Before I Fall

TWO

In my dream I know I am falling though there is no up or down, no walls or sides or ceilings, just the sensation of cold, and darkness everywhere. I am so scared I could scream, but when I open my mouth nothing happens, and I wonder if you fall forever and ever and never touch down, is it really still falling?
I think I will fall forever.
A noise punctuates the silence, a thin bleating growing louder and louder until it is like a scythe of metal slicing the air, slicing into me—
Then I wake up.
My alarm has been blaring for twenty minutes. It’s six fifty A.M.
I sit up in bed, pushing away the comforter. I’m covered with sweat even though my room is cold. My throat is dry and I’m desperate for water, like I’ve just been running a long way.
For a second when I look around the room everything seems fuzzy and slightly distorted, like I’m not really looking at my room but only at a transparency of my room that’s been laid down incorrectly so the corners don’t match up with the real thing. Then the light shifts and everything looks normal again.
All at once it comes back to me, and blood starts pounding in my head: the party, Juliet Sykes, the argument with Kent—
“Sammy!” My door swings open, banging once against the wall, and Izzy comes galloping across the room, stepping all over my notebooks and discarded jeans and my Victoria’s Secret Team Pink sweatshirt. Something seems wrong; something skirts the edges of my memory, but then it is gone and Izzy is bouncing on my bed, throwing her arms around me. They are hot. She curls a fist around the necklace I always wear—a thin gold chain with a tiny bird charm hanging from it, a gift from my grandmother—and tugs gently.
“Mommy says you have to get up.” Her breath smells like peanut butter, and it’s not until I push her off me that I realize how badly I’m shaking.
“It’s Saturday,” I say. I have no idea how I got home last night. I have no idea what happened to Lindsay or Elody or Ally, and just thinking about it makes me sick.
Izzy starts giggling like a maniac and bounces off the bed, scurrying back toward the door. She disappears down the hallway, and I hear her call out, “Mommy, Sammy won’t get up!” She says my name: Thammy.
“Don’t make me come up there, Sammy!” My mom’s voice echoes from the kitchen.
I put my feet on the ground. The feel of the cold wood reassures me. When I was younger I would lie on the floor all summer when my dad refused to turn the air-conditioning on; it was the only place that stayed cool. I’m tempted to do the same thing now. I feel feverish.
Rob, the rain, the sound of bottles shattering in the woods—
My phone chimes, making me jump. I reach over and flip it open. There’s a new text from Lindsay.
I’m outside. Where r u?
I snap my phone shut quickly but not before I see the date blinking up at me: Friday, February 12.
Yesterday.
Another chime. Another text.
Don’t make me l8 on Cupid Day, beeyatch!!!
I suddenly feel like I’m moving underwater, like I’m weightless, or watching myself from a distance. I try to stand up, but when I do my stomach bottoms out and I have to rush to the bathroom in the hall, legs shaking, certain I’m going to throw up. I lock the door and turn on the water in both the sink and the shower. Then I stand over the toilet.
My stomach clenches on itself, but nothing comes up.
The car, the skidding, the screams—
Yesterday.
I hear voices in the hallway, but the water’s rushing so hard I can’t make them out. It’s not until someone starts pounding on the door that I straighten up and yell, “What?”
“Get out of the shower. There’s no time.” It’s Lindsay—my mom’s let her in.
I crack the door a little and there she is, her big puffy jacket zipped to her chin, looking pissed. I’m happy to see her, anyway. She looks so normal, so familiar.
“What happened last night?” I say.
She frowns for a second. “Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn’t call back. I didn’t get off the phone with Patrick until, like, three A.M.”
“Call back?” I shake my head. “No, I meant—”
“He was freaking out over the fact that his parents are going to Acapulco without him.” She rolls her eyes. “Poor baby. I swear to you, Sam, guys are like pets. Feed ’em, pet ’em, and put ’em to bed.” She leans forward. “Speaking of which—are you excited about tonight?”
“What?” I don’t even know what she’s talking about. Her words are all running past me, blurring together. I’m holding on to the towel rack, afraid I’ll fall over. The shower is on way too hot and there’s thick steam everywhere, clouding up the mirror, condensing on the tiles.
“You, Rob, some Miller Lite, and his flannel sheets.” She laughs. “Very romantic.”
“I have to shower.” I try to close the door, but she wedges her elbow in at the last second and pushes into the bathroom.
“You haven’t showered yet?” She shakes her head. “Uh-uh. No way. You’ll have to do without.”
She reaches into the shower and turns off the water, then grabs me by the hand and drags me into the hallway.
“You definitely need some makeup, though,” she says, scanning my face. “You look like shit. Nightmares?”
“Something like that.”
“I have my MAC stuff in the Tank.” She unzips her coat and I see a white tuft of fur peeking out from her cleavage: our Cupid Day tank tops. I suddenly have the urge to sit down on the floor and laugh and laugh, and I have to struggle not to have a fit right there while Lindsay’s shoving me into my room.
“Get dressed,” she says, and pulls out her cell phone, probably to text Elody we’re going to be late. She watches me for a second and then sighs, turning away.
“Hope Rob doesn’t mind a little BO,” she says, and as she giggles over this, I start pulling on my clothes: the tank top, the skirt, the boots.
Again.
DOES THIS STRAITJACKET MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG?

When Elody gets into the car she leans forward to grab her coffee, and the smell of her perfume—raspberry body spray she still buys religiously from the Body Shop in the mall, even though it stopped being cool in seventh grade—is so real and sharp and familiar I have to close my eyes, overwhelmed.
Bad idea. With my eyes shut I see the beautiful warm lights of Kent’s house receding in the rearview mirror and the sleek black trees crowding on either side of us like skeletons. I smell burning. I hear Lindsay yelling and feel my stomach bottom out as the car lurches to one side, tires squealing—
“Shit.”
