Chapter One

Ask Santa for a new bike, and you might get it.

But Daddy might leave on Christmas Day.

When you reach out to touch your shiny new bike, Mommy might start yelling at Daddy about how dare he spend their money on a new bike and how you’re only five and what do you need a new bike for anyway?

You play your invisible trick—the one where you pretend you are a small rock—and hope that no one will notice your heart thumping so loud and your ears burning and your eyes blinking again and again.

Daddy yells back at Mommy and soon they are yelling in each other’s faces.

You take your hand off the bike.

You wish, instead of asking for a bike, you’d asked Santa for no more yelling and no more breaking things and slamming of doors. You wish you’d asked for Daddy not to walk out the door and say he’s never coming back and stay away until Mommy calls and begs him to come home like she has four times already.

The yelling gets louder and the words get meaner and then it all stops. A blast of freezing air gets in when Daddy opens the front door. You shiver and the door slams shut with Daddy on the other side.

In the long silence before Mommy starts her crying and her kicking at the door, you think about what she said about the bike.

How come Dad and Mom had to pay Santa?

Oh.

It doesn’t matter what you asked Santa, you realize, because there is no Santa. There’s no Santa, and Daddy’s not coming back this time. Somehow you know it.


Chapter Two

When all else fails I go to Erik. Tonight, all else has failed.

He answers the door, eyes bloodshot, unsurprised. And then the hitch in my breathing that comes, that always comes with Erik.

“Can’t sleep?” he says.

“No.”

He steps aside to let me in, shuts the door behind me, slides the bolts, and chains the locks.

“Drink?” he says.

I refuse, as always.

There is no bar, just a huddle of bottles on top of a giant, long-broken stereo speaker. He pours himself a Lagavulin, neat, as always.

“You painting?” he says.

“All day.”

“Good.”

“You breaking the law?”

“Not at the moment,” he says with the ghost of a smirk.

The couch is clear of its usual technological detritus. I follow him there, and sit.

I shouldn’t be here.

I should never have been here. But it was too late years ago, and now it doesn’t matter so much.

We try small talk but soon run out of easy things to say. Our ill beginnings surface quickly, so it’s really better not to converse.

“So,” he says.

“So.”

I feel his eyes on me. He knows if I’m here, I’ve done everything I can to still the storm inside, to put all the demons back into their boxes and seal the lids. But sometimes they won’t go. Sometimes my ears are full of screaming, and sometimes, like tonight, the voices are mine.

Erik has them too—demons, voices, nightmares seared on the soul—I knew it the first time I saw him. And sometimes, when there are large, dark spaces inside that you cannot escape, sometimes someone can meet you there, keep you company. Sometimes they can break you out.

I turn my head and let his eyes in. We search, and accept.

There can be no love here; we don’t want it and we don’t have it to give, especially not to one another. No love, but there is something else.

“Mara,” he says. A question, a command.

“Yes.”

We both stand.

I know the way to the bedroom, I know his mouth will taste like Scotch. I walk ahead and listen for his footsteps behind me. Just inside the door his arms wrap around my waist. He swivels me around and pulls me closer. I let him.

I come here because I know Erik will drag me to the edge. He will drag me there, push me over, and then leap after me, to a place beyond pain, beyond loss, beyond the things that haunt us in the empty spaces of the night.

When all else fails, I have this.
 

From the back cover:

After growing up as the only child of bitterly divorced parents, Mara Foster has finally gained independence and is embarking on a promising career as an artist. But despite her success, she is fragile. Burdened by a host of fears and anxieties, Mara finds it difficult even to leave her house on most days. When Mara meets Hugo, the walls she has built around herself begin to crumble, and as she struggles to find a breakthrough both in her art and in life, she must come to terms with her own dark secrets in order to get a second chance at happiness.

Written in spare, crisp prose and marked by wry humor, Falling Under is a gripping contemporary urban tale of human weakness, friendship and hard-earned redemption. This emotionally resonant story of unexpected love marks the debut of a striking new voice in fiction.

Available from:
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What People Are Saying:

“A fearless, penetrating debut.” Tish Cohen, author of Town House.

"Falling Under reminds one of Mary Gaitskill's best –sleek, erotic, wry and poignant." Karen Karbo, author of How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great.

"Heartwrenching and provocative all at once. With crisp, polished prose and a fearless narrative style, Younge-Ullman creates a spellbinding journey through young adulthood. Fans of Stephen Elliott and A.M. Homes will enjoy this raw, edgy debut." Martha O'Connor, author of The Bitch Posse.

“Younge-Ullman redefines modern fiction with this finely wrought, edgy debut. With her crisp dialogue, precisely drawn characters, and heartrending prose, Stephen Elliot and Heather O’Neill fans will have a new literary crush to thrill them. Younge-Ullman is the best kind of new author– enormously talented and utterly unafraid.” Kristy Kiernan, author of Catching Genius.

"Mara’s journey is a wild ride, back toward the harrowing story of her first love and forward toward the possibility of new love. Danielle Younge-Ullman writes about human connections with thrilling energy, honesty, and fury. And her sex scenes are as raw and gutsy as any I’ve ever read." Ellen Sussman, author/editor of Dirty Words, An Encyclopedia of Sex

"Readers will fall under the spell of Falling Under. Danielle Younge Ullman's debut novel is captivating, cutting edge, and not easily forgotten." Eileen Cook, author of Unpredictable.

"If there's one book you read this year, make it Falling Under. Brimming with raw emotion and intensity and peppered with damaged souls you want so much to root for, it's the kind of novel that makes a writer wish she'd written it." Jenny Gardiner, author of Sleeping With Ward Cleaver

"Brave, bold and absolutely brilliant." Lisa Daily, bestselling author of Stop Getting Dumped and Fifteen Minutes of Shame.