Fear of Falling by S.L. Jennings Page A

didn’t move away.
    “I’m not looking through you, Kami,” I said only for her ears. I didn’t need an audience; I just needed her to really hear me. “I’m looking into you. I’m standing here, wondering how the hell a girl so beautiful could hold so much sadness in her gorgeous green eyes. And I’m asking myself why I want—no—why I need to know what’s made her so sad. And what I can do to take away every ounce of that sadness. I need to know what it will take for you to let me in, so I can do just that.”
    Her lips parted just as her eyes grew with shock. Yet, I still continued to stare into those emerald pools. I was ready to drown in them at that point. Anything to keep her here with me.
    Her throat moved as if she was swallowing a knot. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.
    “No? Then tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that this,” I motioned between us, “is imaginary. And that no matter how hard you try to deny and fight it, you don’t feel it too. Tell me that it’s just me feeling this pull, and I’ll leave you alone.”
    Kami stepped in closer, if that was possible, and met my determined gaze with a steely one of her own. “You’re wrong, Blaine. I don’t feel a damn thing. I never do.”
    She eased back and spun on her heel, retreating into the back room. I was still standing behind the bar, shell-shocked and speechless when she reappeared with her things. She made her way over to her friends who had waited for her at one of the tables, still celebrating their newly acquired weekly gig at Dive.
    She never even looked back as she slid through those double doors. But I had seen this before. I had experienced her reaction when she was backed into a corner by truth’s unrelenting glare. Kami was running. But I’d be damned if I let her get away.

I didn’t speak until I was 5. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how, I was just afraid of what my words would trigger. My mother was often slapped and punched in the face whenever she spoke. Even before I even knew what her words meant, I knew the consequences of speaking. I didn’t want to meet the same fate, though I knew it was inevitable. Silence wouldn’t be able to spare me for much longer.
    My father wasn’t stupid. He knew that bruises fueled questions, and questions warranted explanations. So as much as he hated me, as much as my very existence disgusted him, he usually refrained from leaving physical scars. Instead, he chose to etch them into my young, fragile psyche. Those scars would never heal. They followed me like a bad omen, marring every relationship I had attempted since. Those scars were the security blanket that crippled my emotional growth, leaving me lost, alone, and tragically afraid. I clung to them, letting the scar tissue form a wall around my heart. They held the pain inside, so it wouldn’t completely devour me.
    There was a coat closet he liked. I remember that closet because it never held any garments. The only thing I ever saw strung up in it was my mother, her hands bound by rope above her head, naked and hysterical, as he had his way with her. I remember how he would laugh at her tears, how he found her weakness arousing. The things he did to her, his young daughter just feet away, were unimaginable. Except to me. I had the displeasure of witnessing every unspeakable act, bound by my own terror and unable to run and hide. That was what it felt like to be frozen with fear. How it gripped every muscle and joint, stripping all mobility and forcing you to live through your worst nightmares with eyes wide open. I knew that feeling well. I lived with it every single damn day as a child.
    Sometimes when he was feeling playful, he would pour a bucket of ice water over her naked frame as she struggled to get free from her restraints. Then he’d grab a curling iron, the toaster, anything that could be plugged into an electrical socket, and threaten to throw it at her feet while she stood in a