Before I Fall

THREE

In my dream I am falling forever through darkness.
Falling, falling, falling.
Is it still falling if it has no end?
And then a shriek. Something ripping through the soundlessness, an awful, high wailing, like an animal or an alarm—
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
I wake up stifling a scream.
I shut off the alarm, trembling, and lie back against my pillows. My throat is burning and I’m covered in sweat. I take long, slow breaths and watch my room lighten as the sun inches its way over the horizon, things beginning to emerge: the Victoria’s Secret sweatshirt on my floor, the collage Lindsay made me years ago with quotes from our favorite bands and cut-up magazines. I listen to the sounds from downstairs, so familiar and constant it’s like they belong to the architecture, like they’ve been built up out of the ground with the walls: the clanking of my father in the kitchen, shelving dishes; the frantic scrabbling sound of our pug, Pickle, trying to get out the back door, probably to pee and run around in circles; a low murmur that means my mom’s watching the morning news.
When I’m ready, I suck in a deep breath and reach for my phone. I flip it open.
The date flashes up at me.
Friday, February 12.
Cupid Day.
“Get up, Sammy.” Izzy pokes her head in the door. “Mommy says you’re going to be late.”
“Tell Mom I’m sick.” Izzy’s blond bob disappears again.
Here’s what I remember: I remember being in the car. I remember Elody and Ally fighting over the iPod. I remember the wild spinning of the wheel and seeing Lindsay’s face as the car sailed toward the woods, her mouth open and her eyebrows raised in surprise, as though she’d just run into someone she knew in an unexpected place. But after that? Nothing.
After that, only the dream.
This is the first time I really think it—the first time I allow myself to think it.
That maybe the accidents—both of them—were real.
And maybe I didn’t make it.
Maybe when you die time folds in on you, and you bounce around inside this little bubble forever. Like the after-death equivalent of the movie Groundhog Day. It’s not what I imagined death would be like—not what I imagined would come afterward—but then again it’s not like there’s anyone around to tell you about it.


Be honest: are you surprised that I didn’t realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even think the word— death? Dying? Dead?
Do you think I was being stupid? Naive?
Try not to judge. Remember that we’re the same, you and me.
I thought I would live forever too.


“Sam?” My mom pushes open the door and leans against the frame. “Izzy said you felt sick?”
“I…I think I have the flu or something.” I know I look like crap so it should be believable.
My mom sighs like I’m being difficult on purpose. “Lindsay will be here any second.”
“I don’t think I can go in today.” The idea of school makes me want to curl up in a ball and sleep forever.
“On Cupid Day?” My mom raises her eyebrows. She glances at the fur-trimmed tank top that’s laid out neatly over my desk chair—the only item of clothing that isn’t lying on the floor or hanging from a bedpost or a doorknob. “Did something happen?”
“No, Mom.” I try to swallow the lump in my throat. The worst is knowing I can’t tell anybody what’s happening—or what’s happened—to me. Not even my mom. I guess it’s been years since I talked to her about important stuff, but I start wishing for the days when I believed she could fix anything. It’s funny, isn’t it? When you’re young you just want to be older, and then later you wish you could go back to being a kid.
My mom’s searching my face really intensely. I feel like at any second I could break down and blurt out something crazy so I roll away from her, facing the wall.
“You love Cupid Day,” my mom prods. “Are you sure nothing happened? You didn’t fight with your friends?”
“No. Of course not.”
She hesitates. “Did you fight with Rob?”
That makes me want to laugh. I think about the fact that he left me waiting upstairs at Kent’s party and I almost say, Not yet. “No, Mom. God.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice. I’m just trying to help.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not.” I bury deeper under the covers, keeping my back turned to her. I hear rustling and think she’ll come and sit next to me. She doesn’t, though. Freshman year after a big fight I drew a line in red nail polish just inside my door, and I told her if she ever came past the line I’d never speak to her again. Most of the nail polish has chipped off by now, but in places you can still see it spotted over the wood like blood.
I meant it at the time, but I’d expected her to forget after a while. But since that day she’s never once stepped foot in my room. It’s a bummer in some ways, since she never surprises me by making up my sheets anymore, or leaving folded laundry or a new sundress on my bed like she did when I was in middle school. But at least I know she’s not rooting through my drawers while I’m at school, looking for drugs or sex toys or whatever.
“If you want to come out here, I’ll get the thermometer,” she says.
“I don’t think I have a fever.” There’s a chip in the wall in the exact shape of an insect, and I push my thumb against the wall, squishing it.
I can practically feel my mom put her hands on her hips. “Listen, Sam. I know it’s second semester. And I know you think that gives you the right to slack off—”
“Mom, that is not it.” I bury my head under the pillow, feeling like I could scream. “I told you, I don’t feel good.” I’m half afraid she’ll ask me what’s wrong and half hoping she will.
She only says, “All right. I’ll tell Lindsay you’re thinking of going in late. Maybe you’ll feel better after a little more sleep.”
I doubt it. “Maybe,” I say, and a second later I hear the door click shut behind her.
I close my eyes and reach back into those final moments, the last memories—Lindsay’s look of surprise and the trees lit up like teeth in the headlights, the wild roar of the engine—searching for a light, a thread that will connect this moment to that one, a way to sew together the days so that they make sense.
But all I get is blackness.
I can’t hold back my tears anymore. They come all at once, and before I know it I’m sobbing and snotting all over my best Ethan Allen pillows. A little later I hear scratching against my door. Pickle has always had a dog sense for when I’m crying, and in sixth grade after Rob Cokran said I was too big of a dork for him to go out with—right in the middle of the cafeteria, in front of everybody—Pickle sat on my bed and licked the tears off one after another.
I don’t know why that’s the example that pops into my head, but thinking about that moment makes a new rush of anger and frustration swell up inside of me. It’s strange how much the memory affects me. I’ve never mentioned that day to Rob—I doubt he remembers—but I’ve always liked to think about it when we’re walking down the hallway, our fingers interlaced, or when we’re all hanging out in Tara Flute’s basement, and Rob looks over at me and winks. I like to think how funny life is: how so much changes. How people change.
But now I just wonder when, exactly, I became cool enough for Rob Cokran.
After a while the scratching on my door stops. Pickle has finally realized he’s not getting in, and I hear his paws ticking against the floor as he trots off. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone in my life.
I cry until it seems amazing that one person could have so many tears. It seems like they must be coming from the very tips of my toes.
Then I sleep without dreaming.
ESCAPE TACTICS

I wake up thinking about a movie I once saw. The main character dies somehow—I forget how—but he’s only half dead. One part of him is lying there in a coma, and one part of him is wandering the world, kind of in limbo. The point is, so long as he’s not completely 100 percent dead, a piece of him is trapped in this in-between place.
This gives me hope for the first time in two days. The idea that I might be lying somewhere in a coma, my family bending over me and everyone worrying and filling my hospital room with flowers, actually makes me feel good.
Because if I’m not dead—at least not yet—there may be a way to stop it.
My mom drops me off in Upper Lot just before third period starts (.22 miles or not, I will not be seen getting out of my mom’s maroon 2003 Accord, which she won’t trade in because she says it’s “fuel efficient”). Now I can’t wait to get to school. I have a gut feeling I’ll find the answers there. I don’t know how or why I’m stuck in this time loop, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there’s a reason for it.
“See you later,” I say, and start to pop out of the car.
But something stops me. It’s the idea that’s been bugging me for the past twenty-four hours, what I was trying to talk to my friends about in the Tank: how you might not ever really know. How you might be walking down the street one day and—bam!
Blackness.
“It’s cold, Sam.” My mom leans over the passenger seat and gestures for me to shut the door.
I turn around and stoop down to look at her. It takes me a second to work the words out of my mouth, but I mumble, “Iloveyou.”
I feel so weird saying it, it comes out more like olivejuice. I’m not even sure if she understands me. I slam the door quickly before she can respond. It’s probably been years since I’ve said “I love you” to either of my parents, except on Christmas or birthdays or when they say it first and it’s pretty much expected. It leaves me with a weird feeling in my stomach, part relief and part embarrassment and part regret.
As I’m walking toward school I make a vow: there’s not going to be an accident tonight.
And whatever it is—this bubble or hiccup in time—I’m busting out.


