Free Falling Fast by Sophie McKenzie

forward on his fork, next to mine. ‘What’s on your mind, River?’
    He stood there, silently, waiting for me to speak. I looked away, over at the trees again. It was a dull, cloudy day. Not all that cold for the middle of October, but grey, like it might rain
later. The air felt heavy, oppressive. Somehow it reminded me of Flynn. Of the way his presence changed everything in a room.
    Dad stood there, next to me, still waiting.
    Mum would have jumped in by now. Emmi and Grace would never have shut up in the first place. It was easy not telling them how I felt. They never really listened anyway. But Dad was different.
Since he’d been at the commune, he’d grown quieter and more determined, like he had this strong sense of who he was and what he wanted. Like he belonged.
    The wind was rushing through the trees, sweeping my hair across my face. I hooked it back behind my ear, then turned to him.
    ‘I met someone, Dad,’ I said.
    Dad gave a tiny nod. He didn’t say anything.
    ‘I really like him.’ My cheeks felt hot, despite the chill of the wind. I looked down at my fork, at the rusty prongs, half covered with earth.
    There was a long pause. Then Dad cleared his throat.
    ‘How does he feel about you?’
    I shrugged. ‘I think he likes me. We haven’t really gone out yet, but . . .’ I prodded the fork into the ground. I could feel Dad’s eyes watching me. ‘Dad, I really
like him but there are things about him I don’t understand, like, he gets really angry about not having any money and he’s really protective about his sister, and Emmi and Grace think
he’s weird cos he’s so intense, but . . .’
    I wanted to tell Dad how it felt when Flynn looked at me, how scary and powerful my feelings were, but there are some things you just can’t say to your own father.
    Dad sighed. ‘You can never fully understand another person, River,’ he said softly. ‘Not really. Even here, at the commune, where we’re all trying to be awake to the
universe, we can’t get away from it – the politics, the emotional baggage, the petty squabbles that stop us seeing each other clearly.’ He put his rough, blistered hand on my
shoulder. ‘And it’s normal for young men to be angry about things,’ he said. ‘I was. Still am when I see all the injustice and cruelty that goes on.’
    I bent over and started digging again. Dad joined in. After a couple of minutes he straightened up and smiled at me.
    ‘I wish, more than anything, your mum would have agreed to you growing up here,’ he said. ‘It’s such a good grounding for dealing with outside life.’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Seriously, River . . .’
    But before Dad could say anything else, Stone raced over to show us a weirdly-shaped potato he’d found.
    ‘There’s a whole bunch of them,’ Stone said, looking like three years had just dropped off his age.
    Dad laughed and went over to see for himself. I kept on digging with my fork, hitting a potato almost immediately. As I freed the earth around it, I thought about what Dad had said. Was it
really true that you could never completely know another person? Surely that was what being in love meant – that you had that connection, that deep understanding.
    I was sure Dad was wrong about other things too – how could living in a commune help you deal with real life? I mean, if I lived in a commune, how would I ever have met Flynn?
    I sighed, then bent down and picked up the potato.

 
11
    The next day, after school, Grace, Emmi and I went over to St Cletus’s on the bus. Emmi made sarcastic remarks about me and Flynn all the way there.
    ‘You can do way better than him, Riv,’ she kept saying. ‘I mean, have you seen his school uniform? It looks about tenth-hand.’
    ‘River thinks that’s romantic,’ Grace said slyly. ‘A poor man, nothing to give her but love.’ She clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes stupidly.
    ‘Shut up, both of you,’ I snarled.
    They laughed. Emmi prodded me