. “It’s okay.” I don’t like all of these eyes on me. I shouldn’t have done the stupid handstand to begin with. Once again, as this morning showed, mixing gymnastics with any other life endeavor leads to disaster.

  “Savannah’s like a champion swimmer,” Cass adds. “She would have been fine.”

  I snort. “I’m not a champion swimmer unless you count that time you made me race those Australian guys.”

  “That’s why I said like a champion swimmer.”

  Marcos’s head swivels back and forth between us, the water spraying off of his hair.

  “Anyway,” I say loudly, hoping Andreas and company get the hint, “I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

  Cass slings an arm around me despite the fact that I’m soaking wet. “Show’s over.”

  My teeth chatter as I nod in agreement. I really hope Dad’s got a towel lying around in the trunk. Right now I don’t care if it reeks of sweat from his bike rides.

  “Hot chocolate,” she says. “On me.”

  As we cross the dunes, I glance over my shoulder. The boys have resumed their game. Andreas takes off running, yelling, “Can’t get me, suckas!” Marcos hangs back on the fringes, watching us.

  Outside of her car, Cassie dries me off like I’m a puppy.

  “I can do it myself.” My voice is muffled under the towel.

  “You look so tiny and pathetic.” She gives my hair an extra yank. Her phone rings and she fumbles for it in her beaded purple bag. As soon as she checks the caller ID, her forehead creases.

  “Who is it?”

  “No one.”

  Definitely her father. He’s a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory who developed a microscopic chip that shoots nanoparticles. Or something. Any time the laboratory has a scientific breakthrough in the news, the odds are good that he’s part of it. Cass actually understands his research–she used to read out loud from his old physics textbooks when we were kids while I’d groan.

  The phone rings again. “You should answer,” I say.

  “You should go back to school before you get in trouble.”

  Yeah, that’s not happening. “What happened with your dad?”

  She exhales long and loud. “Same bullshit, different day. I’m the one scientific aberration he can’t figure out.”

  “What will your parents think about the city?”

  She tugs away the towel and folds it with quick, sharp thrusts. She doesn’t like me digging like this– whenever I’m at her house, she whisks me up to her room before I can do more than say hi to her parents– but I want to know.

  “I’m sure they won’t care so long as you’re with me,” she says.

  Her text tone rings. As she reads the message, her face relaxes.

  “Who’s that?” I know it, but I could be wrong–

  “Jules wants to take photos in Southampton.” Dammit. I was right. She tugs her keys from her bag. “It’ll probably be a couple of hours.”

  My stomach sinks. I’m being ditched for The Other Best Friend. “What about hot chocolate?” The towel helped, but I’m still soaked and freezing. I want her to stay with me, with the heat and the music cranked up in the car, finally dry and focusing on that glittery city. Not to frolic off to Juliana de los Santos, who I’m pretty sure hates me.

  Cassie’s already unlocked her door. “Text you later! Love you!” The door shuts, the brake lights glow red, and she backs out in a sweeping arc. I jump out of the way.

  “Love you,” I say to the exhaust puffing out of her tailpipe. Any lingering therapeutic effects from the ocean have dissipated as I stand here on the concrete, sopping wet and without a license. Terrific Senior Cut Day.

  I turn to Dad’s car, and my eyes hone in on the front driver’s-side tire. The one that’s now completely flat.

  Wonderful.

  Because this day couldn’t get any better.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “THAT DOESN’T LOOK good.”

  “Nope.” My hand pokes at the tire uselessly, like it’ll stop playing dead and wake up.

  Marcos squats beside me. Unlike me, he’s in a dry sweatshirt that smells like fresh cotton. “Got a donut?”

  Today is the most I’ve ever talked to Marcos. When I became serious about competitive gymnastics in third grade, I only saw my peers–besides Cassie–at school. I didn’t care about the day-to-day Ponquogue drama. School was where I rested between practices and did what I had to do to wow a prospective college coach with both gymnastics and grades. Outside of practice, I hung out with Cassie or my teammates. Now, school’s pretty much the only place I go.

  Marcos nods at my phone. “Do you have an app that’s going to fix it?”

  I crack a smile. “I’m looking for a tutorial.”

  His eyes widen like he’s impressed. Or he’s just realized how freakin’ cold that last gust of wind was. “I can help if you want.”

  I don’t have any other options besides calling Mom, which means she’ll call Dad, which means I’ll be scolded while still soaking wet and getting colder by the second. I extend a hand. “Work your magic.”

  Marcos takes the donut from the trunk and effortlessly carries it to the front of the car. His shoulders are broad, the kind that would make a male gymnast envious, and he places it lightly on the ground. “I can teach you.”

  I probably won’t be allowed out of the house again until I’m forty. I nod anyway.

  “First we’ve gotta get this guy off of th
e ground.” He places the jack under the car. I’ve seen this before– Richard loved tinkering with Dad’s car when he came home for college breaks–but a refresher won’t hurt.

  “That handstand on the rocks was really cool.” His voice sounds distant beneath the car. “What happened to your knee?”

  I kneel beside him. “A Frisbee.”

  His shoulders shake as he laughs. “I mean in the spring. I saw you on crutches.”

  What hadn’t happened to my knee would be a better question. “Tore my ACL, MCL, and meniscus.”

  “Shit.” He scoots back and looks at me sympathetically.

  I look away. “I’m fine now.” The days I didn’t work at the beach parking booth were spent doing physical therapy. My knee’s as good as it’s going to be, besides the crackle and pop of scar tissue when I bend or straighten it quickly.

  He takes a wrench to the first hubcap and passes it to me so I can unscrew the others. “You’re strong,” he says. “You really didn’t need my help getting out of the water.”

  It feels a hell of a lot better down here than it did standing. Warmer. Safer, like we’re crouched by a kindling fire.

  The guys laugh up on the dunes. Someone calls, “Castillo, where you at?” and Marcos shows no reaction. Instead, he helps me slip on the donut and runs his hands over the flat tire.

  His palms are callused, like mine. “You cut this up pretty good. See what I mean?” He tilts it toward me, revealing a long slit. “You’re probably going to need a new one.”

  Lovely. More things my father will scold me for.

  Once the donut is secured, all lug nuts and hub caps are tightened, and the deflated tire is plopped into the trunk, we stand facing each other. What do you say to a guy who hit you with a Frisbee, jumped in the ocean after you, and saved you from calling your dad to say, “Hey, I stole your car and tore up your tire. Come get me”?

  I settle on: “Thank you so much. This would have been a disaster without you.”

  He slips his hands into his jeans pockets and grins. “I owed you for the Frisbee fiasco.”

  My eyes dart directly to his front tooth, crooked like a little kid’s. “Well, um, I’ll see you around?”