Before I Fall

Anna freezes, staring at the book like it’s going to bite her.

“It just seemed like the kind of thing you’d like,” I say quickly, already backing away from the table. Now that the hard part is over I feel a thousand times better. “There’s over two hundred drawings. You could even hang some of them up, if you had a place to put them.”

Something tenses in Anna’s face. She’s still staring at the book on the table, her hands resting on her thighs. I can see how tightly she’s curling her fists.

I’m just about to turn and jet out the door when she glances up. Our eyes meet. She doesn’t say anything, but her mouth relaxes. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s close, and I take it as a thank-you.

I hear Alex say, “What was that about?” and then I’m out the door, the bell sounding a shrill note behind me.

Lindsay’s still standing there exactly as I left her, eyes dull. I know she’s been watching through the window.

“Now I know you’ve gone crazy,” she says.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I feel exhilarated now that it’s over with. “Come on. I’m fiending me some yogurt.”

Lindsay doesn’t budge. “Lost it. Flipped your lid. Gone bat shit. Since when do you bring Anna Cartullo presents?”

“Listen, it’s not like I got her a friendship bracelet or something.”

“Since when do you even talk to Anna Cartullo?”

I sigh. I can tell she’s not going to give up on this. “I talked to her for the first time a couple days ago, all right?” Lindsay’s still staring like the world is melting away before her eyes. I know the feeling. “She’s actually pretty nice. I mean, I think you might like her if—” Lindsay makes a high-pitched squealing noise and claps her hands over her ears again like the very words are torture. She keeps on shrieking like this while I sigh and check my watch, waiting for her to finish her performance.

Eventually she calms down, her squealing dying away to a gurgling noise in the back of her throat. She squints at me. I can’t help but giggle. She looks like a total freak.

“Are you done?” I ask.

“Are you back?” She peels one hand off her ear tentatively, experimenting.

“Is who back?”

“Samantha Emily Kingston. My best friend. My heterosexual life partner.” She leans forward and raps once on my forehead with her knuckles. “Instead of this weird lobotomized boyfriend-dumping Anna Cartullo–liking pod who’s impersonating her.”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t know everything about me, you know.”

“I apparently don’t know anything about you.” Lindsay crosses her arms. I tug on the sleeve of her jacket, and she trudges forward reluctantly. I can tell she’s actually upset. I put my arms around her and squeeze. She’s so much shorter than I am that I have to take mini-shuffling steps so our paces are matched up, but I let her set the rhythm.

“You know what my favorite flavor of yogurt is,” I say, hoping to appease her.

Lindsay heaves a sigh. “Double chocolate,” she grumbles, but she’s not pushing me off of her, which is a good sign. “With crushed peanut butter cups and Cap’n Crunch cereal.”

“And I know you know what size I’m going to get.”

We’re at the door to The Country’s Best Yogurt now, and I can already smell the deliciously sweet chemical-y aroma wafting out to us. It’s like the smell of the bread baking at Subway. You know it’s not the way nature or God intended it to smell, but something about it is addictive.

Lindsay looks at me from the corner of her eye as I pull my arms off her. Her expression is so mournful it’s funny, and I choke down another laugh.

“Better be careful, Miss Jumbo Queen,” she says, tossing her hair. “All that artificial yumminess is going straight to your hips.”

But her mouth is crooked up into a smile, and I know she’s forgiven me.

FRIENDSHIP, A STORY

If I had to pick the top three things I love about each of my friends, here’s what they would be.

ALLY:

Spent all of sophomore year collecting miniature porcelain cows and reading obscure facts about them online after one of them—a real one, I mean—wrapped its tongue around her wrist while she was on vacation in Vermont.

Cooks without recipes, and is totally going to have her own cooking show someday, and has promised we can all come on and be guests.

Sticks her tongue out all the way when she yawns, like a cat.

ELODY:

Has perfect pitch and the clearest, richest voice you can imagine, like maple syrup pouring over warm pancakes, but doesn’t ever show off and only sings on her own when she’s in the shower.

Once went a whole school year wearing at least one green item of clothing every single day.

Snorts when she laughs, which always makes me laugh.

LINDSAY:

Will always dance, even when nobody else is, even when there’s no music—in the cafeteria, in the bathroom, in the mall food court.

Toilet papered Todd Horton’s house every single day for a week after he told everyone that Elody was a bad kisser.

Once broke into a full-on sprint while we were cutting across the park, pumping her arms and legs and zooming across the fields in her jeans and Chinese Laundry boots. I started running too but couldn’t catch up to her before we were both doubled over, huffing out the cold autumn air, my lungs feeling like they were going to explode, and when I laughed and said, “You win,” she gave me the strangest look over her shoulder, not mean, just like she couldn’t believe I was there, then straightened up and said, “I wasn’t racing you.”

I think I understand that now.

I’m thinking about all these things at Ally’s house, feeling like I haven’t said them enough, or at all, feeling like we’ve spent too much time making fun of one another or bullshitting about things that don’t matter or wishing things and people were different—better, more interesting, cuter, older. But it’s hard to find a way to say it now, so instead I just laugh along while Lindsay and Elody shimmy around the kitchen and Ally frantically tries to salvage something edible from two-day-old Italian pesto and some old packaged crackers. And when Lindsay throws her arms around my shoulders and then Ally’s, and then Elody scoots around to Ally’s other side, and Lindsay says, “I love you bitches to death. You know that, right?” and Elody yells, “Group hug!” I just barrel in there and put my arms around them and squeeze until Elody breaks away, laughing, and says, “If I laugh any harder I’m going to throw up.”