Fall With Me

behind, but the truth of it is, I’m the only one who’s still here. I’m the one who’s going to spend my summer shoveling horse shit and supervising unruly teenagers.
    At some point, the ranch got a reputation for being a good place to send teens whose parents felt they were headed down the wrong path. Bill and Lorrie didn’t mind; they’ve always been do-gooder types who would welcome anyone into their home, and they truly believe that nothing can’t be cured by a day outside spent on horseback.
    It’s when I’m about to leave that I notice the orchid. It’s sitting on a small side table by the window, half a dozen large white blossoms dangling from a curved stem. The flowers look so luscious they might be edible.
    “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Mom says, when she sees where my gaze has gone.
    “Yes,” I say, though I’m already certain I know who sent them, which makes them a lot less beautiful.
    “Sean sent them.”
    “I figured. But, that’s better than him stopping by in person.” I fight the urge to not go over there and swat the plant off the table, how the shattering ceramic would be music to my ears.
    “Jill Freyss-Charon,” Mom says. “There is no need to speak that way, especially after someone just did something so thoughtful.”
    “You’re right,” I say, though she’s not—there is nothing thoughtful about Sean Wentworth whatsoever. Calculating, sure. Manipulating, absolutely. But thoughtful? No.
    “He just adores you, honey. I don’t know why you won’t give him another chance.” She looks at the orchid again and smiles. “It made me happy to get it. It’s been awhile since I last felt happy.”
    Since the accident, Mom’s memory has been a touchy thing. Her short-term memory is shot; I don’t know how many times I’d told her I would not be graduating, but I would be going to the ceremony anyway to watch my friends get their diplomas. When her memory is working, all she seems able to recall is how depressed she is, which, considering she used to be the most optimistic person I knew, is pretty depressing in and of itself. She also seems only to remember the very best things about Sean; she’s somehow convinced herself that the accident was the reason Sean and I broke up, and therefore, was inadvertently her fault. All untrue, of course, but she refuses or is incapable of remembering it as anything else.
    “I’ve got to get going, Mom,” I say. I go over and kiss her forehead. “I’ve got to pack and then get down to the ranch. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”
    I go to my room and throw some clothes into my old gym bag. I’d broken up with Sean not long after my parents’ car accident, though it’s something I should’ve done a lot sooner. He was originally from Belvedere but was living in Palo Alto and attending Stanford when we met. Dad and I had gotten ice cream at his favorite ice cream shop and were sitting in Dolores Park, watching jubilant dogs chase Frisbees. It had been one of those unseasonably warm days in early April and the park was packed; people lay out under the hot sun, bare-chested or in bathing suits. They lounged in groups on spread-out blankets, drinking Anchor Steam or PBR. Sean and his group of friends were on a blanket maybe twenty feet away, and I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye.
    “There’s a young man over there that seems particularly intent on staring at you,” Dad said.
    “I think he just wants some ice cream.”
    “I’m going to throw my trash away and then go buy a pint of the salted caramel to bring home to your mother. I’ll meet you back here in fifteen.” He smiled as he got up, and I tried not to feel annoyed. I’d gotten used to men staring at me and had pretty much perfected the art of ignoring it. For the first fifteen years of my life I’d been made fun of because of my height—was called giraffe, beanstalk, twig, could never find pants that were long enough. And then something happened my junior year of high school and suddenly the boys at school and random men out in public began to notice me. If it was supposed to make me feel good, it didn’t, because as far as I knew, nothing had changed. What had changed? It just made them seem like assholes who were more interested in the way someone looked than who they actually were as a person.
    But I’d had to get used to guys staring, which Sean was doing, rather blatantly. By the time Dad had dumped his napkin into the trash can,