Safe Place to Fall

2

I dress quickly in the morning, my neck is stiff from sleeping on the roof. I grab my new cellphone, stuffing it in my pocket as I grab my backpack and head out. I pull my long hair into a bun and start my walk to school. I pass by the house with the roof sitter. There are two big trucks parked in the driveway. I walk quickly past the house and into the woods, a short cut I’ve been using for years to get to school. 

I have my earbuds in and a song I know well comes on, I start to softly sing along to it. I feel panic rise up inside me as I sing so I stop, pulling the ear buds out. I shove it into my pocket and feel the cellphone. I check it and see that Hanna has texted me twice this morning, 

‘You still coming to school?’ 

‘Theo… hello?’ 

‘I’m almost there, calm down’ 

I cross to the exit of the forest, the school just around the corner. I see the big truck from before driving past me, the windows are down and I see one of the most handsome men in my life. He has black hair that’s shaggy and in his eyes, they look blue like the ocean. He doesn’t see me, or that he almost ran me over, but that would have been my fault. Most people don’t just run out of the forest. Most people around here won’t even go into the forest. 

I watch as the truck parks and he gets out, he is tall and built. He wears a black leather jacket, a hoodie, with black jeans and a black t-shirt under. He likes black. 

Immediately I can hear girls from all over campus whisper and giggling as they point to him. 

I wonder if he’s the new student we were told about? 

I find Hanna and she is not immune to the cute boys charms. 

“Did you see him?” She says in a hushed voice.

I nod and take my seat in the homeroom. She sits in her seat three over and takes out her books. I do the same. I am reading before Mr. Clarke comes into the room. 

“Alright Listen up. Pop quiz” He says as he begins to hand out the quiz. 

About ten minutes into the quiz the door opens and the boy from before strolls in. All the girls stare at him, giggling and they all start whispering to their friends.. I drop my head back down and continue to work on my quiz. 

“Alright, settle down. Back to work! Mr. Miller I suspect? We were expecting you yesterday...Better late than never I suppose. Take a seat” 

The only empty seat is behind me. He walks over slowly, all the girls watch him, I stay focused on my quiz. He stops beside me for a moment, looking down at me, I feel his eyes on me before he slides into the desk behind me. I can still feel his eyes boring into the back of my head. 

“Five minutes left” Mr. Clarke says 

Suddenly everyone in the room starts to panic, you can feel it in the air. I finish my own quiz and flip it over, staring out the window until everyone else finishes. 

“Aright, Times up. Everyone pass your quiz to the person behind you. Last of the row pass to the front person” 

I turn in my seat and hand my quiz to the new boy, he takes it and takes out a red pen. 

I take the quiz from the boy in front of me. I can already tell he failed. Some of his answers are just stupid. 

Twenty minutes later we have the quizzes graded and I was right the boy got only 3/20. I almost feel bad for him, if he wasn’t such a jerk to me all the time. We pass the quizzes back to their owners. I get glared at by the boy in front of me, it’s not my fault your dumb I think to myself. I get mine back and see I got a perfect score. I smile to myself as I look at it. 

“Alright hand in your quizzes at the end of class. They will be part of your final grade" I hear people groan at that. The bell rings a few minutes later and I jump from my seat, rushing to the door. I don’t know why I’m so eager to leave the class, I have gym next and we are swimming this month. I never learned how to swim and even the teacher bullies me for it. 

I meet Hanna outside the classroom and we walk together until we have to part ways. 

“He is super cute” She whispers. Everyone seems to be talking about him today. It’s crazy, I mean yeah he’s really cute but who cares. He's just another boy, he will probably just bully us like the rest of them. 

I tell her I’ll meet her at lunch and head for the change rooms. I quickly changed into the school uniform swimsuit. My breasts and butt are slightly too big for it so it makes everything tight. I walk out with my towel wrapped around me, putting on my swim cap, tucking all my hair inside. 

Coach Abbate stands before us, making us stretch out. I see the boys come out of the change room in their speedo. Holy Hell. He is in my class. And Goddamn he fills out that speedo like it was made for him. His body is littered with tattoos. Across his chest and shoulders there are various symbols tattooed of what looks like a dragon wrapped around his back and left shoulder, down his arm. I quickly divert my eyes. 

Coach Abbate walks over to him “You a swimmer Miller?” She asks 

“Yes ma'am” He says as he starts to stretch. I notice he doesn't have a swim cap on like most of the other student's, his hair falling in to his face. 

“Alright, everyone in the water” She blows her whistle. 

I dread swimming, I because never learned how to do it I am the weakest in the pool. I can do a simple doggy paddle with a floaty but that’s it. Take away the floaty and I sink like a rock.

The other kids always make fun of me for it. ‘What kind of 16 year old doesn’t know how to swim’ They would say. 

Grayson dives into the water smoothly with the rest of the kids. I sit down on my butt and slowly slide in while gripping onto the side of the pool for dear life as I submerged myself. I am usually allowed to hang onto the wall and do it. 

“Tread water for five minutes, Theo, that includes you! No more excuses” She says as she grips my hands and pushes me into the center of the pool. I feel myself start to panic as I try to tread water, my head keeps going under the water. My body is already sore from falling out of the tree yesterday. I can feel my energy draining by the second.

 I kick my legs at full force and try to stay above water. I can feel the other kids laugh and snicker at me as they watch me struggling. Suddenly my head goes under and I can’t get back up. I feel strong arms grab me and pull me up. I assume it’s Coach Abbate but it’s not. I cough up the water and open my eyes to see Grayson pulling me to the shallow end of the pool. 

