Before I Fall

But I know what shes saying isnt totally true. Her decision to come to the party was more than that. Things are clicking into place, making a horrible kind of sense: she needed us here, needed that final push. I close my eyes against the memory of a wet and stumbling Juliet being shoved from person to person like a pinball. And tonight, I guess, she just needed to tell her storyneeded to remember how bad things have been. I wonder if the day when we all slept over at Lindsaysthe day that things ended differently for her, the day that they ended alone, with a gunit took her longer to work up the courage. If she came to the party, unnoticed, ignored, and found she didnt have the strength to go through with it. If later that night she sat and stared at the gun in her lap, and conjured up the faces of all the people whod tormented her over the years.

Vicky Hallinans face hovers in the darkness suddenly, twisted into a grimace, and I snap my eyes open. Maybe before you die its your ghosts that you see.

This isnt the way, I say weakly, feeling like the rain has seeped into my brain and made it soggy and useless. I cant remember anything I was planning to say to her. I repeat it a little louder. This isnt the way.

Please, Juliet says quietly. I just want to be alone.

What about your family? I say, my voice rising hysterically as I realize Im losing her again, losing my chance. What about your sister?

She doesnt answer me. Shes staring at the road, still. The rain has soaked her shirt so I can see her shoulder blades jutting out of her back like the wings of a baby bird, and I think of the moment when Allys mom came into the den and told us, Juliet Sykes shot herself, and I thought it was so wrongthat she, of all people, should have jumped or leaped or fallen through the sky. I again have the fantasy I did then, that shell suddenly sprout wings and go soaring up into the air, out of harms way.

The road has been unusually clear of traffic, but now from both directions I make out the growl of engines. Loud ones. Big ones.

Juliet. I take a step forward and grab her arm tightly. I cant let you do this.

She turns to me, staring at me with eyes so empty it takes my breath away. Theyre pools, liquid, nothing. Looking at her reminds me of that stitched-together mask with the holes cut away for eyes: monstrous, deformed, patched together, with eyes that look into and look out at nothing. Im so startled I loosen my grip. Theres a roaring in my ears, and I dimly have a sense of cars, but Im transfixed. I cant stop staring at her.

Its too late, she says, and in that second when Im not holding on tightly enough she wrenches away from me and hurtles onto the road just as two vans converge, about to pass each other, and all I see is the shine of metal and something white suddenly launched into the air, and for a second I feel an overwhelming sense of joy, and I think shes done it, shes flying, and time seems to stop with her glittering in the air like a beautiful bird. But then time resumes, and the air doesnt hold her, and as she drops theres a piercing sound splitting the darkness and again it takes me a long time to realize its me, screaming.

GHOSTS AND HEAVEN

An hour and a half later Im parked in Lindsays driveway, and the two of us are watching the rain turn to snow, watching the world go quiet as, in a moment, thousands of raindrops seem to freeze in the air and come drifting silently to earth. Ive already dropped off Elody and Ally. On the way home from the party nobody spoke. Elody leaned back against the seat, pretending to sleep, but at one point I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the glitter of her eyes, watching me.

Jesus. What a night. Lindsay leans her forehead on the window. So crazy, you know? I never would have thoughtI mean, she was obviously screwed up, but I didnt ever think she would She shivers, shoots a look at me. And you were there.

When the police came, and the ambulancesfollowed by all the people at Kents party, drifting through the woods, quiet, suddenly sober, attracted by the sound of the sirens like moths to a flamethey found me standing by the side of the road, still staring. Id even been interviewed by a female police officer with a big mole exactly at the point of her chin, which I had focused on like a single star in a dark sky, something to orient me.

Was she drunk?

No.

Was she on anything else? Dont be afraid to tell me.

No. At leastI dont think so.

Lindsay licks her lips, fidgets her hands in her lap. And she didntshe didnt, like, say anything? She didnt explain?

Its the same thing the police officer asked me earlier: the final question, maybe the only one that matters. Did she say anything to you? Anything at all to give you a sense of how she was feeling, what she was thinking?

I dont think she was feeling much of anything.

To Lindsay I say, Im not sure its the kind of thing you can explain.

She keeps pressing it. But I mean, she must have had problems, right? Stuff at home, right? People dont just do that.

I think of Juliets cold, dark house, the TV shadows climbing the walls, the unknown couple in the hard silver frame.

I dont know, I say. I look at Lindsay, but she keeps her eyes averted. I guess well never know now.

