“One foot in front of the other,” Janie Lee says to no one in particular. Certainly not to me.
The looming beam stretches out yard on yard. Her fear is so palpable that no amount of internal chanting releases my anxiety that she will fall. Woods is nearly to the middle. With one hand solidly on the rafter that divides the barn, he throws a decadent come-and-get-me smile.
Janie Lee, in the way of all Lost Boys, chooses that moment to step forward. One step. Arms at her sides. Two steps. Arms outstretched. I follow slowly, checking on her to the front and on Davey behind. He is sure-footed and lithe. I focus on Janie Lee.
The timber beneath our feet is old, several inches wider than a railroad tie, and uneven. Janie Lee must feel the slight give in the lumber, especially with all of us up here. She hits the quarter mark. Fifty’s taking a breather in the middle, where Woods stood only moments before.
Everyone moves quickly, wanting this over with.
Fifty’s on the other side of the support as she’s grabbing on when I hear her say, “I can’t believe you got me into this,” and he says, with a low laugh, “You got yourself into this the moment you and the other two pieces of the trinity got Billie on the ballot.”
I realize instantly that I was not supposed to hear this. I would not have heard this if I had been spaced apart from Janie Lee the way everyone else was spaced. But Fifty didn’t see that I sneaked in close, worried, ready to steady her if I needed to.
“Fifty, shut up,” Davey says from behind me.
My arm hair is on high alert. “What are y’all talking about?”
Janie Lee turns carefully to me, lips quivering. “It was nothing.”
“We’ll tell you when we’re on the ground,” Davey says.
“Yeah,” Janie Lee agrees.
“No.” I am emphatic. “You’ll tell me now.”
This is not the place to have an argument, particularly this argument. There is so much dead air between me and the tables below. Janie Lee has her arms snaked around the center post, but I’m standing on an eight-inch-wide death trap.
In my peripheral vision, Gerry and Thom stretch their necks with concern. “You all right?” Thom calls up.
I yell back that we are fine. Cool sweat slides by my ear. Woods and Mash are reaching the other side and hooting, unaware. I am silently imploding.
“I want an answer,” I say.
Her mouth is a gun, firing very quiet, very painful bullets. “It wasn’t anything,” Janie Lee says.
But Davey, sliding closer, disputes her claim, firing his own weapon. “Woods, Janie Lee, and I talked to the committee about you. We thought it would help. After the fire.”
“So they didn’t pick me?”
“Well, of course they did,” Janie Lee says.
“You three manipulated them.” My eyes ping from Janie Lee to Davey. His arms jut out to his sides like frozen propellers. All that drumming, all that pent-up energy, and he has the nerve to be still now.
She gives the reason. “We all felt bad about the Hexagon of Love thing. We were trying to make it up to you.”
“By pitying me?” Tremors attack my knees, work their way into my voice. “But I guess poor Elizabeth McCaffrey could never be a girl on her own terms. I should have known.” And that’s the real source of my shame. I am ridiculously stupid for not seeing that my nomination had Woods Carrington’s name written all over it.
Janie Lee and Davey both give some version of “That’s not what anyone meant,” but there is nothing else to mean.
“Easy, Billie,” Davey says, propeller arms stretching slowly to me.
My body is a rolling boil in this shitty barn pot. The stale barn air licks my nose. I am having an emotional earthquake. If I fall I won’t land on hay. The world tilts. Chairs and tables shimmer like holograms. If I fall I will break things.
“Billie.” Thom tries to calm me from just below; I suppose he has heard it all. If I speak—ask for help—the weight of words will tip my balance. My arms seesaw wildly.
A tear splats on a table below. My sunglasses shake away from where they were tucked in the front of my shirt. I don’t know where they end up, only that I heard them land on something solid.
“Deep breath.” Davey sounds as if he’s inside my head. He stretches out a blurry hand. I am spinning. I try to make contact.
This slight adjustment wrecks my remaining balance.
I am falling. Time slows down. I don’t scream. Or if I do, it’s lost in Thom yelling and Gerry squealing. Davey grabs me—a mistake. My momentum is too strong and he’s not anchored to anything.
We go over the edge, each of us throwing an arm around the beam. My chin slams into the wood. I bite my tongue, and lose my hold. I drop again. I am suspended by my fingertips, mouth and eyes exploding with fear. Falling is inevitable. And to think: I was worried about festivals and first dances. Janie Lee screams; Davey says, “It’s going to be okay”; Thom’s crashing below, as he upends tables and creates space: they are all so loud. So very, very loud. My head has gone quiet in preparation.
I fall first.
Davey is right behind me.
33
Having Thom Cahill as a friend is the luckiest thing that has happened, perhaps in my life. He breaks my fall without my breaking him. But even Thom Cahill cannot be in two places at once. No one catches Davey.
Thom and I are heaps on the barn floor. There is copper liquid swirling in my mouth. When I touch my fingers to my tongue, they come away red. I move my jaw back and forth, making sure it isn’t broken from where I hit the beam. My elbow collided with Thom’s massive shoulder at some point. I am already sore, but I can’t pinpoint a particular source.
Thom is groaning, but not the scary kind. Beside us, Davey is making a terrible noise. Thom untangles himself from me. We stumble-crawl to Gerry, who is already at Davey’s side telling him he’ll be okay. There’s a compound fracture in his arm, three inches above his wrist, that I can hardly bear to look at. He absorbed the majority of the shock with a tuck and roll, but the impact had to go somewhere. Gerry leans over his chest, blocking his view of the blood.
I rest my hand on his bandanna and sweep his hair backward. It is greasy from the game and stays wherever my fingers leave it. He closes his eyes when I touch him, and I wonder if it’s from pain or relief. I can’t be angry with him right now.
His head lolls toward me. He’s grimacing, but trying to be brave. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod and Thom distracts him with bad jokes. He winces, and Thom mouths to Gerry that we shouldn’t let him move. But he’s drumming the planks of the barn with his good hand, and sitting up on his own.
Woods jumps the last few rungs to the barn floor, the Hexagon hot on his heels. Janie Lee is a smeared mess of emotions.
I want to think: Good for her.
But really I think: I’m sorry this all went to shit.
“What happened?” Woods asks, removing his sweatshirt and draping it over the place where the skin is broken. Davey yelps, but Woods is talking about contaminants and keeping it as sterile as possible. Lifeguard talk, I’m sure.