Page 41 of The Fall

After the turkey had been devoured—at not one but both our houses—we separated reluctantly. Dallas had left my parents with leftovers at my mom’s insistence, though Dallas repeatedly told her they had far too many at her own house.

I was settling in for a long night without her. I couldn’t stop thinking about what little time I had left with her. How everything would change the minute I left for New York. She had seven years left to my four. It seemed impossible. I would never ask her to give it up, and there laid the problem. She would never ask that of me, either. It was our common goal that threatened to tear us apart.

I heard a scrape at my window but ignored it. A few seconds later, I heard a lot of the same and looked out my bedroom window, jerking it open in alarm. “Dean!” Dallas was sliding down the shingles of the roof near hysterics, gripping them for dear life. I opened the window just in time to catch one arm before she fell off the roof and broke her neck.

“What in the hell are you doing?” I asked as she cried into my shoulder, shaken up from her near face plant with the concrete. She shook violently as I consoled her. I paused and twisted her to look at me. Her tears had turned into laughter, the laugh I loved where it was about to burst out of her. I clamped my hand over her mouth just in time to catch it and shoved us into a closet. Her howling wouldn’t stop as I did my best to silence her. I didn’t know how my parents would react to finding her in the house, my mom being the most imminent threat. I finally gave up my struggle to keep control, picturing her out there grasping at straws, and started laughing hard as well. We stood there for five minutes in a dark closet before she finally slowed enough to speak.

“Well, that sooo did not go how I pictured it,” she said. With tears in her eyes, we exited the dark space and stepped into the bedroom.

“That was fucking ridiculous and dangerous,” I scorned, shaking my head, unable to hide my chuckle. “What the hell were you thinking?” I grabbed her hands, which were cut pretty badly, and walked over to get a cold washcloth. I wiped them clean and started to work out a splinter in her palm.

“I came here,” she said, her voice now shaking with nervousness. Her jade eyes were shimmering with emotion, and I stilled my hand. “I came here to tell you I love you too, always have.”

I smiled. “I know.” Elation seeped through my every pore as her face fell into a frown.

She shot up out of the bed, yanking her hand away and pointing at the window. “I damn near bit the pavement out there, and all you have to say is I know?” She now had her torn-up hands on the hips of her yoga pants, pants I had repeatedly told her I despised. The attire was typical for Texas this time of year, and her hair was a misted mess from the threat of rain. She’d never looked more beautiful.

“Sé que estoy hablando con mi otra mitad. Siempre lo he sabido, mi amor.”

“Dean Jeffrey Martin, I don’t speak Spanish!” she said in a harsh whisper.

“I know,” I said mischievously as I joined her at the window. I reached in and tasted her lips, all the protest slipping from her as I repeated what I’d just said so she understood. “I know when I’m speaking to the other half of me. I’ve always known, my love.”

There was a whoosh of air as her lips puffed out. “That night, I—” I pressed my finger to her lips.

I knew what she was asking about. She was wondering what I said the night of Reiner’s party. “It was more of the same.”

She suddenly looked guilty, and I refused to entertain it. As far as I was concerned, she was always mine. “Dean,” she offered, but I silenced her with my kiss and took her to my bed, where I took her twice, saying words she couldn’t translate and making her understand them, anyway.

Dallas

Now

I woke up with a headache I would classify as terminal. I had a water bottle in my hand, and once the contents had been drained, I looked over to my right to see Josh sleeping peacefully. I stumbled from his bed, desperately seeking to fill the bottle, and only made it as far as the bathroom and stubbed my toe on his cabinet door.

“Son of a bitch!” I declared to the cabinet as I pushed through the pain and put my bottle under the faucet for a refill. I was downing my third bottle when Josh came in and stood in the doorway, reaching up to brace himself on the frame.

“Nice,” he said, chuckling as he watched me struggle with my jeans, my bare ass to him.

“How could you let me drink that much? No, no, it’s my fault,” I said, barely able to get the words out. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Do you still like me?” I said, barely able to look at him.

“I won’t bother with a play-by-play, but you were the worst-case scenario. Seriously, woman, you cannot handle your alcohol. And you made me plug in your phone and blare old-school Snoop Dog the entire way home.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, burying my head in my hands.

“You also ate an entire box of Captain Crunch and forced me to watch The Notebook,” he said, his smile faltering. “That was unforgivable.”

“Oh, shit, Josh. Really—”

“No, no, you can’t take it back, Dallas.” He chuckled. “And I won’t forget it.”

“Great, I thought you said you weren’t going to give me a play-by-play.”

“I lied. Kinda like you did…Dally,” he said, his tone changing. I looked up to see him turn and walk out of the bathroom. He must have heard Dean call me Dally.