Here’s another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you’re dead, it’s the only thing that keeps you alive.


The bell has already rung for third period, so I book it to chem. I get there just in time to take a seat—big surprise—next to Lauren Lornet. The quiz goes off, same as yesterday and the day before—except by now I can answer the first question myself.
Pen. Ink. Working? Mr. Tierney. Book. Slam. Jump.
“Keep it,” Lauren whispers to me, practically batting her eyelashes at me. “You’re going to need a pen.” I start to try to pass it back, as usual, but something in her expression sparks a memory. I remember coming home after Tara Flute’s pool party in seventh grade and seeing my face in the mirror lit up exactly like that, like somebody had handed me a winning lottery ticket and told me my life was about to change.
“Thanks.” I stuff the pen into my bag. She’s still making that face—I can see it out of the corner of my eye—and after a minute I whip around and say, “You shouldn’t be so nice to me.”
“What?” Now she looks completely stunned. Definitely an improvement.
I have to whisper because Tierney’s started his lesson again. Chemical reactions, blah, blah, blah. Transfiguration. Put two liquids together and they form a solid. Two plus two does not equal four.
“Nice to me. You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?” She squinches up her forehead so her eyes nearly disappear.
“Because I’m not nice to you.” The words are surprisingly hard to get out.
“You’re nice,” Lauren says, looking at her hands, but she obviously doesn’t mean it. She looks up and tries again. “You don’t…”
She trails off, but I know what she’s going to say. You don’t have to be nice to me.
“Exactly,” I say.
“Girls!” Mr. Tierney bellows, slamming his fist down on his lab station. I swear he goes practically neon.
Lauren and I don’t talk for the rest of class, but I leave chem feeling good, like I’ve done the right thing.


“That’s what I like to see.” Mr. Daimler drums his fingers on my desk as he walks the aisles at the end of class collecting homework. “A big smile. It’s a beautiful day—”
“It’s supposed to rain later,” Mike Heffner interjects, and everyone laughs. He’s an idiot.
Mr. Daimler doesn’t skip a beat. “—and it’s Cupid Day. Love is in the air.” He looks straight at me and my heart stops for a second. “Everyone should be smiling.”
“Just for you, Mr. Daimler,” I say, making my voice extra sweet. More giggles and one loud snort from the back. I turn around and see Kent, head down, scribbling furiously on the cover of his notebook.
Mr. Daimler laughs and says, “And here I thought I’d gotten you excited about differential equations.”
“You got her excited about something,” Mike mutters. More laughter from the class. I’m not sure if Mr. Daimler hears—he doesn’t seem to—but the tips of his ears turn red.
The whole class has been like this. I’m in a good mood, certain everything will be okay. I’ve got it all figured out. I’m going to get a second chance. Plus Mr. Daimler’s been paying me extra attention. After the Cupids came in he took a look at my four roses, raised his eyebrows, and said I must have secret admirers everywhere.
“Not so secret,” I said, and he winked at me.
After class I gather up my stuff and go out into the hall, pausing for just a second to check over my shoulder. Sure enough, Kent’s bounding along after me, shirt untucked, messenger bag half open and slapping against his thigh. What a mess. I start walking toward the cafeteria. Today I looked more carefully at his note: the tree is sketched in black ink, each dip and shadow in the bark shaded perfectly. The leaves are tiny and diamond shaped. The whole thing must have taken him hours. I stuck it between two pages of my math book so it wouldn’t get crushed.
“Hey,” he says, catching up with me. “Did you get my note?”
I almost say to him, It’s really good, but something stops me. “‘Don’t drink and love?’ Is that some kind of a catchphrase I don’t know about?”
“I consider it my civic duty to spread the word.” Kent puts his hand over his heart.
A thought flashes—you wouldn’t be talking to me if you could remember—but I push it aside. This is Kent McFuller. He’s lucky I’m talking to him at all. Besides, I don’t plan on being at the party tonight: no party, no Juliet Sykes, no reason for Kent to wig out on me. Most important, no accident.
“More like spread the weirdness,” I say.
“I take that as a compliment.” Kent suddenly looks serious. He scrunches up his face so that all the light freckles on his nose come together like a constellation. “Why do you flirt with Mr. Daimler? He’s a perv, you know.”
I’m so surprised by the question it takes me a second to answer. “Mr. Daimler is not a perv.”
“Trust me, he is.”
“Jealous?”
“Hardly.”
“I don’t flirt with him, anyway.”
Kent rolls his eyes. “Sure.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Why so interested?”
Kent goes red and drops his eyes to the floor. “No reason,” he mumbles.
My stomach dips a little bit, and I realize a part of me was hoping his answer would be different—more personal. Of course, if Kent did confess his undying love for me right there, in the hallway, it would be disastrous. Despite his weirdness I have no desire to publicly humiliate him—he’s nice and we were childhood friends and all that—but I could never, ever, ever date him, not in a million lifetimes. Not in my lifetime, anyway: the one I want back, where yesterdays are followed by todays and then tomorrows. The bowler hat alone makes it impossible.
“Listen.” Kent shoots me a look out of the corner of his eye. “My parents are going away this weekend, and I’m having some people over tonight….”
“Uh-huh.” Up ahead I see Rob loping toward the cafeteria. At any second he’ll spot me. I can’t handle seeing him right now. My stomach clenches and I leap in front of Kent, turning my back to the cafeteria. “Um…where’s your house again?”
Kent looks at me strangely. I did basically just set myself up like a human barricade. “Off Route Nine. You don’t remember?” I don’t respond and he looks away, shrugging. “I guess you wouldn’t, really. You were only there a few times. We moved just before middle school. From Terrace Place. You remember my old house on Terrace Place, right?” The smile is back. It’s true: his eyes are exactly the color of grass. “You used to hang out in the kitchen and steal all the good cookies. And I chased you around these huge maple trees in the front yard. Remember?”
As soon as he mentions the maple trees a memory rises up, expanding, like something breaking the surface of water and rippling outward. We were sitting in this little space in between two enormous roots that curved out of the ground like animal spines. I remember that he split two maple-wing seeds and stuck one on his nose and one on mine, telling me that this way everyone would know we were in love. I was probably only five or six.
“I—I…” The last thing I need is for him to remind me of the good old days, when I was all knees and nose and glasses, and he was the only boy who would come near me. “Maybe. Trees kinda all look the same to me, you know?”
He laughs even though I wasn’t trying to be funny. “So you think you’ll come tonight? To my party?”
This brings me back to reality. The party. I shake my head and start backing away. “No. I don’t think so.”
His smile falters a little. “It’ll be fun. Big. Senior memories. Best time of our lives and all that crap.”
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “High school heaven.”
I turn around and start walking away from him. The cafeteria is packed, and as I approach the double doors—one of which is propped open with an old tennis shoe—the noise of the students greets me with a roar.
“You’ll come,” he calls after me. “I know you will.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I call back, and I almost add, It’s better this way.
THE RULES OF SURVIVAL

