Before I Fall Part 24

"Anyway, when I told him to leave me alone he smacked my tray, and food went flying everywhere. I'll never forget: we were having mashed potatoes and turkey burgers. And you went up and scooped the potatoes off the floor with your hands and shoved them straight into Phil's face. And then you picked up the turkey burger and crumbled it down Phil's T-shirt. You said, You're worse than the hot lunch You're worse than the hot lunch." He laughs again. "That was a big insult in second grade. And Sean was so surprised, and he looked so ridiculous standing there with mashed potato and chives smeared all over him, that I just started laughing and laughing, and it was the first time I'd laughed since I'd heard the news about-about my grandfather." He pauses. "Do you remember what I said to you that day?"

The memory is there, a balloon swelling from somewhere so far inside me I thought it was lost, the whole scene clear and perfect now.

"You're my hero," we both say at the same time. I don't hear Kent move, but all of a sudden his voice is closer, and he's found my hands in the dark, and he's cupping them in his.

"I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took," he whispers.

We stay like that for what feels like hours, and all the time sleep is dragging at me, pulling me away from him, but my heart is fluttering like a moth, beating back the dreams and the darkness and the fog crowding my brain. Once I sleep, I lose him. I lose this moment forever.

"Kent?" I say, and my voice seems to have to rise from inside the fog, taking forever to get from my brain to my mouth.

"Yeah?"

"Promise you'll stay here with me?" I say.

"I promise," he whispers.

And then, just at that moment, when I'm no longer sure if I'm dreaming or awake or walking some valley in between where everything you wish for comes true, I feel the flutter of his lips on mine, but it's too late, I'm slipping, I'm gone, he's gone, and the moment curls away and back on itself like a flower folding up for the night.

SIX.

This time, when I dream, there is sound. As I fall through the darkness there's a tinkly, jangly song playing, like the kind of music you hear in doctors' offices and elevators, and without knowing how I know, I realize that the music is piping all the way from the guidance counselor's office at Thomas Jefferson.

As soon as I realize this, little bright spots start exploding through the darkness, a zooming gallery of all the annoying inspirational posters my guidance counselor, Mrs. Gardner, keeps on her walls, except in my dream they're all blown up by about a hundred times, each the size of a house. In one, Einstein is pictured over the words GRAVITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR FALLING IN LOVE GRAVITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR FALLING IN LOVE. There's a poster with Thomas Edison's quote: GENIUS IS GENIUS IS 1 1 PERCENT INSPIRATION AND PERCENT INSPIRATION AND 99 99 PERCENT PERSPIRATION PERCENT PERSPIRATION. I'm thinking of trying to grab one of them and worrying about whether it will hold my weight when I spin past a picture of a striped cat hanging off the branch of a tree by its nails. It says HANG IN THERE HANG IN THERE.

And it's the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I haven't been falling at all. I've been floating.

The alarm that wakes me is the sweetest sound I've ever heard. I sit up, a bubble of laughter rising inside me. I have the urge to touch everything in my room-the walls, the window, the collage, the photos cluttering my desk, the Tahari jeans strewn across my floor and my bio textbook and even the dull light just creeping over the windowsill. If I could cup it in my hands and kiss it, I would.

"Someone's in a good mood," my mom says when I come downstairs. Izzy's at the table in front of her peanut b.u.t.ter bagel, taking slow, careful bites, as usual.

"Happy Cupid Day," my father says. He's standing at the stove burning eggs for my mom's breakfast.

"My favorite," I say, scooting in to steal a bite from Izzy's bagel. Izzy squeals and slaps at my hand. I plant a big, sloppy kiss on her forehead.

"Stop s...o...b..ring on me," she says.

"See you later, Fizzy Lizard," I say.

"Don't call me Lizard." Izzy sticks a peanut b.u.t.tercoated tongue out at me.

"You look like a lizard when you do that."

"Do you want any breakfast, Sam?" my mom asks. I never eat breakfast at home, but my mom still asks me every day-when she catches me before I duck out, anyway-and in that moment I realize how much I love the little everyday routines of my life: the fact that she always asks, the fact that I always say no because there's a sesame bagel waiting for me in Lindsay's car, the fact that we always listen to "No More Drama" as we pull into the parking lot. The fact that my mom always cooks spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s on Sunday, and the fact that once a month my dad takes over the kitchen and makes his "special stew," which is just hot-dog pieces and baked beans and lots of extra ketchup and mola.s.ses, and I would never admit to liking it, but it's actually one of my favorite meals. The details that are my life's special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the st.i.tching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced.

