The Edge of Falling (4 page)

I didn’t blame him when he broke up with me. It was my fault. I knew it was coming. I had probably known for months. He didn’t understand that I couldn’t be honest with him. What he didn’t know was that he wouldn’t have wanted that. He didn’t want my honesty. Because I could have told him everything—how I really felt about Hayley, what was happening with my family—but it wouldn’t have made things better. It would have made things far, far worse. He would have felt responsible, somehow, for everything. That’s the kind of guy Trevor is. He thinks he can somehow affect the course of my life just by existing. But that’s not how it works. If it did, well, things would be different.

“I don’t even know where he’s been,” I tell Peter, leaning against the sink and taking a long swig of water. “I don’t even know if he’s coming back.”

“He’s . . .” Peter crosses his arms. “Of course he’s coming back.”

“Yeah? How can you be so sure?”

Peter takes a pear out of a basket on the counter and flicks it in the air. “I saw him today.”

My chest feels like it’s an elastic band that’s just been snapped. I swallow. “Where?”

“On the street by his place. Seventy-Second, right?”

I nod. “Did he say anything?”

“Not really,” he says. “But I didn’t ask.”

Peter is the kind of guy who would run into Oprah and comment on the weather. He doesn’t push people, or seek out answers. It’s one of the things I love most about him: You never feel like he’s going to corner you. But right now I’m annoyed with him for taking everything so lightly. Some things in life require anger and sadness and pain. When Peter acts so carefree, I can’t help but feel like he’s lying.

“I guess I’ll see him at school—”

“Look, Caggs,” he says. “I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

“Good,” I snap.

“
But
,” he continues, “you should cut the guy some slack. It’s been a tough year.”

“Really? I had no idea.” I cross my arms and look at him.

“I’m just trying to tell you it’s okay to move forward,” he says.

My annoyance at him blooms into full-on anger. “Just
because I don’t feel like spending the summer frolicking around her grave site doesn’t mean I’m not moving on,” I shoot back.

As soon as the words are out, I feel horrible. It’s a familiar feeling, that acid in my stomach—like some small balloon of poison that’s been punctured.

Peter looks at me, unblinking. “Is that what you think?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “It’s not.”

“Good, because I wasn’t frolicking.”

“Whatever,” I mumble. “I know you love it out there.”

“Caggie, listen to me.” Peter’s voice is stern. “I went out there to pack up the house. Mom can’t do it, and I doubt Dad would either. Who else is going to sort through that stuff ?”

“They’re selling it?” I ask stupidly.

Peter nods. “Yes.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t blame you, but try to think a little bit before you just assume things.”

I had no idea my parents were selling the house. I guess I should have figured they would, but I kind of saw it as sitting there, untouched. Which is why it was so disturbing to me that Peter would want to spend the summer out there—cooking there, sleeping there. I wanted, if I’m honest, for everything to stay the same. Maybe if we didn’t move anything, if we kept it exactly as it was—the overturned chair, the back door slightly ajar—then she would find her way home.

But that’s not the way it is. She didn’t run away.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Peter nods. “Fair enough.”

“Is anyone interested yet?”

Peter bites into the pear. “I mean, we’re talking prime beachfront, Caggs. It’ll go quickly.”

“Right.”

He sets the fruit down and comes over to the sink. “Hey, it’s okay. It was actually not so bad being out there. I found some of her old paintings.” He runs a hand over his forehead and smiles. “She’s was such a crazy little artist.”

“A good one,” I say.

Hayley loved to paint. There is this room off her bedroom that our mother always thought was a closet but that was actually more the size of a study. I helped Hayley turn it into an art studio. We bought everything: oil paints, big canvases, brushes, smocks. I’ve never seen anyone as happy in my life as she was when we brought it all home.

She’d spend hours in there. Her big thing was birds. Huge canvases of them. She was a total amateur ornithologist; she knew every species. We’d be watching a movie and there would be a bird noise, like a background sound, and she’d be able to tell you exactly what species it was, where it came from, what color its wings were. That was the kind of kid she was. She really cared about the things she cared about.

