The Upside of Falling

I had gotten into the habit of ending every day with the same question: Was it worth remembering or forgetting?

if love couldn’t exist in reality, at least it was alive in fiction.

Could love really make the world stop? Why did it make every female character feel alive? Wasn’t she alive before she met him? Or was she in some zombie-like, comatose state? How did love change that, and more importantly, why couldn’t I seem to get enough of this unrealistic crap?

Brett Wells walked into class the same way the sun pours in through a window, slow and captivating. Time seemed to stop as he smiled at the teacher and made his way to the desk in front of mine. I glanced at the clock to make sure it hadn’t. Just in case.

“Stop pulling me!” I hissed, tugging back on Brett’s arm. “I’m going to trip and drown.”“The water’s not even a foot deep, Becca.”Whatever!

People leave, Brett. It’s not our fault for not giving them a reason to stay. It’s their fault for not finding one.

I wished the past had been recorded like my football games. Then I could rewatch it all, rewind to the moment everything changed.

“Why can’t school teach us about this? Like how to uncover secrets from parents who think you’re too young to know the truth?”

“How is knowing about atoms and molecules going to help me stop my family from falling apart?”

I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, but I knew all too well that my sympathy wouldn’t take away a fraction of the pain. They were empty words, like trying to use a single Band-Aid to hold an entire shattered heart together.

I was left standing here with all these books and a broken heart from a boy I never really even dated.

“The only thing making me sick is staring at these books all day long. With their stupid, false happy endings. It’s a scam. The entire book industry is a gigantic scam, Cassie. Why doesn’t anyone talk about this? How is this legal? They’re feeding vulnerable readers lies about love and life and we’re buying into it like mindless consumers.”

“Real guys aren’t like this. I don’t think anyone is like this. People don’t stand in front of your bedroom window with a boom box—”“That’s from a movie. Not a book.”She gave me that look that said shut up for a second.

“If you don’t like pineapple, why agree to order it?” I asked.“Because you like it,” he said easily.“You wouldn’t eat the cotton candy ice cream,” I pointed out.“That happens to be where I draw the line, Becca.”

My dad talks about how sorry he is. But it doesn’t count if he’s only sorry after he got caught.

“You’re inviting me to my own mother’s business?”“Is that a yes or no?”“Yes, obviously.”

I don’t know why I was so obsessed with the sky. Maybe it was the idea of a new day, a fresh start. Or maybe I just liked the way it looked. Not everything had to have some big meaning behind it.

Brett was watching me as if I were the sun his world revolved around

How, on a planet with billions of people whose lives would never cross, I managed to capture the heart of the most beautiful one.

He tasted like peppermint, like home and every good thing mixed into one.