Selena Kitt - Falling Down

“You wanted waffles!” Zach laughed, tugging at the tassel on her mortarboard- a blue and white thing with a gold “2008”-making it go askew.

“Yeah, well…now I feel sick.” She straightened her cap with a frown.

“You’re going to be fine.” He kissed her cheek, pointing to a sign that read,

‘Graduates’ with an arrow pointing down a flight of stairs. “I guess that’s for you.”

“How will I find you after?” She clung to his hand, hesitating at the top of the stairs.

“I’ll wait right by this sign.” He kissed her again, properly this time, a slow, lingering heat filling her middle to replace the nausea. “Now go, before they start without you.”

She went down the stairs and packed herself into the crowd, hoping to be invisible in the sea of black. There were nearly a thousand graduates-it shouldn’t be that difficult, she reasoned. And after today, she would be free, one rite of passage into adulthood officially taken, and more to follow-including the job she’d started two days ago, and school, which wouldn’t start for another two weeks for the summer session.

Finding a spot by the wall, she sat down and waited for the organization machine to take over. It would, eventually, and then this whole thing would be over. Until then, she was going to concentrate on not being sick. The waffles Zach had brought to her in bed had been thick and rich and beyond delicious, and the sex they’d had afterward had been even better, but now it weighed heavily in her middle.

The truth was, she didn’t want Zach to leave, and it was only a few weeks away now, looming large. She couldn’t picture being on her own, couldn’t imagine life without him anymore. He thought she was afraid of Smooth and Gritty-Robert Barnes And Donald McMillan according to the police report the prosecutor had showed her during their meeting with him. And she was, a little-they were out on bail, after all, and the trial had been so far in the future, nearly a month after Zach was due home, in fact-but no one knew where she was now.

She was more afraid of herself, of what she might do while Zach was gone. And she didn’t even want to think about that.

“Hey, Lindsey.”

Startled out of her thoughts, she looked up to see Brian standing there in his graduation cap and gown. Speak of the devil, she thought, quickly standing.

“Hi.” She returned his greeting, and they stood there, lost in the awkwardness.

He finally cleared his throat. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

“Okay.” She nodded, wondering what he knew, how much he’d found out.

“I talked to Ralph. Those guys…I heard they were arrested.” So he knew. “They raped me.”

“So did I.” His voice was barely a whisper, his eyes on the floor. “I didn’t mean for it to be like that. I didn’t know…”

She put her hand on his arm. “It was bad. I’m sorry, too.”

“They’re making me testify.” He swallowed, still not looking at her. “They say they’re not going to charge me with anything, but they want me to go to court anyway.” She’d done her best to protect him and was relieved to hear it. “It got out of hand.

For both of us.”

He breathed a sigh. “I’ll say.”

“Hey, they’re making us line up.” She pointed to the front of the breezeway, where their old chem teacher was directed them into two lines-boys on one side, girls on the other. A thousand students, and she ended up next to Brian, filing two-by-two into the pavilion where family and friends were waiting to cheer as they walked across the stage to accept their respective diplomas.

He reached for and squeezed her hand just before they went out. “Happy graduation.”

“You too.”

She stepped out into the sunlight, already looking for Zach, and hoped, more than anything, that they’d both get some sort of happy ending after all.

* * * *

“I just want you to think about it.” Zach dug into his pocket for his keys as Lindsey unzipped her black graduation gown-it was incredibly hot and itchy, and she’d barely made it home without stripping it off in the car.

“I don’t need to think about it.” She slipped the gown off over the jeans and t-shirt she was wearing underneath.

“I get that you’re not ready to talk to her…”

Lindsey picked up the puddle of black material as Zach slid the key into the apartment lock, remembering the look on her mother’s face in the pavilion. She’d found them just as Lindsey met Zach under the ‘Graduates’ sign, coming forward with congratulations and apologies and explanations. Excuses, more like it, Lindsey thought bitterly.

“She said she didn’t know,” Zach said, pushing the door open.

Lindsey snorted. “Bullshit. If I had a daughter who was doing what I was, I’d have suspected something was wrong.”

“I guess I can’t argue with you there.” He sighed.

So she said she didn’t know, Lindsey thought, tossing her cap and gown on the sofa. Her mother had found her journals, she’d said, and she had kicked her stepfather to the curb almost immediately. A little too late, Lindsey snorted to herself, not believing it was going to last for a minute. He’d be back, she was sure. Her mother couldn’t possibly live on her own for too long.

It was the thing she’d always hoped for, desperately wished for, and yet now that it had happened, it didn’t matter at all. She swallowed past the bitter irony of that thought as Zach put his arms around her from behind.

“When you’re ready.” He nuzzled her hair out of the way to kiss her neck. “Maybe you could just talk to her?”

She shrugged and, for his benefit, said, “I guess. Maybe.”

“So are you ready for your gift?”

She could feel him grinning already.

“What do you have up your sleeve now?”

But he didn’t have to tell her. Their voices had carried into the kitchen, and now a succession of short, plaintive yelps gave away his secret. Her eyes widened as she turned in his arms, her jaw dropping.

“You didn’t!”

He was definitely grinning. “I did.”

She squealed and took off running, stopping short at the baby gate now slung across the kitchen door where a black Labrador puppy scrabbled on the linoleum, jumping up as they approached, a little black nose nudging Lindsey’s hand as she reached down to pet him.

“How did you do this?” She leaned down to pick up the puppy, who lapped happily at her face as she lifted him-yep, it was definitely a “he”, she noted. There’d been no sign of a puppy when they left that morning.

“I had Nate drop him off.” Zach scratched the wiggly black bundle of fur behind the ears, still grinning. Lindsey laughed, remembering how Nate had looked at her the first time she’d met him at the office just a few days ago, like he was keeping some sort of secret.

“What’s his name?” she asked, giggling as the puppy squirmed in her arms, his pink tongue making the rounds of her face some more.

“Argyle.”

She looked up at him and smiled, shaking her head. “Will I ever find a man who pays more attention to me than you do?”

“I doubt it, baby.” He wrapped them both up in his arms, dipping his head down to hers to share in an exuberant puppy tongue bath. “I seriously doubt it.” 146

If Lindsey had known how good puppies were at licking up tears and giving much-needed comfort, she would have found a way to get one years ago, she decided, nuzzling Argyle’s little belly with her cheek, and pulling the comforter up over both of them. The bed was too big now. She considered, for a moment, sleeping on the couch, but couldn’t bear to be away from Zach’s pillow-it still smelled like him.