“What do you mean you can’t go out?”
Ally’s looking at me like I just said I wanted to go to prom with Ben Farsky (or Fart-sky, as we’ve been calling him since fourth grade).
I sigh. “I just don’t feel like it, okay?” I switch tactics and try again. “We go out every weekend. I just—I don’t know. I want to stay in, like we used to.”
“We used to stay in because we couldn’t get into any senior parties,” Ally says.
“Speak for yourself,” Lindsay says.
This is harder than I thought it would be.
I flash on my mom asking if I’d had a fight with Rob and before I can think too much about it I blurt out, “It’s Rob, okay? We…we’re having issues.”
I flip open my phone, checking for texts for the millionth time. When I first came into the cafeteria Rob was standing behind the registers, loading his fries with ketchup and barbecue sauce (his favorite). I couldn’t bring myself to go up to him, so instead I hurried to our table in the senior section and sent him a text: We have 2 talk.
He texted back right away. Bout?
2nite, I wrote back, and since then my phone’s been silent. Across the cafeteria, Rob is leaning against the vending machines talking to Adam Marshall. He has his hat twisted sideways on his head. He thinks it makes him look older.
I used to love collecting all these little facts about him, storing them together and holding them close inside of me, like if I gathered up all the details and remembered them—the fact that he likes barbecue sauce but not mustard, that his favorite team is the Yankees even though he prefers basketball to baseball, that once when he was little he broke his leg trying to jump over a car—I would totally understand him. I used to think that’s what love was: knowing someone so well he was like a part of you.
But more and more I’m feeling like I don’t know Rob.
Ally’s jaw actually drops. “But you’re supposed to—you know.”
She kind of looks like a mounted fish with her mouth open like that, so I turn away, fighting the urge to laugh. “We were supposed to, but…” I’ve never been a good liar and my brain goes totally blank.
“But?” Lindsay prompts.
I reach into my bag and pull out the note he sent me, which is now crumpled and has a piece of gum, half unwrapped, sticking to it. I push it across the table. “But this.”
Lindsay wrinkles her nose and flips open the card with the very tips of her fingernails. Ally and Elody lean over and they both read. They’re all silent for a second afterward.
Finally Lindsay closes the card and pushes it back to me. “It’s not that bad,” she says.
“It’s not that good, either.” I was only trying to fake an excuse to keep us away from the party tonight, but as soon as I start talking about Rob, I get really worked up. “Luv ya? What kind of crap is that? We’ve been going out since October.”
“He’s probably just waiting to say it,” Elody says. She pushes the bangs out of her eyes. “Steve doesn’t say it to me.”
“That’s different. You don’t expect him to say it.”
Elody looks away quickly, and it occurs to me that maybe, despite everything, she does.
There’s an awkward pause, and Lindsay jumps in. “I don’t see what the trauma is. You know Rob likes you. It’s not like it would be a one-night stand or anything.”
“He likes me, but…” I’m about to confess that I’m not sure that we’re good together, but at the last second I can’t. They would think I was insane. I don’t even understand it myself, really. It’s like the idea of him is better than the him of him. “Look. I’m not going to have sex with him just so he’ll say that he loves me, you know?”
I don’t even mean for the words to come out, and for a second I’m so startled by them, I can’t say anything else. That isn’t why I was planning to have sex with Rob—to hear the words, I mean. I just wanted to get it over with. I think. Actually, I’m not sure why it seemed so important.
“Speak of the devil,” Ally mutters.
Then I smell lemon balm and Rob’s planting a wet kiss on my cheek.
“Hi, ladies.” He reaches over to take a fry from Elody, and she moves her tray just out of reach. He laughs. “Hey, Slammer. Did you get my note?”
“I got it.” I look down at the table. I feel like if I meet his eyes I’ll forget everything, forget the note and how he left me alone and how when he kisses me he keeps his eyes open.
At the same time, I don’t really want anything to change.
“So? What’d I miss?” Rob leans forward and puts his hands on the table—a little too hard, I think. Lindsay’s Diet Coke jumps.
“The party at Kent’s and how Sam doesn’t want to go,” Ally blurts out. Elody elbows her in the side and Ally yelps.
Rob swivels his head and looks at me. His face is completely expressionless. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No—well, kind of.” I wasn’t expecting him to mention the text, and it flusters me that I can’t tell what he’s thinking. His eyes look extra dark, almost cloudy. I try to smile at him, but I feel like my cheeks are all stuffed with cotton. I can’t help but picture him swaying on his feet and holding up his hand and saying, “Five minutes.”
“Well?” He straightens up and shrugs. “What, then?”
Lindsay, Ally, and Elody are all staring at me. I can feel their eyes like they’re emitting heat. “I can’t talk about it here. I mean, not now.” I tip my head in their direction.
Rob laughs: a short, harsh sound. And now I can tell he’s mad and just hiding it.
“Of course not.” He backs away, both hands raised like he’s warding something off. “How ’bout this? You let me know when you’re ready to talk. I’ll wait to hear from you. I would never want to, you know, pressure you.” He elongates some of the words, and I can hear the sarcasm in his voice—just barely, but it’s there.
It’s obvious—to me, at least—that he’s talking about way more than our having a talk, but before I can respond he gives a flourish with his hand, a kind of bow, and then turns around and walks away.
“Jeez.” Ally pushes around the turkey sandwich on her plate. “What was that about?”
“You’re not really fighting, are you, Sam?” Elody asks, eyes wide.
Before I have to answer Lindsay makes a kind of hissing noise and juts her chin up, gesturing behind me. “Psychopath alert. Lock up the knives and babies.”
Juliet Sykes has just walked into the cafeteria. I’ve been so focused on today—on fixing it, on the idea that I can fix it—I’ve totally forgotten about Juliet. But now I whip around, more curious about her than I’ve ever been. I watch her drifting through the cafeteria. Her hair is down and concealing her face: fuzzy, soft hair, so white it reminds me of snow. That’s what she looks like, actually—like a snowflake being buffeted around in the wind, twisting and turning on currents of air. She doesn’t even glance up in our direction, and I wonder if even now she’s planning it, planning to follow us tonight and embarrass us in front of everybody. It doesn’t seem like she would have it in her.
I’m so focused on watching her that it takes me a second to realize Ally and Elody have just finished a round of Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est and are now laughing hysterically. Lindsay’s holding up her fingers, crossed, like she’s warding off a curse, and she keeps repeating, “Oh, Lord, keep the darkness away.”
“Why do you hate Juliet?” I ask Lindsay. It’s strange to me that I’ve never thought of asking until recently. I always just accepted it.
Elody snorts and almost coughs up her Diet Coke. “Are you serious?”
Lindsay’s clearly not prepared for the question. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then tosses her hair and rolls her eyes like she can’t believe I’m even asking. “I don’t hate her.”
“Yes, you do.” It was Lindsay who found out that Juliet wasn’t sent a single rose freshman year, and Lindsay’s idea to send her a Valogram. It was Lindsay who nicknamed her Psycho, and who, all those years ago, spread the story of Juliet peeing on the Girl Scout camping trip.
Lindsay stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Sorry,” she says, shrugging. “No breaks for mental-health patients.”
“Don’t tell me you feel bad for her or something,” Elody says. “You know she should be locked up.”
“Bellevue.” Ally giggles.
“I was just wondering,” I say, stiffening when Ally says the B-word. There’s still always the possibility that I’ve gone totally, clinically cuckoo. But somehow I don’t think so anymore. An article I once read said that crazy people don’t worry about being crazy—that’s the whole problem.
“So are we really staying in tonight?” Ally says, pouting. “The whole night?”
I suck in my breath and look at Lindsay. Ally and Elody look at her too. She has final say on all of our major decisions. If she’s hell-bent on going to Kent’s, I’ll have a hard time getting out of it.
Lindsay leans back in her chair and stares at me. I see something flicker in her eyes, and my heart stops, thinking that she’ll tell me to suck it up, that a party will do me good.
But instead she cracks a smile and winks at me. “It’s just a party,” she says. “It’ll probably be lame anyways.”
“We can rent a scary movie,” Elody pipes up. “You know, like we used to.”
“It’s up to Sam,” Lindsay says. “Whatever she wants.”
I could kiss her right then.


