Before I Fall

would never say it out loud. Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I are as close as you can be, but there are still some things we never talk about. For example, even though Lindsay says Patrick is her first and only, this isn’t technically true. Technically, her first was a guy she met at a party when she was visiting her stepbrother at NYU. They smoked pot, split a six-pack, and had sex, and he never knew she hadn’t done it before.

We don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the fact that we can never hang out at Elody’s house after five o’clock because her mother will be home, and drunk. We don’t talk about the fact that Ally never eats more than a quarter of what’s on her plate, even though she’s obsessed with cooking and watches the Food Network for hours on end.

We don’t talk about the joke that for years trailed me down hallways, into classrooms, and on the bus, that wove its way into my dreams: “What’s red and white and weird all over? Sam Kingston!” And we definitely don’t talk about the fact that Lindsay was the one who made it up.

A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets.

Lindsay rolls over on her side and props herself on one elbow. I wonder if she’s finally going to mention the guy at NYU. (I don’t even know his name, and the few times she’s ever made reference to him she called him the Unmentionable.)

“I wasn’t nervous,” she says quietly. Then she sucks in a deep breath and her face splits into a grin. “I was horny, baby. Randy.” She says it in a fake British accent and then jumps on top of me and starts making a humping motion.

“You’re impossible,” I say, pushing her off me. She rolls all the way off the bed, cackling.

“You love me.” Lindsay gets up on her knees and blows the bangs out of her face. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the bed. She suddenly gets serious.

“Sam?” Her eyes are wide and she drops her voice. I have to sit up to hear her over the music. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.” My heart starts fluttering. She knows what’s happening to me. It’s happening to her, too.

“You have to promise not to tell. You have to swear not to freak out.”

She knows; she knows. It’s not just me. My head clears and everything sharpens around me. I feel totally sober. “I swear.” The words barely come out.

She leans forward until her mouth is only an inch from my ear. “I…”

Then she turns her head and burps, loudly, in my face.

“Jesus, Lindz!” I fan the air with my hand. She sinks onto her back again, kicking her legs into the air and laughing hysterically. “What is wrong with you?”

“You should have seen your face.”

“Are you ever serious?” I say it jokingly, but my whole body feels heavy with disappointment. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand. Whatever is happening, it’s happening only to me. A feeling of complete aloneness overwhelms me, like a fog.

Lindsay dabs the corners of her eyes with a thumb and jumps to her feet. “I’ll be serious when I’m dead.”

That word sends a shock straight through me. Dead. So final, so ugly, so short. The warm feeling I’ve had since taking the shots drains out of me, and I lean over to shut Ally’s window, shivering.

The black mouth of the woods, yawning open. Vicky Hallinan’s face…

I try to decide what will happen to me if it turns out I really have gone bat-shit insane. Just before eighth period I stood ten feet away from the main office—home to the principal, Ms. Winters, and the school psychiatrist —willing myself to go in and say the words: I think I’m going crazy. But then there was a bang and Lauren Lornet shot into the hall, sniffling, probably crying over some boy drama or fight with her parents or something normal. In that second all of the work I’d done to fit in vanished. Everything is different now. I’m different.

“So are we going or what?” Elody bursts into the room in front of Ally. They’re both breathless.

“Let’s do it.” Lindsay picks up her bag and swings it over one shoulder.

Ally starts to giggle. “It’s only nine thirty,” she says, “and Sam already looks like she could barf.”

I stand up and wait for a second while the ground steadies underneath me. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Lindsay says, and smiles.

THE PARTY, TAKE TWO

“This is how a horror movie starts,” Ally says. “Are you sure he’s number forty-two?”

“I’m sure.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. The huge crush of fear has returned. I can feel it pressing on me from all directions, squeezing the breath out of me.

“This better not screw with my paint job,” Lindsay says as a branch scrapes along the passenger door with the sound of a nail dragging against a chalkboard.

The woods fall away, and Kent’s house comes looming out of the darkness, white and sparkling, like it’s made of ice. The way it just emerges there, surrounded on all sides by black, reminds me of the scene in Titanic when the iceberg rises out of the water and guts the ship open. We’re all silent for a second. Tiny pellets of rain ping against the windshield and the roof, and Lindsay switches off her iPod. An old song pipes quietly from the radio. I can just make out the lyrics: Feel it now like you felt it then…. Touch me now and around again….

“It’s almost as big as your house, Al,” Lindsay says.

“Almost,” Ally says. I feel a tremendous wave of affection for her at that moment. Ally, who likes big houses and expensive cars and Tiffany jewelry and platform wedges and body glitter. Ally, who’s not that smart and knows it, and obsesses over boys who aren’t good enough for her. Ally, who’s secretly an amazing cook. I know her. I get her. I know all of them.

In the house Dujeous roars through the speakers: All MCs in the house tonight, if your lyrics sound tight then rock the mic. The stairs roll underneath me. When we get upstairs Lindsay takes the bottle of vodka away from me, laughing.

“Slow down, Slam-a-Lot. You’ve got business to take care of.”

“Business?” I start laughing a little, little gasps of it. It’s so smoky I can hardly breathe. “I thought it was making love.”

“The business of making love.” She leans in and her face swells like a moon. “No more vodka for a while, okay?”

I feel myself nodding and her face recedes. She scans the room. “I’ve gotta find Patrick. You gonna be okay?”

“Perfect,” I say, trying to smile. I can’t manage it: it’s like the muscles in my face won’t respond. She starts to turn away and I grab her wrist. “Lindz?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna come with you, okay?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. He’s in the back somewhere—he just texted me.”

We start pushing past people. Lindsay yells back to me, “It’s like a maze up here.” Things are going past me in a blur—snippets of conversation and laughter, the feel of coats brushing against my skin, the smell of beer and perfume and shower gel and sweat—all of it whirling and spinning together.

Everyone looks the way they do in dreams, familiar but not too clear, like they could morph into someone else at any second. I’m dreaming, I think. This is all a dream: this whole day has been a dream, and when I wake up I’ll tell Lindsay how the dream felt real and hours long, and she’ll roll her eyes and tell me that dreams never last longer than thirty seconds.

It’s funny to think about telling Lindsay—who’s tugging on my hand and tossing her hair impatiently in front of me—that I’m only dreaming of her, that she’s not really here, and I giggle, starting to relax. It’s all a dream; I can do whatever I want. I can kiss anybody I want to, and as we walk past groups of guys I check them off in my head—Adam Marshall, Rassan Lucas, and Andrew Roberts—I could kiss each and every one if I wanted to. I see Kent standing in the corner talking to Phoebe Rifer and I think, I could walk up and kiss the heart-shaped mole under his eye, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I don’t know where the idea comes from. I would never kiss Kent, not even in a dream. But I could if I wanted to. Somewhere I’m lying stretched out under a warm blanket on a big bed surrounded by pillows, my hands folded under my head,