I snap my eyes open as Lindsay swerves to avoid a squirrel. She chucks her cigarette out the window and the smell of smoke is strangely double: I’m not sure whether I’m smelling it or remembering it or both.
“You really are the worst driver.” Elody giggles.
“Be careful, please,” I mutter. I’m clutching the sides of my seat without meaning to.
“Don’t worry.” Lindsay leans over and pats my knee. “I won’t let my best friend die a virgin.”
I’m desperate to spill everything to Lindsay and Elody at that moment, to ask them what’s happening to me—to us—but I can’t think of any way to say it.
We were in a car accident after a party that hasn’t happened yet.
I thought I died yesterday. I thought I died tonight.
Elody must think I’m quiet because I’m worried about Rob. She loops her arms around the back of my seat and leans forward.
“Don’t worry, Sam. You’ll be fine. It’s just like riding a bike,” Elody says.
I try to force a smile, but I can barely focus. It seems like a long time ago that I went to bed imagining being side-by-side with Rob, imagining the feel of his cool, dry hands. Thinking about him makes me ache, and my throat threatens to close up. I suddenly can’t wait to see him, can’t wait to see his crooked smile and his Yankees hat and even his dirty fleece that always smells a little bit like boy sweat, even after his mom makes him wash it.
“It’s like riding a horse,” Lindsay corrects Elody. “You’ll be a blue-ribbon champion in no time, Sammy.”
“I always forget you used to ride horses.” Elody flips open the lid of her coffee and blows steam off the top.
“When I was, like, seven,” I say, before Lindsay can turn this into a joke. I think if she starts making fun of me now I really will cry. I could never explain the truth to her: that riding was my favorite thing in the world. I loved to be alone in the woods, especially in the late fall when everything is crisp and golden, the leaves the color of fire, and it smells like things turning into earth. I loved the silence—the only sound the steady drum of the hooves and the horse’s breathing.
No phones. No laughter. No voices. No houses.
No cars.
I’ve flipped the visor down to keep the glare out of my eyes, and in the mirror I see Elody smiling at me. Maybe I’ll tell her what’s happening to me, I think, but at the same time I know that I won’t. She would think I was crazy. They all would.
I keep quiet and look out the window. The light is weak and watery-looking, like the sun has just spilled itself over the horizon and is too lazy to clean itself up. The shadows are as sharp and pointed as needles. I watch three black crows take off simultaneously from a telephone wire and wish I could take off too, move up, up, up, and watch the ground drop away from me the way it does when you’re on an airplane, folding and compressing into itself like an origami figure, until everything is flat and brightly colored—until the whole world is like a drawing of itself.
“Theme song, please,” Lindsay says, and I scroll through her iPod until I find the Mary J. Blige, then lean back and try not to think of anything except the music and the beat.
And I keep my eyes open.


By the time we pull into the drive that winds past the upper parking area and down to the faculty lot and Senior Alley, I’m actually feeling better, even though Lindsay’s cursing and Elody’s complaining that one more tardy will get her Friday detention and it’s already two minutes after first bell.
Everything looks so normal. I know that because it’s Friday, Emma McElroy will be coming from Evan Danzig’s house, and sure enough there she is, ducking through a clipped portion of the fence. I know Peter Kourt will be wearing a pair of Nike Air Force 1s he’s had for a million years because he wears them every day, even though there are so many holes in them you can see what color socks he’s wearing (usually black). I watch them go flashing by as he books it down toward the main building.
Seeing all these things makes me feel a thousand times better, and I start thinking maybe all of yesterday—everything that happened—was just some kind of long, strange dream.
Lindsay cruises down to the Senior Alley, even though there’s zero chance of finding a spot. It’s a religion for her. My stomach dips when we pass the third spot from the tennis courts, and there’s Sarah Grundel’s brown Chevrolet with its Thomas Jefferson Swim Team sticker—and another one, smaller, that reads GET WET—staring at me from the bumper. I think: she got the last spot because we’re so late, and I have to squeeze my nails into my palms and repeat to myself that I’ve only been dreaming—that none of this has happened before.
“I can’t believe we have to walk .22 miles,” Elody says, pouting. “I don’t even have a jacket.”
“You’re the one who left the house half naked,” Lindsay says. “It is February.”
“I didn’t know I’d be outside.”
We pass the soccer fields on our right as we loop back toward Upper Lot. At this time of year the fields are all churned up, just mud and a few patches of brown grass.
“I feel like I’m having déjà vu,” Elody says. “Flashback to freshman year, you know?”
“I’ve been having déjà vu all morning,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. Instantly I feel better, sure that that’s what this is.
“Let me guess.” Lindsay brings one hand to her temples and frowns, pretending to concentrate. “You’re having flashbacks to the last time Elody was this annoying before nine A.M.”
“Shut up!” Elody leans forward and smacks Lindsay’s arm and they start laughing. I smile too, relieved to have spoken the words out loud. It makes sense: one time on a trip to Colorado, my parents and I hiked up three miles to this little waterfall smack in the middle of the woods. The trees were big and old, all of them pine. The clouds were streaked across the sky like spun sugar. Izzy was too young to walk or talk. She was riding in my dad’s baby backpack, and she kept punching her tiny fat fists at the sky like she wanted to grab it.
Anyway, as we were standing there watching the spray of water on the rocks, I had the craziest feeling that it had all happened before, down to the smell of the orange my mom was peeling and the exact reflections of the trees in the surface of the water. I was positive. It became the big joke that day, because I’d complained about having to hike three miles, and when I told my parents I was having déjà vu, they kept laughing and saying it really would be a miracle if I’d ever agreed to walk that far in a past life.
I guess my point is only that I was sure then, just like I’m feeling sure now. It happens.
“Oooh!” Elody squeals, and starts digging through her purse. She knocks out a pack of cigarettes and two empty tubes of lip gloss, plus a misshapen eyelash curler. “I almost forgot your present.”
