Page 6 of Already Falling

“Puh-lease back, not everyone knows. And besides, I don’t know if he likes me the way I like him.” I sip my lemonade, trying to remember any hints he’s given me.

“The way he looks at you in history class is so sweet. They could have an entire aisle dedicated to it at the candy store.”

“What kind of looks?”

“Like.” Chloe makes an exaggerated, happy puppy-dog look and then a silly smile. “Like that.”

“You look like you have the flu.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, maybe you don’t see it, but I do, and I think you should do something about it.”

I shrug and decide to eat my corn dog first while it’s hot. Chloe shoves a handful of gummy bears in her mouth. I notice that she has a sparkly bracelet on her right wrist that I haven’t seen before.

“Hey, when did you get that?” I ask, pointing to it and flicking one of the charms dangling from it. It looks like a dolphin.

“Oh, my dad got it for me.” She says quickly and then shoves another handful of candy in her mouth.

I squint at her because it’s not her birthday. I know the reason why her parents usually get her a present when it is a random day. It’s because they argued with each other in front of Chloe. Chloe hates when they argue. I’ve never seen them argue, but I don’t really see them often. When we hang out, I never go to her place. My mom always takes us to places, or we have sleepovers at my house. Chloe’s dad drives us to school, but that’s just because it’s on his way to work.

I think her parents don’t get along very well. My parents argue sometimes, but they always end their arguments laughing or talking normally. One time last year, my mom got a phone call, and my dad went to Chloe’s house to pick her up. Chloe stayed at our house for two days that summer. It was so fun to have her basically living with us, but I did think it was weird. I asked my mom about it after, and she said Chloe’s parents weren’t getting along and needed to work things out. I still don’t know why my dad went and got Chloe, though.

“Chloe?” I try to make my voice a bit more serious, so she stops inhaling candy. She freezes and looks at me. “Why did your dad get you a bracelet?”

Her eyes start to get watery, and she blinks the tears away. “Oh, he left for a couple of days. My mom was upset at him about something, and he left. But he’s back now, and he brought me back this bracelet,” she says, holding up her wrist and dangling the charms side to side.

I want to ask her more, but it makes me uncomfortable. I just want Chloe to be happy, and whenever we talk about her family, she gets sad. Besides, the movie is about to start.

The movie is just as awful as we both thought it would be, but we sit at the bench outside the theater, waiting for my mom to pick us up while debating who is the hottest character.

“Definitely, Jake the Mermaid is the best one,” Chloe says.

I wince back. “Jake? The fish? Ew, no way, my favorite is Lucian.”

“Lucian was the bad vampire! He kept trying to kill Freddie and his vampire family.”

“I like the villains. I feel like nobody roots for them.”

“That’s because they are the bad guys.”

I shrug and see a light shine on my face. I realize the sun reflected off a charm on Chloe’s bracelet, which reminds me of what we talked about earlier.

“If you need to stay at my house, I’m pretty sure my parents would be cool with it,” I say to her.

She scrunches her eyebrows. “Why would I need to stay at your house?”

“If… you know.” I point to her bracelet. “If your parents argue, you can stay at my house.”

Her eyebrows knit together, and she looks down at her bracelet. She covers it with her other hand pressing it hard into her wrist. I don’t know why she’s doing that, but it looks like it hurts.

“Hey, Chloe, stop! That looks like it hurts you.” She pulls her hand away from her wrist, and I notice the charms left indents on her skin. Her eyes are glassy again.

“My dad didn’t come back home,” she says quietly to me. “I lied.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t really know what to say, so I just stay quiet.

“My mom got me this bracelet because she said my dad probably won’t come back for a while.”

My only thought is, who is going to drive us to school? But I don’t think that’s the right thing to say. Instead, I reach my arm around her shoulders and bring her close to me.