So many things become beautiful when you really look.

"No breakfast. Thanks, though." I go to my mom and wrap my arms around her. She yelps, surprised. I guess it has been a couple of years since we've hugged, except the mandatory two-second squeeze on birthdays. "Love you."

When I pull away she stares at me as though I've just announced I'm quitting school to become a contortionist in the circus.

"What?" my dad says, dumping a pan in the sink and wiping his hands on the dishtowel. "No love for your old man?"

I roll my eyes. I hate it when my dad tries to "teen-speak," as he calls it, but I don't call him out on it. Nothing can get me down today.

"Bye, Dad." I let him wrap me in one of his infamous bear hugs. I'm filled with love from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes, a bubbly feeling like someone's shaken my insides up like a c.o.ke bottle. Everything-the dishes in the sink, Izzy's bagel, my mom's smile-looks sharp, like it's made out of gla.s.s or like I'm seeing it for the first time. It's dazzling, and again I have the desire to go around and touch it all, make sure that it's real. If I had time I would, too. I would put my hands around the half-eaten grapefruit on the counter and smell it. I would run my fingers through Izzy's hair.

But I don't have time. It's Cupid Day, and Lindsay's outside, and I have business to take care of. Today I'm going to save two lives: Juliet Sykes's, and mine.

LET THERE BE LIGHT.

"Beep, beep!" Lindsay shouts out her window as I scurry down the icy walkway, sucking the cold air into my lungs, loving the way it burns, loving even the bitter stink of Lindsay's cigarette and the exhaust that's clotting the air. "Hot mama! How much?"

"If you have to ask," I say, sliding into the pa.s.senger seat, "you can't afford it."

She grins and hands me my coffee before I can reach for it. "Happy Cupid Day."

"Happy Cupid Day," I say, and we clink Styrofoam cups.

She too looks clearer to me than ever before. Lindsay, with her angel's face and messy, dirty blond hair and chipped black nail polish and battered leather Dooney & Bourke bag that always has a film of tobacco and half-unwrapped Trident Original at the bottom. Lindsay, who hates being bored, always moving, always running. Lindsay, who once said-"It's the world against us, babes"-drunk and looping her arms around our shoulders when we were out in the arboretum and really meaning it. Lindsay, mean and funny and ferocious and loyal and mine.

I lean over impulsively and kiss her cheek.

"Whoa, lesboing out much?" Lindsay shrugs a shoulder up to her cheek and wipes off my lip gloss. "Or just practicing for tonight?"

"Maybe both," I say, and she laughs long and loud.

I take a sip of my coffee. It's scalding and has to be the best coffee in all of Ridgeview, in all the world. G.o.d bless Dunkin' Donuts.

Lindsay chatters about how many roses she expects to get and whether Marcy Posner will, as usual, break down and cry in the bathroom during fifth period because Justin Streamer dumped her three years ago on Cupid Day, thus permanently sealing her fate as only medium-popular, and I look out the window and watch Ridgeview go by in a blur of gray. I try to imagine how, in only a few months, the trees will shoot their tiny stems into the sky, the barest spray of flowers and green breathed over everything like a mist. And then, a few months after that, the whole town will be an explosion of green: so many trees and so much gra.s.s it will look like a painting still dripping wet. I can imagine it waiting under the surface of the world, like the slides just have to be flipped in the projector and summer will be here.

And there's Elody, teetering down the lawn in her shoes with no jacket on and her arms wrapped around her chest. When I see her, radiant and alive, the relief is so huge I let out a tremendous shriek of laughter. Lindsay raises her eyebrows at me.

"She'll freeze," I gasp, by way of explanation.

Lindsay twirls her finger by her ear. "She's totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."

"Did someone say Cocoa Puffs?" Elody says, getting into the car. "I'm starving."

I twist around to look at her. It's all I can do to keep from climbing into the backseat and jumping on her. I feel an overwhelming urge to touch her, make sure she's really real and here and alive alive. In some ways she's the bravest and most delicate of all of us. I wish I could somehow tell her this.