She sends the condom sailing over the front seat, and Lindsay claps her hands and bounces in her seat when I hold it up.
“No glove, no love?” I say, managing a smile.
Elody leans forward and kisses my cheek, leaving a ring of pink gloss. “You’re going to be great, kid.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, and drop the condom in my bag. We step out of the car and the air is so cold my eyes sting and start to water. I ignore the bad feeling buzzing through me, and I think, This is my day, this is my day, this is my day, so I can’t think of anything else.
A SHADOW WORLD

I read once that you get déjà vu when the two halves of your brain process things at different speeds: the right half a few seconds before the left, or vice versa. Science is probably my worst subject, so I didn’t understand the whole article, but that would explain the weird double feeling that it leaves you with, like the world is splitting in half—or you are.
That’s the way I feel, at least: like there’s a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which.
The thing about déjà vu is that it has always passed really quickly—thirty seconds, a minute at most.
But this doesn’t pass.
Everything is the same: Eileen Cho squealing over her roses in first period and Samara Phillips leaning over and crooning, “He must really love you.” I pass the same people in the halls at the same time. Aaron Stern spills his coffee all over the hallway again, and Carol Lin starts screaming at him again.
Even her words are the same. “Were you dropped on your head one too many times or something?” I have to admit it’s pretty funny, even the second time around. Even when I feel like I’m crazy; even when I feel like I could scream.
But even weirder are the little blips and wrinkles, the things that have shifted around. Sarah Grundel, for example. On my way to second period I see her standing against a bank of lockers, twirling her goggles around her index finger and talking to Hillary Hale. As I walk by I catch just a bit of their conversation.
“…so excited. I mean, Coach says my time could still go down by a half second—”
“We have two weeks before the semis. You can totally do it.”
I stop dead when I hear this. Sarah sees me staring at her and gets really uncomfortable. She smoothes her hair and tugs on her skirt, which is riding up on her waist.
Then she waves.
“Hey, Sam,” she says. She pulls on her skirt again.
“Were you—” I take a deep breath to keep from stuttering like an idiot. “Were you just talking about semifinals? For swim team?”
“Yeah.” Sarah’s face lights up. “Are you going to come?”
Even though I’m freaking out, it still occurs to me that this is a really stupid question. I’ve never gone to a swim meet in my life, and the idea of sitting on a slimy tile floor and watching Sarah Grundel splash around in a bathing suit is about as appealing as the chow mein from Hunan Kitchen. To be honest, the only sporting event I ever go to is homecoming, and after four years I still don’t understand any of the rules. Lindsay usually brings a flask of something for the four of us to share, so that could have something to do with it.
“I thought you weren’t competing.” I try hard to act casual. “I heard some rumor…like maybe you were late and the coach freaked out….”
“You heard a rumor? About me?” Sarah’s eyes go wide and she looks like I just handed her a winning lotto ticket. I guess she’s of the “no press is bad press” philosophy.
“I guess I was wrong.” I think of seeing her car in the third-to-last spot and feel heat flood my face. Of course she wasn’t late today. Of course she’s still competing. She didn’t have to walk from Upper Lot today. She was late yesterday.
My head starts pounding and suddenly I just want to get out of there.
Hillary’s looking at me strangely. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”
“Yeah. Fine. Bad sushi last night.” I put one hand on the lockers to steady myself. Sarah starts babbling about the time she got food poisoning from the mall, but I’m already walking away, feeling like the hallway is rolling and buckling underneath me.
Déjà vu. It’s the only explanation.
If you repeat something enough, you can almost make yourself believe it.
I’m feeling so shaken up I almost forget that Ally’s waiting for me in the bathroom by the science wing. I go into the stall and flip the lid of a toilet down and just sit there, only half listening while she babbles. I remember something Mrs. Harbor once said on one of her crazy tangents in English: that Plato believed that the whole world—everything we can see—was just like shadows on a cave wall. We can’t actually see the real thing, the thing that’s casting the shadow in the first place. I have that feeling now, of being surrounded by shadows, like I’m seeing the impression of the thing before the thing itself.
“Hello? Are you even listening to me?”
Ally rattles the door and I look up, startled. I notice AC=WT scrawled on the inside of the door. Below it a smaller note reads: Go back to the trailer, ho.
“You said pretty soon you’d have to shop for bras in the maternity section,” I say automatically. Of course I wasn’t really listening. Not this time, anyway.
I’m wondering, vaguely, why Lindsay came all the way down here to write on the bathroom wall—why it was important to her, I mean. She’d already written it a dozen times in the stalls across from the cafeteria, and that’s the bathroom everyone uses. I’m not even sure why she dislikes Anna, and it reminds me that I still don’t know when she started hating Juliet Sykes so much either. It’s weird how much you can know about someone without knowing everything. You’d think someday you’d come to the end of it.
I stand up and swing the door open, pointing to the graffiti. “When did Lindsay do this?”
Ally rolls her eyes. “She didn’t. Copycat artist.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. There’s one in the girls’ locker room too. Copycat.” She whips her hair into a ponytail and starts pinching her lips to make them swell up. “It’s so lame. We can’t do anything in this school without everyone doing the same thing.”
“Lame.” I run my fingers over the words. They’re thick and black, like worms, drawn in permanent marker. I wonder, briefly, whether Anna uses this bathroom.
“We should sue for copyright infringement. Can you imagine? Twenty bucks for every time somebody bites our style. We’d be rolling in it.” She giggles. “Mint?”
Ally holds out an Altoids tin. Even though she’s still a virgin—and will be, for the foreseeable future (or at least until she goes to college), since she’s completely obsessed with Matt Wilde—she insists on taking birth control pills, which she keeps crumpled up in their foil pack right there alongside her mints. She claims it’s so her dad won’t find them, but everyone knows she likes to flash them during class so that people will think she’s having sex. Not that anybody’s fooled. Thomas Jefferson is small: you know these things.
