Fall Back Skyward (Fall Back #1)(32)

“Perfect. Tomorrow at eleven o’clock?”

He nods just as a black pick-up truck with blaring music drives up the street and stops in front of his house. He turns around and waves at whoever is sitting behind the tinted windows before facing me again.

“Awesome. Can’t wait to start our lessons.” He winks again.

“Seriously, stop doing that.”

“You love it when I flirt with you.” He laughs, walking backwards. “Rule number one in ASL: Eyes and facial expressions are important. Your eyes and that sweet blush on your cheeks say a lot. You’re enjoying my flirting.”

I laugh, shaking my head. I kind of do, because I know it’s harmless flirting. Besides, I’ve already set my sights on someone else. “You’re incorrigible.”

A tall woman with blonde, wavy hair steps out of the driver’s seat and calls his name. Josh spins around and stalks over to her, scoops her off the ground and kisses her, pinning her to the car.

Another guy with dark hair steps out, interrupting the kissing session. After the one-armed hug and a round of back-thumping with their fists, they get inside the car. The driver does a U-turn, missing the Walker’s mailbox by barely an inch, before racing down the street and out of sight in all its music-blaring glory.

I leave my room and head to my mother’s to check on her. She sits in a rocking chair humming along to Yiruma’s River Flows in You that’s playing from the CD player on the desk next to the window. Her eyes focus on me as soon as I block her view of the garden. A soft smile stretches across her face.

“You remind me of your grandmother, honey. The freckles on your nose, the way you tilt your head to the side.”

And you remind me of my mother, the woman I looked up to when I was a child.

I wish I could tell her that, but I know the aftermath would be catastrophic. The last time I said something like that to her. She had fallen deeper into despair, shutting everyone out. My dad refused to take her to see the doctor. When he eventually did, she got medication and started therapy to help her through the depression that had started, I suspect, long before we were born.

So instead, I say, “Grandma Phoebe asked about you when I spoke to her on the phone earlier today. Want to pay her a visit with me?”

Her smile fades. She sits up and starts fretting with her hair. “Do you think I look okay?”

I grab her hands and twine her fingers with mine. “You look perfect. Just a little lipstick and voila!” I beam at her.

Her nervous movements stop. She stares at me, tears in her eyes. Her gaze drops to my wrists, “I’m—you don’t deserve this. You’ve been so strong and here I am—”

“Mom.” She shakes her head furiously, tears brimming in her eyes. “Mom. Just focus on getting well, okay?”

Finally, the tears fall. She sobs soundlessly. Tears of the horrors she has probably gone through living under my dad’s iron hand. Unaccomplished dreams. Missed opportunities with her daughters.

After she calms down, we sit there holding hands and I tell her about Cole. There is not much to tell though. By the time I leave her room, she has already retreated into her shell. I’m not even sure she heard anything I said.

“I love you, Mom,” I whisper and kiss her cheek before leaving the room and walking out the front door.

I lower myself onto the swing on the porch and drop my head in my hands. I’m trying hard not to feel the weight of seeing my mother on a downward spiral. I wish I could help her.

Just a few hours until Dad comes home. Or not. He has gone back to his old habits like he did in Ohio; spending most of his time at the office. I’m not naive so I don’t believe he spends his nights there. Personally, I prefer if he doesn’t come home at all. At least this way, I don’t have to worry about his temper or what he might do when he’s angry.




After dinner, Elon and Elise clean up while I sit with my mother, urging her to eat. After a few spoonfuls from her plate, she pushes it away.

“Go, baby,” she says. “You don’t need to take care of me.”

I really do. I nod and stand up, then kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back later. Want to play a bit on the piano with me? We could let Elon and Elise jump around on the sofas,” I say softly, smiling, hoping my words will spark something inside her. Spark the kind of light I haven’t seen in a while.

She nods, smiling. I leave the room and, for the millionth time, wish my mother had pursued her career and never met my father. But where would my sisters and I be if that would have happened?

When I get to my room, I grab a handful of lemon drops from the table and lie down on my bed to listen to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on the gramophone, while waiting on my usual star-gazing hour. At exactly ten o’clock, I snatch my pillow from my bed and head for window, like I’ve been doing since we moved here, and settle on the roof, glad to have a place where I can watch the stars like I did in Ohio. My thoughts and problems vanish, replaced by the beauty of the star-filled dark sky.

This.

This is everything. Just me and the quiet night with the occasional honk of a car horn in the distance. Just me and the stars. When I close my eyes, I see the galaxy behind my eyelids; bursts of purple and blue. So mesmerizing. Stunning.





“Why are you in such a hurry, bro?” Josh signs when he meets me in the hallway.