Before I Fall

The lights of the house have winked out behind me, swallowed by the curves of the road and the tall spikes of the trees, when I think I hear someone calling my name. For a second I’m sure I’ve imagined it, or it’s only the sound of the wind through the branches. I pause, hesitating, and then I hear it again. “Sam!” It sounds like Kent.

“Sam! Where are you?”

It is Kent.

This throws me. I was pretty sure when he stalked away from me at the party that that would be the end of it. I never expected he would actually follow me. I consider turning around and going back to him. But there’s no time. Besides, I’ve said everything I can. For a moment, standing there in the freezing cold with the air burning my lungs and the rain pouring into my collar and down my back, I close my eyes and remember being with him in the warm, dry car surrounded on all sides by pouring rain. I remember the kiss and a feeling of lifting, as though we were going to be swept away at any moment by a wave. When I hear him call my name again it sounds closer, and I imagine him cupping my face and whispering to me. Sam.

Someone screams. I snap my eyes open, my heart surging in my chest, thinking of Juliet. But then I hear a few voices calling to one another—distant, still, a confusion of sounds—and I could swear that among them I hear Lindsay’s voice. But that’s ridiculous. I’m imagining things, and I’m wasting time.

I keep going toward the road. As I get closer I hear the roar of vehicles, the hiss of wheels against asphalt, both sounding like waves on a beach.

When I find Juliet she’s standing, drenched, her clothes clinging to her body, her arms floating loosely at her sides like the rain and the cold doesn’t bother her at all.

“Juliet!”

She hears me then. She swivels her head sharply, like she’s being called back to earth from somewhere else. I start jogging toward her, hearing the low rumbling of an approaching truck—going way too fast—behind me. She takes a quick step backward as I pick up speed, pinwheeling my arms to keep from toppling over on the ice, her face coming alive when she sees me, full of anger and fear and that other thing. Wonder.

The engine is louder now, a steady growl, and the driver leans on his horn. The noise is huge: rolling, blasting around us, filling the air with sound. Still Juliet hasn’t moved. She’s just standing there, staring at me, shaking her head a little bit, like we’re long-lost friends in a random airport somewhere in Europe and have just bumped into each other. It’s so weird to see you here…. Isn’t it funny how life works? Small world.

I close the last few feet between us as the truck surges past, still blasting its horn. I grab onto her shoulders, and she takes a few stumbling steps backward into the woods, my momentum nearly carrying her off her feet. The sound of the horn ebbs away from us, taillights disappearing into the dark.

“Thank God,” I say, breathing hard. My arms are shaking.

“What are you doing?” She seems to snap into herself, trying to wrench away from me. “Are you following me?”

“I thought you were going to…” I nod toward the road, and I suddenly have the urge to hug her. She’s alive and solid and real under my hands. “I thought I wouldn’t get to you in time.”

She stops struggling and looks at me for a long second. There are no cars on the road, and in the pause I hear it sharply, definitively: “Samantha Emily Kingston!” It comes from the woods to my left, and there’s only one person in the world who calls me by my full name. Lindsay Edgecombe.

Just then, like a chorus of birds rising up from the ground at the same time, come the other voices, crowding one another: “Sam! Sam! Sam!” Kent, Ally, and Elody, all of them coming through the woods toward us.

“What’s going on?” Juliet looks really afraid now. I’m so confused I loosen my grip on her shoulders and she twists away. “Why did you follow me? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Juliet.” I hold up my hands, a gesture of peace. “I just want to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say.” She turns away from me and stalks back up toward the road.

I follow her, feeling suddenly calm. The world around me sharpens and comes into clearer focus, and every time I hear my name bouncing through the woods it sounds closer and closer, and I think, I’m sorry. But this is right. This is how it has to happen.

How it was supposed to happen all along.

“You don’t have to do this, Juliet,” I say to her quietly. “You know it’s not the right way.”

“You don’t know what I have to do,” she whispers back fiercely. “You don’t know. You could never understand.” She’s staring at the road. Her shoulder blades are jutting out underneath her soaked T-shirt, and again I have the fantasy of a pair of wings unfurling behind her, lifting her away, carrying her out of danger.