One time Elody told Ally she had “pregnancy breath” and we all died over it. It was junior year in May and we were all lying out on Ally’s trampoline. It was the Saturday morning after she’d had one of her best parties yet. We were all just a little hungover, our brains fuzzy, stuffed on all the pancakes and bacon we’d put down at the diner, totally happy. I lay there while the trampoline dipped and swayed, closing my eyes against the sun, wishing that the day would never end.
The bell rings and Ally squeals, “Ooh! We’re gonna be late.”
Again that pit opens in my stomach. A part of me is tempted to hide all day in the bathroom, but I can’t.
I know you know what happens next. That I get to chem late. That I take the last seat next to Lauren Lornet. That Mr. Tierney passes out a quiz with three questions on it.
The worst part of it? I’ve seen the quiz before and I still don’t know the answers.
I ask to borrow a pen. Lauren starts whispering to me; she wants to know if it’s working okay. Mr. Tierney’s book comes down with a bang.
Everyone jumps but me.
Class. Bell. Class. Bell.
Crazy. I’m going crazy.
By the time the roses get delivered in math class my hands are shaking. I take a deep breath before I open the little laminated card attached to the rose Rob sent me. I imagine it will say something incredible, something surprising, something that will make everything better.
You’re beautiful, Sam.
I’m so happy to be with you.
Sam, I love you.
I lift the corner of the card gently and peek inside.
Luv y—
I close the card quickly and put it in my bag.
“Wow. It’s beautiful.”
I look up. The girl dressed like an angel is standing there, staring at the rose she’s just laid on my desk: pink and cream petals swirled together like ice cream. She still has her hand outstretched and tiny blue veins crisscross her skin like a web.
“Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I snap at her. She blushes as red as the roses she’s holding and stammers out an apology.
I don’t bother reading the note that’s attached to this one, and for the rest of class I keep my eyes glued to the blackboard to avoid any sign from Kent. I’m concentrating so hard on not looking at him I almost miss it when Mr. Daimler winks at me and smiles.
Almost.
After class Kent catches up with me, holding the pink-and-cream rose, which I’d deliberately left on my desk.
“You forgot this,” he says. As always his hair is flopping over one eye. “It’s okay, you can say it: I’m amazing.”
“I didn’t forget it.” I’m struggling not to look at him. “I didn’t want it.”
I sneak a glance at him and see his smile fade for a second. Then it’s back on full-force, like a friggin’ laser beam.
“What do you mean?” He tries to pass it to me. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that the more roses you get on Cupid Day, the more popular you are?”
“I don’t think I need any help in that department. Especially from you.”
His smile definitely drops then. Part of me hates what I’m doing, but all I can think of is the memory—or dream—or whatever it is—when he leans in and I think he’s going to kiss me, I’m sure of it, but instead he whispers, I see right through you.
You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.
Thank God.
I dig my nails into my palms.
“I never said the rose was from me,” he says. His voice is so low and serious it startles me. I meet his eyes; they’re bright green. I remember when I was little my mom used to say that God mixed the grass and Kent’s eyes from the same color.
“Yeah, well. It’s pretty obvious.” I just want him to stop looking at me like that.
He takes a deep breath. “Look. I’m having a party tonight—”
That’s when I see Rob loping into the cafeteria. Normally I would wait for him to notice me, but today I can’t.
“Rob!” I yell out.
He turns and sees me, gives me half a wave, and starts to turn around again.
“Rob! Wait!” I take off down the hallway. I’m not exactly running—Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I made a pact years ago never to run on school grounds, not even in gym class (let’s face it: sweating and huffing aren’t exactly attractive)—but it’s a close call.
“Whoa, Slamster. Where’s the fire?”
Rob puts his arms around me and I bury my nose in his fleece. It smells a little like old pizza—not the best smell, especially when it’s mixed with lemon balm—but I don’t care. My legs are shaking so badly I’m afraid they’ll give out. I just want to stand there forever, holding on to him.
“I missed you,” I say into his chest.
For a second his arms tense around me. But when he tilts my face up toward his, he’s smiling.
“Did you get my Valogram?” he asks.
I nod. “Thanks.” My throat is tight and I’m worried I’ll start to cry. It feels so good to have his arms around me, like he’s the only thing holding me up. “Listen, Rob. About tonight—”
I’m not even sure what I’m going to say, but he cuts me off.
“Okay. What is it now?”
I pull back just a little bit so I can look at him. “I—I want to…I’m just—things are all crazy today. I think I might be sick or—or something else.”
He laughs and pinches my nose with two fingers. “Oh, no. You’re not getting out of this one.” He puts his forehead to mine and whispers, “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”
“I know, me too….” I’ve imagined it so many times: the way the moon will be dipping past the trees and coming through the windows and lighting up triangles and squares on the walls; the way his fleece blanket will feel against my bare skin when I take my clothes off.
And then I’ve imagined the moment afterward, after Rob has kissed me and told me he loved me and fallen asleep with his mouth just parted and I sneak off to the bathroom and text Elody and Lindsay and Ally.
I did it.
It’s the middle part that’s harder to picture.
I feel my phone buzz in my back pocket: a new text. My stomach flips. I already know what it will say.
“You’re right,” I say to Rob, squeezing my arms around him. “Maybe I should come over right after school. We can hang out all afternoon, all night.”
“You’re cute.” Rob pulls away, adjusts his hat and his backpack. “My parents don’t clear out until dinnertime, though.”
“I don’t care. We can watch a movie or someth—”
“Besides.” Rob’s looking over my shoulder now. “I heard about some party at what’s-his-name’s—dude with the bowler hat. Ken?”
