Page 22 of Freefall

I swallow my bite. “What?”

“I guess if I had to pick, it would be daisies.”

“Because they can grow anywhere?”

“Nah. I’m not that poetic.”

I nod, absentmindedly twirling the straw in my soda. “Then why?”

I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but it’s definitely not the next words that come out of his mouth.

“They were my mom’s favorite.” He clears his throat. “She used to pick them whenever we saw them at the park or on the side of the road. She’d put them in little glass yogurt containers that she had washed out.”

A lump forms in my throat at his use of the past tense. “I—I’m sorry.”

He waves a hand. “Thanks. It’s…I mean, it’s not like I buy them or anything. I just think of her when I see them.”

Sounds pretty damn poetic to me, but I don’t say that. Instead I unceremoniously blurt out, “Is that why you went to see a therapist?”

What the actual fuck, Harper? Who asks that?

I regret the words the moment discomfort flickers across his face, but a second later, he schools his features.

“It was a long time ago,” he says, and I don’t miss the way he avoids answering the question directly. “She died from a blood clot when I was little.”

I nod. “I’m so sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“I know I just…I felt like saying it again.”

He glances out the window then turns his attention back to me. “I was in that parking lot because my well-meaning but overbearing friend thought it would be good for me. What about you? Overbearing friend or childhood trauma?”

“It depends on whether or not you classify walking into the bathroom on Thanksgiving to find your brother overdosing on opioids as childhood trauma. I was nineteen, so technically not a child.”

My effort to use humor as a coping mechanism apparently goes over with Nate about as well as The Princess Bride’s attempt. His eyes go wide, and he winces.

“Shit, Harper. I’m—” He scrubs a hand over his face. “That was really insensitive. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay that he overdosed, but he didn’t die, so that’s good, and he’s sober now. My mom thinks I haven’t dealt with the trauma of finding him, so here I am. Or, there I was.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” I breathe out, very much regretting being the catalyst for the dark turn this conversation has taken. “Well, that got unnecessarily heavy. Let’s talk about something else.”

He looks like he wants to say something—maybe apologize again or tell me he can’t imagine going through something like that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he nods, abandoning the straw, and takes a big gulp of his drink, the ice clinking against the hard plastic as he sets it back down.

“What was the best part of your week?” I ask.

His eyes drift down to his empty plate, then back up at me. “I don’t know.”

The words hang in the air for only as long as it takes for the waitress to come back and ask if we want refills on our drinks. When she leaves again, I tell him that the best part for me was finally getting higher than a C on a math test, and he tells me about his Econ professor who has it out for him. Based on his account, I’m pretty sure she secretly wants to fuck him.

We go through four more refills of soda and one more order of disco fries, and by the time I look out the window, the orange glow of afternoon has given way to hazy darkness. I check my phone. We’ve been sitting here for almost three hours.

Nate follows my line of sight. “We should probably…”

“Yeah.”