Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) by Amy Vanessa Miller Page A

a moment. I lay down next to him and turned on my side. “I’d say it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know who you are out there because out there isn’t real. In here, who we are to each other, this is real.”
    He smiled, taking my hand into his. “In here, all I want to do is take care of you.”
    “I know.”
    “Do you want to know everything…about who I am out there? Because I’ll tell you if you want.”
    Did I want to know? Did it really matter? We weren’t anything to each other out there. Would we ever be?
    “No.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Who you are in here is who you want to be.”
    He licked his lower lip, looking as though he was trying to decide if he should say something to that but was unsure of how to approach it without setting me off.
    “What?”
    He hesitated before speaking. “Is who you are in here who you want to be?”
    My eyebrows narrowed. “What are you getting at?” I demanded, feeling the anger rise in me once again.
    “Those guys you sleep with in here,” he said, “they’re using you.”
    “I’m using them.”
    “Fine,” he scoffed.
    “It’s the truth.”
    “Ok.”
    “You aren’t being fair,” I said, raising my voice. I sat up in the bed. “This is who I was when we met. And now you expect me to just change because… because what? Because you’re jealous?”
    “I’m not jealous.”
    “What are you then?”
    He shakes his head. “I just want you to stop sleeping with them. They don’t deserve you. You should be sleeping with someone who deserves you.”
    “Oh, and I suppose you think that you deserve me?”
    “I think I know you, and I care about you! I think that matters.”
    “I never asked you to take care of me! And I certainly didn’t ask you to care about me.”
    He sat up quickly. “Well, I do! God damn it, Skylar! I can’t begin to tell you how much I wish I didn’t care. But I fucking care! I care that you go around fucking all these strangers, giving your body to them like it’s nothing. Like it means nothing!
    “Oh, you should talk!” I interjected.
    “I’m not done!” he countered, jumping to his feet. “I stay there, waiting for you to come out of their rooms, praying that you’re ok, and it drives me crazy! I don’t want to care, but fucking I do!” He slammed his fist on the bedside table and the lamp sitting on top crashed to the floor.
    I bent down to pick up the broken pieces. “Parker,” I began.
    “What?” he grumbled miserably, sitting himself back down beside me.
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    He took a shaky breath and reached for my hand, squeezing it tightly. “Please just say you’ll stop.”
     

     
    The first period bell brings me back to the present. I hastily wipe up the blood dripping down my side and cover my three new scars with my shirt.
    I hurry out of the stall and wash my hands in the sink before making my way to class. I’m trying everything in my power to forget what I just remembered moments before, but I can’t push it out of my mind. My memories of him haunt me.
    When I enter my class I walk as casually as possible over to my assigned desk in the third row and take a seat without looking at any of my classmates. I take extra special care to avoid eye contact with the fifth row where I know both Parker and Evan sit.
    Mr. Clark closes the door and begins his calculus lesson after I take my seat. We are about ten minutes into a detailed explanation of time derivatives and their proper uses, when Parker walks in.
    “Mr. Michelson, better late than never I suppose.”
    “Sorry, Mr. Clark,” Parker mumbles quietly, as he saunters over to his desk in front of Evan’s. I look up at him because a simple mumbled apology, when he walks late into class, is not Parker’s style. He has a black eye and his bottom lip is busted and swollen. I sigh. This is the third time in two weeks that he’s looked like this.
    Parker looks up, having heard my sigh, and his head turns toward