Fall from Love

shift my body around the pool table, and then lean back against it, still keeping the distance between us.
    “You don’t like me much, do you?” I ask, looking down towards the concrete floor. I’m not sure why I chose those specific words to say to her, it’s just the first thing that came to mind. After a few seconds of silence, I glance up, scan her features, and then my eyes drop down to her waist. Her arms are wrapped around her midsection in a tight grip. It’s as if she’s trying to protect herself from me and it’s killing me.
    “I barely know you,” she finally whispers and my eyes are drawn back up to her face. She shakes her head. “I mean, I’ve only met you once and, even then, I don’t think we ever really met.”
    I swallow hard. Since I’m not sure what to say to her in return, I just nod my head. I want to ask her how she’s doing, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate. When I asked her that question at Sterling’s the other night, she looked at me like I was actually causing her physical pain before Jenna pulled her away.
    “Jenna doesn’t like me much, does she?” I ask. Immediately, I feel like an idiot for asking that question, but it’s the only thing I can think to say and the silence between us is beginning to feel like a knife twisting in my gut.
    “I think she likes you.” She shrugs and releases the hold she has around her waist. I can’t ignore the sadness in her eyes. It’s as if she’s holding the pain of the world on her shoulders and, with everything that I have inside me, I want to take the pain away. Just like I wanted to do the night of the accident.
    “Yeah, well, she’s kind of hard to read.” I can’t help smiling at my own understatement. “After her and Josh started dating, she all but threatened to kill me if I came anywhere near you… Actually, I think she did threaten death at one point or another.”
    A tiny laugh escapes her and a smile tugs at her lips. My heart hammers when I hear it and it beats even harder when I see the smile on her face. It feels like my heart is being woken up for the first time in months.
    “Sounds like her. She’s pretty protective.” She clears her throat and the smile disappears from her lips.
    On the inside, I smile again because protective isn’t the word I would’ve used. Something along the lines of crazy or psycho comes to mind. “It’s good, you know, to have friends like that.” She looks up at me and, as hard as I try, I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
    “Yeah, it is,” she agrees.
    The stare we’re holding on each other is interrupted by the door to the house swinging open. My eyes fly towards it and I see Josh standing there, sticking his head through the opening. “Damn, dude. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. There’s a code three on Berthoud Pass, you in?”
    I nod my head a couple times and then my eyes float back over and focus on Holly.
    “Shit,” Josh breathes. “I didn’t see you back there Holly.”
    “It’s okay,” she tells him, but her eyes never leave mine.
    “Um…” Josh hesitates for a second. “You and Jenna are welcome to crash here tonight, but Carter and I gotta run out for a while.”
    I can’t ignore how he doesn’t tell her exactly where we’re going or what we’re doing. I’m sure he’s trying to protect her, but I can see it in her face that she’s not fooled. She knows exactly where we’re heading.
    Finally, she breaks away from my gaze and turns to Josh, smiling, but the smile isn’t real, it’s forced. “Thanks. I’ll talk to Jenna and see what she wants to do.”
    Josh leans back inside the house, blocking Holly’s view of him. He tilts his head, giving me a strange expression before shutting the door, and we’re alone again.
    “It was good to see you, Holly,” I say.
    Her lips stretch out and form a smile, but again, it’s forced. I’ve only been in the company of this girl for a few minutes, yet I can tell the difference between her fake smile and a real one. “You too, Carter; be careful up there.”
    I propel myself off the pool table and head for the door, but stop just a few feet shy of it. A part of me is telling myself to just keep focused—keep walking, go get dressed, and head to the mountain—but there’s another part of me, a large part, that doesn’t want our conversation to end like this. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to leave this room until I see her smile again; a real one that lights up her eyes