In May, after the incident, I found a bunch of supplies still in Hayley’s studio. There were her paintings, all wrapped in bubble paper, but then some unused stuff too. Unopened oil paints, a bowl still coated in her favorite shade of fuchsia. The one she had mixed up herself.

I’m still not sure what to do with it all. I can’t quite bring myself to throw it out. It was her life dream to be a painter. Every time I try to clean up in there, I imagine her standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.
What do you think you’re doing?
she’d say.
I’m not finished with that.

Peter nods. “I miss her too, Caggs. But we shouldn’t pretend like we can close the door on that. It isn’t something to lock up.”

“Yeah.” I slide past him. “Look, I’m going to get some stuff organized for tomorrow. But we could grab dinner later if you wanted to.”

“Definos?”

“You know it.”

He puts his hand up and I tap it with my palm. “Call Felicia,” I tell him on my way out.

He rolls his eyes but I can see a smile on his lips. “Okay, boss.”

I wander back to my room thinking about Trevor. A million thoughts flash through my mind at once. He’s back. Why hasn’t he called? Why would he call? Is he mad at
me? Where did he go? And then: Does he want to get back together?

No, he doesn’t want to get back together. Why would he? He hasn’t so much as sent me an e-mail to let me know he’s alive.

But when I walk into my room, I don’t have to think about where he is, or whether he’s going to call, because he’s standing right there. He’s facing the window in my bedroom, and he doesn’t immediately turn around. I just stand in my doorway, looking at the back of him—the curve of his neck, the shape of his arms. Arms that wrapped around me. I used to think that if he held me as tight as he could it would keep everything in place. It would keep my mind from running away, from remembering. I was wrong.

I clear my throat. “Hi,” I say.

He spins around, and when he does, I’m reminded of the first time I saw him. It was freshman year, the first day at Kensington, and I wasn’t expecting to see too many foreign faces. Most of the kids I already knew. They were kids I had gone to Wheatley with, grown up with. They were my neighbors. But then I spotted this boy standing by the admissions office, leaning against the wall by the door. He was flipping through a course catalog, and he had this light brown hair and tanned skin and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. They seemed to soften when he looked at me, like
they went from being fixed sapphires to tiny pools of water with a single glance.

We didn’t become friends then. We didn’t even speak at all. But I’ll never forget the way he looked at me. Like he was melting.

“Hey, Caggs.” His face is soft, and I notice his hair has grown longer this summer. It’s always wavy, kind of floppy in the front, but it sweeps down below his ears now. He runs a hand through, lifting it up off his forehead.

“How did you get in?” I ask. My voice cracks on the last word.

“You always said I shouldn’t knock,” he says. He smiles, but it’s just slight.

He moves closer to me, and my heart starts hammering. I forgot how attractive he is. How even now, with so much terrible history between us, a huge part of me just wants to kiss him. To run my hands through his hair and feel his breath against my ear.

Trevor pauses in the middle of my room. “How was your summer?” he asks.

“How was my summer?”

He drops his eyes to the carpet. “Yeah, I mean . . .”

“Trevor, I haven’t spoken to you in two months.”

“I just thought . . .” He stops, starts again: “I just wanted to see how you were.”

I cross my arms. “I’m fine.”

“I can see that.” He smiles, like he’s trying it on, seeing if it will catch. When my lips don’t move, his face falls.

“Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?” I ask.

His forehead pinches together. “In LA,” he says. “I assumed you knew.” Trevor has grandparents out in LA, and he goes every summer to visit them. But it’s usually just for a week or two.

“How would I know?”

He squints and looks at me, opens his mouth. But then he shakes his head and doesn’t say anything.

“You didn’t even call,” I say.

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.” He pauses, crosses his arms. “Was I wrong?”

I inhale. I want to tell him that yes, of course he was wrong. All I wanted all summer was a phone call from him, to hear his voice or see his name in my inbox, but I can’t admit that. He broke up with me. He’s the one who ended things. All there is left to do now is prove I’ve moved on.

“Is that all?” I ask. “Is that what you came here to say?”

“Caggs . . .”