“Are you alright?” He asks as he stands before me. I can feel the tears rolling down my face. 

“Hey, it’s okay..” He says as he swipes his thumb over my cheek. His eyes are fixated on my forehead, the gash is no longer covered and it probably looks awful. 

“What do you think your doing” Coach Abbate shouts at Grayson

“Obviously she cannot swim. You should know better than to throw someone in the deep end if they can't swim!” He snarls at her. 

“Ohh you think you’re so good. Fine you teach her. Expect to fail this class if she can’t swim by the end of the semester” She smiles at him and walks away.

“Back to work!” She shouts at everyone else. 

“Well… looks like we are stuck together” He smiles at me 

“I’m sorry” I whisper 

“For what?” 

I gesture to myself and he chuckles. 

“I can think of a lot of worse things to be stuck with.. Like any of the other girls in this school for example” 

I don’t say anything, I don’t know what to say. 

He tells me to hold my breath under water and he holds onto my arms as I put my face in the water and try it. I can only do it for about 6 seconds before I start panicking. I come back up coughing water that got in my mouth when I panicked. 

“It’s okay.. You're not going to drown, not on my watch anyways.” 

“How’d you get all those bruises?” He asks me as he looks at my back. 

“Oh. I uh fell out of a treehouse yesterday” At least I can finally say I wasn’t beaten at home. 

“Same for your forehead?” He asks 

Damn, I was so close to not having to lie. 

“Uh yeah.. The tree house” I say as I look away. He just looks at me for a moment before telling me to try again. I didn't even make it 5 seconds this time. The bell rings a minute later and I start to race out of the pool. I grab my towel and wrap myself tightly in it heading for the change rooms. 

I have a long hot shower, it’s the first hot one I’ve had in days. I over hear girls talking about how they wish they couldn’t swim too so Grayson would teach them. 

‘His strong arms can be wrapped around me any day of the week’ One girl says 

‘Yeah, why does Theo get the cutie?’ Another says 

Obviously they don’t know I’m here. Or they simply don't care.

‘Well, we can easily take care of her. You’ve seen how weak she is, she’s always covered in bruises’ 

‘I heard that she gets beaten regularly at home.. It’s kind of sad really’  

‘She must do something to deserve it’ Another girl says, ending the conversation. 

I turn off the shower, wiping away my tears. I get dressed and walk out of the change rooms, Grayson is leaning against a locker and comes towards me when he sees me. I can feel people glaring at me as he approaches me. 

“Hey, so what do people eat around here?” He asks 

“I can take you to the cafeteria, I’m headed there anyways” I start walking fast, feeling him on my heels, then beside me.

“Where’s the fire?” He asks, even though he is keeping up easily enough. 

“Well here we are. I am meeting a friend.. See you around” I say as I walk away towards a star struck Hanna. I sit down next to her and bury my face in my hands. 

“You know him?” She cries out in a loud voice, several people turn to stare at us. 

“Not really.. He’s in gym with me.. He was helping to teach me to swim” I sigh as I grab a carrot stick from her. 

She pushes me for more answers and I have to get out of there, 

“I gotta go to the bathroom, I’ll see you later okay?” I say, she nods still lost in thought. 

I turn to walk out of the cafeteria and am cut off by Brandi, one of the girls I overheard in the locker room. She has a smoothie in her hands. She throws it at me and leans in ‘You better stay far away from him if you know what’s good for you..’ She laughs as she walks away. 

Great. Now I'm covered in what smells like strawberry blueberry smoothie. I look around and see only a few people saw the commotion, but Grayson was one of the few. He looks at me with sadness in his eyes. I flee from the room and run to the bathrooms. My shirt is drenched, it’s even in my hair. I peel off my shirt, leaving myself in my lace bra, which is also soaked. I sigh and start to rinse out my shirt. 

I have my back turned to the door and don’t see who has come in, but I can hear them. Someone clears their throat and I spin around, seeing Grayson standing there. 

I remember I am on full display, I use my smoothie stained arms to cover myself. 

“What are you doing?” I ask, shocked.

He doesn’t say anything, he just peels off his jacket and his hoodie then his shirt. He pulls it from the bottom hem, the muscles in his arms flexing as he reveals his midriff, the muscles staring me in the face. It goes over his head. He silently hands me the shirt and I quickly take it. He throws his hoodie back on, zipping it up and then his jacket. He smiles sadly at me before walking out of the girls room. 

I just stand there, staring after him. I go to the stalls and quickly take my bra off and pull the shirt over my head. I wash my clothes in the sink. I wring them out as best as I can, but they are still very wet. At least I have a dry shirt on. 

I wash out the smoothie from my hair the best I can and throw it back into a bun. 

I take my clothing, balled up to my locker, shoving it in. I feel very much on display still without my bra on. I have large breasts and not having a bra on is not a good combo. The shirt Grayson was wearing is thin and soft, you can clearly see my n*****s through the thin material. I grab my things and head for the exit of the building. Sending Hanna a text that I’m not feeling well. 

I walk aimlessly for a bit, smelling the shirt Grayson gave me. It smells like lemon grass. 

I don’t want to go home yet so I walk to the forest, I find my rock by a small creek, I put my earbuds in and listen to my music, singing along with a few songs. I get the familiar panic feeling inside my chest after a few songs and pull out my earbuds. I watch the creek for a while before heading back home.