Before I Fall (3 page)

It’s so ironic that the hottest guy at Thomas Jefferson is on the faculty.

As usual, when he smiles my stomach does a little flip. He
runs a hand through his messy brown hair, and I fantasize about doing the same thing.

“Nine roses already?” He raises his eyebrows, makes a big show of checking his watch. “And it’s only eleven fifteen. Well done.”

“What can I say?” I make my voice as smooth and flirtatious as possible. “The people love me.”

“I can see that,” he says, and winks at me.

I let him move a little farther down the aisle before I say, loudly, “I still haven’t gotten my rose from you, Mr. Daimler.”

He doesn’t turn around, but I can see the tips of his ears go red. There are giggles and snorts from the class. I get that rush that comes when you know you’re doing something wrong and are getting away with it, like stealing something from the school cafeteria or getting tipsy at a family holiday without anyone knowing.

Lindsay says Mr. Daimler’s going to sue me for harassment one day. I don’t think so. I think he secretly likes it.

Case in point: when he turns around to face the class, he’s smiling.

“After reviewing last week’s test results, I realize there’s still a lot of confusion about asymptotes and limits,” he begins, leaning against his desk and crossing his legs at the ankle. Nobody else could make calculus even remotely interesting, I’m sure of it.

For the rest of the class he barely looks at me, and even then
only when I raise my hand. But I swear that when our eyes do meet, it makes my whole body feel like a giant shiver. And I swear he’s feeling it too.

After class Kent catches up with me.

“So?” he says. “What did you think?”

“Of what?” I say to irritate him. I know he’s talking about the cartoon and the rose.

Kent just smiles and changes the subject. “My parents are away this weekend.”

“Good for you.”

His smile doesn’t waver. “I’m having a party tonight. Are you coming?”

I look at him. I’ve never understood Kent. Or at least I haven’t understood him in years. We were super close when we were little—technically I suppose he was my best friend as well as my first kiss—but as soon as he hit middle school, he started getting weirder and weirder. Since freshman year he’s always worn a blazer to school, even though most of the ones he owns are ripped at the seams or have holes in the elbows. He wears the same scuffed-up black-and-white checkered sneakers every day and his hair is so long it’s like a curtain that swings down over his eyes every five seconds. But the real deal breaker is this: he actually wears a bowler hat. To school.

The worst thing is that he could be cute. He has the face and the body for it. He has a tiny heart-shaped mole under his left
eye, no joke. But he has to screw it up by being such a freak.

“Not sure what my plans are yet,” I say. “If that’s where everyone ends up…” I let my voice trail off so he knows I’ll only show if there’s nothing better to do.

“It’s going to be great,” he says, still smiling. Another infuriating thing about Kent: he acts like the world is one big, shiny present he gets to unwrap every morning.

“We’ll see,” I say. Down the hall I see Rob ducking into the cafeteria and I start walking faster, hoping Kent will get the picture and back off. It’s pretty optimistic thinking on my part. Kent has had a crush on me for years. Possibly even since our kiss.

He stops walking entirely, maybe hoping I’ll stop too. But I don’t. For a second I feel bad, like I was too harsh, but then his voice rings out after me, and I can tell just by the sound of it that he’s
still
smiling.

“See you tonight,” he says. I hear the squeak of his sneakers on the linoleum, and I know he has turned around and started off in the opposite direction. He starts whistling. The sound of it carries back to me, getting fainter. It takes me a while to place the tune.

The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.
From
Annie
, the musical. My favorite song—when I was seven.

I know no one else in the hall will get it, but still I’m embarrassed and can feel heat creeping up my neck. He’s always
doing things like that: acting like he knows me better than anyone else just because we used to play in the sandbox together a hundred years ago. Acting like nothing that’s happened in the past ten years has changed anything, even though it’s changed
everything
.

My phone’s buzzing in my back pocket and before I go in to lunch I snap it open. There’s one new text from Lindsay.

Party @ Kent McFreaky’s 2nite. In?

