Before I Fall

“Hey, Sam.” Kent’s voice.

I spin around with a squeak, tripping on my own feet. Just like with Juliet Sykes, I’m so lost in fantasy about Kent that his actual appearance seems like a dream or wishful thinking. He’s wearing an old corduroy blazer with patches sewn onto the elbows like a deranged—and adorable—English teacher. The corduroy looks soft and I get the urge to reach out and touch it, an urge that has nothing to do with my general sense of today and the preciousness of things.

Kent’s hands are buried in his pockets, and his shoulders are shrugged toward his ears like he’s trying to stay warm. “No calculus today?”

“Um…no.” I’ve been waiting to run into him all day, but now my mind is a blank.

“That’s too bad.” Kent grins at me, jogging on his feet. “You missed some roses.” He whips his bag over one shoulder and unzips it, pulling out the cream-and-pink-swirled rose with a gold note card fluttering from one end. “A few of them went back to the office, I think. But I—uh, I wanted to bring this one to you myself. It’s a little crushed. Sorry.”

“It’s not crushed,” I say quickly. “It’s beautiful.”

He bites the edge of his lip—the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I think he might be nervous. His eyes are flitting over my face and then away, and each time they land on me it feels like the world is falling away and it’s just the two of us in the middle of a bright, green field.

“You didn’t miss anything in math,” he says, and I recognize a Kent McFuller babble coming on. “I mean, we went over some of the stuff from Wednesday’s homework because some people were, like, freaking out about the quiz on Monday. But mostly everyone was a little bit antsy, I think because of Cupid Day, and Daimler didn’t really care that—”

“Kent?”

He blinks and shuts up. “Yeah?”

“Did you send me this?” I hold up the rose. “I mean, is it from you?”

His smile gets so big it’s like a huge beam of sunshine. “I’ll never tell,” he says, winking.

I’ve unconsciously taken several steps toward him, so I can feel the heat coming off his body. I wonder what he would do if I pulled him to me right now, brushed my lips against his the way he did—the way I hope he did—last night. But even the idea sends a flurry of butterflies upward from my stomach, my whole body feeling quivery and uncertain.

At that moment I remember what Ally said to us on the first day, the day it all started: that if a group of butterflies takes off in Thailand it can cause rainstorms in New York. And I think of all the thousands of billions of steps and missteps and chances and coincidences that have brought me here, facing Kent, holding a pink-and-cream-swirled rose, and it feels like the biggest miracle in the world.

“Thank you,” I blurt out, and quickly add, “you know…for bringing me this.”

He ducks his head, looking pleased and embarrassed. “No problem.”

“I, um, hear you’re having a party tonight?” I’m mentally kicking myself for sounding so lame. In my head, this played out so much easier. In my head, he would lean down and do the thing with his lips again, the soft fluttery thing. I’m desperate to make it all go right again, desperate to get back to that feeling I had last night—we had last night, he must have felt it—but I’m afraid that anything I say could screw it up. A temporary sadness for what I’ve lost overwhelms me. Somewhere in the endless spinning of eternity that one, tiny, fraction of a second where our lips met is lost forever.

“Yeah.” His face lights up. “Parents out of town, you know. Are you coming?”

“Definitely,” I say, so forcefully he looks kind of startled. “I mean,” I continue at a normal volume, “it’s going to be the place to be, right?”

“Let’s hope so.” Kent’s voice is slow and warm, like syrup, and I wish I could close my eyes and just listen to it. “I got two kegs.” He twirls his finger in the air like, whoop-dee-doo.

“I would come anyway.” I mentally kick myself: what does that even mean?

Kent looks like he gets it, though, because he blushes. “Thanks,” he says. “I was hoping you would. I mean, I figured you would because you’re always at parties, you know, out and stuff, but I didn’t know if there was another party or something, or maybe you and your friends do something different on Fridays—”

“Kent?”

He does that adorable quick stop of his mouth. “Yeah?”

I lick my lips, unsure of how to say what I want to, squeezing my hands into fists.

“I—I have something to tell you.”

He puckers his forehead. Adorable—how did I not realize how adorable he is?—and not making it any easier.

Deep breaths, in and out. “It’s going to sound completely insane, but—”

“Yeah?” He leans even closer, until our lips are less than four inches apart. I can smell peppermint candy on his breath, and my head starts spinning wildly like it’s been turned into a gigantic merry-go-round.

“I, um, I—”

“Sam!”

Kent and I both instinctively take one step back as Lindsay shoulders her way out of the cafeteria door, my messenger bag and hers slung over one arm. I’m actually grateful for the interruption, since I was either about to confess that I died a few days ago or that I was falling for him.

Lindsay lumbers over, being really melodramatic about the fact that she’s carrying two bags, like they’re both made out of iron. “So are we going?”

“What?”

