Before I Fall: Days Two–Three

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—

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.

She knocks out a pack of cigarettes and two empty tubes of lip gloss, plus a misshapen eyelash curler.

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.’

‘We should sue for copyright infringement. Can you imagine? Twenty bucks for every time somebody bites our style. We’d be rolling in it.’

That’s when I see Rob loping into the cafeteria.

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.

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.

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).

At a certain point your brain stops trying to rationalize things. At a certain point it gives up, shuts off, shuts down.

Lindsay cracks a window and exhales a plume of smoke.

‘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.’

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.

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?

‘You love Cupid Day,’ my mom prods. ‘Are you sure nothing happened? You didn’t fight with your friends?’

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.

Chemical reactions, blah, blah, blah. Transfiguration. Put two liquids together and they form a solid.

His smile falters a little.

‘We were supposed to, but...' I’ve never been a really good liar and my brain goes totally blank.
‘But?’ Lindsay prompts.

I wasn’t expecting him to mention the text, and it flusters me that I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

That’s what she looks like, actually—like a snowflake being buffeted around in the wind, twisting and turning on currents of air.

Lindsay’s holding up her fingers, crossed, like she’s warding off a curse, and she keeps repeating, ‘Oh, Lord, keep the darkness away.’

Finally I let it out: I throw my head back and laugh hysterically, cackling and snorting and not even caring if I look deranged.

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.

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.

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.’

‘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.

She lifts her chin and stares back at us defiantly.

Everything is dark and the stone floor is cold under my feet. I run one hand along the wall to orient myself.

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.