I cut English with Lindsay again. We pass Alex and Anna in Hunan Kitchen, but today Lindsay doesn’t even pause, probably because she’s trying extra hard to be nice to me and she knows I hate confrontations.
I hesitate, though. I think of Bridget putting her arms around Alex and looking at him like he’s the only guy on earth. She’s annoying, okay, but she deserves way better than him. It’s too bad.
“Hello? Stalk much?” Lindsay says.
I realize I’m just standing there staring past the ripped-up flyers advertising five-dollar lunch specials and local theater groups and hair salons. Alex Liment has spotted me through the window. He’s staring straight back at me.
“I’m coming.” It is too bad, but really, what can you do? Live and let live.
In The Country’s Best Yogurt, Lindsay and I both get heaping cups of double chocolate with crushed peanut butter cups, and I add sprinkles and Cap’n Crunch cereal. I have my appetite back, that’s for sure. Everything is working out the way I planned it. There won’t be any party tonight, at least not for us; there won’t be any driving or cars. I’m sure that this will fix everything—that the kink in time will be ironed out, that I’ll wake up from whatever nightmare I’ve been living. Maybe I’ll sit up, gasping, in a hospital bed somewhere, surrounded by friends and family. I can picture the scene perfectly: my mom and dad tearful, Izzy crying while she hangs on my neck, Lindsay and Ally and Elody and—
An image of Kent flashes through my head and I push it away quickly.
—And Rob. Of course Rob.
But this is the key, I’m sure of it. Live the day out. Follow the rules. Stay away from Kent’s party. Simple.
“Careful.” Lindsay grins, shoveling a huge spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “You don’t want to be fat and a virgin.”
“Better than fat with gonorrhea,” I say, flicking a chocolate chip at her.
She flicks one back. “Are you kidding? I’m so clean you could eat off me.”
“The Lindsay buffet. Does Patrick know you’re giving it up like that?”
“Gross.”
Lindsay is wrestling with her jumbo cup, trying to dig out the perfect bite. But we’re both laughing, and she ends up lobbing a full spoonful of yogurt at me. It hits me right above the left eye.
She gasps and claps one hand over her mouth. The yogurt slides down my face and lands with a plop right on the fur covering my left boob.
“I am so, so sorry,” Lindsay says, her voice muffled by her hand. Her eyes are wide, and it’s obvious she’s trying not to laugh. “Do you think your shirt is ruined?”
“Not yet,” I say, and dig out a big scoop of yogurt and flick it at her. It hits her in the side of her head, right in her hair.
She shrieks, “Bitch!” and then we’re ducking around the TCBY hiding behind chairs and tables, digging big scoops of double chocolate and using our spoons like catapults to peg each other.
YOU CAN’T JUDGE A GYM TEACHER BY HIS HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE

