Fear of Falling by S.L. Jennings Page A

playtime privileges. I didn’t cry then either. I just sat in the miniature red plastic chair and tried to savor every second away from home. Even though the kids picked on me and called me weird and poor, and my teachers had deemed me a problem child, I was safe. No one wanted to hurt me there. I wasn’t afraid. My mother wasn’t crying in the corner, shielding my body with hers. There were no monsters there.

    252
    I counted the tiny paper stars in the glass jar every night. I had been doing it for years. I had to. I had to count them all. 252. A star for every fear. Most of them were repeats but I wrote them down anyway. Just acknowledging my neurosis was enough for the time being. It was enough to get by.
    I took out a skinny strip of pastel colored paper and scribbled a single word on it before my fingers worked it into a tiny star no larger than a button. Then I slipped it into the jar.
    253. This one wasn’t a repeat.
    “What are you doing?” Dom asked, suddenly in my doorway, startling me. I really wished I could close it, but I…couldn’t.
    I answered with a weak smile as I stuck lucky number 253 in the jar. It had been a while since I had added any new additions.
    Dominic frowned, not completely satisfied with my lack of an answer. He invited himself all the way into the semi-sanctuary of my bedroom and flopped down on my bed, rattling the glass jar of tiny origami stars. “Did you just add one?”
    I shrugged sheepishly and let out a breath. “Yeah. So? No big deal.”
    His expression softening, Dom pulled my body close to his, draping an arm around my shoulders. “Hey, you wanna talk about it? I know you haven’t added in a while.”
    I shook my head against the warmth of his sculpted chest. He was the only man I would ever let hold me like this. This was the one sliver of affection that I found acceptable. It was the closest I would ever come to true intimacy, though we weren’t intimate in the sexual sense. We could never cross that line; I couldn’t lose the only man I ever loved.
    “There’s nothing to talk about. Really. It’s nothing.” At least my head was saying that. Every other part of me screamed otherwise.
    Dom sat up and grasped my shoulders, pulling my body away from his to assess my face. Even my blank expression couldn’t elude his bullshit meter. He was such an experienced bullshit artist himself; he could spot a load of crap a mile away.
    “It’s not nothing . And you do need to talk about it. I told you about this, Kam. It was part of our deal. You go to therapy and be completely honest with me, and I wouldn’t give you shit for your condition.”
    I shrugged out of his hold, giving him a stern glare. “No. That was your deal. I told you—I’m fine. And therapy isn’t working. I’m not going back.” I grabbed the jar of stars still on my bed and placed it in its designated spot on my windowsill. “And I don’t have a condition, Dom. Yeah, I have issues, but we all do. Yourself included. I’m surviving the best way I know how, just like you are.”
    My oldest friend, the man that had become closer than a brother to me, let out an irritated breath at the mention of his own demons. Demons that still haunted him in every aspect of his life. “This isn’t about me. Yeah, my life is pretty fucked up, but I’m functional. You’re barely hanging on, babe. And I’m not saying all this shit to get under your skin. I want you to get better.”
    “What if I can’t get better?” I snapped, whirling around to face him. “This isn’t some illness I can just take medicine to get rid of, Dom. You of all people should know that. This. Is. Me. My situation isn’t fucked up. I’m fucked up. Completely, irrevocably, fucked up to my core.”
    Dom was already on his feet and enveloping my frame with his. “Stop. Just stop it, Kam,” he whispered into my hair. “The real you isn’t fucked up. We just gotta dig deeper, babe. Just keep trying to push aside the bullshit and