Before I Fall

She squeals and squirms away. “I can’t breathe! You’re crushing me.”

“Sorry, Fizzer.” I reach back and unhook my grandma’s bird necklace. Izzy’s eyes go huge and round.

“Turn around,” I say, and for once she’s totally quiet and does what I say with no complaints, standing perfectly still while I lift her hair and fix the charm around her neck. She turns back to me, her face very serious, waiting for my opinion.

I give the necklace a tug. It falls halfway down her chest, sitting just to the right of her heart. “It looks good on you, Fizz.”

“Are you giving it to me—for real real? Or just for today?” Her voice is a hush, like we’re discussing state secrets.

“It looks better on you, anyway.” I put a finger on her nose, and she twirls away with her hands in the air like a ballerina.

“Thanks, Sammy!” Except, of course, it comes out Thammy.

“Be good, Izzy.” I stand up, throat tight, an aching in my whole body. I have to fight the urge to get down on my knees and squeeze her again.

She puts her hands on her hips like our mom does, mock-offended, sticking her nose in the air. “I’m always good. I’m the best.”

“The best of the best.”

She’s already turned around, running and sliding in her slippered feet back toward the kitchen, yelling, “Look what Sammy gave me!” with one hand cupped around the charm. Tears are blurring my vision so I can’t see her clearly, just the pink of her pajamas and the golden ring of her hair.

Outside the cold burns my lungs and makes the pain in my throat worse. I take a deep breath, sucking in the smells of wood fires and gasoline. The sun is beautiful, long and low on the horizon like it’s stretching itself, like it’s shaking off a nap, and I know underneath this weak winter light is the promise of days that last until eight P.M. and pool parties and the smell of chlorine and burgers on the grill; and underneath that is the promise of trees lit up in red and orange like flames and spiced cider, and frost that melts away by noon—layers upon layers of life, always something more, new, deeper. It makes me feel like crying, but Lindsay’s already parked in front of the house, waving her arms and yelling, “What are you doing?” so instead I just keep walking, one foot in front of the other, one, two, three, and I think about letting go—of the trees and the grass and sky and the red-streaked clouds on the horizon—letting it all drop away from me like a veil. Maybe there will be something spectacular underneath.

A MIRACLE OF CHANCE AND COINCIDENCE, PART I

“And so, I was like, listen, I don’t care that it’s stupid, I don’t care that it’s, like, a holiday invented by Hallmark or whatever….” Lindsay’s rattling on about Patrick, punctuating her story by tapping the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. She’s perfectly in control again, hair swept back in a ponytail just messy enough, lip gloss slicked on, a mist of Burberry Brit Gold clinging to the puffy jacket she’s wearing. It’s strange to see her this way after last night, but at the same time I’m glad. She’s cruel and frightened and proud and insecure, but she’s still Lindsay Edgecombe—the girl who freshman year took a key to Mari Tinsley’s brand-new BMW after Mari called her a froshy prostitute, even though Mari had just been voted prom queen, and nobody, not even people in her own grade, would stand up to her—and she’s still my best friend, and despite everything I still respect her. And I know that however wrong she’s been—about a million things, about other people, about herself—she’ll figure it out. I know from the way she looked last night, with the shadows making a hollow of her face.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I like to believe, on some level, or in some world, what happened last night matters, that it didn’t totally vanish. Sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep because of what I’m leaving behind. Thinking about Kent’s words makes shivers dance up and down my spine. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever missed kissing someone; the first time I’ve ever woken up feeling like I’ve lost something important.

“Maybe he’s freaking out because he’s too into you,” Elody pipes up from the backseat. “Don’t you think, Sam?”

“Uh-huh.” I’m savoring my coffee, drinking it slowly. A perfect morning, exactly how I would have chosen it: perfect coffee, perfect bagel, riding around in the car with two of my best friends, not really talking about anything, not really trying to talk about anything, just babbling on about the same stuff we always do, enjoying one another’s voices. The only thing that’s missing is Ally.

I suddenly get the urge to drive around Ridgeview for a little bit longer. Partly I don’t want the ride to end. Partly I just want to look at everything one last time.

“Lindz? Can we stop at Starbucks? I, um, kind of want a latte.” I take a few gulps of my coffee, trying to drain it, to make this more believable.

She raises her eyebrows. “You hate Starbucks.”

“Yeah, well, I got a sudden craving.”

“You said it tastes like dog pee strained through a trash bag.”

Elody gulps her coffee. “Ew—hello? Drinking. Eating.” She waves her bagel dramatically.

Lindsay raises both hands. “That’s a direct quote.”

“If I’m late to poly sci one more time I swear I’ll get detention for life,” Elody says.

“And you’ll miss the chance to suck face with Muffin before first,” Lindsay says, snickering.