“Kent,” I say automatically. Rob knows his name, obviously—everyone knows everyone here—but it’s a power thing. I remember telling Kent, I shouldn’t even know your name, and feel queasy. Voices are swelling through the hall, and people start passing Rob and me. I can feel them staring. They’re probably hoping for a fight.
“Yeah, Kent. I might stop by for a while. We can meet up there?”
“You really want to go?” I’m trying to squash the panic welling up inside me. I lower my head and look up at him the way I’ve seen Lindsay do with Patrick when she’s really desperate for something. “It’ll just mean less time with me.”
“We’ll have plenty of time.” Rob kisses his fingers and taps them, twice, against my cheek. “Trust me. Have I ever let you down?”
You’ll let me down tonight. The thought comes to me before I can stop it.
“No,” I say too loudly. Rob’s not listening, though. Adam Marshall and Jeremy Forker have just joined us, and they’re all doing the greeting thing where they jump on one another and wrestle. Sometimes I think Lindsay’s right and guys are just like animals.
I pull out my phone to check my text, though I don’t really need to.
Party @ Kent McFreaky’s 2nite. In?
My fingers are numb as I text back, Obv. Then I go into lunch, feeling like the sound of three hundred voices has weight, like it’s a solid wind that will carry me up, up, and away.
BEFORE I WAKE

“So? You nervous?” Lindsay lifts one leg in the air and swivels it back and forth, admiring the shoes she’s just stolen from Ally’s closet.
Music thumps from the living room. Ally and Elody are out there singing their heads off to “Like a Prayer.” Ally’s not even close to on key. Lindsay and I are lying on our backs on Ally’s mongo bed. Everything in Ally’s house is 25 percent bigger than in a normal person’s: the fridge, the leather chairs, the televisions—even the magnums of champagne her dad keeps in the wine cellar (strictly hands-off). Lindsay once said it made her feel like Alice in Wonderland.
I settle my head against an enormous pillow that says THE BITCH IS IN. I’ve had four shots already, thinking it would calm me down, and above me the lights are winking and blurring. We’ve cracked all the windows open, but I’m still feeling feverish.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Lindsay’s saying. “Don’t freak out if it hurts a little—especially at first. Don’t tense up. You’ll make it worse.”
I’m feeling pretty nauseous and Lindsay’s not making it better. I couldn’t eat all day, so by the time we got to Ally’s house, I was starving and scarfed about twenty-five of the toast-pesto-goat-cheese snacks that Ally whipped up. I’m not sure how well the goat cheese is mixing with the vodka. On top of it, Lindsay made me eat about seven Listerine breath strips because the pesto had garlic in it, and she said Rob would feel like he was losing his virginity to an Italian line cook.
I’m not even that nervous about Rob—I mean, I can’t focus on being nervous about him. The party, the drive, the possibility of what will happen there: that’s what’s really giving me stomach cramps. At least the vodka’s helped me breathe, and I’m not feeling shaky anymore.
Of course, I can’t tell Lindsay any of this, so instead I say, “I’m not going to freak. I mean, everybody does it, right? If Anna Cartullo can do it…”
Lindsay pulls a face. “Ew. Whatever you’re doing, it’s not what Anna Cartullo does. You and Rob are ‘making love.’” She puts quotes in the air with her fingers and giggles, but I can tell she means it.
“You think?”
“Of course.” She tilts her head to look at me. “You don’t?”
I want to ask, How do you know the difference?
In movies you can always tell when people are supposed to be together because music swells up behind them—dumb, but true. Lindsay’s always saying she couldn’t live without Patrick and I’m not sure if that’s how you’re supposed to feel or not.
Sometimes when I’m standing in the middle of a crowded place with Rob, and he puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close—like he doesn’t want me to get bumped or spilled on or whatever—I feel a kind of heat in my stomach like I’ve just had a glass of wine, and I’m completely happy, just for that second. I’m pretty sure that’s what love is.
So I say to Lindsay, “Of course I do.”
Lindsay giggles again and nudges me. “So? Did he bite the bullet and just say it?”
“Say what?”
She rolls her eyes. “That he loves you.”
I pause for just a second too long, thinking of his note: Luv ya. The kind of thing you pencil in somebody’s yearbook when you don’t know what else to say.
Lindsay rushes on. “He will. Guys are idiots. Bet you he says it tonight. Just after you…” She trails off and starts humping her hips up and down.
I smack her with a pillow. “You’re a dog, you know that?”
She growls at me and bares her teeth. We laugh and then lie in silence for a minute, listening to Elody’s and Ally’s howls from the other room. They’re on to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” now. It feels nice to be lying there: nice and normal. I think of all the times we must’ve laid in exactly this spot, waiting for Elody and Ally to finish getting ready, waiting to go out, waiting for something to happen—time ticking and then falling away, lost forever—and I suddenly wish I could remember each one singularly, like somehow if I could remember them all, I could have them back.
“Were you nervous? The first time, I mean.” I’m kind of embarrassed to ask so I say it quietly.
I think the question catches Lindsay off guard. She blushes and starts picking at the braiding on Ally’s bedspread, and for a moment there’s an awkward silence. I’m pretty sure I know what she’s thinking, though I would never say it out loud. Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I are as close as you can be, but there are still some things we never talk about. For example, even though Lindsay says Patrick is her first and only, this isn’t technically true. Technically, her first was a guy she met at a party when she was visiting her stepbrother at NYU. They smoked pot, split a six-pack, and had sex, and he never knew she hadn’t done it before.
We don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the fact that we can never hang out at Elody’s house after five o’clock because her mother will be home, and drunk. We don’t talk about the fact that Ally never eats more than a quarter of what’s on her plate, even though she’s obsessed with cooking and watches the Food Network for hours on end.
We don’t talk about the joke that for years trailed me down hallways, into classrooms, and on the bus, that wove its way into my dreams: “What’s red and white and weird all over? Sam Kingston!” And we definitely don’t talk about the fact that Lindsay was the one who made it up.
