How We Fall by Kate Brauning Page A

cheek. “So you—you like me, but don’t want to?”
    “Right.” I put my hand over his and pulled it away from my face, but kept his hand in my lap.
    “I guess it helps to know that.” He laughed, but somehow it still sounded sad. “I don’t know what to do. I’d been planning on telling you this today for like, weeks now. I was so afraid I’d been misreading things and that this was just friends with benefits to you, like we said. But if we can’t do anything about it, if you don’t want to, then . . . it comes out the same.” His eyes flicked over my face. “I still don’t have you.”
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I so desperately was. Every cell of my body wanted this to not be happening.
    Marcus moved to beside me, his legs stretched out behind me into the grass. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Don’t kiss me back.”
    I closed my eyes, blocking out the trees and the blanket and Marcus, but not the summer light. My hearing sharpened, my skin noticed the breeze and the prickles of the grass under the blanket.
    I felt his warmth beside me, heard his breathing. I waited.
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    His fingers touched my hair, brushing it aside, and then his hand moved to the back of my neck. His breath warmed my skin before he touched his lips to my eyebrow, my cheekbone, my jaw line. Each one hurt. His thumb traced my lip. And then his lips replaced his thumb, parting mine. I leaned in, but he shook his head just the slightest amount.
    He’d never kissed me so slowly. The soft curve of his lower lip teased mine. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him more than I ever had before. The light pressure of his mouth and the gentle clasp of his hands. His cheekbone, his jaw, his skin against mine.
    He didn’t want me to, but I couldn’t help it. I kissed him back.
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Chapter Seven
    Saturday morning I usually slept in, and this Saturday I wasn’t getting out of bed if I didn’t have to. The parents always left at four am to take produce to the Saint Joseph farmers’ market, Chris had to do the produce stand today, and the other chores could wait, so there was no real reason to get up. I’d barely slept last night, just stared at my ceiling for hours, thinking about what had happened on that blanket.
    Marcus wanted me. It made it so much harder to fight myself.I rolled over onto a cool spot on the sheets and tried to go back to sleep, but the temperature change woke me the rest of the way up. I squinted at the alarm. Eight thirty.
    Sighing, I slid out of bed. Sounds drifted back from the kitchen.
    Marcus stood in the living room with his cell phone, wearing a tight black t-shirt and the baggy track pants he wore as pajamas. I had pants like that somewhere, leftovers from my one year of volleyball.
    I paused with the fridge door open. Volleyball. Ellie. Playing without her wasn’t the same, so I’d quit. I pulled out the juice and closed the door. No more news since the backpack. The field hadn’t turned up any other evidence, but the backpack felt like only the first thing.
    “Why are you up?” I asked. The drive home yesterday had been quiet, and he’d said he was sorry, and I’d told him not to be sorry. I still didn’t know what else to say.
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    “I helped the parents load the truck. Sylvia texted me, but I get crappy reception in my room.”
    I poured myself orange juice. “Want some?”
    He looked so worn out. I sometimes forgot he got up early on Saturdays to help load the produce. I’d be no help that early in the morning, and my parents knew it.
    “Um—hot chocolate?” He set his phone on the window sill and walked to the kitchen.
    I turned on the teapot. “Is mix okay?” It wouldn’t be.
    “The other way is better.” He put a saucepan on the burner, poured in milk, then spooned in cocoa powder. Hershey’s special dark.
    I turned off the teapot. “But it’s slow.” We could do this. We could be normal around each other.
    “But it’s better.” He added a third