Before I Fall

at her. “Why did you tell everyone it was her? I mean, in the moment, okay, I get it, you were scared, you were embarrassed, but afterward…? Why did you tell everyone? Why did you spread it?”

Lindsay’s shaking is getting worse now, and for a second I think she won’t answer, or she’ll lie. But her voice is steady when she speaks, steady and filled with something I don’t recognize. Regret, maybe.

“I always thought it wouldn’t last.” She sounds as if it still amazes her after all these years. “I thought eventually she’d tell everybody what really happened. That she would stick up for herself, you know?” Her voice breaks a little, a note of hysteria creeping in. “Why didn’t she ever stick up for herself? Not once. She just—she just took it. Why?”

I think of all the years that Lindsay’s been holding on to this secret knowledge, this secret self who cried every night and scrubbed pillows clean of pee—the scariest secret of all, the past we’re trying to forget.

And I think of all the times I sat in squirming silence, terrified I would say or do the wrong thing, terrified the dorky, lanky, horseback-riding loser inside me would rise up and swallow the new me, like a snake feasting on something. How I cleared the shelves of my trophies and dumped my beanbag chair and learned how to dress and never ate the hot lunch, and, above all, learned to stay away from the people who would drag me down, and carry me back to that place. People like Juliet Sykes. People like Kent.

Lindsay rouses herself and pops the door open. I cut the engine and get out of the car with her, throwing the keys over the roof. She catches them in one hand. Headlights flare to life, and I turn, squinting, holding up a hand in the general direction of the car idling behind me. I mouth, “Two minutes.”

Lindsay nods toward Kent, who is parked behind us, waiting to drive me home. “You’re sure you’re all good? To get home and everything, I mean.”

“I’m sure,” I say. Despite everything that has happened tonight, the thought of sitting next to Kent for a whole twelve minutes on the way to my house fills me with warmth. Even though I know it’s not right—even if I know, somewhere deep inside me, that it won’t work out, that it can’t work out for me with anyone anymore.

Lindsay opens her mouth and closes it. I can tell she wants to ask about Kent but thinks better of it. She starts to walk up toward the house, hesitates, and turns.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry about…everything.”

She wants me to tell her it’s okay. She needs me to tell her that. I can’t, though. Instead I say, quietly, “People would like you anyway, Lindz.” I don’t say, if you stopped pretending so much, but I know she understands. “We’d still love you no matter what.”

She balls up her fists and squeezes out, “Thanks.” Then she turns and heads up to the house. For a second the light falling on her face makes her skin look wet, but I’m not sure whether she’s crying or whether it’s the snow.

Kent leans over and opens the door for me and I slide in. We back away from Lindsay’s house and turn onto the main road in silence. He drives slowly, carefully, twin funnels of snow lit up by the headlights, both hands resting lightly on the steering wheel. There’s so much I want to say to him, but I can’t bring myself to speak. I’m tired and my head hurts, and I just want to enjoy the fact that there’s only a few inches separating our arms, the fact that his car smells like cinnamon, the fact that he has the heat on high for me. It makes me feel drowsy and heavy in my limbs, even as my insides are alive and fluttering and 100 percent aware of him, so close.

As we get near my house he slows down so we’re barely crawling, and I’m hoping it’s because he doesn’t want the drive to end either. This is the moment for time to stop, right here—for space to yawn open and fall away like it does at the lip of a black hole, so that time can do its endless loops and keep us forever going forward into the snow. But no matter how slowly Kent goes, the car moves forward.

Soon my street sign appears crookedly on the left, and then we’re passing the darkened houses of my neighbors, and then we’re at my house.

“Thanks for driving me home,” I say, turning to him as he turns to me and says, “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

We both laugh nervously. Kent pushes his bangs away from his eyes, and they immediately flop back into place, making my stomach dip.

“No problem,” he says. “It was my pleasure.”

It was my pleasure. Only Kent could say it and make it not sound like something cheesy from an old movie, and my heart aches frantically for a second as I think of all the time I wasted, seconds and hours spun out of my fingertips forever like snow into the dark.

We sit for a minute. I’m desperate to say something, anything, so I don’t have to get out of the car, but the words don’t come and the seconds run by.

Finally I blurt out, “Everything tonight was awful except for this.”

“Except for what?”

I tick my index finger once between us. You and me. Everything was awful except for this.

A light comes on in his eyes. “Sam.” He says my name once, just breathes it, and I never knew that a single syllable could transform my whole body into a dancing, glowing thing. He reaches out suddenly and puts a warm hand on either side of my face, tracing my eyebrows, his thumb resting lightly for one single miraculous second on my bottom lip—I’m tasting cinnamon on his skin—and then he drops his hand and pulls away, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“No…it’s okay.” My body is humming. He must be able to hear it. At the same time it feels like my head is going to lift off from my shoulders.

“It’s just…God, it’s so awful.”

“What’s so awful?” My body abruptly stops humming and my stomach goes leaden. He’s going to tell me he doesn’t like me. He’s going to tell me he sees through me again.

“I mean, with everything that happened tonight…it’s not the right time…and you’re with Rob.”

“I’m not with Rob,” I say quickly. “Not anymore.”

“You’re not?” He’s staring at me so intensely I can see the stripes of gold alternating with the green in his eyes like spokes of a wheel.

I shake my head.

“That’s a good thing.” He’s still staring at me like that, like he’s the first and last person who will ever stare at me. “Because…” His voice trails off, and his eyes travel slowly down to my lips, and there’s so much heat roaring through my body I swear I’m going to pass out.

“Because?” I prompt him, surprised I can still speak.

“Because I’m sorry, but I can’t help it, and I really need to kiss you right now.”

He puts one hand behind my neck and pulls me toward him. And then we’re kissing. His lips are soft and leave mine tingling. I close my eyes, and in the darkness behind them I see beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes, and hummingbirds beating the same rhythm as my heart. I’m gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it’s a good feeling—like soaring, like being totally free. His other hand pushes my hair from my face, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment—however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days—while he’s saying my name into my mouth and I’m breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I’ve ever been kissed in my life.

He pulls away too soon, still cupping my face. “Wow,” he says, out of breath. “Sorry. But wow.”

“Yeah.” The word catches in my throat.

We stay there like that, staring at each other, and for once I’m not feeling anxious or worried about what he’s thinking. I’m just happy, held in his eyes, buoyed up in a warm, bright place.

“I really like you, Sam,” he says quietly. “I always have.”

“I like you too.” Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t even think about it. I shut my eyes briefly, pushing away everything but this moment, his warm hands, those delicious green eyes, the lips.

“Come on.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead once, gently. “You’re tired. You need to sleep.”

He gets out of the car and scoots around to the passenger side to open the door for me. The snow has begun to stick, a blanket over everything, blurring the edges of the world. Our footsteps are muffled as we make our way