Freefall by Robin Brande

Author:Robin Brande [Brande, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-946627-19-3
Publisher: Ryer Publishing

* * *

She awoke at four the next morning with an idea. Writing sometimes worked that way for Eliza, and she was always grateful. She’d learned to capture it right away, because if she fell asleep again, so many of the best words would be lost. So she got up, made coffee, and pounded out the column on her laptop while the words were still fresh.

Fake it till you make it. We’ve all heard that before, right? Imagine some better version of yourself—smarter, richer, more confident, loved—and then start pretending you already are that person. Eventually, so the theory goes, you forget that you’re pretending and you actually become who you want to be.

But there’s another kind of pretending: pretending that you aren’t who you really know you are. You’re shy. You’re angry. You don’t really like other people. You don’t really like this job. You’re bad at something you pretend you’re good at. I’ll bet if I asked you to be honest with yourself, you could make a list of at least ten of those things right now: 10 WAYS IN WHICH I AM A FRAUD.

Here’s number one on my list: I’ve been lying to all of you. I’m not really over Jamey. I don’t write about him anymore because I think it will depress you, but he’s all I really want to talk about. And you know what’s crazy about that? I’m supposed to write a whole book about him, and I can’t seem to get past the first page. The page that starts out:

“Jamey used to play this game at people’s birthday parties. He made everyone go around the table and say something we liked about the birthday person, and something we didn’t like—and it had to be the same thing. So, ‘I like that Allison is spontaneous, because it makes it fun to be around her. I don’t like that Allison is spontaneous, because it makes it impossible to plan things with her.’ Things like that.

“One year on my birthday, when it was Jamey’s turn, he said, ‘I like that Eliza loves me despite all my faults. I don’t like that Eliza loves me despite all my faults.’

“We waited, and finally I had to remind him: ‘You have to give a reason for both.’

“‘Okay, I like that Eliza loves me despite all my faults because it makes me feel secure. I don’t like that Eliza loves me despite all my faults because it makes me feel responsible.’”

“People weren’t sure whether to laugh or not. Because sometimes Jamey could be deadly serious when you thought he was joking around.

“‘Responsible how?’ I asked him.

“He thought about it, then said, ‘I feel like if I go, you’ll never be happy again. Because you’ll forgive me. And maybe you shouldn’t.’

“Everyone got very quiet, and Jamey made some joke to break up the tension, but he knew I wasn’t finished with him. He knew I’d pester him the minute we were alone.

“‘What did you mean by that?’

“‘That I love you. Happy Birthday.

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