I pause for just a second, blowing out a long breath, before I text back.

Obv.

There are three acceptable things to eat in the Thomas Jefferson cafeteria:

Rob is standing over by the cash register with a group of his friends. He’s holding an enormous tray of fries. He eats them every day. He catches my eye and gives me a nod. (He’s not the kind of guy who does so well with feelings, his or mine. Thus
the “luv ya” on the note he sent me.)

It’s weird. Before we were going out, I liked him so much, and for so long, that every time he even looked in my direction I would get this bubbling, fizzing feeling so strong it would make me dizzy. No lie: sometimes I got light-headed thinking about him and had to sit down.

But now that we’re officially a couple, I sometimes have the strangest thoughts when I look at him, like I wonder if all those fries are clogging his arteries or whether he flosses or how long it’s been since he washed the Yankees hat he wears pretty much every day. Sometimes I’m worried there’s something wrong with me. Who
wouldn’t
want to go out with Rob Cokran?

It’s not that I’m not totally happy—I am—but it’s almost like sometimes I have to keep running over and over in my head why I liked him in the first place, like if I don’t I’ll somehow forget. Thankfully there are a million good reasons: the fact that he has black hair and a billion freckles but somehow they don’t look stupid on him; that he’s loud but in a funny way; that everyone knows him and likes him and probably half of the girls in the school have a crush on him; that he looks good in his lacrosse jersey; that when he’s really tired he lays his head on my shoulder and falls asleep. That’s my favorite thing about him. I like to lie next to him when it’s late, dark, and so quiet I can hear my own heartbeat. It’s times like that when I’m sure that I’m in love.

I ignore Rob as I get in line to pay for my bagel—I can play
hard to get too—and then head for the senior section. The rest of the cafeteria is a rectangle. Special ed kids sit all the way down, at the table closest to the classrooms, and then there are the freshman tables, and then the sophomore tables, and then the junior tables. The senior section is at the very head of the cafeteria. It’s an octagon lined completely with windows. Okay, so it only looks out over the parking lot, but it’s still better than getting a straight view of the short-bus brigade dribbling their applesauce. No offense.

Ally’s already sitting at a small circular table right by the window: our favorite.

“Hey.” I put down my tray and my roses. Ally’s bouquet is sitting on the table and I do a quick count.

“Nine roses.” I gesture to hers and then give my bouquet a rattle. “Same as me.”

She makes a face. “One of mine doesn’t count. Ethan Shlosky sent one to me. Can you believe it? Stalker.”

“Yeah, well, I got one from Kent McFuller, so one of mine doesn’t count either.”

“He
looves
you,” she says, drawing out the
o
. “Did you get Lindsay’s text?”

I pick the mushy center out of my bagel and pop it in my mouth. “Are we really going to go to his party?”

Ally snorts. “Afraid he’ll date-rape you?”

“Very funny.”

“There’s gonna be a keg,” Ally says. She takes a tiny nibble
of her turkey sandwich. “My house after school, okay?” She doesn’t really have to ask. It’s our tradition on Fridays. We order food, raid her closet, blast music, and dance around swapping eye shadows and lip glosses.

“Yeah, sure.”

I’ve been watching Rob come closer out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly he’s there, plopping into a chair next to me and leaning in until his mouth is touching my left ear. He smells like Total cologne. He always does. I think it smells a little like this tea my grandmother used to drink—lemon balm—but I haven’t told him that yet.

“Hey, Slammer.” He’s always making up names for me: Slammer, Samwich, Sammy Says. “Did you get my Valogram?”

“Did you get mine?” I say.

He swings his backpack off his shoulder and unzips it. There are a half dozen crumpled roses in the bottom of his bag—I’m assuming one of them is mine—and besides that, an empty pack of cigarettes, a pack of Trident gum, his cell phone, and a change of shirts. He’s not so much into studying.

“Who are the other roses from?” I say, teasing him.

“Your competition,” he says, arching his eyebrows.

“Very classy,” Ally says. “Are you going to Kent’s party tonight, Rob?”

