Before I Fall

The black mouth of the woods, yawning open. Vicky Hallinan’s face…

I try to decide what will happen to me if it turns out I really have gone bat-shit insane. Just before eighth period I stood ten feet away from the main office—home to the principal, Ms. Winters, and the school psychiatrist—willing myself to go in and say the words: I think I’m going crazy. But then there was a bang and Lauren Lornet shot into the hall, sniffling, probably crying over some boy drama or fight with her parents or something normal. In that second all of the work I’d done to fit in vanished. Everything is different now. I’m different.

“So are we going or what?” Elody bursts into the room in front of Ally. They’re both breathless.

“Let’s do it.” Lindsay picks up her bag and swings it over one shoulder.

Ally starts to giggle. “It’s only nine thirty,” she says, “and Sam already looks like she could barf.”

I stand up and wait for a second while the ground steadies underneath me. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Lindsay says, and smiles.

THE PARTY, TAKE TWO

“This is how a horror movie starts,” Ally says. “Are you sure he’s number forty-two?”

“I’m sure.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. The huge crush of fear has returned. I can feel it pressing on me from all directions, squeezing the breath out of me.

“This better not screw with my paint job,” Lindsay says as a branch scrapes along the passenger door with the sound of a nail dragging against a chalkboard.

The woods fall away, and Kent’s house comes looming out of the darkness, white and sparkling, like it’s made of ice. The way it just emerges there, surrounded on all sides by black, reminds me of the scene in Titanic when the iceberg rises out of the water and guts the ship open. We’re all silent for a second. Tiny pellets of rain ping against the windshield and the roof, and Lindsay switches off her iPod. An old song pipes quietly from the radio. I can just make out the lyrics: Feel it now like you felt it then…. Touch me now and around again….

“It’s almost as big as your house, Al,” Lindsay says.

“Almost,” Ally says. I feel a tremendous wave of affection for her at that moment. Ally, who likes big houses and expensive cars and Tiffany jewelry and platform wedges and body glitter. Ally, who’s not that smart and knows it, and obsesses over boys who aren’t good enough for her. Ally, who’s secretly an amazing cook. I know her. I get her. I know all of them.

In the house Dujeous roars through the speakers: All MCs in the house tonight, if your lyrics sound tight then rock the mic. The stairs roll underneath me. When we get upstairs Lindsay takes the bottle of vodka away from me, laughing.

“Slow down, Slam-a-Lot. You’ve got business to take care of.”

“Business?” I start laughing a little, little gasps of it. It’s so smoky I can hardly breathe. “I thought it was making love.”

“The business of making love.” She leans in and her face swells like a moon. “No more vodka for a while, okay?”

I feel myself nodding and her face recedes. She scans the room. “I’ve gotta find Patrick. You gonna be okay?”

“Perfect,” I say, trying to smile. I can’t manage it: it’s like the muscles in my face won’t respond. She starts to turn away and I grab her wrist. “Lindz?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna come with you, okay?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. He’s in the back somewhere—he just texted me.”

We start pushing past people. Lindsay yells back to me, “It’s like a maze up here.” Things are going past me in a blur—snippets of conversation and laughter, the feel of coats brushing against my skin, the smell of beer and perfume and shower gel and sweat—all of it whirling and spinning together.

Everyone looks the way they do in dreams, familiar but not too clear, like they could morph into someone else at any second. I’m dreaming, I think. This is all a dream: this whole day has been a dream, and when I wake up I’ll tell Lindsay how the dream felt real and hours long, and she’ll roll her eyes and tell me that dreams never last longer than thirty seconds.

It’s funny to think about telling Lindsay—who’s tugging on my hand and tossing her hair impatiently in front of me—that I’m only dreaming of her, that she’s not really here, and I giggle, starting to relax. It’s all a dream; I can do whatever I want. I can kiss anybody I want to, and as we walk past groups of guys I check them off in my head—Adam Marshall, Rassan Lucas, and Andrew Roberts—I could kiss each and every one if I wanted to. I see Kent standing in the corner talking to Phoebe Rifer and I think, I could walk up and kiss the heart-shaped mole under his eye, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I don’t know where the idea comes from. I would never kiss Kent, not even in a dream. But I could if I wanted to. Somewhere I’m lying stretched out under a warm blanket on a big bed surrounded by pillows, my hands folded under my head, sleeping.

I lean forward to tell Lindsay this—that I’m dreaming of yesterday and maybe yesterday was its own dream too—when I see Bridget McGuire standing in a corner with her arm around Alex Liment’s waist. She’s laughing and he’s bending down to nuzzle her neck. She looks up at that moment and sees me watching them. Then she takes his hand and drags him over to me, pushing other people out of the way.

