Fall from Love

kick you right in the balls for showing up here this early,” Jenna says, dragging herself out of her bedroom and glaring at me.
    “I brought some coffee for you, too.” I hold out a cup of coffee for her to take. “For some reason, I had you pegged for a morning person,” I say, smiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Holly folding in her lips, trying not to smile.
    “Sorry, Jenna. We didn’t mean to wake you. Just go back to bed,” Holly says.
    “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.” Jenna glowers at us, takes the coffee from my outstretched hand, and heads back down the hall.
    “Will you let me take you somewhere?” I ask Holly before I lose my nerve.
    “Now?” She looks at me, raising an eyebrow.
    “Yeah, I want to talk to you... about the other day at the library and some other stuff. I picked up the phone to call you probably a hundred times, but I just decided to get in my car and drive over here.”
    “O—kay,” she draws out the word. “Let me go get dressed.”
    My eyes follow her down the hall and I call out to her before she disappears into her bedroom. “Oh, Holly.”
    “Yeah?” She turns around to face me.
    “Dress warm.”
    A small smile tugs at her lips before she closes the door.
     
    ❧
     
    When we pull up to the lake, I hop out and meet Holly at the front of my car.
    “Aren’t we right by your house?” she asks, looking around.
    “Yeah, a couple miles. When I go out for runs, I usually end up here. It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, it is,” she says, looking around and then turning to smile at me.
    “C’mon, I’ll show you my favorite spot.”
    Taking her hand in mine, and not thinking twice about it, I lead her down the hill until we come to a picnic table on the edge of the lake. I hop on top of it and take a seat, patting the space beside me. She smiles at me again, but I can see that she’s wondering what the hell we’re doing here.
    “Gosh, it’s amazing out here,” she says, looking out across the lake and up towards the mountains in front of us. The sun has just risen and is casting an orange glow on the peaks in front of us.
    “Yeah, it is. Ever since I was a kid, this has been my favorite spot. I used to come here with my dad and older brother. We’d fish all day and only come home when the sun had gone down and we couldn’t see our lines anymore.”
    She glances over at me with a pained expression, like she’s staring right into my soul, understanding the pain I’m feeling. However, I know she can’t know what pain comes with talking about my dad and brother because I’ve never told her. It’s taken me so long to finally figure it out, but I know now that I want to tell her, I want to tell her the truth about everything. I want to tell her how I feel about her. I want to tell her about the night of the accident and explain to her that I did everything I could to save Adam. I want to tell her I’m sorry that she ever had to feel the loss of someone.
    “Carter, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she says, staring out at the lake, avoiding meeting my eyes. “What happened the other night—the kiss—I think it was a mistake. I miss what we had, I like us being friends. I like hanging out with you. I like talking to you on the phone. I miss it. The past couple of weeks have been miserable and I don’t want it to be like that anymore. I want to go back to the way it was... I want us to go back to being friends.”
    On the inside, I’m screaming. I scream at her to stop. I scream that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying. I scream and tell her how I feel. I scream and tell her that it wasn’t a mistake, that I don’t want us to be friends; that I want more... so much more. None of that ever makes it out of my mouth, though. As I look at her and see the sadness in her eyes, I realize that I’ve done that to her. I’ve made her feel that way. What I’ve been doing the last couple weeks in trying to protect her, protect what we have, it’s clear I’ve done the exact opposite.
     
    HOLLY
    My eyes focus on the lake and my hands are sitting in my lap. The last minute or so, I’ve refused to look over at Carter, knowing that lying to him will be so much easier if I don’t see his eyes.
    “Don’t you miss us being friends and hanging out?” I ask him, wondering what his face looks like now, but I’m still not strong enough to look at him.
    “Yeah, I really miss it.”
    Again, I’m tempted to look over to see the