"What?" Elody scrunches up her nose at me, and I realize I'm staring. "What's wrong? Do I have toothpaste on my face or something?"

"No," I say, and again the laughter bubbles out of me, a surge of happiness and relief. I think; I could stay forever in this one moment. "You look beautiful."

Lindsay giggles, checks Elody out in the rearview. "There are some bagels under your b.u.t.t, beautiful beautiful."

"Mmm, b.u.t.t bagels." Elody reaches into the bag and pulls out a bagel, half squashed, then makes a big deal of taking an enormous bite out of it. "Tastes like Victoria's Secret."

"Tastes like thong floss," I say.

"Tastes like crack," Lindsay says.

"Tastes like fart," Elody says, and Lindsay spits coffee on the dashboard, and I start laughing and can't stop, and all the way to school we're thinking of flavors for b.u.t.t bagels, and I'm thinking that this-my life, my friends-might be weird or screwy or imperfect or damaged or whatever, but it's never seemed better to me.

As we're pulling into the school's parking lot, I scream for Lindsay to brake. She slams to a stop and Elody curses as coffee slops all over her.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Lindsay puts a hand on her chest. "You scared me to death."

"Oh-um. Sorry. I thought I saw Rob." Up ahead I'm watching Sarah Grundel's Chevrolet turn into Senior Alley fifteen seconds ahead of us. The parking s.p.a.ce is a small thing, a detail, but today I'm not going to do anything anything wrong. I don't want to take any chances. It's like the game we used to play when we were little, where we had to avoid all the cracks in the sidewalk or else it meant we'd kill off our mothers. Even if you didn't believe in it, you made sure you were stepping correctly, just in case. "Sorry. My bad." wrong. I don't want to take any chances. It's like the game we used to play when we were little, where we had to avoid all the cracks in the sidewalk or else it meant we'd kill off our mothers. Even if you didn't believe in it, you made sure you were stepping correctly, just in case. "Sorry. My bad."

Lindsay rolls her eyes and steps on the gas again. "Please tell me you're not going psycho stalker."

"Leave her alone." Elody leans forward and pats my shoulder. "She's just nervous about tonight."

I bite my lip to keep from giggling. If Lindsay and Elody had any clue at all about what was actually actually running through my head, they would probably have me committed. All morning, whenever I close my eyes, I keep imagining the feeling of Kent McFuller's lips brushing against mine, as light as b.u.t.terfly wings; of the crown of light surrounding his head and the way his arms felt when he was keeping me on my feet. I lean my head against the window. My smile is reflected back at me, growing wider and wider as Lindsay drives up and down Senior Alley, cursing because Sarah Grundel took the very last parking s.p.a.ce. running through my head, they would probably have me committed. All morning, whenever I close my eyes, I keep imagining the feeling of Kent McFuller's lips brushing against mine, as light as b.u.t.terfly wings; of the crown of light surrounding his head and the way his arms felt when he was keeping me on my feet. I lean my head against the window. My smile is reflected back at me, growing wider and wider as Lindsay drives up and down Senior Alley, cursing because Sarah Grundel took the very last parking s.p.a.ce.

Instead of following Elody and Lindsay into Main, I break off and head toward Building A, where the nurses' office is, muttering an excuse about a headache. That's where the roses are stored on Cupid Day, and I have some adjustments to make. Okay, so maybe lying isn't 100 percent kosher on the Good Deeds Scale (especially lying to your best friends), but it's for a very, very good cause.

The nurses' office is long and narrow. Normally a double row of cots runs its length, but the cots have been cleared out and replaced by huge folding tables. The heavy curtains that usually keep the place movie theaterdark have all been drawn back, and the room is literally sparkling with light. Light bounces off the metal wall fixtures and zigzags crazily over the bright white walls. There are roses everywhere-overflowing their trays, stashed in corners, a few of them even scattered across the ground, petals trampled-and if you didn't know that there was actually an organizing principle to all of it, and a purpose, you would just think that someone had set off some kind of a rose bomb.

