Before I Fall

cotton. I can’t help but picture him swaying on his feet and holding up his hand and saying, “Five minutes.”

“Well?” He straightens up and shrugs. “What, then?”

Lindsay, Ally, and Elody are all staring at me. I can feel their eyes like they’re emitting heat. “I can’t talk about it here. I mean, not now.” I tip my head in their direction.

Rob laughs: a short, harsh sound. And now I can tell he’s mad and just hiding it.

“Of course not.” He backs away, both hands raised like he’s warding something off. “How ’bout this? You let me know when you’re ready to talk. I’ll wait to hear from you. I would never want to, you know, pressure you.” He elongates some of the words, and I can hear the sarcasm in his voice—just barely, but it’s there.

It’s obvious—to me, at least—that he’s talking about way more than our having a talk, but before I can respond he gives a flourish with his hand, a kind of bow, and then turns around and walks away.

“Jeez.” Ally pushes around the turkey sandwich on her plate. “What was that about?”

“You’re not really fighting, are you, Sam?” Elody asks, eyes wide.

Before I have to answer Lindsay makes a kind of hissing noise and juts her chin up, gesturing behind me. “Psychopath alert. Lock up the knives and babies.”

Juliet Sykes has just walked into the cafeteria. I’ve been so focused on today—on fixing it, on the idea that I can fix it—I’ve totally forgotten about Juliet. But now I whip around, more curious about her than I’ve ever been. I watch her drifting through the cafeteria. Her hair is down and concealing her face: fuzzy, soft hair, so white it reminds me of snow. That’s what she looks like, actually—like a snowflake being buffeted around in the wind, twisting and turning on currents of air. She doesn’t even glance up in our direction, and I wonder if even now she’s planning it, planning to follow us tonight and embarrass us in front of everybody. It doesn’t seem like she would have it in her.

I’m so focused on watching her that it takes me a second to realize Ally and Elody have just finished a round of Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est and are now laughing hysterically. Lindsay’s holding up her fingers, crossed, like she’s warding off a curse, and she keeps repeating, “Oh, Lord, keep the darkness away.”

“Why do you hate Juliet?” I ask Lindsay. It’s strange to me that I’ve never thought of asking until recently. I always just accepted it.

Elody snorts and almost coughs up her Diet Coke. “Are you serious?”

Lindsay’s clearly not prepared for the question. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then tosses her hair and rolls her eyes like she can’t believe I’m even asking. “I don’t hate her.”

“Yes, you do.” It was Lindsay who found out that Juliet wasn’t sent a single rose freshman year, and Lindsay’s idea to send her a Valogram. It was Lindsay who nicknamed her Psycho, and who, all those years ago, spread the story of Juliet peeing on the Girl Scout camping trip.

Lindsay stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Sorry,” she says, shrugging. “No breaks for mental-health patients.”

“Don’t tell me you feel bad for her or something,” Elody says. “You know she should be locked up.”

“Bellevue.” Ally giggles.

“I was just wondering,” I say, stiffening when Ally says the B-word. There’s still always the possibility that I’ve gone totally, clinically cuckoo. But somehow I don’t think so anymore. An article I once read said that crazy people don’t worry about being crazy—that’s the whole problem.

“So are we really staying in tonight?” Ally says, pouting. “The whole night?”

I suck in my breath and look at Lindsay. Ally and Elody look at her too. She has final say on all of our major decisions. If she’s hell-bent on going to Kent’s, I’ll have a hard time getting out of it.

Lindsay leans back in her chair and stares at me. I see something flicker in her eyes, and my heart stops, thinking that she’ll tell me to suck it up, that a party will do me good.

But instead she cracks a smile and winks at me. “It’s just a party,” she says. “It’ll probably be lame anyways.”

“We can rent a scary movie,” Elody pipes up. “You know, like we used to.”

“It’s up to Sam,” Lindsay says. “Whatever she wants.”

I could kiss her right then.

I cut English with Lindsay again. We pass Alex and Anna in Hunan Kitchen, but today Lindsay doesn’t even pause, probably because she’s trying extra hard to be nice to me and she knows I hate confrontations.

I hesitate, though. I think of Bridget putting her arms around Alex and looking at him like he’s the only guy on earth. She’s annoying, okay, but she deserves way better than him. It’s too bad.

“Hello? Stalk much?” Lindsay says.

I realize I’m just standing there staring past the ripped-up flyers advertising five-dollar lunch specials and local theater groups and hair salons. Alex Liment has spotted me through the window. He’s staring straight back at me.

“I’m coming.” It is too bad, but really, what can you do? Live and let live.

In The Country’s Best Yogurt, Lindsay and I both get heaping cups of double chocolate with crushed peanut butter cups, and I add sprinkles and Cap’n Crunch cereal. I have my appetite back, that’s for sure. Everything is working out the way I planned it. There won’t be any party tonight, at least not for us; there won’t be any driving or cars. I’m sure that this will fix everything—that the kink in time will be ironed out, that I’ll wake up from whatever nightmare I’ve been living. Maybe I’ll sit up, gasping, in a hospital bed somewhere, surrounded by friends and family. I can picture the scene perfectly: my mom and dad tearful, Izzy crying while she hangs on my neck, Lindsay and Ally and Elody andAn image of Kent flashes through my head and I push it away quickly.

—And Rob. Of course Rob.

But this is the key, I’m sure of it. Live the day out. Follow the rules. Stay away from Kent’s party. Simple.

“Careful.” Lindsay grins, shoveling a huge spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “You don’t want to be fat and a virgin.”

“Better than fat with gonorrhea,” I say, flicking a chocolate chip at her.

She flicks one back. “Are you kidding? I’m so clean you could eat off me.”

“The Lindsay buffet. Does Patrick know you’re giving it up like that?”

“Gross.”

Lindsay is wrestling with her jumbo cup, trying to dig out the perfect bite. But we’re both laughing, and she ends up lobbing a full spoonful of yogurt at me. It hits me right above the left eye.

She gasps and claps one hand over her mouth. The yogurt slides down my face and lands with a plop right on the fur covering my left boob.

“I am so, so sorry,” Lindsay says, her voice muffled by her hand. Her eyes are wide, and it’s obvious she’s trying not to laugh. “Do you think your shirt is ruined?”

“Not yet,” I say, and dig out a big scoop of yogurt and flick it at her. It hits her in the side of her head, right in her hair.

She shrieks, “Bitch!” and then we’re ducking around the TCBY hiding behind chairs and tables, digging big scoops of double chocolate and using our spoons like catapults to peg each other.

YOU CAN’T JUDGE A GYM TEACHER BY HIS HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE

Lindsay and I can’t stop cracking up on the way back to school. It’s hard to explain, but I’m feeling happier than I have in years, like I’m noticing everything for the first time: the sharp smell of winter, the light strange and slanted, the way the clouds are drawing over the sky slowly. The fur of our tank tops is completely matted and gross, and we have water stains everywhere. Cars keep honking at us, and we wave and blow them all kisses. A black Mercedes rolls by, and Lindsay bends over, smacks her butt, and screams, “Ten dollar! Ten dollar!”

I punch her in the arm. “That could be my dad.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but your dad does not drive a Mercedes.” Lindsay pushes her hair out of her face. It’s stringy and wet. We had to wash off in the bathroom as the woman at TCBY screamed at us and threatened to call the police if we ever stepped foot in the store again.

“You’re impossible,” I say.