Before I Fall (15 page)

I finally manage to wrench away. I feel hot and sick. I don’t want to know this, don’t want to know any of it.

“I can’t help you,” I say, backing away, still feeling like I’m not actually saying the words, just hearing them spoken aloud from somewhere.

Lauren looks like I’ve just slapped her. “What? What do you mean you can’t help? Just tell them—”

My hands are shaking as I go to pick up my phone. It slips out of my grasp twice and lands back on the floor both times with a clatter. It’s not supposed to be like this. I feel like someone’s pressed the Reverse button on a vacuum cleaner and all
of the junk I’ve done is spewing back onto the carpet for me to see.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break my phone,” I say, feeling numb. “This cost me two hundred dollars.”

“Were you even
listening
to me?” Lauren’s voice is rising hysterically. I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. “I’m screwed, I’m finished—”

“I can’t help you,” I say again. It’s like I can’t remember any other words.

Lauren lets out something that’s halfway between a scream and a sob. “You said I shouldn’t be nice to you today. You know what? You were right. You’re awful, you’re a bitch, you’re—”

Suddenly it’s like she remembers where we are: who she is, and who I am. She claps her hand over her mouth so quickly it makes a hollow, echoing sound in the hallway.

“Oh, God.” Now her voice comes out as a whisper. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

I don’t even answer. Those words—
you’re a bitch
—make my whole body go cold.

“I’m sorry. I—please don’t be mad.”

I can’t stand it—can’t stand to hear her apologize to me. And before I know it I’m running—full-out running down the hall, my heart pounding, feeling like I need to scream or cry or smash my fist into something. She calls after me, but I don’t know what it is, I don’t care, I can’t know, and when I push into the girls’ bathroom, I throw my back against the door and sink
down against it until my knees are pressed into my chest, my throat squeezed up so tight it hurts to breathe. My phone keeps buzzing, and once I’ve calmed down a bit, I flip it open and find texts from Lindsay, Ally, and Elody:
What? Dish. Spill. Did u make up w Rob?

I throw my phone into my bag and rest my head in my hands, waiting for my pulse to return to normal. All of the happiness I felt earlier is gone. Even the Otto and Winters situation doesn’t seem funny anymore. Bridget and Alex and Anna and Sarah Grundel and her stupid parking space and Lauren Lornet and the chem test—it feels like I’ve been caught up in some enormous web and every way I turn I see that I’m stuck to someone else, all of us wriggling around in the same net. And I don’t want to know any of it. It’s not my problem. I don’t care.

You’re a bitch.

I don’t care. I have bigger things to worry about.

Finally I stand up. I’ve given up on going to Spanish. Instead I splash cold water on my face and then reapply my makeup. My face is so pale under the harsh fluorescent lights, I hardly recognize it.

ONLY THE DREAM

“Come on, cheer up.” Lindsay whacks me on the head with a pillow. We’re sitting on the couch in Ally’s den.

Elody pops the last spicy tuna roll into her mouth, which I’m not sure is such a great idea, as it’s now been perched on an
ottoman for the past three hours. “Don’t worry, Sammy. Rob’ll get over it.”

All of them think Rob’s the reason I’m quiet. But of course, it isn’t. I’m quiet because as soon as the clock inched its way past twelve, the fear crept back in. It’s been filling me slowly, like sand running through an hourglass. With every second I’m getting closer and closer to the Moment. Ground zero. This morning I was certain that it was simple—that all I had to do was stay away from the party, stay away from the car. That time would lurch back on track. That I would be saved.

But now my heart feels like it’s being squashed between my ribs, and it gets harder and harder to breathe. I’m terrified that in one second—in the space between a breath—everything will evaporate into darkness, and I’ll once again find myself alone in my bedroom at home, waking up to the screaming of the alarm. I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens. I think my heart will break. I think my heart will stop.

Ally switches off the television and throws down the remote. “What should we do now?”

“Let me consult the spirits.” Elody slides off the couch and onto the floor, where earlier we’d set up a dusty Ouija board for old time’s sake. We tried to play, but everyone was obviously pushing, and the indicator kept zipping onto words like
penis
and
choad
, until Lindsay started screaming “Perv spirits! Child molesters!” into the air.

Elody shoves the indicator with two fingers. It spins once
before settling over the word
YES
.