Ms. Devane, who usually oversees Cupid Day, isn't around, but there are three Cupids standing over one of the bins, giggling. They jump and scoot backward when I come in. They've been reading the notes, obviously. It's strange to think about-those little sc.r.a.ps of paper, snippets of words, half compliments and backhanded compliments and broken promises and semi-wishes and almost expressions of what you really want to say: they never tell the full story, or even half of it. A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the stem of its rose like a broken b.u.t.terfly wing. None of the girls talks to me as I start walking the aisle, scanning the labels on the trays, looking for the S S's. I doubt that anybody else has ever barged in on the Rose Room, especially not a senior. Finally I find the tray labeled: StTa StTa. There are five or six roses for Tamara Stugen and another half dozen for Andrew Svork and three for a Burt Swortney, who has the most unfortunate name I've heard of in a long time. And there it is: the single rose for Juliet Sykes with a note looped delicately around its stem. MAYBE NEXT YEAR, BUT PROBABLY NOT MAYBE NEXT YEAR, BUT PROBABLY NOT. Maybe next time, but probably not. Maybe next time, but probably not.

"Um...can I help you with something?" One of the girls inches forward a couple of feet. She's twisting her hands together and looks absolutely petrified.

Juliet's rose is thin and young, delicately tinged with pink. All of its petals are closed. It hasn't bloomed yet.

"I need roses," I say. "Lots of them."

CORRECTIONS AND ADJUSTMENTS.

I leave the Rose Room feeling keyed up and energetic, like I've just had three mocha lattes from Caffeine Rush in the mall. I replaced Juliet's single rose with an enormous bouquet-I sh.e.l.led out forty bucks for two dozen-and a note printed in block letters that says FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER. I only wish I could be around when she receives them. I'm positive it's going to make her day. More than that: I'm positive it's going to make things right. She'll have even more roses than Lindsay Edgecombe. I start thinking about Lindsay's eyes bugging out of her head when she sees that Juliet Sykes has beaten her for the t.i.tle of Most Valograms this year, and I let out a huge snort of laughter right in the middle of AP American History. Everyone whips around and stares at me, but I don't care. This must be what it's like to do drugs: the feeling of coasting over everything, of everything looking new and fresh and lit up from inside. Except without the next-day guilt and the hangover. And possible prison sentence.

When Mr. Tierney distributes his pop quiz, I spend the whole twenty minutes drawing hearts and balloons around the questions, and when he comes around to collect the papers I give him a smile so bright he actually winces, like he's not used to people looking happy.

Between cla.s.ses I scour the hallways, looking for Kent. I'm not even sure what I'll say to him when I see him. I can't can't really say anything. He doesn't know that we've spent the past two nights together, that both nights we were so close that if one of us had breathed we would have ended up kissing, that last night I think we might have. But I have this incredible urge just to be around him, to see him doing those familiar, Kent-like things: flipping his hair out of his eyes, smiling his lopsided smile, shuffling his ridiculous checkered sneakers, and tucking his hands into the over-long cuffs of his b.u.t.ton-downs. My heart shoots into my throat every time I think I see his loping walk, or catch sight of some floppy brown hair on a boy-but it's never him, and each time it isn't, my heart does a reverse trajectory down into the very pit of my stomach. really say anything. He doesn't know that we've spent the past two nights together, that both nights we were so close that if one of us had breathed we would have ended up kissing, that last night I think we might have. But I have this incredible urge just to be around him, to see him doing those familiar, Kent-like things: flipping his hair out of his eyes, smiling his lopsided smile, shuffling his ridiculous checkered sneakers, and tucking his hands into the over-long cuffs of his b.u.t.ton-downs. My heart shoots into my throat every time I think I see his loping walk, or catch sight of some floppy brown hair on a boy-but it's never him, and each time it isn't, my heart does a reverse trajectory down into the very pit of my stomach.

I'm guaranteed to see him in calc, at least. After life skills, I stop in the bathroom, and spend the three minutes before bell primping in front of the mirror, ignoring the s'mores chattering on either side of me, and trying hard not to focus on the fact that I'll come face-to-face with Mr. Daimler in less than five minutes. My stomach's been performing its roller-coaster move so often-a combination of waiting for Juliet to get the roses, hoping to see Kent, and being disappointed-I'm not sure it can withstand forty-five minutes of having to watch Mr. Daimler smirk and wink and grin at the cla.s.s. I will away the memory of his tongue inside my mouth, wet and sloppy.

"Such a s.l.u.t." One of the soph.o.m.ores is coming out of a bathroom stall, shaking her head. a s.l.u.t." One of the soph.o.m.ores is coming out of a bathroom stall, shaking her head.