Her eyes flit momentarily over Kent, but other than that she doesn’t even acknowledge him. She plants herself almost directly in front of him like he’s not even there, like he’s not worth her time, and when Kent looks away and pretends not to notice I feel sick. I want to convey, somehow, that she isn’t me—that I know he’s worth my time. He’s better than my time.

“Are we going to The Country’s Best Yogurt or what?” She puts a hand on her stomach and makes a face. “I swear to God, those fries gave me bloat that can only be solved by chemical deliciousness.”

Kent gives me a quick nod and starts to walk away, no good-bye, no nothing, just trying to get out of there as fast as he can.

I duck around Lindsay and call out, “Bye, Kent! See you later!”

He turns around quickly, surprised, and gives me a huge smile. “Later, Sam.” He touches his head, a salute, like one of those guys in an old black-and-white movie, and then he lopes off back into Main.

Lindsay watches him for a minute, then looks at me and narrows her eyes. “What’s up with that? Kent stalk you into submission yet?”

“Maybe,” I say, because I don’t care what Lindsay thinks. I’m buzzing from his smile and being so close to him. I feel light and invincible, the best kind of tipsy.

She stares at me for one beat longer and then just shrugs. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a brick through the window.” Then she slips her arm through mine. “Yogurt?”

And that, for all her million and one faults, is why I love Lindsay Edgecombe.

THE ROOT AND BUD

“Come on, Sam.” Lindsay’s looking up at Kent’s house greedily, like it’s made out of chocolate. “Your face looks fine.”

I’m checking my makeup for the fiftieth time in the flip-down mirror. I put a final slick of lip gloss on and fish a gummy piece of mascara from the corner of my eyelashes, practicing the speech I’ve rehearsed in my head. Listen, Kent, this may sound random, but I was wondering if you, you know, wanted to hang out sometime….

“I don’t get it.” Ally leans forward from the backseat, her Burberry puffy jacket crackling. “If you’re not going to do it with Rob, what are you freaking out about?”

“I’m not freaking out,” I say. Despite the fact that I’ve put on cream blush and moisturizer with a slight tint, I look vampire-pale.

“You’re freaking out,” Lindsay, Elody, and Ally say at the same time, and then start laughing.

“Sure you don’t want a shot?” Ally pokes my shoulder with the vodka bottle.

I shake my head. “I’m good.” I’m too nervous to drink, weirdly. Besides, this is the first day of my new beginning. From now on I’m going to do things right. I’m going to be a different person, a good person. I’m going to be the kind of person who would be remembered well, not just remembered. I’ve been repeating this over and over, and just the idea of it is giving me strength, something solid I can hold on to, a lifeline.

It’s helping me beat back the fear and the buzzing sense somewhere deep inside me that I’ve forgotten to do something, that something’s off.

Lindsay puts her arms around me and plants a kiss on my cheek. Her breath smells like vodka and Tic Tacs. “Our very own designated driver,” she says. “I feel like an after-school special.”

“You are an after-school special,” Elody says. “The warning kind.”

“You should talk, slutsky,” Lindsay says, turning around to peg Elody with a tube of lip gloss. Elody catches it and squeals triumphantly, then dabs some on her lips.

“Well, I’m the freezing kind,” Ally says. “Can we go in, please?”

“Madame?” Lindsay turns to me, flourishing her hand and bowing slightly.

“All right. Let’s do it.” I keep on running lines in my head: You know, catch a movie, or go get something to eat or whatever…I know it’s been a couple of years since we really talked….

The party is loud, a giant roar. Maybe it’s because I’m sober, but everyone looks ridiculously packed together, hot and uncomfortable, and for the first time in a long time, I feel shy walking in, like people are staring at me. I keep my mind on what I’m here to do: find Kent.

“Crazy.” Lindsay leans forward and circles her hand in the air, gesturing to all the people smashed together, moving an inch at a time, like they’re all connected by an invisible rope.

We push our way upstairs. Everyone’s eyes look bright, like dolls’ eyes, from alcohol and maybe other stuff. It’s kind of creepy, actually. Even though I’ve been in school with all these people forever, they look different, unfamiliar, and when they smile at me I just see teeth everywhere, like piranhas getting ready to eat something. I feel like a curtain has dropped away and I’m seeing people for who they really are, different and sharp and unknowable. For the first time in days, I think about the dream I was having for a while, where I’m walking through a party and everyone looks familiar except for one thing, something off. I wonder if the real point of that dream was not that other people were transforming, but that I was. Lindsay keeps one finger jabbed into the small of my back, encouraging me to keep moving, and I’m glad for it. That little point of connection gives me courage.

I push my way into the first room at the top of the stairs, one of the biggest, and my heart drops all the way into my stomach: Kent. He’s standing in the corner talking to Phoebe Rifer, and instantly my mind goes fuzzy, a big useless snowstorm. My mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and I totally regret not taking at least one shot, just so I won’t be so aware of how weird and tall and awkward I feel, like I’m Alice in Wonderland and have gotten too big for the room.