Page 17 of The Fall I Fell

After tossing my portfolio into the hatch, I climb up behind it. Sweeping away a few fallen leaves with my hand, I make myself comfortable on the floor. Crossing my legs, I open the files, using the surfaces of one of the boxes that was once a banquet table, or a treasure chest, or a flying car. Sliding through the pages of sketches, I find the one that is still unfinished and pull out my pencil case.

I had thought to call it ‘the wolf in sheep’s clothing’. From the outside, it’s your regular suit: black, straight lines worn with a white shirt. But on the inside, its silk lining is bursting with colour, with vines twisting around the stitching, and lots of embroidery with leaves, trees and woodland creatures. It was meant to be all ornamental – the whole thing in such bright colours, is almost offending to the eyes.

‘Looks good.’ A voice startles me and sends my pencil in a rogue line across the page. I huff and scramble to erase it, but I only make it worse.

‘Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’ Jacob grimaces as I look up at him. He’s in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and an old jacket with a sheep wool collar. There’s a rucksack slung over his shoulder.

‘How do you do that?’ I ask him, looking back down at my page. To my own surprise, I don’t sound irritated, just curious.

‘What?’

‘Move so silently. You’re like some predator, sneaking around.’ I feel him peering over at my sketches and I lean a little closer to the paper to shield it from his view.

‘Practise?’ he says. I’m still not looking at him, but I can tell he’s shrugging. ‘I watch a lot of animals in their habitats and don’t like to disturb them.’

‘So that’s what I am right now? An animal in my natural habitat?’ I look up at him with a smile.

‘It looks that way to me.’ He smiles, and a little glimmer of his old self flashes across his face. Maybe it’s the light of the treehouse, or maybe it’s being so far away from everyone else, but at least I know my Jacob is still in there, deep down.

My Jacob. Except he isn’t mine, not any more. My smile drops.

‘What are you doing here?’ I say, turning away from him.

‘Callum said you missed the bus. I thought you might need a lift.’

My heart thumps faster in my chest as I reach for my phone to check the time. ‘I—I missed the bus?’ I hadn’t realised how late it’s gotten.

‘Yeah.’ He raises an eyebrow, watching me as I silently curse.

‘You know,’ he says, sitting down beside me, ‘college isn’t too bad.’

Once upon a time, he was the only person I could tell all of my thoughts to. Before they’d even registered in my own mind, they’d be spoken aloud to him, and he’d listen until I was all finished and nothing felt so heavy any more. I think about this morning, when it took me so many words to try and explain to Freya what I thought was going wrong. But it’s taken Jacob a couple of minutes of looking at me to figure out what’s got me so frazzled. I wonder, briefly, if we could still be friends, if he can still see me so clearly.

But it’s obvious that so many things have changed.

‘You’ve had a personality transplant,’ I say quietly.

‘What?’ He furrows his brows.

‘You used to hate school,’ I say, not wishing to repeat my original statement. It feels too familiar, like I’m not allowed to say those things about him any more.

‘College is different. I can at least do some subjects I’m interested in.’

‘Your college doesn’t offer the one thing I’m interested in.’ I can’t help it; the misery overcomes me again. I grow a bit deflated. ‘A whole year of work down the drain just for me to have to start again.’

‘It doesn’t look like it’s gone down the drain to me.’ Jacob rests a finger on the page of my portfolio, preventing me from closing it or hiding it away. ‘You have real talent, Kitty. You won’t need an A-level in fashion to prove you’re good at what you do. Come on, just give college a chance. You never know … you might enjoy it.’

Jacob gets to his feet and stretches out his hand for me to take. I want to be stubborn. I want to stay angry. But the offer of his hand is too much to refuse. So, I take it, and follow him to my feet.

‘One day,’ I warn him. ‘If you’re lying and it sucks, I will never go again.’

‘Okay, deal.’ He smiles.

One of his front teeth is slightly chipped from when he slipped off the rope swing and fell headfirst into the bank of the stream when we were ten. He never cried, or worried. He got up, laughed, and swung right back across the stream to me, still bleeding, still smiling. I’m glad he hasn’t had it fixed. All his imperfections are reminders of the Jacob I once knew, of who we both once were, and there’s so much joy in each scar and crease.

The ride in Jacob’s truck is relatively short, and we both say little, though I do text Callum a thanks, to which he sends a heart reaction in reply. Jacob taps the steering wheel to the radio, and my leg bounces erratically as I try my best to concentrate on the scene outside of the window as to not freak out completely. The greenery of the village soon turns to row upon row of buildings as the college comes into view. A litany of monochrome structures are surrounded by benches, each one occupied by students as they filter in and out. It looks like any other college – you could pick me up and dump me anywhere in the country and I’d be none the wiser from this clue alone, and something about that comforts me. I can pretend just a moment longer that I haven’t left London.

‘So, what’s your first class?’ Jacob asks as we pull into the car park and he slots his truck into an empty space.