A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.
Lindsay rolls over on her side and props herself on one elbow. I wonder if she’s finally going to mention the guy at NYU. (I don’t even know his name, and the few times she’s ever made reference to him she called him the Unmentionable.)
“I wasn’t nervous,” she says quietly. Then she sucks in a deep breath and her face splits into a grin. “I was horny, baby. Randy.” She says it in a fake British accent and then jumps on top of me and starts making a humping motion.
“You’re impossible,” I say, pushing her off me. She rolls all the way off the bed, cackling.
“You love me.” Lindsay gets up on her knees and blows the bangs out of her face. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the bed. She suddenly gets serious.
“Sam?” Her eyes are wide and she drops her voice. I have to sit up to hear her over the music. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.” My heart starts fluttering. She knows what’s happening to me. It’s happening to her, too.
“You have to promise not to tell. You have to swear not to freak out.”
She knows; she knows. It’s not just me. My head clears and everything sharpens around me. I feel totally sober. “I swear.” The words barely come out.
She leans forward until her mouth is only an inch from my ear. “I…”
Then she turns her head and burps, loudly, in my face.
“Jesus, Lindz!” I fan the air with my hand. She sinks onto her back again, kicking her legs into the air and laughing hysterically. “What is wrong with you?”
“You should have seen your face.”
“Are you ever serious?” I say it jokingly, but my whole body feels heavy with disappointment. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand. Whatever is happening, it’s happening only to me. A feeling of complete aloneness overwhelms me, like a fog.
Lindsay dabs the corners of her eyes with a thumb and jumps to her feet. “I’ll be serious when I’m dead.”
That word sends a shock straight through me. Dead. So final, so ugly, so short. The warm feeling I’ve had since taking the shots drains out of me, and I lean over to shut Ally’s window, shivering.
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.
“You’re the best,” he says, ducking down to kiss my cheek. “No crying—we’re at a party, remember? It’s supposed to be fun.” He starts backing away and holds up his hand, fingers extended. “Five minutes.”
I press myself against the wall and wait. I don’t know what else to do. People are going past me, and I keep my hair down and in my face so no one will be able to tell the tears are still coming. The party is loud, but somehow it seems remote. Words are distorted and music sounds the way it does at a carnival, like all the notes are off balance and just colliding with one another.
Five minutes pass, then seven. Ten minutes pass, and I tell myself I’ll wait five more minutes and then go look for him, even though the idea of moving seems impossible. After twelve minutes I text, Where r u? but then remember that yesterday he told me he’d set his phone down somewhere.
Yesterday. Today.
And this time, when I imagine myself lying somewhere, I’m not sleeping. This time I imagine myself stretched out on a cold stone slab, skin as white as milk, lips blue, and hands folded across my chest like they’ve been placed there….
I take a deep breath and force myself to focus on other things. I count the Christmas lights framing the E.T. movie poster over a couch, and then I count the bright red glowing cigarette butts weaving around through the half darkness like fireflies. I’m not a math geek or anything, but I’ve always liked numbers. I like how you can just keep stacking them up, one on top of the other, until they fill any space, any moment. I told my friends this one day, and Lindsay said I was going to be the kind of old woman who memorizes phone books and keeps flattened cereal boxes and newspapers piled from floor to ceiling in her house, looking for messages from space in the bar codes.
But a few months later I was sleeping over, and she confessed that sometimes when she’s upset about something she recites this Catholic bedtime prayer she memorized when she was little, even though she’s half Jewish and doesn’t even believe in God anyway.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
She’d seen it embroidered on a pillow in her piano teacher’s house, and we laughed about how lame embroidered pillows were. But until I fell asleep that night I couldn’t get the prayer out of my head. That one line kept replaying over and over in my mind: If I should die before I wake.
I’m just about to force myself away from the wall when I hear Rob’s name. Two sophomores have stumbled into the room, giggling, and I strain to hear what they’re saying.
“…his second in two hours.”
“No, Matt Kessler did the first one.”
“They both did.”
“Did you see how Aaron Stern is, like, holding him above the keg? Completely upside down.”
“That’s what a keg stand is, duh.”
“Rob Cokran is so hot.”
“Shhh. Oh my God.”
One of the girls elbows the other one when she notices me. Her face goes white. She’s probably terrified: she’s been talking about my boyfriend (misdemeanor), but, more specifically, she’s been talking about how hot he is (felony). If Lindsay were here, she would freak out, call the girls whores, and get them booted from the party. If she were here she would expect me to freak out. Lindsay thinks that underclassmen—specifically sophomore girls—need to be put in their place. Otherwise they’ll overrun the universe like cockroaches, protected from nuclear attack by an armor of Tiffany jewelry and shiny lip-gloss shells.
I don’t have the energy to give these girls attitude, though, and I’m glad Lindsay’s not with me so she can’t give me crap about it. I should have known Rob wouldn’t come back. I think about today, when he told me to trust him, when he said that he’d never let me down. I should have told him he was full of it.
I need to get out. I need to be away from the smoke and the music. I need a place to think. I’m still freezing, and I’m sure I look awful, though I don’t feel like I’m going to cry anymore. We once watched this health video about the symptoms of shock, and I’m pretty much the poster child for all of them. Difficulty breathing. Cold, clammy hands. Dizziness. Knowing this makes me feel even worse.
Which just goes to show you should never pay attention in health class.
The line for both bathrooms is four deep and all of the rooms are packed. It’s eleven o’clock and everyone who has planned on showing is here. A couple of people say my name, and Tara Flute gets in my face and says, “Oh my God. I love your earrings. Did you get them at—”
“Not now.” I cut her off and keep going, desperate to find somewhere dark and quiet. To my left is a closed door, the one with all of the bumper stickers plastered to it. I grip the doorknob and shake it. It doesn’t open, of course.