Lindsay and I can’t stop cracking up on the way back to school. It’s hard to explain, but I’m feeling happier than I have in years, like I’m noticing everything for the first time: the sharp smell of winter, the light strange and slanted, the way the clouds are drawing over the sky slowly. The fur of our tank tops is completely matted and gross, and we have water stains everywhere. Cars keep honking at us, and we wave and blow them all kisses. A black Mercedes rolls by, and Lindsay bends over, smacks her butt, and screams, “Ten dollar! Ten dollar!”
I punch her in the arm. “That could be my dad.”
“Sorry to break it to you, but your dad does not drive a Mercedes.” Lindsay pushes her hair out of her face. It’s stringy and wet. We had to wash off in the bathroom as the woman at TCBY screamed at us and threatened to call the police if we ever stepped foot in the store again.
“You’re impossible,” I say.
“You know you love me,” she says, grabbing my arm and huddling up next to me. We’re both freezing.
“I do love you,” I say, and I really mean it. I love her, I love the ugly mustard yellow bricks of Thomas Jefferson and the magenta-tinted halls. I love Ridgeview for being small and boring, and I love everyone and everything in it. I love my life. I want my life.
“Love you too, babes.”
When we get back to school Lindsay wants to have a cigarette, even though the bell for eighth is going to ring any second.
“Two drags,” Lindsay says, widening her eyes, and I laugh and let her pull me along because she knows I can never say no to her when she makes that face. The Lounge is empty. We stand right next to the tennis courts, huddled together, while Lindsay tries to get a match lit.
Finally she does, and she takes a long drag, letting a plume of smoke out of her mouth.
A second later we hear a shout from across the parking lot: “Hey! You! With the cigarette!”
We both freeze. Ms. Winters. Nic Nazi.
“Run!” Lindsay screams after a split second, dropping her cigarette. She takes off behind the tennis courts even though I yell, “Over here!” I see the big blond pouf of Ms. Winters’s hair bobbing over the cars—I’m not sure if she’s seen us or just heard us laughing. I duck behind a Range Rover and cut across Senior Alley to one of the back doors in the gym as Ms. Winters keeps screaming, “Hey! Hey!”
I grab the handle and rattle it, but the door sticks. For a second my heart stops, and I’m sure it’s locked, but then I slam up against it and it opens into a storage closet. I jump inside and close the door behind me, heart thumping in my chest. A minute later I hear feet pound past the door. Then I hear Ms. Winters mutter, “Shit,” and the footsteps start retreating backward.
The whole thing—the day, the fight in The Country’s Best Yogurt, the almost-bust, the idea of Lindsay crouching somewhere in the woods in her skirt and new Steve Madden boots—strikes me as so funny I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. The room I’m standing in smells like soccer cleats and jerseys and mud, and with the stack of orange cones and bag full of basketballs piled in the corner, there’s barely enough room for me to stand. One side of the room is windowed and it looks into an office: Otto’s, probably, since he basically lives in the gym. I’ve never actually seen his office. His desk is piled with papers, and there’s a computer flashing a screen saver that looks like it’s a cheesy picture of a beach. I inch closer to the window, thinking how hilarious it would be if I could bust him with something dirty, like some underwear peeking out of a desk drawer or a porn mag or something, when the door of his office swings open and there he is.
Instantly I drop to the ground. I have to scrunch up in a ball, and even then I’m paranoid that my ponytail might be peeking up over the windowsill. It sounds stupid considering everything that’s been happening, but all I can think in that moment is, If he sees me, I’m really dead. Good-bye, Ally’s house; hello, detention.
My face is sandwiched up next to a half-open duffel bag that looks like it’s full of old basketball jerseys. I don’t know if they’ve never been washed or what, but the smell makes me want to gag.
I hear Otto moving around his desk, and I’m praying—praying—that he doesn’t come close enough to the desk to see me bellying up to a bunch of old sports equipment. I can already hear the rumors: Samantha Kingston found humping driver’s ed cones.
There’s a minute or two of shuffling, and my legs start cramping. The first bell has already rung for eighth—less than three minutes to class—but there’s no way for me to sneak out. The door is noisy, and besides, I have no way to know which direction he’s facing. He could be staring at the door.
My only hope is that Otto has class eighth, but it doesn’t sound like he’s in a hustle to be anywhere. I imagine being trapped here until school ends. The stink alone will finish me off.
I hear Otto’s door creak open again, and I perk up, thinking he’s leaving after all. But then a second voice says, “Damn. I missed them.”
I would recognize that nasal whine anywhere. Ms. Winters.
“Smokers?” Otto says. His voice is almost as high-pitched as hers. I had no idea they even knew each other. The only times I’ve ever seen them in the same room are at all-school assemblies, when Ms. Winters sits next to Principal Beneter looking like someone just set off a stink bomb directly under her chair, and Otto sits with the special ed teachers and the health instructor and the driver’s ed specialist and all the other weirdos who are on faculty but aren’t real teachers.
“Do you know that the students call that little area the ‘Smokers’ Lounge’?” I can almost hear Ms. Winters pinching her nose.
“Did you get a look at them?” Otto asks, and my muscles tense.
“Not a good one. I could hear them and I smelled the smoke.”
Lindsay’s right: Ms. Winters is definitely half greyhound.
“Next time,” Otto says.
“There must be two thousand cigarette butts out there,” Ms. Winters says. “You’d think with all the health videos we show them—”
“They’re teenagers. They do the opposite of what you say. That’s part of the deal. Pimples, pubic hair, and bad attitude.”
I almost lose it when Otto says pubic hair, and I think Ms. Winters will lecture him, but she only says, “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.”
“It’s been one of those days, huh?” Otto says, and there’s the sound of someone bumping against a desk, and a book thudding to the ground. Ms. Winters actually giggles.
And then, I swear to God, I hear them kissing. Not little bird pecks either. Open-mouthed, slurpy, moaning kind of kissing.
Oh, shit. I literally have to bite my own hand to keep from screaming, or crying, or bursting out laughing, or getting sick—or all of the above. This. Cannot. Be. Happening. I’m desperate to take out my phone and text the girls, but I don’t want to move. Now I really don’t want to get caught, since Otto and the Nazi will think I’ve been spying on their little sex party. Barf.
Just when I feel like I can’t stand one more second squeezed up next to the sweaty jerseys, listening to Otto and Winters suck face like they’re in some bad porno, the second bell rings. I am now officially late to eighth period.
“Oh, God. I’m supposed to be meeting with Beanie,” Ms. Winters says. Beanie’s the students’ name for Mr. Beneter, the principal. Of all the shocking things that I’ve heard in the past two minutes, the most shocking is that she knows the nickname—and uses it.
“Get out of here,” Mr. Otto says, and then I swear—I swear—I hear him smack her butt.
Oh. My. God. This is better than the time Marcie Harris got caught masturbating in the science lab (with a test tube up her you-know-what, if you believe the rumors). This is better than the time Bryce Hanley got suspended for briefly running an online porn site. This is better than any scandal that’s hit Thomas Jefferson so far.
“Do you have class?” Ms. Winters says, practically cooing.
“I’m done for the day,” Otto says. My heart sinks—there’s no way I’ll be able to stay here for another forty-five minutes. Never mind the cramp snaking up my hamstrings and thighs: I’ve got amazing gossip to spread. “But I have to set up for soccer tryouts.”
“Okay, babe.” Babe? “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Eight o’clock.”
I hear the door open and I know Ms. Winters has left. Thank God. From the way they were pillow talking I was worried I was about to be treated to the symphony of another make-out session. I’m not sure my hamstrings or my psyche could take it.
After a few seconds of moving around and tapping some things on the keyboard, I hear Otto go to the door. The room next to me goes dark. Then the door opens and closes, and I know I’m in the clear.
I say a silent hallelujah and stand up. The pins and needles in my legs are so bad I nearly topple over, but I toddle over to the door and lean into it. When I make it outside I stand there stamping my feet and taking long, deep breaths of clean air. Finally I let it out: I throw my head back and laugh hysterically, cackling and snorting and not even caring if I look deranged.
Ms. Winters and Mr.-effing-Otto. Who would have guessed it in a million, trillion years?
As I head up from the gym it strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day—you can think you know them—and then you find out you hardly know them at all. I feel exhilarated, kind of like I’m being spun around a whirlpool, circling closer and closer around the same people and the same events but seeing things from different angles.
I’m still giggling when I get to Main, even though Mr. Kummer will freak that I’m late, and I still have to stop by my locker and pick up my Spanish textbook (he told us on the first day that we should treat our textbooks like children. Obviously, he doesn’t have any). I’m pressing Send on a text to Elody, Ally, and Lindsay—u ll nvr believe what jst happnd—when, bam! I run smack into Lauren Lornet.
Both of us stumble backward, and my phone flies out of my hand and skitters across the hall.
“Shit!” We collide so hard it takes me a second to recover my breath. “Watch where you’re going.”
I start toward my phone, wondering if I can ask her to pay if the screen’s cracked or something, when she grabs my arm. Hard. “What the…?”
“Tell them,” she says wildly, pushing her face up to mine. “You’ve got to tell them.”
“What are you talking about?” I try to pull away, but she grabs my other arm too, like she wants to shake me. Her face is red and splotchy and she has an all-over sticky look. It’s obvious she’s been crying.
“Tell them I didn’t do anything wrong.” She jerks her head back over her shoulder. We’re standing directly in front of the main office, and I see her in that moment the way she was yesterday, hair hanging over her face, tearing down the hall.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, as gently as possible, because she’s freaking me out. She probably has biweekly visits with the school psychologist to control her paranoia, or OCD, or whatever her issue is.
She takes a deep breath. Her voice is shaky. “They think I cheated off you in chem. Beanie called me in…. But I didn’t. I swear to God I didn’t. I’ve been studying….”
I jerk back, but she keeps her grip on my arms. The feeling of being caught in a whirlpool returns, but this time it’s horrible: I’m being pulled down, down, down, like there’s a weight on me.
“You cheated off me?” My words feel like they’re coming from a distance. I don’t even sound like myself.
“I didn’t, I swear to God I—” Lauren gives a shuddering sob. “He’ll fail me. He said he would fail me if my grades didn’t get better, and I got a tutor and now they think I—he said he’d call Penn State. I’ll never go to college and I—you don’t understand. My dad will kill me. He’ll kill me.” She really does shake me then. Her eyes are full of panic. “You have to tell them.”
I finally manage to wrench away. I feel hot and sick. I don’t want to know this, don’t want to know any of it.
“I can’t help you,” I say, backing away, still feeling like I’m not actually saying the words, just hearing them spoken aloud from somewhere.
Lauren looks like I’ve just slapped her. “What? What do you mean you can’t help? Just tell them—”
My hands are shaking as I go to pick up my phone. It slips out of my grasp twice and lands back on the floor both times with a clatter. It’s not supposed to be like this. I feel like someone’s pressed the Reverse button on a vacuum cleaner and all of the junk I’ve done is spewing back onto the carpet for me to see.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break my phone,” I say, feeling numb. “This cost me two hundred dollars.”
“Were you even listening to me?” Lauren’s voice is rising hysterically. I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. “I’m screwed, I’m finished—”
“I can’t help you,” I say again. It’s like I can’t remember any other words.
Lauren lets out something that’s halfway between a scream and a sob. “You said I shouldn’t be nice to you today. You know what? You were right. You’re awful, you’re a bitch, you’re—”
Suddenly it’s like she remembers where we are: who she is, and who I am. She claps her hand over her mouth so quickly it makes a hollow, echoing sound in the hallway.
“Oh, God.” Now her voice comes out as a whisper. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
I don’t even answer. Those words—you’re a bitch—make my whole body go cold.
“I’m sorry. I—please don’t be mad.”
I can’t stand it—can’t stand to hear her apologize to me. And before I know it I’m running—full-out running down the hall, my heart pounding, feeling like I need to scream or cry or smash my fist into something. She calls after me, but I don’t know what it is, I don’t care, I can’t know, and when I push into the girls’ bathroom, I throw my back against the door and sink down against it until my knees are pressed into my chest, my throat squeezed up so tight it hurts to breathe. My phone keeps buzzing, and once I’ve calmed down a bit, I flip it open and find texts from Lindsay, Ally, and Elody: What? Dish. Spill. Did u make up w Rob?
I throw my phone into my bag and rest my head in my hands, waiting for my pulse to return to normal. All of the happiness I felt earlier is gone. Even the Otto and Winters situation doesn’t seem funny anymore. Bridget and Alex and Anna and Sarah Grundel and her stupid parking space and Lauren Lornet and the chem test—it feels like I’ve been caught up in some enormous web and every way I turn I see that I’m stuck to someone else, all of us wriggling around in the same net. And I don’t want to know any of it. It’s not my problem. I don’t care.
You’re a bitch.
I don’t care. I have bigger things to worry about.
Finally I stand up. I’ve given up on going to Spanish. Instead I splash cold water on my face and then reapply my makeup. My face is so pale under the harsh fluorescent lights, I hardly recognize it.
ONLY THE DREAM

