BooksBarbecue
Back The Falling
Chapters (73)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. ALSO BY ANNA TODD
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY
  55. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  56. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  64. CHAPTER SIXTY
  65. CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
  66. CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
  67. CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
  68. CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
  69. A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
  70. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  71. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  72. COPYRIGHT
  73. ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

I started to feel like a hypocrite for judging her, so I clicked back to my main feed. My dad had posted a picture of himself holding a fish in one hand and a beer in the other. He wore a smile that I had never seen in person. He always loved to hunt and fish; my brother and I couldn’t stomach it. Austin could handle the gore a bit more than I could; he would go on hunting trips with Dad until we got to high school and girls became his favorite pastime. My brother, whom I had talked to nearly every day up until a few months ago but now could barely get on the phone, had already liked my dad’s post. So did someone with a golden retriever as their profile picture. The golden-retriever friend had commented that my dad was “looking happier than ever.”

It stung. It really stung. Probably because it was true. I had been hearing that phrase since he got remarried two years ago after a whirlwind romance of less than a year. We had barely unpacked our boxes from our move to Fort Benning when my dad met Estelle on Facebook, of all places. He commented on a mutual friend’s picture and their romance took off from there. From the neighbors to the cashiers at the PX, everyone thought it was okay to congratulate my dad on how happy he was. No one thought about me . . . that I was in earshot, that telling him how happy he seemed now implied that he had been really unhappy before. No one considered my feelings. Not him, not Estelle, not the strangers. That’s when I started clinging to people—boys, mostly. Some at my high school, some older. I was searching for something I wasn’t getting at home, but I couldn’t tell you what it was because I still haven’t found it.

Most of all, I clung to Austin. Maybe it was the twin thing, or maybe it was the fact that our parents were never around when we needed them, when their guidance would have mattered. Staying close to my six-minutes-younger brother seemed to help for a while, but once we were out of high school, I started to consider that maybe Austin wasn’t the person I had built him up to be. One of the weirdest parts of growing up was the way memories changed once the veil of naïve innocence disappeared.