“That’s the VIP room.”
I turn around and Kent is standing behind me, smiling.
“You’ve got to be on the list.” He leans against the wall. “Or slip the bouncer a twenty. Whichever.”
“I—I was looking for the bathroom.”
Kent tilts his head toward the other side of the hall, where Ronica Masters, obviously drunk, is hammering on a door with her fist.
“Come on, Kristen!” she’s yelling. “I really have to pee.”
Kent turns back to me and raises his eyebrows.
“My bad,” I say, and try to push past him.
“Are you okay?” Kent doesn’t exactly touch me, but he holds his hand up like he’s thinking about it. “You look—”
“I’m fine.” The last thing in the world I need right now is pity from Kent McFuller, and I shove back into the hallway.
I’ve just decided to go outside and call Lindsay from the porch—I’ll tell her I need to leave ASAP, I have to leave—when Elody barrels into the hall, throwing her arms around me.
“Where the hell have you been?” she screeches, kissing me. She’s sweating, and I think of Izzy climbing into my bed and putting her arms around me, tugging on my necklace. I should never have gotten out of bed today.
“Let me guess, let me guess.” Elody leaves her arms around me and starts bumping her hips like we’re grinding on a dance floor. She rolls her eyes to the ceiling and starts moaning, “Oh, Rob, oh, Rob. Yeah. Just like that.”
“You’re a pervert.” I push her off me. “You’re worse than Otto.”
She laughs and grabs my hand, starts dragging me toward the back room. “Come on. Everyone’s in here.”
“I have to go,” I say. The music back here is louder and I’m yelling. “I don’t feel good.”
“What?”
“I don’t feel good!”
She points to her ear like, I can’t hear you. I’m not sure if it’s true or not. Her palms are wet and I try to pull away, but at that second Lindsay and Ally spot me, and they start squealing, jumping all over me.
“I was looking for you for ages,” Lindsay says, waving her cigarette.
“In Patrick’s mouth, maybe.” Ally snorts.
“She was with Rob.” Elody points at me, swaying on her feet. “Look at her. She looks guilty.”
“Hussy!” Lindsay screeches. Ally pipes in with, “Trollop!” and Elody yells out, “Harlot!” This is an old joke of ours: Lindsay decided slut was too boring last year.
“I’m going home,” I say. “You don’t have to drive me. I’ll figure it out.”
Lindsay must think I’m kidding. “Go home? We only got here, like, an hour ago.” She leans forward and whispers, “Besides, I thought you and Rob were going to…you know.” As though she didn’t just scream out in front of everybody that I already had.
“I changed my mind.” I do my best to sound like I don’t care, and the effort it takes is exhausting. I’m angry at Lindsay without knowing why—for not ditching the party with me, I guess. I’m angry at Elody for dragging me back here and at Ally for always being so clueless. I’m angry at Rob for not caring how upset I am, and I’m angry at Kent for caring. I’m angry at everyone and everything, and in that second I fantasize about the cigarette Lindsay’s waving catching on the curtains, about fire racing over the room and consuming everyone. Then, immediately, I feel guilty. The last thing I need is to morph into one of those people who’s always wearing black and doodling guns and bombs on her notebook.
Lindsay’s gaping at me like she can see what I’m thinking. Then I realize she’s looking over my shoulder. Elody turns pink. Ally’s mouth starts opening and closing like a fish’s. There’s a dip in the noise of the party, like someone has just hit pause on a soundtrack.
Juliet Sykes. I know it will be her before I turn around, but I’m still surprised when I see her, still struck with that same sense of wonder.
She’s pretty.
Today when I saw her drifting through the cafeteria she looked like she always did, hair hanging in her face, baggy clothing, shrunken into herself like she could be anyone, anywhere, a phantom or a shadow.
But now she’s standing straight and her hair is pulled back and her eyes are glittering.
She walks across the room toward us. My mouth goes dry. I want to say no, but she’s standing in front of Lindsay before I can get the word out. I see her mouth moving, but what she says takes a second to understand, like I’m hearing it from underwater.
“You’re a bitch.”
Everyone is whispering, staring at our little huddle: me, Lindsay, Elody, Ally, and Juliet Sykes. I feel my cheeks burning. The sound of voices begins to swell.
“What did you say?” Lindsay is gritting her teeth.
“A bitch. A mean girl. A bad person.” Juliet turns to Elody. “You’re a bitch.” To Ally. “You’re a bitch.” Finally her eyes click on mine. They’re exactly the color of sky.
“You’re a bitch.”
The voices are a roar now, people laughing and screaming out, “Psycho.”
“You don’t know me,” I croak out at last, finding my voice, but Lindsay has already stepped forward and drowns me out.
“I’d rather be a bitch than a psycho,” she snarls, and puts two hands on Juliet’s shoulders and shoves. Juliet stumbles backward, pinwheeling her arms, and it’s all so horrible and familiar. It’s happening again; it’s actually happening. I close my eyes. I want to pray, but all I can think is, Why, why, why, why.
When I open my eyes Juliet is coming toward me, drenched, arms outstretched. She looks up at me, and I swear to God it’s like she knows, like she can see straight into me, like this is somehow my fault. I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach and the air goes out of me and I lunge at her without thinking, push her and send her backward. She collapses into a bookshelf and then spins off of it, grabbing the doorframe to steady herself. Then she ducks out into the hallway.
“Can you believe it?” someone is screeching behind me.
“Juliet Sykes is packing some cojones.”
“Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, man.”
People are laughing, and Lindsay leans over to Elody and says, “Freak.” The empty bottle of vodka is dangling from her hand. She must have dumped the rest on Juliet.
I start shoving my way out of the room. It seems as though even more people have come in and it’s almost impossible to move. I’m really pushing, using my elbows when I have to, and everyone’s giving me weird looks. I don’t care. I need out.