“Come on, cheer up.” Lindsay whacks me on the head with a pillow. We’re sitting on the couch in Ally’s den.
Elody pops the last spicy tuna roll into her mouth, which I’m not sure is such a great idea, as it’s now been perched on an ottoman for the past three hours. “Don’t worry, Sammy. Rob’ll get over it.”
All of them think Rob’s the reason I’m quiet. But of course, it isn’t. I’m quiet because as soon as the clock inched its way past twelve, the fear crept back in. It’s been filling me slowly, like sand running through an hourglass. With every second I’m getting closer and closer to the Moment. Ground zero. This morning I was certain that it was simple—that all I had to do was stay away from the party, stay away from the car. That time would lurch back on track. That I would be saved.
But now my heart feels like it’s being squashed between my ribs, and it gets harder and harder to breathe. I’m terrified that in one second—in the space between a breath—everything will evaporate into darkness, and I’ll once again find myself alone in my bedroom at home, waking up to the screaming of the alarm. I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens. I think my heart will break. I think my heart will stop.
Ally switches off the television and throws down the remote. “What should we do now?”
“Let me consult the spirits.” Elody slides off the couch and onto the floor, where earlier we’d set up a dusty Ouija board for old time’s sake. We tried to play, but everyone was obviously pushing, and the indicator kept zipping onto words like penis and choad, until Lindsay started screaming “Perv spirits! Child molesters!” into the air.
Elody shoves the indicator with two fingers. It spins once before settling over the word YES.
“Look, Ma.” She holds up her hands. “No hands.”
“It wasn’t a yes or no question, doofus.” Lindsay rolls her eyes and takes a big sip of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape we swiped from the wine cellar.
“This town sucks,” Ally says. “Nothing ever happens.”
Twelve thirty-three. Twelve thirty-four. I’ve never seen seconds and minutes rush by so fast, tumble over one another. Twelve thirty-five. Twelve thirty-six.
“We need music or something,” Lindsay says, jumping up. “We can’t just sit around here like bums.”
“Definitely music,” Elody says. She and Lindsay run into the next room, where the Bose sound dock is.
“No music.” I groan, but it’s too late. Beyoncé is already blasting. The vases begin to rattle on the bookshelves. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and chills are running up and down my body. Twelve thirty-seven. I nestle deeper into the couch, drawing a blanket up over my knees, and cover my ears.
Lindsay and Elody march back into the room. We’re all in old boxer shorts and tank tops. Lindsay’s obviously just raided Ally’s mudroom because she and Elody are now also decked out in ski goggles and fleece hats. Elody’s hobbling along with one foot jammed in a child’s snowshoe.
“Oh my God!” Ally screams. She holds her stomach and doubles over, laughing.
Lindsay gyrates with a ski pole between her legs, rocking back and forth. “Oh, Patrick! Patrick!”
The music is so loud I can barely hear her, even when I take my hands off my ears. Twelve thirty-eight. One minute.
“Come on!” Elody shouts, extending her hand to me. I’m so full of fear I can’t move, can’t even shake my head, and she leans forward and yells, “Live a little!”
So many thoughts and words are tumbling through my head. I want to yell, No, stop or Yes, live, but all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut and picture seconds running like water into an infinite pool, and I imagine all of us hurtling through time and I think, Now, now, it’s going to happen now—


And then everything goes silent.


I’m afraid to open my eyes. A deep emptiness opens up inside me. I feel nothing. This is what it’s like to be dead.
Then a voice: “Too loud. You’ll blow out your eardrums before you’re twenty.”
I snap open my eyes. Mrs. Harris, Ally’s mom, is standing in the doorway in a glistening raincoat, smoothing down her hair. And Lindsay’s standing there in her ski goggles and hat, and Elody’s awkwardly trying to pry her foot out of the snowshoe.
I made it. It worked. Relief and joy flood me with so much force I almost cry out.
But instead, I laugh. I burst out laughing in the silence, and Ally gives me a dirty look, like, Now you decide it’s funny?
“Are you girls drunk?” Ally’s mother stares at each of us in turn and then frowns at the nearly empty bottle of wine on the floor.
“Hardly.” Ally throws herself on the couch. “You killed the buzz.”
Lindsay flips the goggles onto her head. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris,” she says brightly, as if dancing around half naked and decked out in winter sports equipment was a Girl Scouts–mandated activity.
Mrs. Harris sighs. “Not anymore. It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”
“Moooom,” Ally whines.
Mrs. Harris shoots her a look. “No more music.”
Elody finally wrenches her foot free and stumbles backward, collapsing against one of the bookshelves. Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook comes flying out and lands at her feet. “Oops.” She turns bright red and looks at Mrs. Harris like she expects to be spanked any minute.
I can’t help it. I start giggling again.
Mrs. Harris rolls her eyes to the ceiling and shakes her head. “Good night, girls.”
“Nice going.” Ally leans over and pinches my thigh.
“Retard.”
Elody starts giggling and imitates Lindsay’s voice. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris.”
“At least I didn’t fall into a bookshelf.” Lindsay bends over and wiggles her butt at us. “Kiss it.”
“Maybe I will.” Elody dives for her, pretending like she’s going to. Lindsay shrieks and dodges her. Ally hisses, “Shhhh!” right as we hear Mrs. Harris yell, “Girls!” from upstairs. Pretty soon they’re all laughing. It feels great to laugh with them.
I’m back.