I turn away from him, toward my door, because all of a sudden I’m afraid I’m going to cry. And if I start, I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to stop. It’s better to keep that stuff low. Way down at the core, like where they bury radioactive waste.

“I have a lot to do before tomorrow,” I whisper, my back still turned.

He walks to where I’m standing until I can feel him behind me. I close my eyes as he reaches out and touches my back, right below the shoulder blades. “I’ll see you,” he says.

Then he’s moving past me, out the door. I watch his frame disappear down the hallway, and listen for his feet on the stairs. I can’t hear them, though. You can’t hear anything in this house, not even when it’s right next to you.

There are two types of students at Kensington. The ones who have parents who went there, and the ones who don’t. Meaning the ones who are new to the Kensington Way. Kensington is the oldest private preparatory academy in New York. It dates back to 1842, and used to be an all-boys school until like the seventies. My father went there. His father before him.

Abigail Adams’s father went there. Constance Dunlop’s parents went there. Kensington: Educating the Future of Manhattan, One Intolerable Child at a Time.

Kensington is located right across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Museum Mile. Even though it’s no more than fifteen blocks from most of my fellow students’ homes, some of them actually take cars in the morning. The mornings
at that place are completely ridiculous—a bunch of black town cars pouring out sixteen-year-olds in skirts, ties, and knee-high socks. Sounds like a television show, right? It would be if they’d ever let cameras inside. Abigail tried to get a reality show off the ground last year, but the board voted that no video cameras would be allowed on school premises. My mother cast the deciding vote. She’s been on the board since I was born, maybe even before. My mother may be a tiny woman, but she has a lot of power. So does my dad. And it has nothing to do with their jobs. People have a strange fascination with my family that lets us get away with things.

Personally, I like to walk. I’m not a morning person, not by a long-shot, but I just can’t stomach being dropped off by a guy in a chauffeur hat at seven forty-five a.m. It would give the people around me too much pleasure. Trevor walks too, and last year I used to meet him on Fifth at Seventy-Second Street. He lives on the West Side and crosses the park at Sixty-Sixth. He’d have a cappuccino for me, and we’d take our time with the thirteen blocks up. We’d even hold hands sometimes, if we felt like it. Those mornings were my favorite part of the day. Just the two of us, wandering the streets of New York. Together.

I race downstairs, glancing at the clock: seven thirty, damn it. If I walk, I’ll be late. Peter is seated at the counter inhaling cereal, and my mother is staring at the espresso
maker like if she looks at it from the right angle, it will start working on its own.

“Morning,” I say.

Peter cocks his head up at me; my mother doesn’t move.

“What time is your flight?” I ask Peter, nudging my mom out of the way and setting the coffee machine in motion.

“Four,” he says. “Wanna take me?”

“I’m not out until three.” I raise my eyebrows at him. He knows that. Once upon a time he went to Kensington, too.

“Ah, right. But it’s senior year. You can skip, right?”

At this my mother snaps back to attention. “Absolutely not,” she says. “Albert will take you, and Caggie will remain in school.” She nods to herself, pulling down a mug. Albert didn’t used to exist, but now Dad is gone all the time, and when he’s here he’s not exactly in the mood to play chauffeur. At least not to me. Mom doesn’t drive, and isn’t a huge fan of taxis.

“Well, there you go,” I say to Peter. I grab a muffin off the counter and he pulls me into a quick hug. “Will you be back soon?” I ask his shoulder.

“Next month,” he says, releasing me. “Maybe earlier. Felicia’s got some kind of big match.” Felicia is a tennis player. She got a scholarship to Columbia for it too.

My head falls a little. After Trevor left yesterday, Peter and I spent the night in our family room, eating greasy takeout
and watching old karate movies. We were only interrupted when Claire called to talk about the latest date with Band Guy. I put her on speaker and Peter kept rolling his eyes. I hadn’t laughed that much all summer. I hadn’t really laughed at all, honestly. Having Peter around makes me feel okay again, like maybe things won’t be this way forever. I don’t want him to go.

Peter reads me. “Soon, kid,” he says.

I grab my backpack and head out the door. It isn’t even shut completely behind me when I hear her voice. The shrill alert of none other than my neighbor Abigail Adams.