“Look, Ma.” She holds up her hands. “No hands.”

“It wasn’t a
yes
or
no
question, doofus.” Lindsay rolls her eyes and takes a big sip of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape we swiped from the wine cellar.

“This town sucks,” Ally says. “Nothing ever happens.”

Twelve thirty-three. Twelve thirty-four. I’ve never seen seconds and minutes rush by so fast, tumble over one another. Twelve thirty-five. Twelve thirty-six.

“We need music or something,” Lindsay says, jumping up. “We can’t just sit around here like bums.”

“Definitely music,” Elody says. She and Lindsay run into the next room, where the Bose sound dock is.

“No music.” I groan, but it’s too late. Beyoncé is already blasting. The vases begin to rattle on the bookshelves. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and chills are running up and down my body. Twelve thirty-seven. I nestle deeper into the couch, drawing a blanket up over my knees, and cover my ears.

Lindsay and Elody march back into the room. We’re all in old boxer shorts and tank tops. Lindsay’s obviously just raided Ally’s mudroom because she and Elody are now also decked out in ski goggles and fleece hats. Elody’s hobbling along with one foot jammed in a child’s snowshoe.

“Oh my God!” Ally screams. She holds her stomach and doubles over, laughing.

Lindsay gyrates with a ski pole between her legs, rocking back and forth. “Oh, Patrick! Patrick!”

The music is so loud I can barely hear her, even when I take my hands off my ears. Twelve thirty-eight. One minute.

“Come on!” Elody shouts, extending her hand to me. I’m so full of fear I can’t move, can’t even shake my head, and she leans forward and yells, “Live a little!”

So many thoughts and words are tumbling through my head. I want to yell,
No, stop
or
Yes, live
, but all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut and picture seconds running like water into an infinite pool, and I imagine all of us hurtling through time and I think,
Now, now, it’s going to happen now—

And then everything goes silent.

I’m afraid to open my eyes. A deep emptiness opens up inside me. I feel nothing. This is what it’s like to be dead.

Then a voice: “Too loud. You’ll blow out your eardrums before you’re twenty.”

I snap open my eyes. Mrs. Harris, Ally’s mom, is standing in the doorway in a glistening raincoat, smoothing down her hair. And Lindsay’s standing there in her ski goggles and hat, and Elody’s awkwardly trying to pry her foot out of the snowshoe.

I made it. It worked. Relief and joy flood me with so much force I almost cry out.

But instead, I laugh. I burst out laughing in the silence, and
Ally gives me a dirty look, like, Now
you decide it’s funny?

“Are you girls drunk?” Ally’s mother stares at each of us in turn and then frowns at the nearly empty bottle of wine on the floor.

“Hardly.” Ally throws herself on the couch. “You killed the buzz.”

Lindsay flips the goggles onto her head. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris,” she says brightly, as if dancing around half naked and decked out in winter sports equipment was a Girl Scouts–mandated activity.

Mrs. Harris sighs. “Not anymore. It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”

“Moooom,” Ally whines.

Mrs. Harris shoots her a look. “No more music.”

Elody finally wrenches her foot free and stumbles backward, collapsing against one of the bookshelves.
Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook
comes flying out and lands at her feet. “Oops.” She turns bright red and looks at Mrs. Harris like she expects to be spanked any minute.

I can’t help it. I start giggling again.

Mrs. Harris rolls her eyes to the ceiling and shakes her head. “Good night, girls.”

“Nice going.” Ally leans over and pinches my thigh.

“Retard.”

Elody starts giggling and imitates Lindsay’s voice. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris.”

“At least I didn’t fall into a bookshelf.” Lindsay bends over and wiggles her butt at us. “Kiss it.”

“Maybe I will.” Elody dives for her, pretending like she’s going to. Lindsay shrieks and dodges her. Ally hisses,
“Shhhh!”
right as we hear Mrs. Harris yell,
“Girls!”
from upstairs. Pretty soon they’re all laughing. It feels great to laugh with them.

I’m back.