An hour later Lindsay, Elody, and I are settled on the L-shaped couch. Elody has the top bit, and Lindsay and I are lying end-to-end. My feet are pressed against Lindsay’s, and she keeps wiggling her toes to annoy me. But nothing can annoy me right now. Ally has dragged in her air mattress and her blankets from upstairs (she insists she can’t sleep without her Society comforter). It’s just like freshman year. We’ve put the television on low because Elody likes the sound, and in the dark room the glow of the screen reminds me of summers spent breaking into the pool club to go night-swimming, of the way the light shines up through all that black water, of stillness and feeling like you’re the only person alive in the whole world.
“You guys?” I whisper. I’m not sure who’s still awake.
“Mmmf,” Lindsay grunts.
I close my eyes, letting the feeling of peace sweep over me, fill me from head to toe. “If you had to relive one day over and over, which one would you pick?”
Nobody answers me, and in a little while I hear Ally start snoring into her pillow. They’re all asleep. I’m not tired yet. I’m still too exhilarated to be here, to be safe, to have broken out of whatever bubble of time and space has been confining me. But I close my eyes anyway and try to imagine what kind of day I would choose. Memories speed by—dozens and dozens of parties, shopping trips with Lindsay, pigging out at sleepovers and crying over The Notebook with Elody, and even before that, family vacations and my eighth birthday party and the first time I ever dove off the high board at the pool and the water fizzed up my nose and left me dizzy—but all of them seem imperfect somehow, spotted and shadowy.
On a perfect day there wouldn’t be any school, that’s for sure. And there would be pancakes for breakfast—my mom’s pancakes. And my dad would make his famous fried eggs, and Izzy would set the table like she sometimes does at holidays, with different mismatched plates and fruit and flowers that she gathers from around the house and dumps in the middle of the table and calls a “thenterpeeth.”
I close my eyes and feel myself letting go, like tipping over the edge of an abyss, darkness rising up to carry me away….
Bringbringbring.
I’m pulled back from the edge of sleep and for one horrible second I think: it’s my alarm, I’m home, it’s happening again. I strike out, a spasm, and Lindsay yelps, “Ow!”
The sound of that one word makes my heart go still and my breathing return to normal.
Bringbringbring. Now that I’m fully alert I realize it’s not my alarm. It’s the telephone, ringing shrilly in various rooms, creating a weird echo effect. I check the clock. One fifty-two.
Elody groans. Ally rolls over and murmurs, “Turn it off.” The telephone stops ringing and then starts again, and all of a sudden Ally sits up, straight as a rod, totally awake.
She says, “Shit. Shit. My mom’s gonna kill me.”
“Make it stop, Al,” Lindsay says, from underneath her pillow.
Ally tries to untangle herself from her sheets, still muttering, “Shit. Where’s the freaking phone?” She trips and ends up stumbling out of bed and hitting the ground with her shoulder. Elody moans again, this time louder.
Lindsay says, “I’m trying to sleep, people.”
“I need the phone,” Ally hisses back.
It’s too late, anyway. I hear footsteps moving upstairs. Mrs. Harris has obviously woken up. A second later the phone stops ringing.
“Thank God.” Lindsay rustles around, burrowing farther under her covers.
“It’s almost two.” Ally stands up—I can see the vague outline of her form hobbling back over to the bed. “Who the hell calls at two in the morning?”
“Maybe it’s Matt Wilde, confessing his love,” Lindsay says.
“Very funny,” Ally says. She settles back in bed and we all get quiet. I can just hear the low murmur of Mrs. Harris’s voice above us, the creaking of her footsteps as she paces. Then I very distinctly hear her say: “Oh, no. Oh my God.”
“Ally—” I start.
But she’s heard it too. She gets up and turns on the light, then switches off the television, which is still on low. The sudden brightness makes me wince. Lindsay curses and pulls the covers over her head.
“Something’s wrong.” Ally hugs herself, blinking rapidly. Elody reaches for her glasses, then props herself up on two elbows. Eventually Lindsay realizes the light’s not going off and she emerges from under her cocoon.
“What’s the problem?” She balls her hands into fists, rubbing her eyes.
No one answers. We all have a growing sense of it now: something is very wrong. Ally’s just standing there in the middle of the room. In her oversized T-shirt and baggy shorts she looks much younger than she is.
At a certain point the voice upstairs stops, and the footsteps move diagonally across the floor, in the direction of the stairs. Ally moves back to the air mattress, folding her legs underneath her and biting her nails.
Mrs. Harris doesn’t seem surprised to find us sitting up, waiting for her. She’s wearing a long silk nightgown and has an eye mask perched on top of her head. I’ve never seen Mrs. Harris looking less than perfect and it makes fear yawn open in my stomach.
“What?” Ally’s voice is semihysterical. “What happened? Is it Dad?”
Mrs. Harris blinks and seems to focus on us like she’s just been called out of a dream. “No, no. It’s not your father.” She takes a breath, then blows it out loudly. “Listen, girls. What I’m about to tell you is very upsetting. I’m only telling you in the first place because you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Just tell us, Mom.”
Mrs. Harris nods slowly. “You all know Juliet Sykes.”
This is a shock: we all look at one another, completely bewildered. Of all the words that Mrs. Harris could have said at this moment, I’m pretty sure “You all know Juliet Sykes” ranks pretty high on our list of the unexpected.
“Yeah. So?” Ally shrugs.
“Well, she—” Mrs. Harris breaks off, smoothing down her nightgown with her hands, and starts again. “That was Mindy Sachs on the phone.”
Lindsay raises her eyebrows, and Ally gives a knowing sigh. We all know Mindy Sachs too. She’s fifty and divorced but still dresses and acts like a sophomore. She’s more gossip-obsessed than anybody at our school. Whenever I see Ms. Sachs I’m reminded of the game we used to play when we were kids, where one person whispers a secret and the next person repeats it and so on and so on, except in Ridgeview Ms. Sachs is the only one doing the whispering. She and Mrs. Harris sit on the school board together, so Mrs. Harris always knows about divorces and who just lost all their money and who’s having an affair.
“Mindy lives just next to the Sykes’,” Mrs. Harris continues. “Apparently their street has been swarming with ambulances for the past half hour.”
“I don’t get it,” Ally says, and maybe it’s the hour or the stress of the past few days, but I’m not getting it either.
Mrs. Harris has her arms folded across her chest and she hugs herself a little, like she’s cold. “Juliet Sykes is dead. She killed herself tonight.”
Silence. Total silence. Ally stops chewing on her nails, and Lindsay sits as still as I’ve ever seen her. I really think for several seconds my heart stops beating. I feel a strange tunneling sensation, like I’ve been parachuted out of my body and am now just looking at it from far away, like for a few moments we’re all just pictures of ourselves.
I’m suddenly reminded of a story my parents once told me: back when Thomas Jefferson was called Suicide High, some guy hanged himself inside his own closet, right there among the mothball-smelling sweaters and old sneakers and everything. He was a loser and played in the band and had bad skin and next to no friends. So nobody thought anything of it when he died. I mean, people were sad and everything, but they got it.
But the next year—the next year to the day—one of the most popular guys in school killed himself in the exact same way. Everything was the same: method, time, place. Except this guy was captain of the swim team and the soccer team, and apparently when the police went into the closet, there were so many old athletic trophies on the shelves it looked like he’d been entombed in a gold vault. He left only a one-line note: We are all Hangmen.
“How?” Elody asks, barely a whisper.
Mrs. Harris shakes her head, and for a second I think she might cry. “Mindy heard the gunshot. She thought it was a firecracker. She thought it was a prank.”
“She shot herself?” Ally says it quietly, almost reverentially, and I know we’re all thinking the same thing: that’s the worst way of any.
“How are they…” Elody adjusts her glasses and licks her lips. “Do they know why?”
“There was no note,” Mrs. Harris says, and I swear I can hear something go around the room: a tiny exhalation. A breath of relief. “I just thought you should know.” She goes to Ally and bends over, kissing her forehead. Ally pulls away, maybe in surprise. I’ve never seen Mrs. Harris kiss Ally before. I’ve never seen Mrs. Harris look so much like a mother before.
After Mrs. Harris leaves we all sit there while the silence stretches out and expands in huge rings around us. I feel like we’re all waiting for something, but I’m not sure what. Finally Elody speaks.
“Do you think…” Elody swallows, looking back and forth from one to the other of us. “Do you think it’s because of our rose?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Lindsay snaps. I can tell she’s upset, though. Her face is pale, and she twists and untwists the edge of her blanket. “It’s not like it was the first time.”
“That makes it even worse,” Ally says.
“At least we knew who she was.” Lindsay catches me staring at her hands, and she places them firmly in her lap. “Most people just acted like she was invisible.”
Ally bites her lip.
“Still, on her last day…” Elody trails off.
“She’s better off this way,” Lindsay says. This is low, even for her, and we all stare.
“What?” She lifts her chin and stares back at us defiantly. “You know you’re all thinking it. She was miserable. She escaped. Done.”
“But—I mean, things could have gotten better,” I say.
“They wouldn’t have,” Lindsay says.
Ally shakes her head and draws her knees to her chest. “God, Lindsay.”
I’m in shock. The weirdest part of it all is the gun. It seems so harsh, so loud, so physical a way to do it. Blood and brains and searing heat. If she had to do it—to die—she should have drowned, should have just walked into the water until it folded over her head. Or she should have jumped. I picture Juliet floating this way and that, like she’s being supported by currents of air. I can imagine her spreading her arms and leaping off a bridge or a canyon somewhere, but in my head she starts soaring upward on the wind as soon as her feet leave the ground.