“Probably.” Rob shrugs and suddenly looks bored.

Here’s a secret: one time when we were kissing, I opened my
eyes and saw that
his
eyes were open. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder, watching the room.

“He’s getting a keg,” Ally says for the second time.

Everyone jokes that going to Jefferson prepares you for the total college experience: you learn to work, and you learn to drink. Two years ago the
New York Times
ranked us among the top ten booziest public schools in Connecticut.

It’s not like there’s anything else to do around here, though. We’ve got malls and basement parties. That’s it. Let’s face it: that’s how
most
of the country is. My dad always said that they should take down the Statue of Liberty and put up a big strip mall instead, or those golden McDonald’s arches. He said at least that way people would know what to expect.

“Ahem.
Excuse me
.”

Lindsay is standing behind Rob, clearing her throat. She has her arms folded and she’s tapping her foot.

“You’re in my seat, Cokran,” she says. She’s only pretending to be hard-core. Rob and Lindsay have always been friends. At least, they’ve always been in the same group, and by necessity have always had to be friends.

“My apologies, Edgecombe.” He gets up and makes a big flourish, like a bow, when she sits down.

“See you tonight, Rob,” Ally says, and adds, “bring your friends.”

“I’ll see you later.” Rob leans down and buries his face in my hair, making his voice deep and quiet. That voice used to make
all of the nerves in my body light up like a firework explosion. Now, sometimes, I think it’s cheesy. “Don’t forget. It’s all about you and me tonight.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I say, hoping my voice sounds sexy and not scared. My palms are sweating and I pray he doesn’t try to take my hand.

Thankfully, he doesn’t. Instead he bends down and presses his mouth into mine. We make out for a bit until Lindsay squeals, “Not while I’m eating,” and throws a fry in my direction. It hits me on my shoulder.

“Bye, ladies,” Rob says, and saunters off with his hat just tilted on an angle.

I wipe my mouth on a napkin when nobody’s looking, since the bottom half of my face is now coated with Rob’s saliva.

Here’s another secret about Rob: I
hate
the way he kisses.

Elody says all my stressing is just insecurity because Rob and I haven’t actually sealed the deal yet. Once we do, she’s positive I’ll feel better, and I’m sure she’s right. After all, she’s the expert.

Elody is the last to join us at lunch, and we all make a grab for her fries when she sets down her tray. She makes a halfhearted attempt to swat our hands away.

She slaps her bouquet of roses down next. She has twelve, and I feel a momentary twinge of jealousy.

I guess Ally feels it too because she says, “What did you have to do for those?”

“
Who
did you have to do?” Lindsay corrects her.

Elody sticks her tongue out but seems pleased that we noticed.

All of a sudden, Ally looks at something over my shoulder and starts giggling. “
Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est
.”

We all turn around. Juliet Sykes, or Psycho, has just drifted into the senior section. That’s how she walks: like she’s drifting, being blown around by forces outside of her control. She’s carrying a brown paper bag in her long pale fingers. Her face is shielded behind a curtain of pale blond hair, shoulders hunched up around her ears.

For the most part, everyone in the cafeteria ignores her—she’s the definition of forgettable—but Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I start making that screeching and stabbing motion from Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho
, which we all watched at a sleepover a couple of years ago. (Afterward we had to sleep with the lights on.)

I’m not sure if Juliet hears us. Lindsay always says she can’t hear at all because the voices in her head are too loud. Juliet keeps up that same slow pace across the room, eventually reaching the door that leads out into the parking lot. I’m not sure where she eats every day. I hardly ever see her in the cafeteria.

She has to shove her shoulder against the door a few times before it will open, like she’s too frail to make it work.

“Did she get our Valogram?” Lindsay says, licking salt off a
fry before popping it in her mouth.

Ally nods. “In bio. I was sitting right behind her.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Does she
ever
say anything?” Ally puts one hand across her heart, pretending to be upset. “She threw the rose out as soon as class was over. Can you believe it? Right in front of me.”