An hour later Lindsay, Elody, and I are settled on the L-shaped couch. Elody has the top bit, and Lindsay and I are lying end-to-end. My feet are pressed against Lindsay’s, and she keeps wiggling her toes to annoy me. But nothing can annoy me right now. Ally has dragged in her air mattress and her blankets from upstairs (she insists she can’t sleep without her Society comforter). It’s just like freshman year. We’ve put the television on low because Elody likes the sound, and in the dark room the glow of the screen reminds me of summers spent breaking into the pool club to go night-swimming, of the way the light shines up through all that black water, of stillness and feeling like you’re the only person alive in the whole world.

“You guys?” I whisper. I’m not sure who’s still awake.

“Mmmf,”
Lindsay grunts.

I close my eyes, letting the feeling of peace sweep over me, fill me from head to toe. “If you had to relive one day over and over, which one would you pick?”

Nobody answers me, and in a little while I hear Ally start
snoring into her pillow. They’re all asleep. I’m not tired yet. I’m still too exhilarated to be here, to be safe, to have broken out of whatever bubble of time and space has been confining me. But I close my eyes anyway and try to imagine what kind of day I would choose. Memories speed by—dozens and dozens of parties, shopping trips with Lindsay, pigging out at sleepovers and crying over
The Notebook
with Elody, and even before that, family vacations and my eighth birthday party and the first time I ever dove off the high board at the pool and the water fizzed up my nose and left me dizzy—but all of them seem imperfect somehow, spotted and shadowy.

On a perfect day there wouldn’t be any school, that’s for sure. And there would be pancakes for breakfast—my mom’s pancakes. And my dad would make his famous fried eggs, and Izzy would set the table like she sometimes does at holidays, with different mismatched plates and fruit and flowers that she gathers from around the house and dumps in the middle of the table and calls a “thenterpeeth.”

I close my eyes and feel myself letting go, like tipping over the edge of an abyss, darkness rising up to carry me away….

Bringbringbring.

I’m pulled back from the edge of sleep and for one horrible second I think:
it’s my alarm, I’m home, it’s happening again
. I strike out, a spasm, and Lindsay yelps, “Ow!”

The sound of that one word makes my heart go still and my breathing return to normal.

Bringbringbring.
Now that I’m fully alert I realize it’s not my alarm. It’s the telephone, ringing shrilly in various rooms, creating a weird echo effect. I check the clock. One fifty-two.

Elody groans. Ally rolls over and murmurs, “Turn it off.” The telephone stops ringing and then starts again, and all of a sudden Ally sits up, straight as a rod, totally awake.

She says, “Shit. Shit. My mom’s gonna kill me.”

“Make it stop, Al,” Lindsay says, from underneath her pillow.

Ally tries to untangle herself from her sheets, still muttering, “Shit. Where’s the freaking
phone
?” She trips and ends up stumbling out of bed and hitting the ground with her shoulder. Elody moans again, this time louder.

Lindsay says, “I’m trying to sleep, people.”

“I need the phone,” Ally hisses back.

It’s too late, anyway. I hear footsteps moving upstairs. Mrs. Harris has obviously woken up. A second later the phone stops ringing.

“Thank God.” Lindsay rustles around, burrowing farther under her covers.

“It’s almost two.” Ally stands up—I can see the vague outline of her form hobbling back over to the bed. “Who the hell calls at two in the morning?”

“Maybe it’s Matt Wilde, confessing his love,” Lindsay says.

“Very funny,” Ally says. She settles back in bed and we all get quiet. I can just hear the low murmur of Mrs. Harris’s voice
above us, the creaking of her footsteps as she paces. Then I very distinctly hear her say: “Oh, no. Oh my God.”

“Ally—” I start.

But she’s heard it too. She gets up and turns on the light, then switches off the television, which is still on low. The sudden brightness makes me wince. Lindsay curses and pulls the covers over her head.

“Something’s wrong.” Ally hugs herself, blinking rapidly. Elody reaches for her glasses, then props herself up on two elbows. Eventually Lindsay realizes the light’s not going off and she emerges from under her cocoon.

“What’s the problem?” She balls her hands into fists, rubbing her eyes.

No one answers. We all have a growing sense of it now: something is
very
wrong. Ally’s just standing there in the middle of the room. In her oversized T-shirt and baggy shorts she looks much younger than she is.

At a certain point the voice upstairs stops, and the footsteps move diagonally across the floor, in the direction of the stairs. Ally moves back to the air mattress, folding her legs underneath her and biting her nails.