Page 30 of Falling Into You

“Jacob? Are you okay?” she asked. Genuine concern. He must have looked like he was about to burst into tears or spontaneously combust for her to look at him that way.

“M’fine,” he mumbled.

“Are you sure? You don’t look fine.”

Jacob took a breath and looked down at her beautiful,kind face. What he wouldn’t give to be able to tell her what was wrong. To grab her and go somewhere and just talk. But he couldn’t do that. She wasn’t his girlfriend. Her heart belonged to Tucker. And he had no one.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you after school,” he said.

He tried not to think about her disappointed, worried expression as he slunk off.

Practice was shortened on Mondays, so Jacob went straight to the soccer field to watch with Cody. He wasn’t impressed with the offense and wished he could dole out some pointers, but he reminded himself he had no voice on this team right now, and forced himself to just sit there and watch. Luckily, Coach ended the proceedings at exactly 5:00 p.m., so was back home by 5:15, but his hamstrings were so tight he could barely walk. Without soccer practice, he hadn’t been running as much, which meant the muscles hadn’t gotten as warm and whatever stretching he was doing wasn’t as effective. His arms were also killing him—he could barely straighten his elbows without his biceps threatening to explode. He knew he should get right on his precalc homework, but he’d already done way too much math today. Numbers meant nothing to him anymore. So instead he went to the basement and rummaged through the sports closet until he found what he was looking for—his older sister Anne’s old yoga mat. Maybe a few downward dogs and sun salutations would help. If he could remember how to do them.

Of course, once he was back upstairs, he realized this whole endeavor was a lost cause. There wasn’t a single swath of open space big enough in his house to lay down a yoga mat. Every room was packed with furniture and books and toys. Plus, as it was his mom’s most wonderful time of the year, there were jack-o’-lanterns, felt ghosts, and creepy candles everywhere. Plus, Chewie was following him around like he had steak in his pockets.

“What’re you up to?” his mother asked as he toted the mat through the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, surrounded by books and papers.

“Nothing. Just going to do some stretching outside.”

“Ummmm. I don’t think—”

He opened the door to the backyard and stopped in his tracks. The entire space had been taken over by tweens. Loud pop music played from a Bluetooth speaker as what looked like the entire middle school cheerleading squad and football team painted banners and signs on the grass. Willow was clearly running the show, shouting out directions and answering questions, running to get extra paint and brushes. Overhead, the sky was a sheet of gray.

“What the hell is this?” Jacob asked as Willow raced by him.

“The Oakland game is this Saturday,” she said, likeduh.She had a streak of red across one cheek and looked energized, if harried.

“Riiiight.” Oakland Middle was their rival school, andevery year when they played them the cheerleaders decorated the crap out of the football field’s fences and bleachers. Red and gold signs, huge balloon bouquets, streamers. “When did the football team get involved?”

Willow crossed her arms over her chest and popped one hip. “When I told them it was unfair that we had to do all this extra work for their games when they do basically nothing for us.”

“And that worked?”

“People listen to me,” Willow said, and shrugged.

Must be nice, Jacob thought.

“Wanna help?” she asked.

“Not even a tiny bit,” he replied with a smile. “But you have fun.”

Jacob turned and went back inside, feeling more than a little bit defeated. All he wanted to do was stretch. Was that actually impossible to do at his house? He supposed he could use the front porch, but then he risked Tucker or one of the other guys driving by and mocking him into an early grave.

With a sigh, he looked down at the mat. Where had Anne even used this thing? He recalled her leaving the house with it early on weekends. Maybe she was part of Rory’s yoga group in the park.

Rory. It was her fault he was even considering doing this. One week ago, the idea of yoga would never even have entered his mind. He thought about the look on her face earliertoday when he’d bumped into her outside Mrs. Dutton’s classroom. How it had made his heart hurt and hope all at once. Before he could overthink it, he pulled out his phone and was about to text, when he decided to be unpredictable. He called her. She picked up on the first ring.

“Don’t tell me. You’re going back to the soccer team,” she said.

“What? No!” he replied. Sheesh. Was that how little she thought of him? “Actually, I was wondering if I could come over and do some yoga.”

Rory laughed. She laughed so hard he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or offended.

“I’m serious. My legs are trashed and my house is chaos.”

She stopped laughing and there was a long pause. Long enough for Jacob to start feeling like he’d overstepped. Or worse. Maybe Tucker was with her?

“But if this is a bad time—”