Before I Fall

“You know you love me,” she says, grabbing my arm and huddling up next to me. We’re both freezing.

“I do love you,” I say, and I really mean it. I love her, I love the ugly mustard yellow bricks of Thomas Jefferson and the magenta-tinted halls. I love Ridgeview for being small and boring, and I love everyone and everything in it. I love my life. I want my life.

“Love you too, babes.”

When we get back to school Lindsay wants to have a cigarette, even though the bell for eighth is going to ring any second.

“Two drags,” Lindsay says, widening her eyes, and I laugh and let her pull me along because she knows I can never say no to her when she makes that face. The Lounge is empty. We stand right next to the tennis courts, huddled together, while Lindsay tries to get a match lit.

Finally she does, and she takes a long drag, letting a plume of smoke out of her mouth.

A second later we hear a shout from across the parking lot: “Hey! You! With the cigarette!”

We both freeze. Ms. Winters. Nic Nazi.

“Run!” Lindsay screams after a split second, dropping her cigarette. She takes off behind the tennis courts even though I yell, “Over here!” I see the big blond pouf of Ms. Winters’s hair bobbing over the cars—I’m not sure if she’s seen us or just heard us laughing. I duck behind a Range Rover and cut across Senior Alley to one of the back doors in the gym as Ms. Winters keeps screaming, “Hey! Hey!”

I grab the handle and rattle it, but the door sticks. For a second my heart stops, and I’m sure it’s locked, but then I slam up against it and it opens into a storage closet. I jump inside and close the door behind me, heart thumping in my chest. A minute later I hear feet pound past the door. Then I hear Ms. Winters mutter, “Shit,” and the footsteps start retreating backward.

The whole thing—the day, the fight in The Country’s Best Yogurt, the almost-bust, the idea of Lindsay crouching somewhere in the woods in her skirt and new Steve Madden boots—strikes me as so funny I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. The room I’m standing in smells like soccer cleats and jerseys and mud, and with the stack of orange cones and bag full of basketballs piled in the corner, there’s barely enough room for me to stand. One side of the room is windowed and it looks into an office: Otto’s, probably, since he basically lives in the gym. I’ve never actually seen his office. His desk is piled with papers, and there’s a computer flashing a screen saver that looks like it’s a cheesy picture of a beach. I inch closer to the window, thinking how hilarious it would be if I could bust him with something dirty, like some underwear peeking out of a desk drawer or a porn mag or something, when the door of his office swings open and there he is.

Instantly I drop to the ground. I have to scrunch up in a ball, and even then I’m paranoid that my ponytail might be peeking up over the windowsill. It sounds stupid considering everything that’s been happening, but all I can think in that moment is, If he sees me, I’m really dead. Good-bye, Ally’s house; hello, detention.

My face is sandwiched up next to a half-open duffel bag that looks like it’s full of old basketball jerseys. I don’t know if they’ve never been washed or what, but the smell makes me want to gag.

I hear Otto moving around his desk, and I’m praying—praying—that he doesn’t come close enough to the desk to see me bellying up to a bunch of old sports equipment. I can already hear the rumors: Samantha Kingston found humping driver’s ed cones.

There’s a minute or two of shuffling, and my legs start cramping. The first bell has already rung for eighth— less than three minutes to class—but there’s no way for me to sneak out. The door is noisy, and besides, I have no way to know which direction he’s facing. He could be staring at the door.

My only hope is that Otto has class eighth, but it doesn’t sound like he’s in a hustle to be anywhere. I imagine being trapped here until school ends. The stink alone will finish me off.

I hear Otto’s door creak open again, and I perk up, thinking he’s leaving after all. But then a second voice says, “Damn. I missed them.”

I would recognize that nasal whine anywhere. Ms. Winters.

“Smokers?” Otto says. His voice is almost as high-pitched as hers. I had no idea they even knew each other. The only times I’ve ever seen them in the same room are at all-school assemblies, when Ms. Winters sits next to Principal Beneter looking like someone just set off a stink bomb directly under her chair, and Otto sits with the special ed teachers and the health instructor and the driver’s ed specialist and all the other weirdos who are on faculty but aren’t real teachers.

“Do you know that the students call that little area the ‘Smokers’ Lounge’?” I can almost hear Ms. Winters pinching her nose.

“Did you get a look at them?” Otto asks, and my muscles tense.

“Not a good one. I could hear them and I smelled the smoke.”

Lindsay’s right: Ms. Winters is definitely half greyhound.

“Next time,” Otto says.

“There must be two thousand cigarette butts out there,” Ms. Winters says. “You’d think with all the health videos we show them—”

“They’re teenagers. They do the opposite of what you say. That’s part of the deal. Pimples, pubic hair, and bad attitude.”

I almost lose it when Otto says pubic hair, and I think Ms. Winters will lecture him, but she only says, “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.”

“It’s been one of those days, huh?” Otto says, and there’s the sound of someone bumping against a desk, and a book thudding to the ground. Ms. Winters actually giggles.

And then, I swear to God, I hear them kissing. Not little bird pecks either. Open- mouthed, slurpy, moaning kind of kissing.

Oh, shit. I literally have to bite my own hand to keep from screaming, or crying, or bursting out laughing, or getting sick—or all of the above. This. Cannot. Be. Happening. I’m desperate to take out my phone and text the girls, but I don’t want to move. Now I really don’t want to get caught, since Otto and the Nazi will think I’ve been spying on their little sex party. Barf.

Just when I feel like I can’t stand one more second squeezed up next to the sweaty jerseys, listening to Otto and Winters suck face like they’re in some bad porno, the second bell rings. I am now officially late to eighth period.

“Oh, God. I’m supposed to be meeting with Beanie,” Ms. Winters says. Beanie’s the students’ name for Mr. Beneter, the principal. Of all the shocking things that I’ve heard in the past two minutes, the most shocking is that she knows the nickname—and uses it.

“Get out of here,” Mr. Otto says, and then I swear—I swear—I hear him smack her butt.

Oh. My. God. This is better than the time Marcie Harris got caught masturbating in the science lab (with a test tube up her you-know-what, if you believe the rumors). This is better than the time Bryce Hanley got suspended for briefly running an online porn site. This is better than any scandal that’s hit Thomas Jefferson so far.

“Do you have class?” Ms. Winters says, practically cooing.

“I’m done for the day,” Otto says. My heart sinks—there’s no way I’ll be able to stay here for another forty- five minutes. Never mind the cramp snaking up my hamstrings and thighs: I’ve got amazing gossip to spread. “But I have to set up for soccer tryouts.”

“Okay, babe.” Babe? “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Eight o’clock.”

I hear the door open and I know Ms. Winters has left. Thank God. From the way they were pillow talking I was worried I was about to be treated to the symphony of another make-out session. I’m not sure my hamstrings or my psyche could take it.

After a few seconds of moving around and tapping some things on the keyboard, I hear Otto go to the door. The room next to me goes dark. Then the door opens and closes, and I know I’m in the clear.

I say a silent hallelujah and stand up. The pins and needles in my legs are so bad I nearly topple over, but I toddle over to the door and lean into it. When I make it outside I stand there stamping my feet and taking long, deep breaths of clean air. Finally I let it out: I throw my head back and laugh hysterically, cackling and snorting and not even caring if I look deranged.