Before I Fall Part 9

"I'm serious." My palms are damp with sweat and I wipe them on the seat cushion.

"In my sleep," Ally says.

"Eating my grandma's lasagna," Elody says, and then pauses and adds, "or having s.e.x," which makes Ally shriek with laughter.

"On an airplane," Lindsay says. "If I'm going down, I want everyone to go down with me." She makes a diving motion with her hand.

"Do you think you'll know, though?" It's suddenly important for me to talk about this. "I mean, do you think you'll have an idea of it...like, before before?"

Ally straightens up and leans forward, hooking her arms over the back of our seats. "One day my grandfather woke up, and he swore he saw this guy all in black at the foot of his bed-big hood, no face. He was holding this sword or whatever that thingy is called. It was Death, you know? And then later that day he went to the doctor and they diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer. The same day The same day."

Elody rolls her eyes. "He didn't die, though."

"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."

Ally giggles. "SAT word alert."

Lindsay cranes her neck back and tries to blow smoke in Ally's face. "Not all of us have the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old."

Lindsay turns onto Route 9, which stretches in front of us, a giant silver tongue. A hummingbird is beating its wings in my chest-rising, rising, fluttering into my throat.

I want to go back to what I was saying-I want to say, You would know, right? You would know before it happened You would know, right? You would know before it happened-but Elody b.u.mps Ally out of the way and leans forward, the cigarette dangling from her mouth, trumpeting, "Music!" She grabs for the iPod.

"Are you wearing your seat belt?" I say. I can't help it. The terror is everywhere now, pressing down on me, squeezing the breath from me, and I think: if you don't breathe, you'll die. if you don't breathe, you'll die. The clock ticks forward. 12:39. The clock ticks forward. 12:39.

Elody doesn't even answer, just starts scrolling through the iPod. She finds "Splinter," and Ally slaps her and says it should be her turn to pick the music, anyway. Lindsay tells them to stop fighting, and she tries to grab the iPod from Elody, taking both hands off the wheel, steadying it with one knee. I grab for it again and she shouts, "Get off!" She's laughing.

Elody knocks the cigarette out of Lindsay's hand and it lands between Lindsay's thighs. The tires slide a little on the wet road, and the car is full of the smell of burning.

If you don't breathe...

Then all of a sudden there's a flash of white in front of the car. Lindsay yells something-words I can't make out, something like sit sit or or s.h.i.t s.h.i.t or or sight sight-and suddenly- Well.

You know what happens next.

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. 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. 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 think the word- the word- death? Dying? Dead? 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 c.r.a.p 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 doork.n.o.b. "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 Not yet. "No, Mom. G.o.d."

"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 b.u.mmer 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 s.e.x 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. "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 c.o.kran 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 bas.e.m.e.nt, and Rob looks over at me and winks. I like to think how funny life is: how so much changes. How people people change. change.

But now I just wonder when, exactly, I became cool enough for Rob c.o.kran.

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 good.

Because if I'm not dead-at least not yet 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 pa.s.senger 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 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 embarra.s.sment 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 pa.s.s 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."