“What about you?” Elody pegs her with a piece of bagel, and Lindsay squeals. “It’s a miracle you and Patrick haven’t fused faces yet.”

“Come on, Lindsay. Please?” I bat my eyelashes at her, then twist around to Elody. “Pretty please?”

Lindsay sighs heavily, locking eyes with Elody in the rearview mirror. She flicks on her turn indicator. I clap my hands and Elody groans.

“Sam gets to do what she wants today,” Lindsay says. “After all, it’s her big day.” She emphasizes the word big, then starts cracking up.

Elody picks up on it right away. “I would say it was Rob’s big day, actually.”

“We can only hope.” Lindsay leans over and elbows me.

“Ew,” I say. “Perverts.”

Linday’s on a roll now. “It’s going to be loooong day.”

“A hard one,” Elody adds.

Lindsay sprays some coffee out of her mouth and Elody shrieks. They’re both snorting and laughing like maniacs.

“Very funny,” I say, looking out the window, watching the houses begin to stream together as we come into town. “Very mature.” But I’m smiling, feeling happy and calm, thinking, You have no idea.

There’s a small parking lot behind the Starbucks in town, and we get the last spot, Lindsay slamming into it and nearly taking out the side mirrors of the two cars on either side of us, but still yelling, “Gucci, baby, gucci,” which she claims is Italian for “perfect.”

In my head I’ve been saying good-bye to everything, all these places I’ve seen so often I start to ignore them: the deli on the hill with perfect chicken cutlets and the trinket store where I used to buy thread to make friendship bracelets and the Realtor’s and the dentist’s and the little garden where Steve King put his tongue in my mouth in seventh grade, and I was so surprised I bit down. I can’t stop thinking about how strange life is, about Kent and Juliet and even Alex and Anna and Bridget and Mr. Otto and Ms. Winters—about how complex and connected everything is, all threaded together like some vast, invisible netting—and how sometimes you can think you’re doing the right thing, but it’s actually terrible and vice versa.

We head into Starbucks and I get a latte. Elody gets a brownie, even though she’s just eaten, and Lindsay puts a stuffed bear on her head and then orders a water without blinking while the barista stares at her like she’s crazy, and I can’t help but throw my arms around her, and she says, “Save it for the bedroom, babe,” making the old woman behind us inch away. We come out laughing and I almost drop my coffee—Sarah Grundel’s brown Chevrolet is idling in the parking lot. She’s drumming her hands on the wheel, checking her watch, waiting for a spot to open up. The last spot—the spot we took.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I say out loud. She’ll definitely be late now.

Lindsay catches me staring and misunderstands me. “I know. If I had that car I totally wouldn’t rock it past the driveway. I think I’d rather walk.”

“No, I—” I shake my head, realizing I can’t explain. As we pass, Sarah rolls her eyes and sighs, like, Finally. The humor of the situation hits me and I start to laugh.

“How’s the latte?” Lindsay asks as we climb back in the car.

“Like dog pee strained through a trash bag,” I say. We roll out of the spot, giving Sarah a little beep, and she huffs and zooms in as soon as we’re out of the way.

“What’s her drama?” Elody asks.

“PNS,” Lindsay says. “Parking Need Syndrome.”

As we pull out of the parking lot, it occurs to me that maybe it’s not so complicated at all. Most of the time—99 percent of the time—you just don’t know how and why the threads are looped together, and that’s okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes.

And very, very rarely—by some miracle of chance and coincidence, butterflies beating their wings just so and all the threads hanging together for a minute—you get the chance to do the right thing.

Here’s the last thing that occurs to me as Sarah recedes in the rearview mirror, slamming out of the car, jogging across the parking lot: if you’re one tardy away from missing out on a big competition, you should probably make your coffee at home.

When we get to school I have a few things to take care of in the Rose Room, so I split up with Elody and Lindsay. Then, because I’m already late, I decide to skip the rest of first period. I wander through the halls and the campus, thinking how strange it is that you can live your whole life in one place and never really look at it. Even the yellow walls—what we used to call the vomit hallways—strike me as pretty now, the slender bare trees in the middle of the quad elegant and sparse, just waiting for snow.

For most of my life it’s always seemed like the school day dragged on forever—except during quizzes and tests, when the seconds seemed to trip over themselves trying to run away quickly. Today it’s like that. No matter how badly I want for everything to go slowly, time is pouring away, hemorrhaging. I’ve barely made it into the second question of Mr. Tierney’s quiz before he’s yelling, “Time!” and giving all of us his fiercest scowl, and I have to turn in my quiz only partially completed. I know it doesn’t matter, but I’ve given it my best shot anyway. I want to have one last day when everything is normal. A day like a million other days I’ve had. A day when I turn in my chem quiz and worry about whether Mr. Tierney will ever make good on his threat to call BU. But I don’t regret the quiz for long. I’m past regretting things now.