Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

7

Bennett

I expected Shop class to feel like home, and it passes the test.

There are pegboards on the wall with different tools I’m familiar with and some I’m not, but can’t wait to toy with. The floor, while seemingly clean, hides tiny piles of sawdust in the corners, just like my basement at home. There are even half-built birdhouses stored on shelves that look similar to the one I constructed for my mom last summer.

This class might be perfect … were it not for Michael and his cackling brood of football pals.

The blue-eyed menace is already sitting on the corner of a desk, laughing with his whole chest, like he’s giving the funniest stand-up routine and enjoying his own jokes.

Worst comedian ever.

I’ve never met my dad, but I’m willing to bet he’s a lot like Michael. Loud. Full of himself. Punchable.

The rest of his pals are performing fabulous impressions of hyenas, save for a tall guy at the end of their table with his head buried in his palms.

I feel your pain, buddy.

I don’t bother walking past; I want to sit at the front of the room anyway. I claim a seat and attempt to read my textbook, but it doesn’t block out whatever nonsense is leaving Michael “Potato Face” Waters’s mouth.

“The look on her face, I swear,” he jeers. “And then you! And your whole, ‘Not a chance.’ That was even more brutal than me, Arden.”

I peer over to see the tall guy shift uncomfortably in his chair, twirling a pen between his fingers.

“Let’s drop it, okay?” he mumbles.

“Dude, you know she’s in love with you.”

“Michael, come on.”

The other guys laugh and start up the totally mature chant of, “Landon and Quinn sitting in a tree—”

My body tenses, and I grip my textbook.

Quinn?

“Y’all are seriously five years old,” the tall guy I assume is named Landon says. “She dropped her diary. We read it. And what we said was mean and wrong. Let’s grow up, okay?”

He whips his pen in his hand harder.

So, that’s why Quinn was crying. I don’t like it when girls cry. Not because it makes me uncomfortable, but because my mom preaches that’s one of men’s biggest crimes. If you make a girl cry, you’re the problem. And Michael seems like a big problem.

“Ooh, are you planning your wedding?” he continues. “Did Mrs. Landon Arden do something to you? Maybe touch your—”

A fist slams on the tabletop. “Hey,” Landon snaps. “Shut up. She’s my sister’s best friend. That’s it.”

Something tells me Michael didn’t want to hear that.

“What did you just say to me, Arden?”

And then, because I’m tired of it all, I also pull in a heavy sigh and say, “You heard him, man.”

The room goes quiet. Dead quiet. Maybe it’s one thing for someone in the group to talk back to Michael, but me? Not so much.

His creepy blue eyes swivel over.

Ah shit.

“I’m sorry, did you say something, freshman?”

Not your monkeys, not your circus. Not your monkeys, not your—

“Sure did,” I say, turning at the waist with my arm slung over the chair. “Got a problem with it?”

Michael hops off the table and saunters toward me.

Saunters.

Is the guy serious right now?

Maybe the football king thinks he carries himself with the swagger of John Wayne, but he looks more like a drunken sailor to me. In that moment, I see my dad clear as day—his chin tipped up, his haughty and slimy sneer. It’s the attitude of a guy who thinks he’s cooler than he actually is.

But then something flashes over Michael’s face, and he holds out a pointed finger.

“Wait a second. I know you.”

“You know me?” I drawl in a bored tone.

“Yeah. You’re the guy who hangs out with that pretty redhead.”

It’s almost surprising how quickly my face heats. My fingers twitch on the back of the chair. My jaw tightens. And Michael’s potato face pulls into a nasty grin.

“Oh, did I touch a nerve? Is that your little girlfriend?”

I blink for a moment.

Ruby? My girlfriend?

I’ve never connected the two. She’s a girl. She’s my friend. But all the ancillary things that come with the combination of the words? Not so much.

“She’s like a sister to me,” I scoff. But even as I say it, the room suddenly seems colder. I can feel every ridge in my chair, every curve of the cool steel leg forming the seat I’m in. I shift and adjust my feet, trying to find a position that feels comfortable again.

His eyes dart to my movement, then back up. “Dude, do you have a sister?”

I glare. “No. What’s it matter?”

“Well, I have a sister.”

“Good for you.”

“And she’s disgusting,” he continues. “I don’t look at my gross sister like you do with Red.”

Heat starts in my chest and spreads out like molten lava across my shoulders and into my arms. My head swims.

Do I look at Ruby a certain way?

I mean, sure, I appreciate her longer legs now, but I like them because she’s faster when we run down the trails together. She has softer skin, but that also is convenient … for … something. And her freckles. Well, I’ve always liked her freckles.

“Maybe you see her like a sister,” Michael says, bringing me back. “But I sure don’t.”

“Michael,” Landon says, pushing out from the table.

Michael is getting closer, slowly starting to tower over me. He wouldn’t be so threatening if I were to stand up too. He’s a big guy with broad football shoulders. But I’m bigger.

“Back up,” I growl.

“In fact, I think she’s really pretty.”

My heart is racing, and my blood is pounding in my skull. I like to think I’m not a fighting kind of guy, but sometimes, people just have punchable faces. And this guy needed a fist in his potato face yesterday.

He leans in. I don’t budge. We’re almost nose to nose.

“Maybe she needs a real man.”

And then the next words burst out of me so fast that I can’t even remember when they landed in my thoughts.

“Touch her, and I’ll kill you, Mikey.”

Michael’s head juts back, and he tongues the inside of his cheek before smirking at me like I’m a bug ready to be stomped on.

Give it a try, buddy.

“What the fuck did you just call me?” he asks.

I can hear Ruby’s little voice, muttering, Language! in my head. I want to laugh, but it seems like the wrong time.

“Are you seriously smiling at me right now, freshman?”

Okay, so maybe I did anyway.

“Michael …” Landon has gotten up and walked behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Michael rolls his arm back, and Landon’s hand falls. “Come on, man. You’re being a dick.”

“You know what?” Michael says, his face getting redder. “Maybe I will ask her out. Maybe I’ll even peek under those skirts of hers. Maybe I’ll see if the carpet matches the—”

What happens next occurs too fast.

My chair shrieks across the floor as I stand. My body tenses as I shove my hands into his shoulders. Michael’s shocked face forms a silly little O. A chair clatters as he stumbles into it. Then, his body and the chair hit the ground.

I want to say I don’t know why I did it. But I do.

Michael isn’t just the guy who insulted my best friend. He’s also a glimmer of my dad in that moment. The guy who probably wondered the same thing about my mom at our age. The guy who knocked her up and left. And I don’t have time for boys disrespecting my girls.

The Shop teacher walks in, hands holding a stack of papers. One look at the scene, and they flutter to the ground.

I sigh, “Fuck.”

And Ruby’s little voice in my head hisses, Language!