I feel a sense of emptiness so deep it stops feeling like emptiness and starts feeling like relief. I imagine this is what it would be like to get carried off on a wave. This is what it would feel like in the moment that the thin, dark edge of shore ducks its head beyond the horizon, when you roll over and see only stars and sky and water, folding in on you like an embrace. When you spread your arms and think, Okay.

Thanks for dropping me off. Lindsay puts her hand on the door handle, but makes no further motion to get out. Are you sure youre going to be okay?

Ill be okay.

I watch patterns of snow coming down at an angle as though flowing, cresting, breaking on a massive current, a tide that leaves the world glittering. Its beautiful. All I can think is that its the first of many things Juliet wont see.

Lindsay is chewing on a nail, a habit shes always claiming to have kicked in third grade. The automatic garage light has clicked on and her features are all dark.

Lindsay?

She jumps like weve been silent for hours and shes shocked to see me still in the car. What?

Remember that time in Rosalitas? After you came back from New York? When I walked in on you in the bathroom?

She turns to stare at me, not saying anything. Her eyes are a deeper dark than the rest of her face, two spots of total blackness.

Was that really the only time? I ask.

She hesitates for just a second. Of course it was, she says, but her voice is a whisper and I know shes lying.

And now I realize Lindsays not fearless. Shes terrified. Shes terrified that people will find out shes faking, bullshitting her way through life, pretending to have everything together when really shes just floundering like the rest of us. Lindsay, who will bite at you if you even look in her direction the wrong way, like one of those tiny attack dogs that are always barking and snapping in the air before theyre jerked backward on the chains that keep them in one place.

Millions of individual snowflakes, spinning and twirling and looking, all together, like rolling waves of white. I wonder if its true that theyre all different. Juliet told me. I lean back against the headrest and squint so that everything disappears but the whiteness. About the Girl Scout trip. When you were in fifth gradewhen you were still friends.

Lindsays still not saying anything, but I can feel her trembling a little next to me.

She told me it was really you whoyou know.

And you believed her? Lindsay says quickly, but she does it automatically, dully, as though she doesnt expect it to do any good.

I ignore her. Remember how everybody used to call her Mellow Yellow after that? I open my eyes and look at her. Why did you tell everyone it was her? I mean, in the moment, okay, I get it, you were scared, you were embarrassed, but afterward? Why did you tell everyone? Why did you spread it?

Lindsays shaking is getting worse now, and for a second I think she wont answer, or shell lie. But her voice is steady when she speaks, steady and filled with something I dont recognize. Regret, maybe.

I always thought it wouldnt last. She sounds as if it still amazes her after all these years. I thought eventually shed tell everybody what really happened. That she would stick up for herself, you know? Her voice breaks a little, a note of hysteria creeping in. Why didnt she ever stick up for herself? Not once. She justshe just took it. Why?

I think of all the years that Lindsays been holding on to this secret knowledge, this secret self who cried every night and scrubbed pillows clean of peethe scariest secret of all, the past were trying to forget.

And I think of all the times I sat in squirming silence, terrified I would say or do the wrong thing, terrified the dorky, lanky, horseback-riding loser inside me would rise up and swallow the new me, like a snake feasting on something. How I cleared the shelves of my trophies and dumped my beanbag chair and learned how to dress and never ate the hot lunch, and, above all, learned to stay away from the people who would drag me down, and carry me back to that place. People like Juliet Sykes. People like Kent.

Lindsay rouses herself and pops the door open. I cut the engine and get out of the car with her, throwing the keys over the roof. She catches them in one hand. Headlights flare to life, and I turn, squinting, holding up a hand in the general direction of the car idling behind me. I mouth, Two minutes.

Lindsay nods toward Kent, who is parked behind us, waiting to drive me home. Youre sure youre all good? To get home and everything, I mean.

Im sure, I say. Despite everything that has happened tonight, the thought of sitting next to Kent for a whole twelve minutes on the way to my house fills me with warmth. Even though I know its not righteven if I know, somewhere deep inside me, that it wont work out, that it cant work out for me with anyone anymore.

Lindsay opens her mouth and closes it. I can tell she wants to ask about Kent but thinks better of it. She starts to walk up toward the house, hesitates, and turns.

Sam?

Yeah?

Im really sorry. Im really sorry abouteverything.

She wants me to tell her its okay. She needs me to tell her that. I cant, though. Instead I say, quietly, People would like you anyway, Lindz. I dont say, if you stopped pretending so much, but I know she understands. Wed still love you no matter what.