You and Everything After (Falling #2)(22)

“Liar,” he smirks. He knows I’m bullshitting, and I feel the burn of embarrassment starting to move up my neck. “I won’t judge you, just so you know. Humans, we get…tired.”

I twist my mouth and squint at him, not sure what he means.

“You’re tired, because I probably worked you harder than you’ve ever been worked. And it’s okay. You’re allowed to be. I won’t think it’s because of the MS, which I know is what you’re afraid of,” he says, his brow lowered and his eyes zeroed in on mine. “I won’t think you’re weak. Ever.”

My head nods in agreement and my lips form a relieved smile. I don’t tell him that he’s off-base, because as much as my real reason for pretending I’m not fatigued is to be near him, I do also worry that he’ll think I’m weak. I worry because everyone else in my life thinks I now have limits. Ty is the first person who, so far, doesn’t set them for me.

Ty catches a glimpse of my opened notepad and anthropology book next to me on the table. I had planned on getting a little of my homework done from the first day of classes, but that was when I thought I’d be in here alone for the next hour. My plans changed the second he said “Hello.”

Before I can reach for the book, Ty takes it in his hand, and begins flipping through a few pages.

“Ah, undergrad classes,” he says, sighing dramatically. I know he didn’t mean anything by his statement, but suddenly I feel embarrassed, and maybe a little inferior, by the fact that I’m not yet nineteen and he’s twenty-two, by the fact that I’m taking one-hundred-level courses and he’s getting an MBA.

“I was just getting ahead, but…I can put it away,” I say, taking the book from him quickly, and zipping it up in my backpack along with my notes and pen. I like the heaviness of the pack in my lap, like a shield—so I leave it there, hugging it to my body while my legs dangle.

I wonder if I look as uncomfortable as I suddenly feel. He’s smiling at me, sort of. He looks uncomfortable too, and now I’m beginning to wonder if he’s starting to calculate all of the negatives that come along with our age gap. He keeps looking at his watch, nervously twisting it around his wrist, like he wants to leave.

He wants to leave.

“I could just come and get you. You know…when your laundry’s done?” I practically blurt out my question. He’s blinking at me, like he’s trying to decipher whatever language just spilled out of my lips. I’m pretty sure the dialect is young, na?ve, and stupid.

“Are you…getting rid of me?” he asks, his head cocked slightly to one side as his eyes shift between my backpack and me, growing wider with each pass. Suddenly, he smirks as if he’s discovered something. “Wait a second…were you looking at a porno mag? Is that why you put your book away?” He grabs my backpack from my lap so fast that my reflexes fail their mission to grip it back.

“No, I swear. I was just studying,” I say through nervous laughter, sliding from my perch on the counter in an effort to get it back. I know Ty is just teasing, and at first we’re in a cute game of tug-of-war. But when he unzips the side and reaches inside—his fingers threatening to pull out the pamphlets and self-help books I just picked up from the library—my fight to regain possession grows more manic. Ty, however, still thinks we’re playing; his hands grip one end of the bag and mine the other. He yanks hard, his strong muscles really only knowing how to do one thing, and it forces the zipper open completely.

I thought I felt foolish about being younger. But that was before I made a floor display of every cliché low-self-esteem brochure printed in the state of Oklahoma. Naturally, the most embarrassing one is in Ty’s hands right now.

“How to Love Yourself So Others Will Too,” Ty reads, flipping the book in his hands and skimming his eyes over the description on the back. I take this opportunity to scoop everything else up in my arms and sit on the floor with my legs crossed, quickly stuffing things back in my bag. “Oh, this is good. Wait, listen to this one…”

He starts to quote a few of the passages, mocking the stereotypical affirmations and examples in the book. I know they’re stupid—and hearing them now, I’m not sure why I picked the book up. But reading it made me feel good an hour or two ago. “Wow, what class is making you read this shit?” he asks, finally putting the book down. His laughter cuts short when he sees me, my eyes buried in my lap.

“It’s not for a class,” I say, looking up long enough to get the book from him. “My stuff’s in the dryer. Just…just knock on my door when it buzzes done.” I leave quickly, clutching my things close to my chest and feeling ridiculous.

I don’t bother to zip my bag up again, instead carrying it all into my room and letting everything spill out into a pile on my bed. I don’t know what made me check all of these things out. It all started with the book Ty was reading, actually. My hands gravitated to it while I was looking through some of the health and wellness books. At first, my attraction was the same as Ty’s—I found the book amusing. But some of those cheesy sayings actually rang true, especially the ones about feeling inferior to siblings and how we use self-deprecating humor as a crutch. Next thing I knew…I had two books, four magazines, and a dozen brochures.

Ty’s knock on my door is soft. I hadn’t shut it all the way when I walked in, so he takes advantage and comes all the way into my room with little warning.