Before I Fall

admirer?”

“Not so secret.” His eyes are still roving over my face like there’s the answer to a puzzle written there, and I have to look away to keep from grabbing him and pulling him toward me. He pauses. “I’m having a party tonight, you know.”

“I know.” I rush on. “I mean, I heard.”

“So…?”

I give up on playing with him. “Listen, I may need you to pick me up from somewhere. Twenty minutes, tops. I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

He crooks one side of his mouth into a smile. “What’s in it for me?”

I lean forward so my mouth is inches away from the perfect shell of his ear. The smell of him—freshly cut grass and mint—is addictive. “I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Now?”

“Later.” I pull back. Otherwise I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing his neck. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was never like this with Rob. I can barely keep my hands to myself around Kent. Maybe dying a few times messes with your hormones or something. I kind of like it.

His face gets serious again. “What you wrote here…” He fingers the note, folding it and unfolding it, his eyes dazzling, swirling with gold. “The last bit…the hero thing…how did you—?”

My heart is beating frantically, and for one second I think he knows—I think he remembers. The silence is heavy between us, everything past and remembered and forgotten and wanted swinging there like a pendulum. “How did I what?” I can barely breathe the words.

He sighs and shakes his head, gives me a weak smile. “Nothing. Forget it. It’s stupid.”

“Oh.” I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I exhale, looking away so he won’t see how disappointed I am. “Thanks for your rose, by the way.”

Of all the roses I’ve gotten it’s the only one I kept. It’s my favorite, I’d said, when Marian Sykes delivered it to me.

She looked up at me, startled, and then looked around, as though I couldn’t possibly be talking to her. When she realized I was, she blushed and smiled.

You have so many, she said shyly.

The problem is I can never keep them alive, I said. I have, like, a black thumb.

You have to cut the stems on an angle, she said eagerly, then blushed again. My sister taught me that. She used to like to garden. She turned away, biting her lip.

You should take them, I said.

She stared at me for a second as though suspecting a joke. Like, to keep? she said, reminding me of Izzy.

I’m telling you, I can’t have any more flower homicides on my conscience, I said. You could take them home. Do you have a vase?

She paused for a fraction of a second more and then broke into a dazzling smile, transforming her whole face. I’ll keep them in my room, she said.

Kent cocks one eyebrow. “How do you know that I’m the one who sent it?”

“Come on.” I roll my eyes. “No one else draws weird cartoons for a living.”

He puts a hand on his chest, acting offended. “Not for a living. For the love of it. Besides, they’re not weird.”

“Whatever. Then thanks for your totally normal note.”

“You’re welcome.” He grins. We’re standing close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him.

“So are you going to be my knight in shining armor or what?”

Kent does a little bow. “You know I can’t resist a damsel in distress.”

“I knew I could count on you.” The hallways are empty now. Everyone is at lunch. For a moment we just stand there smiling at each other. Then something softens in his eyes and my heart soars. Everything in me feels fluttering and free, like I could take off from the ground at any second. Music, I think, he makes me feel like music. Then I think, He’s going to kiss me right here, in the math wing of Thomas Jefferson High School, and I almost pass out.

He doesn’t, though. Instead he reaches out and touches my shoulder once, lightly. When he removes his fingers I can still feel them tingling on my skin. “Until tonight, then.” A flicker of a smile. “Your secret better be good.”

“It’s amazing, I promise.” I wish I could memorize every single thing about him. I want to burn him into my mind. I can’t believe how blind I was for so long. I start to back away before I do something wildly inappropriate, like jump on top of him.

“Sam?” he stops me.

“Yeah.”

His eyes are doing that searching thing again, and now I understand why he told me before that he could see through me. He’s actually been paying attention. I feel like he’s reading my mind right now, which is more than a little embarrassing, since most of my thoughts for the moment involve how perfect his lips are.

He bites his lip and shuffles his feet a little. “Why me? For tonight, I mean. We haven’t really talked in, like, seven years….”

“Maybe I’m making up for lost time.” I keep backing away from him, skipping a little.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Why me?”

I think of Kent holding my hand in the dark, leading me through rooms crisscrossed with moonlight. I think of his voice lulling me to sleep, carrying me off like a tide. I think of time stilling as he cupped my face and brought his lips to mine.

“Trust me,” I say, “it can only be you.”

SECOND CHANCES

Kent’s Valogram was only the first of several adjustments I made in the Rose Room this morning, and as soon as I enter the cafeteria I can tell that Rob got his. He breaks away from his friends and lopes up to me before I can even make it over to the lunch line (where I’m planning on ordering a double roast beef sandwich). As always, his stupid Yankees hat is barely balanced on his head, twisted around to the side like he’s in some rap video from 1992.

“Hey, babe.” He goes to put his arm around me, and I step away casually. “Got your rose.”

“Thanks. I got yours too.”

He looks around, sees a single rose looped through the handle of my messenger bag, and frowns. “Is that mine?”

I shake my head, smiling sweetly.

He rubs his forehead. He always does this when he’s thinking, like the act of actually using his mind gives him a headache. “What happened to all your roses?”

“They’re in storage,” I say, which is kind of true.

He shakes his head, letting it go. “So there’s a party tonight….” He trails off, then tips his head and smirks at me. “I thought it would be fun to go for a bit.” He reaches out and clomps a hand on my shoulder, massaging me hard. “Like, you know, foreplay.”

Only Rob would think that pounding foamy beer from a keg and screaming at each other counts as foreplay, but I decide to let it go and play along. “Foreplay?” I say, as innocently as I can.

He obviously thinks I’m being flirtatious. He smiles and tilts his head backward, looking at me through half narrowed eyes. I used to think it was the cutest thing when he did this; now it’s a bit like watching a linebacker try to samba. He might have all the moves down, but it just doesn’t look right.

“You know,” he says quietly, “I really liked what you wrote in your note.”

“Did you?” I make my voice a purr, thinking about what I scrawled out this morning. You don’t have to wait for me anymore.

“So I was thinking I’d get to the party at ten, stay for an hour or two.” He shrugs and adjusts his hat, back to business now that he got the flirting out of the way.