“She’ll know,” she’s saying over her shoulder to him, and then she turns her smile on me. Her teeth are so white they’re glowing. “Did Mrs. Harbor give out the essay assignments today?”

“What?” I’m so confused it takes me a second to realize she’s talking about English class.

“The essay assignments. For Macbeth?”

She nudges Alex and he says, “I missed seventh period.” He meets my eyes and then looks away, taking a swig of beer.

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.

“So did she give them out?” Bridget looks like she always does: like a puppy just waiting for a treat. “Alex had to skip. Doctor’s appointment. His mom made him get some shot to, like, prevent meningitis. How lame is that? I mean, four people died of it last year. You have more of a chance of being hit by a car—”

“He should get a shot to prevent herpes,” Lindsay says, snickering, but so quietly I only hear because I’m standing right next to her. “It’s probably too late, though.”

“I don’t know,” I say to Bridget. “I cut.”

I’m staring at Alex, watching his reaction. I’m not sure whether he noticed Lindsay and me standing outside of Hunan Kitchen today, peering inside. It doesn’t seem like it.

He and Anna had been huddled over some grayish meat congealing in a plastic bowl, just like I’d expected them to be. Lindsay had wanted to go in and mess with them, but I’d threatened to puke on her new Steve Madden boots if we even caught a whiff of the nasty meat-and-onion smell inside.

By the time we left The Country’s Best Yogurt, they were gone, and we only saw them again briefly at the Smokers’ Lounge. They were leaving just as Lindsay was lighting up. Alex gave Anna a quick kiss on the cheek, and we saw them walk off in two different directions: Alex toward the cafeteria, Anna toward the arts building.

They were long gone by the time Lindsay and I passed the Nic Nazi on her daily patrol. They weren’t busted today.

And Bridget doesn’t know where he really was during seventh.

All of a sudden things start clicking into place—all the fears I’ve been holding back—one right after another like dominoes falling. I can’t deny it anymore. Sarah Grundel got the parking space because we were late. That’s why she’s still in the semifinals. Anna and Alex didn’t have a fight because I convinced Lindsay to keep walking. That’s why they weren’t caught out at the Smokers’ Lounge, and that’s why Bridget is hanging off Alex instead of crying in a bathroom.

This isn’t a dream. And it’s not déjà vu.

It’s really happening. It’s happening again.

It feels like my whole body goes to ice in that second. Bridget’s babbling about having never cut a class, and Lindsay’s nodding and looking bored, and Alex is drinking his beer, and then I really can’t breathe—fear is clamping down on me like a vise, and I feel like I might shatter into a million pieces right then and there. I want to sit down and put my head between my knees, but I’m worried that if I move, or close my eyes, or do anything, I’ll just start to unravel—head coming away from neck coming away from shoulder—all of me floating away into nothing.

The head bone disconnected from the neck bone, the neck bone disconnected from the backbone…

I feel arms wrap around me from behind and Rob’s mouth is on my neck. But even he can’t warm me up. I’m shivering uncontrollably.

“Sexy Sammy,” he singsongs, turning me around to him. “Where’ve you been all my life?”

“Rob.” I’m surprised I can still speak, surprised I can still think. “I really need to talk to you.”

“What’s up, babe?” His eyes are bleary and red. Maybe it’s because I’m terrified, but certain things seem sharper to me than they ever have, clearer. I notice for the first time that the crescent-shaped scar under his nose makes him look kind of like a bull.

“We can’t do it here. We need to…we need to go somewhere. A room or something. Somewhere private.”

He grins and leans into me, breathing alcohol on my face while he tries to kiss me. “I get it. It’s that kind of conversation.”

“I’m serious, Rob. I’m feeling—” I shake my head. “I’m not feeling right.”

“You’re never feeling right.” He pulls away, frowning at me. “There’s always something, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

He sways a little bit on his feet and imitates. “I’m tired tonight. My parents are upstairs. Your parents will hear.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been waiting months for this, Sam.”

The tears are coming. My head throbs with the effort of keeping them back. “This has nothing to do with that. I swear, I—”

“Then what does it have to do with?” He crosses his arms.

“I just really need you right now.” I barely get the words out. I’m surprised he even hears me.

He sighs and rubs his forehead. “All right, all right. I’m sorry.” He puts one hand on the top of my head.

I nod. Tears start coming and he wipes two of them away with his thumb.

“Let’s talk, okay? We’ll go somewhere quiet.” He rattles his empty beer cup at me. “But can I at least get a topper first?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, even though I want to beg him to stay with me, to put his arms around me and never let go.