Not a gun. Guns are for cop dramas and 7-Eleven holdups and crack addicts and gang fights. Not for Juliet Sykes.
“Maybe we should have been nicer to her,” Elody says. She looks down like she’s embarrassed to say it.
“Please.” Lindsay’s voice is loud and hard in comparison. “You can’t be mean to someone forever and then feel bad when she dies.”
Elody lifts her head and stares at Lindsay. “But I do feel bad.” Her voice is getting stronger.
“Then you’re a hypocrite,” Lindsay says. “And that’s worse than anything.”
She gets up and shuts off the light. I hear her climb back on the couch and rustle around in the blankets, settling in.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she says, “I have sleep to catch up on.”
There’s total silence for a while. I’m not sure if Ally’s lying down or not, but as my eyes adjust to the darkness I see that she isn’t: she’s still sitting there with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring straight ahead.
After a minute she says, “I’m going to sleep upstairs.” She gathers up her sheets and blankets, making extra noise, probably to get back at Lindsay.
A moment later Elody says, “I’m going with her. The couch is too lumpy.” She’s obviously upset too. We’ve been sleeping on this couch for years.
After she leaves I sit for a while listening to Lindsay breathe. I wonder if she’s sleeping. I don’t see how she could be. I feel as awake as I’ve ever been. Then again, Lindsay’s always been different from most people, less sensitive, more black-and-white. My team, your team. This side of the line, that side of the line. Fearless, and careless. I’ve always admired her for that—we all have.
I feel restless, like I need to know the answers to questions I’m not sure how to ask. I ease off the couch slowly, trying not to wake Lindsay, but it turns out she’s not sleeping after all. She rolls over, and in the dark I can just make out her pale skin and the deep hollows of her eyes.
“You’re not going upstairs, are you?” she whispers.
“Bathroom,” I whisper back.
I feel my way out into the hallway and pause there. Somewhere a clock is ticking, but other than that it’s totally silent. Everything is dark and the stone floor is cold under my feet. I run one hand along the wall to orient myself. The sound of the rain has stopped. When I look outside I see the rain has turned to snow, thousands of snowflakes melting down the latticed windows and making the moonlight that comes through the panes look watery and full of movement, shadows twisting and blurring on the floor, alive. There’s a bathroom here, but that’s not where I’m headed. I ease open the door that leads to Ally’s basement and grope my way down the stairs, holding on to both banisters.
As soon as my feet hit the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, I fumble on the wall to my left, eventually finding the light switch. The basement is suddenly revealed, big and stark and normal-looking: beige leather couches, an old Ping-Pong table, another flat-screen TV, and a circular area with a treadmill, an elliptical machine, and a three-sided mirror at its center. It’s cooler here and smells like chemicals and new paint.
Just beyond the exercise area is another door, which leads into the room we’ve always referred to as the Altar of Allison Harris. The room is papered with Ally’s old drawings, none of them good, most dating back to elementary school. The bookshelves are crowded with pictures of her: Ally dressed up like an octopus for Halloween in first grade, Ally wearing a green velvet dress and smiling in front of an enormous Christmas tree absolutely collapsing with ornaments, Ally squinting in a bikini, Ally laughing, Ally frowning, Ally looking pensive. And on the lowest shelf, every single one of Ally’s old yearbooks, from kindergarten on. Ally once showed us how Mrs. Harris had gone through all the books, one by one, placing colored sticky tabs on each one of Ally’s friends from year to year. (“So you can remember how popular you always were,” Mrs. Harris had told her.)
I drop to my knees. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, but there’s an idea taking shape in my head, some old memory that disappears whenever I will it to take form, like those Magic Eye games where you can only see the hidden shape when your eyes aren’t in focus.
I start with the first-grade yearbook. I open it directly to Mr. Christensen’s class—just my luck—and there I am, standing a little ways apart from the group. The flash reflected in my glasses makes it impossible to see my eyes. My smile is closer to a wince, as though the effort hurts. I flip past the picture quickly. I hate looking through old yearbooks; they don’t exactly bring back a flood of positive memories. Mine are stashed somewhere in the attic, with all the other crap my mom insists I keep “because you might want it later,” like my old dolls and a ratty stuffed lamb I used to carry with me everywhere.
Two pages later I find what I’m looking for: Mrs. Novak’s first-grade class. And there Lindsay is, front and center as always, beaming a big smile at the camera. Next to her is a thin, pretty girl with a shy smile and hair so blond it could be white. She and Lindsay are standing so close together their arms are touching all the way from their elbows to their fingertips.
Juliet Sykes.
In the second-grade yearbook, Lindsay is kneeling in the front row of her class. Again, Juliet Sykes is next to her.
In the third-grade yearbook, Juliet and Lindsay are separated by several pages. Lindsay was in Ms. Derner’s class (with me—that was the year she invented the joke: “What’s red and white and weird all over?”). Juliet was in Dr. Kuzma’s class. Different pages, different classes, different poses—Lindsay has her hands clasped in front of her; Juliet is standing with her body angled slightly to the side—and yet they look exactly the same, wearing identical powder blue Petit Bateau T-shirts and matching white capri pants, which cut off just below the knee; their hair, blond and shining, parted neatly down the middle; the glint of a small silver chain around both of their necks. That was the year it was cool to dress up like your friends—your best friends.
I pick up the fourth-grade yearbook next, my fingers heavy and numb, cold running through me. There’s a big Technicolor portrait of the school on its cover, all neon pinks and reds, probably painted by an art teacher. It takes me a while to find Lindsay’s class, but as soon as I do my heart starts racing. There she is with that same huge smile, like she’s daring the camera to catch her looking less-than-perfect. And next to her is Juliet Sykes. Pretty, happy Juliet Sykes, smiling like she has a secret. I squint, focusing on a tiny blurred spot between them, and think I can just make out that their index fingers are linked together loosely.
Fifth grade. I find Lindsay easily, standing front and center in Mrs. Krakow’s classroom, smiling so widely it looks like she’s baring her teeth. It takes me longer to find Juliet. I go through all the photographs looking for her and have to start over from the beginning before I spot her, far up in the right-hand corner, sandwiched between Lauren Lornet and Eileen Cho, shrinking backward like she wants to suck herself out of the frame altogether. Her hair hangs in front of her face like a curtain. Next to her, both Lauren and Eileen are angled slightly away, as though they don’t want to be associated with her, as though she has some contagious disease.
Fifth grade: the year of the Girl Scout trip, when she peed in her sleeping bag and Lindsay nicknamed her Mellow Yellow.
I put the yearbooks back carefully, making sure to order them correctly. My heart is thumping wildly, an out-of-control drum rhythm. I suddenly want to get out of the basement as quickly as possible. I shut off the lights and feel my way up the stairs blindly. The darkness seems to swirl with shapes and shadows, and terror rises in my throat. I’m sure that if I turn around I’ll see her, all in white, stumbling with her hands outstretched, reaching for me, face bloody and broken apart.
And then I’m upstairs and there she is: a vision, a nightmare. Her face is completely in shadow—a hole—but I can tell she’s staring at me. The room tilts; I grab on to the wall to keep myself steady.
“What’s your problem?” Lindsay steps farther into the hall, the moonlight falling differently so that her features emerge. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Jesus.” I bring my hand to my chest, trying to press my heart back to its normal rhythm. “You scared me.”
“What were you doing down there?” Her hair is messed up, and in her white boxers and tank top she could be a ghost.
“You were friends with her,” I say. It pops out like an accusation. “You were friends with her for years.”
I’m not sure what answer I’m expecting, but she looks away and then looks back at me.
“It’s not our fault,” she says, like she’s daring me to contradict her. “She’s totally wacked. You know that.”
“I know,” I say. But I get the feeling she’s not even talking to me.
“And I heard her dad’s, like, an alcoholic,” Lindsay presses on, her voice suddenly quick, urgent. “Her whole family’s wacked.”
“Yeah,” I say. For a minute we just stand there in silence. My body feels heavy, useless, the way it sometimes does in nightmares when you have to run but you can’t. After a while something occurs to me and I say, “Was.”
Even though we’ve been standing in silence, Lindsay inhales sharply, as though I’ve interrupted her in the middle of a long speech. “What?”
“She was wacked,” I say. “She’s not anything anymore.”
Lindsay doesn’t respond. I go past her into the dark hallway and find my way to the couch. I settle in under the blankets, and a little while later she comes in and joins me.
Lying there, convinced I won’t be able to sleep, I remember the time in the middle of junior year when Lindsay and I snuck out on a random weeknight—a Tuesday or a Thursday—and drove around because there was nothing else to do. At some point she pulled over abruptly on Fallow Ridge Road and cut the headlights, waiting until another car began to squeeze its way toward us on the single-lane road. Then she roared the engine and blazed the lights to life and began careening straight toward it. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, the headlights growing huge as suns, certain we were going to die, and she was gripping the steering wheel and calling out over my screams, “Don’t worry—they always swerve first.” She was right, too. At the last second the other car jerked abruptly into the ditch.
That’s what I remember just before the dream pulls me under.
In my dream I am falling through darkness.
In my dream I fall forever.