Apologizing is not my forte.
I'd paced that tiny house on the corner at least a billion and one times before I made up my mind to confront Lindsey. I stepped softly down the hall. What do I do? Towards the room we shared. What should I say? I twisted the cold, metallic door handle. What if she rejects me?
"Hey."
She glared at me over the pages of her chemistry book. "What do you want?"
"I... Um..." I sat on the edge of her bed, cringing as a loud creak came from it. "Hey."
"You already said that."
"I know, it's just... Wow, can you just forgive me already?"
She frowned. "What?"
"Look, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. I didn't mean to screw up our family, you know that. Forgive me. Please Lindsey."
She bit her lip as a tear rolled down her face. She nodded. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Why do I do this all the time?"
"What?"
"You told me not to hate myself. So I hated you. I have all these screwed up emotions inside me just jumbling themselves up and crashing over my brain. They make me attack you, and I'm sorry..." Her voice trailed away.
I smiled broadly, shaking my head.
"What?" she asked, sniffling loudly.
"I think this is the first time in our lives you haven't looked way prettier than me."
Her frown deepened. "That's not helping."
I started laughing. "It's helping me." She squinted her eyes at me. "Oh come on, you know you're stunning. You've always been."
She bit her lip. "Then why am I so sad all the time?"
I sighed deeply, drinking in the familiar smell of book pages and rainwater. "Mama told me when I was younger that the pain in the world is distributed equally on the backs of people. So when we're sad, it's because we're letting someone else be happy for a day. And I think maybe it's okay for me to be in the rain for the sake of someone somewhere to finally see the sun."
She smiled slightly. "Let's laugh about something sad."
I raised my eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Clearly, we're a mess. And personally, I'd rather laugh about it than cry about it."
I nodded. "It's kind of funny that we hate Daddy's guts..."
"Oh, despise that man."
"But we idolize Mama."
She started laughing hysterically, so much that I couldn't help but laugh along. "I never even though about that."
"She left us too," I said between fits of giggles.
"Or... Or..." She tried to compose herself. "Or Luke's face whenever Eli fillings himself on him."
I was practically rolling. "Poor thing looks like he's never seen a person before and doesn't know how to respond."
"What even are you guys?"
"What even are we? Are we dating? Are we not?"
"All you guys ever do is sit on that rooftop."
"You should come sit with me sometime. And by sometime, I mean right now."
She wiped the tears from laughter off of her cheeks. "Come on, Harp. You know I'm terrified of heights."
I laughed, shrugging my shoulders. "So am I."
"So let's go be terrified together."
YOU ARE READING
Free Fall. // l.r.h.
Fanfiction"We are all broken. That's how the light gets in." ~Ernest Hemingway
