The Fall of Sky: Part One by Alexia Purdy Page A

bathroom as fast as I could. Pushing the door closed behind me, I finally let out the breath I’d been holding. How much longer could I tolerate Saul’s presence without caving in and throwing myself into his arms? It’s not like it would’ve been a bad thing; he was dreamy in every sense of the word, and I wouldn’t mind having a taste of his soft, plump lips. It’s just…It was just…
    Just what?
    “Ugh!” I huffed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a maroon button up shirt, tying the ends into a knot and looping my belt through. Brushing my hair into a messy ponytail, I stared at myself in the mirror. I was make-up less, but my face was still radiant and rosy in the early morning light streaming in the frosted ventilation window above the shower. Maybe I should give into things, in more ways than one.
    “Yeah, just let go, Audrey.” I winked at the girl staring back at me and smiled.
    Finishing up, I headed out to find Saul all dressed and patiently waiting for his turn in the bathroom.
    “You sure do well being surrounded by girls.”
    He laughed as he brushed his teeth, and I sat at the small table near the bathroom, just watching his movements. Funny how such small things made me feel happy, secure.
    “I had stepsisters. Hogged the bathroom all the time.” He wiped his mouth and grinned, running some gel through his hair to comb the flyaways down.
    “Ah, no wonder.”
    “Yeah, I’m super-fast at getting ready because of it.”
    “Sounds like they were freaks.”
    He laughed again and held his hand out, the cane dangled from his other hand. “Shall we?”
    “You bet.”
    The morning sun obliterated my vision, and I scrambled to dig my sunglasses out of my purse. That was one problem Saul didn’t have, but he donned his sunglasses too. He wore them indoors too while we played and anywhere we were besides at the motel. His eyes weren’t drastically different, but they did call for attention.
    If he let me, I’d love to stare into them for hours.
    The diner wasn’t busy, so we promptly were seated and ordered our food. I tapped on the table with my spoon, awaiting some coffee. There was no way to avoid thinking about Liv, but I tried. Oh, how I did. Why was it that, lately, she occupied most of my thoughts? How had I let her overtake my life in such an overbearing way? It had snuck up on me, and after all this time, I had fallen into the dreaded mother hen position, no matter how hard I fought it.
    “How long have you been out on your own, you and Liv?” Saul accepted his coffee as the waitress dropped off our drinks and wiped down the empty tables in her section.
    “It’s been a long time.” I closed my eyes, thinking back, rewinding the years like a movie playing in reverse across my mind. “We left when Liv was three months shy of sixteen and I had just turned seventeen…so, three years?”
    “That’s a long time.” Saul leaned forward, his sunglasses still on so I couldn’t tell what his expression was under the dark plastic
    “Yeah.”
    “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why did you leave?” His question didn’t agitate me, or make me shift uncomfortably in my spot like I usually did when someone asked about our pasts. His tone was more like a calm inside the constant storm whipping about us, and it drew me in, like a warm, safe place.
    “Well, my mother had us when she was really young. She was seventeen when I was born and eighteen when Liv came along. Her name was Rose, by the way. Our father stuck around long enough for us to get in school before he left one night, no note, no reason on why he was gone. I remember because my mother had taken us to the park that day, where we fed the geese and rode a really cool kiddie train around the small pond. She took us there a lot when our dad was working and we got stir crazy back home.”
    The memory of my mother’s long caramel brown waves, which would shine in the sun, and her long dresses that would float as the breeze