Before I Fall

Ally takes a sip of the vodka she’s holding, then winces. “Lindsay was freaking out. I told you, she was really upset.”

“It’s true though, isn’t it? What I said.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true.” Ally shakes her head at me. “She’s Lindsay. She’s ours. We’re each other’s, you know?”

I’ve never really thought of Ally as smart, but this is probably the smartest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

“You should say you’re sorry,” Ally says.

“But I’m not sorry.” I’m definitely slurring now. My tongue is thick and weighty in my mouth. I can’t make it do what I want it to. I want to tell Ally everything—about Mr. Daimler and Anna Cartullo and Ms. Winters and the Pugs—but I can’t even think of the words.

“Just say it, Sam.” Ally’s eyes have started to roam around the party. Then suddenly she takes a quick step backward. Her mouth goes slack and she brings a hand to her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she says, staring over my shoulder. Her mouth’s curving up into a smile. “I don’t believe it.”

It feels like time freezes as I turn around. I read once that at the edge of a black hole, time stops completely, so if you ever sailed into it, you’d just be stuck there at the lip forever, forever being torn apart, forever dying. That’s what it feels like in that second. The crush of people circled around me, an endless lip, more and more people.

And there she is standing in the doorway. Juliet Sykes. Juliet Sykes—who yesterday blew her brains out with her parents’ handgun.

Her hair is tied up in a ponytail and I can’t help it; I picture it knotted and clotted with blood, a big gaping hole directly underneath her little flip of hair. I’m terrified of her: a ghost in the door, the kind of stuff you have nightmares about when you’re a kid, the kind of thing they make horror movies about.

A phrase comes back from a news show I had to watch about the convicts on death row for my ethics and issues elective: dead man walking. I thought it was awful when I first heard it, but now I really understand it. Juliet Sykes is a dead man walking. I guess I am too, in a way.

“No,” I say, without meaning to say it out loud. I take a step backward, and Harlowe Rosen squeals and says, “That’s my foot.”

“I don’t believe it,” Ally says again, but it sounds far away. She’s already turning away from me, calling out to Lindsay over the music. “Lindsay, did you see who it is?”

Juliet sways in the doorway. She looks calm, but her hands are balled into fists.

I throw myself forward, but everyone chooses that moment to press even closer around me. I can’t watch it again. I don’t want to see what happens next. I’m not very steady on my feet, and I keep getting knocked back and forth, rocketing between people like a pinball, trying desperately to get out of the room. I know I’m stepping on people and throwing elbows in their backs, but I don’t care. I need out.

Finally I break through the knot of people. Juliet is blocking the doorway. She’s not even looking at me. She’s standing as still as a statue, her eyes locked some distance over my shoulder. She’s looking at Lindsay. I understand then that it’s Lindsay she really wants—it’s Lindsay she hates the most—but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Just as I’m about to push past her, a tremor runs through her body and she locks eyes with me.

“Wait,” she says to me, and puts a hand on my wrist. It’s as cold as ice.

“No.” I pull away from her and keep going, stumbling forward, nearly choking on my fear. Jumbled images of Juliet keep flashing in my mind: Juliet doubled over, hands outstretched, drenched in beer and stumbling; Juliet lying on a cold floor in a pool of blood. I’m not thinking clearly, and in my head the two images merge and I see her roving around the room while everyone laughs, her hair soaked, dripping, drenched in blood.

I’m so distracted I don’t see Rob in the hallway until I’ve run straight into him.

“Hey.” Rob is drunk now. He has an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Hey, you.”

“Rob…” I press myself against him. The world is spinning. “Let’s get out of here, okay? We’ll go to your house. I’m ready now, just me and you.”

“Whoa, cowgirl.” One half of Rob’s mouth ticks slowly upward, but the other doesn’t quite manage to join it. “After the cigarette.” He starts moving toward the back of the house. “Then we’ll go.”

“No!” I nearly scream it.

He turns back to me, swaying, and before he can react, I’ve already plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and I’m kissing him, my hands cupped on either side of his face, shoving my body into his. It takes him a second to realize what’s happening, but then he starts pawing me over my dress, rolling his tongue around in circles, groaning a little bit.

We’re both staggering back and forth in the hallway, almost like we’re dancing. I feel the floor buckle and roll, and Rob accidentally pushes me hard against the wall and I gasp.

“Sorry, babe.” His eyes cross, uncross.