I finally make it to the door and there’s Kent, staring at me with his mouth set in a line. He shifts like he’s about to block me.
I hold up my hand. “Don’t even think about it.” The words come out as a growl.
Without a sound he moves so I can squeeze past him. When I’m halfway down the hall I hear him shout out, “Why?”
“Because,” I yell back. But really I’m thinking the same thing.
Why is this happening to me?
Why, why, why?


“How come Sam always gets shotgun?”
“Because you’re always too drunk to call it.”
“I can’t believe you bailed on Rob like that,” Ally says. She’s got her coat hunched up around her ears. Lindsay’s car is so cold our breaths are all solid white vapor. “You’re going to be in so much trouble tomorrow.”
If there is a tomorrow, I almost say. I left the party without saying good-bye to Rob, who was stretched out on a sofa, his eyes half shut. I’d been locked in an empty bathroom on the first floor for a half hour before that, sitting on the cold, hard rim of a bathtub, listening to the music pulsing through the walls and ceiling. Lindsay had insisted I wear bright red lipstick, and when I checked my face in the mirror, I saw that it had begun to bleed away from my lips, like a clown’s. I took it off slowly with balled-up tissues, which I left floating in the toilet bowl, little blooming flowers of pink.
At a certain point your brain stops trying to rationalize things. At a certain point it gives up, shuts off, shuts down. Still, as Lindsay turns the car around—driving up on Kent’s lawn to do it, tires spinning in the mud—I’m afraid.
Trees, as white and frail as bone, are dancing wildly in the wind. The rain is hammering the roof of the car, and sheets of water on the windows make the world look like it’s disintegrating. The clock on the dashboard is glowing: 12:38.
I’m gripping my seat as Lindsay speeds down the driveway, branches whipping past us on either side.
“What about the paint job?” I say, my heart hammering in my chest. I try to tell myself I’m okay, I’m fine, that nothing’s going to happen. But it doesn’t do any good.
“Screw it,” she says. “Car’s busted anyway. Have you seen the bumper?”
“Maybe if you stopped hitting parked cars,” Elody says with a snort.
“Maybe if you had a car.” Lindsay takes one hand off the wheel and leans over, reaching for her bag at my feet. As she tips she jerks the steering wheel, and the car runs up a little into the woods. Ally slides across the backseat and collapses into Elody, and they both start laughing.
I reach over and try to grab the wheel. “Jesus, Lindz.”
Lindsay straightens up and elbows me off. She shoots me a look and then starts fumbling with a pack of cigarettes. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing. I—” I look out the window, biting back tears that are suddenly threatening to come. “I just want you to pay attention, that’s all.”
“Yeah? Well, I want you to keep off the wheel.”
“Come on, guys. No fighting,” Ally says.
“Give me a smoke, Lindz.” Elody’s half reclining on the backseat, and she flails her arm wildly.
“Only if you light one for me,” Lindsay says, tossing her pack into the backseat. Elody lights two cigarettes and passes one to Lindsay. Lindsay cracks a window and exhales a plume of smoke. Ally screeches.
“Please, please, no windows. I’m about to drop dead from pneumonia.”
“You’re about to drop dead when I kill you,” Elody says.
“If you were gonna die,” I blurt out, “how would you want it to be?”
“Never,” Lindsay says.
“I’m serious.” My palms are damp with sweat and I wipe them on the seat cushion.
“In my sleep,” Ally says.
“Eating my grandma’s lasagna,” Elody says, and then pauses and adds, “or having sex,” which makes Ally shriek with laughter.
“On an airplane,” Lindsay says. “If I’m going down, I want everyone to go down with me.” She makes a diving motion with her hand.
“Do you think you’ll know, though?” It’s suddenly important for me to talk about this. “I mean, do you think you’ll have an idea of it…like, before?”
Ally straightens up and leans forward, hooking her arms over the back of our seats. “One day my grandfather woke up, and he swore he saw this guy all in black at the foot of his bed—big hood, no face. He was holding this sword or whatever that thingy is called. It was Death, you know? And then later that day he went to the doctor and they diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer. The same day.”
Elody rolls her eyes. “He didn’t die, though.”
“He could have died.”
“That story doesn’t make any sense.”
“Can we change the subject?” Lindsay brakes for just a second before yanking the car out onto the wet road. “This is so morbid.”
Ally giggles. “SAT word alert.”
Lindsay cranes her neck back and tries to blow smoke in Ally’s face. “Not all of us have the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old.”
Lindsay turns onto Route 9, which stretches in front of us, a giant silver tongue. A hummingbird is beating its wings in my chest—rising, rising, fluttering into my throat.
I want to go back to what I was saying—I want to say, You would know, right? You would know before it happened—but Elody bumps Ally out of the way and leans forward, the cigarette dangling from her mouth, trumpeting, “Music!” She grabs for the iPod.
“Are you wearing your seat belt?” I say. I can’t help it. The terror is everywhere now, pressing down on me, squeezing the breath from me, and I think: if you don’t breathe, you’ll die. The clock ticks forward. 12:39.
Elody doesn’t even answer, just starts scrolling through the iPod. She finds “Splinter,” and Ally slaps her and says it should be her turn to pick the music, anyway. Lindsay tells them to stop fighting, and she tries to grab the iPod from Elody, taking both hands off the wheel, steadying it with one knee. I grab for it again and she shouts, “Get off!” She’s laughing.
Elody knocks the cigarette out of Lindsay’s hand and it lands between Lindsay’s thighs. The tires slide a little on the wet road, and the car is full of the smell of burning.
If you don’t breathe…
Then all of a sudden there’s a flash of white in front of the car. Lindsay yells something—words I can’t make out, something like sit or shit or sight—and suddenly—
Well.
You know what happens next.