For one paranoid second I'm sure she's talking about me-that somehow she has just read my mind-but then her friends explode with laughter, and one of them says, "I know. I hear she had s.e.x with, like, three people on the basketball team," and I realize they're talking about Anna Cartullo. The stall door is swinging open and Lindsay's scrawl is obvious. AC=WT AC=WT. And underneath it: Go back to the trailer, ho. Go back to the trailer, ho.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear," I blurt out, and all three girls instantly shut their mouths and stare at me.

"It's true," I say, feeling bolder now that I have such a captive audience. "You know how most rumors start?"

The girls shake their heads. They're standing so close I think for a second their skulls are going to knock together.

"Because somebody feels like it."

The bell rings then, and the soph.o.m.ores scurry for the door like they've been let out of cla.s.s. I stand there, willing my feet out the door and down the hall and down a flight of stairs and to the right and into calc, but nothing happens. Instead I'm fixated by the writing on the stall door, how Ally laughed and pointed to the copycat artists elsewhere. AC=WT. AC=WT. I'm pretty sure Lindsay wrote it on a whim-four measly letters, stupid, meaningless-probably to test out a new marker and see how much ink it had. It would have been better, almost, if she'd meant it. It would be better if she really hated Anna. Because it matters. It I'm pretty sure Lindsay wrote it on a whim-four measly letters, stupid, meaningless-probably to test out a new marker and see how much ink it had. It would have been better, almost, if she'd meant it. It would be better if she really hated Anna. Because it matters. It has has mattered. mattered.

Without thinking about the fact that at this point I'm going to be late to calc, I dampen a strip of paper towel, just as an experiment, and begin scrubbing at the writing on the stall door. It doesn't budge. But then, because I've started, I can't stop. I look under the sink and find a dried-out Brillo pad and a can of Comet. I have to brace the door with one arm and lean hard with the other, scrubbing furiously, but after a little while the graffiti on the door has lightened, and after a little while longer you can hardly see the letters at all. I feel so good once I've gotten them off that first door, I go down the row and scrub the remaining two, even though my arm is aching and cramping and I've actually started to sweat a little bit in my tank top, mentally cursing Lindsay the whole time for her whims, for using permanent marker.

When all three stalls are finished I turn the doors out and look at their reflections in the mirror: blank, clean, featureless, the way stall doors should be. And for some reason it fills me with such pride and happiness I do a little dance right there, tapping my heels on the tile floor. It feels like I've reached back in time and corrected something. I haven't felt so alive, so capable of doing doing things, in I don't know how long. things, in I don't know how long.

By now I really have ruined my makeup. Little p.r.i.c.ks of sweat are beading across my forehead and the bridge of my nose. I splash cold water on my face and dry off with a scratchy paper towel, starting all over again with the mascara and cream blush in Rose Petal that Lindsay and I both use religiously. My heart is looping crazily in my chest, partly from exhilaration, partly from nerves. Next period is lunch, and lunchtime is showtime.

"Will you stop doing that?" Elody leans forward and presses my fingers-which have been tapping-flat against the table. "You're driving me crazy."

"You're not turning rexi, are you, Sam?" Lindsay gestures to my sandwich, which I've only nibbled around the edges. Rexi Rexi is her word for anorexic, although I've always thought it sounded like something you would name a dog. is her word for anorexic, although I've always thought it sounded like something you would name a dog.

"That's what you get for ordering the mystery meat." Ally makes a face at my roast beef, which I've ordered despite the fact that it's borderline unacceptable. Things That Don't Matter When You've Lived the Same Day Six Times and Died on at Least Two of Them: lunch meats and their relative coolness.

To my surprise Lindsay sticks up for me. "It's all mystery meat, Al. The turkey tastes like shoe bottoms."

"Nasty," Elody agrees.

"I've always hated the turkey here," Ally admits, and we all look at one another and burst out laughing.

It feels good to laugh, and the knot in my shoulders relaxes. Still, my fingers start up their involuntary drumming again, moving all on their own. I'm scanning every single person who enters the cafeteria, looking alternately for Kent-it's like, what, he doesn't eat eat now?-and Juliet's shock of white blond hair. So far, nada. now?-and Juliet's shock of white blond hair. So far, nada.