Before I Fall Part 11

"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 really staying in tonight?" Ally says, pouting. "The staying in tonight?" Ally says, pouting. "The whole whole night?" 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 h.e.l.l-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 pa.s.s 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.

"h.e.l.lo? 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 b.u.t.ter cups, and I add sprinkles and Cap'n Crunch cereal. I have my appet.i.te 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 and- An 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 and a virgin." 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 b.o.o.b.

"I am so, so sorry," Lindsay says, her voice m.u.f.fled by her hand. Her eyes are wide, and it's obvious she's trying not to laugh. "Do you think your s.h.i.+rt 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, "b.i.t.c.h!" 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 b.u.t.t, 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 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. 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.

"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 n.a.z.i.

"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! 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, "s.h.i.+t," 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 basketb.a.l.l.s 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 p.o.r.n 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 If he sees me, I'm really really dead. Good-bye, Ally's house; h.e.l.lo, detention. dead. Good-bye, Ally's house; h.e.l.lo, 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 cla.s.s-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 cla.s.s 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, "d.a.m.n. 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 a.s.semblies, when Ms. Winters sits next to Princ.i.p.al 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 b.u.t.ts 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 att.i.tude."

I almost lose it when Otto says pubic hair 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 b.u.mping against a desk, and a book thudding to the ground. Ms. Winters actually giggles giggles.

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

Oh, s.h.i.+t. 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. 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 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 n.a.z.i will think I've been spying on their little s.e.x 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 p.o.r.no, the second bell rings. I am now officially late to eighth period.

"Oh, G.o.d. I'm supposed to be meeting with Beanie," Ms. Winters says. Beanie's the students' name for Mr. Beneter, the princ.i.p.al. 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 swear-I hear him smack her b.u.t.t.

Oh. My. G.o.d. 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 p.o.r.n site. This is better than any scandal that's. .h.i.t Thomas Jefferson so far.

"Do you have cla.s.s?" 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? Babe? "I'll see you tonight." "I'll see you tonight."

"Eight o'clock."

I hear the door open and I know Ms. Winters has left. Thank G.o.d. 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.

Ms. Winters and Mr.-effing-Otto. Who would have guessed it in a million, trillion years?

As I head up from the gym it strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day-you can think you know them-and then you find out you hardly know them at all. I feel exhilarated, kind of like I'm being spun around a whirlpool, circling closer and closer around the same people and the same events but seeing things from different angles.

I'm still giggling when I get to Main, even though Mr. k.u.mmer will freak that I'm late, and I still have to stop by my locker and pick up my Spanish textbook (he told us on the first day that we should treat our textbooks like children. Obviously, he doesn't have any). I'm pressing Send on a text to Elody, Ally, and Lindsay-u ll nvr believe what jst happnd-when, bam! bam! I run smack into Lauren Lornet. I run smack into Lauren Lornet.

Both of us stumble backward, and my phone flies out of my hand and skitters across the hall.

"s.h.i.+t!" We collide so hard it takes me a second to recover my breath. "Watch where you're going."

I start toward my phone, wondering if I can ask her to pay if the screen's cracked or something, when she grabs my arm. Hard. "What the...?"

"Tell them," she says wildly, pus.h.i.+ng her face up to mine. "You've got to tell them."

"What are you talking about?" I try to pull away, but she grabs my other arm too, like she wants to shake me. Her face is red and splotchy and she has an all-over sticky look. It's obvious she's been crying.

"Tell them I didn't do anything wrong." She jerks her head back over her shoulder. We're standing directly in front of the main office, and I see her in that moment the way she was yesterday, hair hanging over her face, tearing down the hall.

"I really don't know what you're talking about," I say, as gently as possible, because she's freaking me out. She probably has biweekly visits with the school psychologist to control her paranoia, or OCD, or whatever her issue is.

She takes a deep breath. Her voice is shaky. "They think I cheated off you in chem. Beanie called me in.... But I didn't. I swear to G.o.d I didn't. I've been studying...."

I jerk back, but she keeps her grip on my arms. The feeling of being caught in a whirlpool returns, but this time it's horrible: I'm being pulled down, down, down, like there's a weight on me.

"You cheated off me?" My words feel like they're coming from a distance. I don't even sound like myself.

"I didn't, I swear to G.o.d I-" Lauren gives a shuddering sob. "He'll fail me. He said he would fail me if my grades didn't get better, and I got a tutor and now they think I-he said he'd call Penn State. I'll never go to college and I-you don't understand. My dad will kill me. He'll kill me." She really does shake me then. Her eyes are full of panic. "You have to tell them."

I finally manage to wrench away. I feel hot and sick. I don't want to know this, don't want to know any of it.

"I can't help you," I say, backing away, still feeling like I'm not actually saying the words, just hearing them spoken aloud from somewhere.

Lauren looks like I've just slapped her. "What? What do you mean you can't help? Just tell them-"

My hands are shaking as I go to pick up my phone. It slips out of my grasp twice and lands back on the floor both times with a clatter. It's not supposed to be like this. I feel like someone's pressed the Reverse b.u.t.ton on a vacuum cleaner and all of the junk I've done is spewing back onto the carpet for me to see.

"You're lucky you didn't break my phone," I say, feeling numb. "This cost me two hundred dollars."

"Were you even listening listening to me?" Lauren's voice is rising hysterically. I can't bring myself to meet her eyes. "I'm screwed, I'm finished-" to me?" Lauren's voice is rising hysterically. I can't bring myself to meet her eyes. "I'm screwed, I'm finished-"

"I can't help you," I say again. It's like I can't remember any other words.

Lauren lets out something that's halfway between a scream and a sob. "You said I shouldn't be nice to you today. You know what? You were right. You're awful, you're a b.i.t.c.h, you're-"

Suddenly it's like she remembers where we are: who she is, and who I am. She claps her hand over her mouth so quickly it makes a hollow, echoing sound in the hallway.

"Oh, G.o.d." Now her voice comes out as a whisper. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it."

I don't even answer. Those words-you're a b.i.t.c.h-make my whole body go cold.

"I'm sorry. I-please don't be mad."

I can't stand it-can't stand to hear her apologize to me. And before I know it I'm running-full-out running down the hall, my heart pounding, feeling like I need to scream or cry or smash my fist into something. She calls after me, but I don't know what it is, I don't care, I can't know, and when I push into the girls' bathroom, I throw my back against the door and sink down against it until my knees are pressed into my chest, my throat squeezed up so tight it hurts to breathe. My phone keeps buzzing, and once I've calmed down a bit, I flip it open and find texts from Lindsay, Ally, and Elody: What? Dish. Spill. Did u make up w Rob? What? Dish. Spill. Did u make up w Rob?