Before I Fall

She glances up, obviously surprised I know who she’s talking about. “Yeah, him.” A smile flits across her face. “I was thinking of, I don’t know, hanging one of his prints in here. Just taping it up, you know, for something to look at.”

“I have, like, ten of his books in my house,” I blurt out, glad she’s not going to stay mad and kick me out of the bathroom. “My dad’s an architect. He’s into that stuff.”

Anna rolls up the joint, licks the seam, and finishes it off with a few twists of her fingers. She nods at the chair. “If you’re going to sit in that you can at least block the door. That way it’s private property.”

The chair grates against the tile floor as I scoot backward against the door, and both of us wince, catch ourselves wincing, and laugh. Anna pulls out a purple lighter with flowers on it—not the lighter I expected of her—and tries to spark the joint. The lighter sputters a few times and she throws it down, cursing. The next time she rummages through her bag she pulls out a lighter in the shape of a naked female torso. She presses on the head and little blue flames come shooting out the nipples. Now that is the kind of lighter I would expect Anna Cartullo to have.

Anna’s face gets serious, and she takes a long pull of the joint, then stares at me through the cloud of blue smoke.

“So,” she says, “why do you guys hate me?”

Of all the things I expect her to say, it’s not this. Even more unexpected, she holds the spliff out in my direction, offering me some.

I hesitate for only a second. Hey, just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I’m a saint.

“We don’t hate you.” It doesn’t come out convincingly. The truth is I’m not sure. I don’t hate Anna, really; Lindsay’s always said she does, but it’s hard to know what Lindsay’s reasons are for anything. I take a hit off the joint. I’ve only smoked weed once before, but I’ve seen it done a hundred times. I inhale and my lungs are full of smoke: a heavy taste like chewing on moss. I try to hold my breath, the way you’re supposed to, but the smoke tickles the back of my throat. I start coughing and hand the joint back.

“Then what’s the reason?” She doesn’t say, For all the shitty things you’ve done. For the bathroom graffiti. For the fake email blast sophomore year: Anna Cartullo has chlamydia. She doesn’t have to. She passes the joint back to me.

I take another hit. Already things are warping, certain objects blurring and others sharpening, like someone’s messing with the focus on a camera. No wonder people still talk to Alex, even though he’s a douche. He deals good stuff. “I don’t know.” Because it’s easy. “I guess you need to take things out on somebody.”

The words are out of my mouth before I realize they’re true. I take another hit and pass the joint back to Anna. I feel like everything’s been amplified, like I can feel the heaviness of my arms and legs and hear my heart pumping and blood tumbling through my veins. And at the end of the day it will all be silenced, at least until time skips back on its wheel and starts again.

The bell rings. Lunch is over. Anna says, “Shit, shit, I have to be somewhere,” and begins trying to gather up her stuff. She accidentally knocks over the Altoids tin. The bag of weed goes flying under the sink, and the papers flit and flutter everywhere. “Shit.”

“I’ll help,” I say. We both get down on our hands and knees. My fingers feel numb and bloated, and I’m having trouble peeling the papers off the ground. This strikes me as hilarious, and Anna and I both start laughing, leaning on each other, gasping for breath. She keeps saying “Shit” at intervals.

“Better hurry,” I say. All of the anger and pain from the past few days is lifting, leaving me feeling free and careless and happy. “Alex will be pissed.”

She freezes. Our foreheads are so close we’re almost touching.

“How did you know I was meeting Alex?” she says. Her voice is clear and low.

I realize too late that I’ve screwed up. “Seen you sneaking back through Smokers’ Lounge after seventh once or twice,” I say vaguely, and she relaxes.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” she asks, biting her lower lip. “I wouldn’t want—” She stops herself and I wonder if she’s going to say something about Bridget. But she just shakes her head and continues gathering up the papers, working quickly now.

The idea of telling on Anna Cartullo for sleeping with Alex after what I’ve just done—after Mr. Daimler—is hilarious. I’ve got no right to say anything to anybody. I’m smoking weed in a bathroom, I have no friends, my math teacher stuck his tongue down my throat, my boyfriend hates me because I won’t sleep with him. I’m dead, but I can’t stop living. The absurdity of everything really hits me in that second and I start laughing again. Anna’s gotten serious. Her eyes are big bright marbles.

“What?” she says. “Are you laughing at me?”