Before I Fall Part 3

"Here. Take these." She pulls a pack of SweeTarts from the waistband of her skirt. Lindsay always carries candy on her, 24/7, like she's packing drugs. I guess she kind of is. "Just for a second, I promise."

I let myself be dragged inside. A bell tinkles as we come through the door. There's a woman flipping through Us Weekly Us Weekly behind the counter. She looks at us, then looks down again when she realizes we're not going to order. behind the counter. She looks at us, then looks down again when she realizes we're not going to order.

Lindsay slides right up to Alex and Anna's booth, leaning against the table. She's kinda, sorta friends with Alex. Alex is kinda, sorta friends with a lot of people, since he deals pot out of a shoe box in his bedroom. He and I have a head-nod friends.h.i.+p, since that's pretty much the limit of our interaction. He's actually in English with me, though he shows even less than I do. I guess the rest of the time he's with Anna. Every so often he'll say something like, "That essay a.s.signment blows, huh?" but other than that we don't talk.

"Hey, hey," Lindsay says. "You going to Kent's party tonight?"

Alex's face is red and splotchy. At least he's embarra.s.sed to be caught out with Anna so blatantly. Or maybe he's just having a reaction to the food. I wouldn't be surprised.

"Um...I don't know. Maybe. Gotta see...." He trails off.

"It's gonna be super fun." Lindsay makes her voice extra perky. "Are you going to bring Bridget? She's such such a sweetheart." a sweetheart."

Actually, we both think Bridget is annoying-she's always really cheerful and she wears T-s.h.i.+rts with lame slogans like Unless You're the Lead Dog the View Never Changes Unless You're the Lead Dog the View Never Changes (no lie)-but Lindsay despises Anna and once wrote (no lie)-but Lindsay despises Anna and once wrote AC=WT AC=WT all over the bathroom right across from the cafeteria-the one everyone uses. all over the bathroom right across from the cafeteria-the one everyone uses. WT WT stands for white trash. stands for white trash.

The situation is beyond awkward, so I blurt out, "Sesame chicken?" I point at the meat congealing in a grayish sauce in a bowl on the table, next to two fortune cookies and a sad-looking orange.

"Orange beef," Alex says. He seems relieved by the change of topic.

Lindsay gives me a look, annoyed, but I keep rattling on. "You should be careful about eating here. The chicken once poisoned Elody. She threw up for, like, two days straight. If it was was chicken. She swears she found a fur ball in it." chicken. She swears she found a fur ball in it."

As soon as I say this Anna picks up her chopsticks and takes an enormous bite, looking up and smiling at me as she chews so I can see the food in her mouth. I'm not sure whether she's doing it deliberately to gross me out, but it seems like it.

"That's nasty, Kingston," Alex says, but he's smiling now.

Lindsay rolls her eyes, like Alex and Anna are both a total waste of our time. "Come on, Sam."

She pockets a fortune cookie and breaks it open when we get outside. "Happiness is found when one is not looking," she reads, and I crack up when she makes a face. She b.a.l.l.s up the little slip of paper and lets it flutter to the ground. "Useless."

I take a deep breath. "The smell in there always makes me sick." It does, too: that smell of old meat and cheap oil and garlic. The clouds on the horizon are slowly taking over the sky, turning everything gray and blurry.

"Tell me about it." Lindsay puts a hand on her stomach. "You know what I need?"

"A jumbo cup of The Country's Best Yogurt!" I say, smiling. TCBY is another thing we can't bring ourselves to abbreviate.

"Definitely a jumbo cup of The Country's Best Yogurt," Lindsay echoes.

Even though we're both freezing, we order double-chocolate soft-serve with sprinkles and crushed peanut b.u.t.ter cups on top, which we eat on our way back to school, blowing on our fingers to keep them warm. Alex and Anna are gone from Hunan Kitchen when we pa.s.s, but we run into them again at the Smokers' Lounge. We have exactly seven minutes left until the bell for eighth period, and Lindsay pulls me behind the tennis courts so she can have a cigarette without listening to Alex and Anna argue. That's what it looks like they're doing, anyway. Anna's head is bent and Alex is grabbing her shoulders, whispering to her. The cigarette in his hand burns so close to her dull brown hair I'm positive it's going to catch fire, and I picture her whole head just going up like that, like a match.

Lindsay finishes her smoke and we dump our yogurt cups right there, on top of the frozen black leaves and trampled cigarette packs and plastic bags half filled with rainwater. I'm feeling anxious about tonight-half dread and half excitement-like when you hear thunder and know that any second you'll see lightning tearing across the sky, nipping at the clouds with its teeth. I shouldn't have skipped out on English. It has given me too much time to think. And thinking never did anybody any good, no matter what your teachers and parents and the science-club freaks tell you.

We skirt the perimeter of the tennis courts and go up along Senior Alley. Alex and Anna are still standing half concealed behind the gym. Alex is on his second cigarette at least. Definitely an argument. I feel a momentary rush of satisfaction: Rob and I hardly ever fight, at least not about anything serious. That must mean something.

"Trouble in paradise," I say.

"More like trouble in the trailer park," Lindsay says.

We start cutting across the teachers' lot when we see Ms. Winters, the vice princ.i.p.al, threading between cars, trying to rout out the smokers who don't have time or are too lazy to walk all the way down to the Lounge and instead try to hide out between the teachers' old Volvos and Chevrolets. Ms. Winters has some crazy vendetta against people who smoke. I heard that her mom died of lung cancer or emphysema or something. If you get caught smoking by Ms. Winters you get three Friday detentions, no questions asked.

Lindsay frantically rifles in her bag for her Trident and pops two pieces in her mouth. "s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t."

"You can't get busted just for smelling like smoke," I say, even though Lindsay knows this. She likes the drama, though. Funny how you can know your friends so well, but you still end up playing the same games with them.

She ignores me. "How's my breath?" She breathes on me.

"Like a friggin' menthol factory."

Ms. Winters hasn't spotted us yet. She's making her way down the rows, sometimes stooping to peer underneath the cars as though someone might be sandwiched against the ground, trying to light up. There's a reason everyone calls her the Nicotine n.a.z.i behind her back.

I hesitate, looking back toward the gym. I don't especially like Alex and I don't like Anna, but anyone who's ever been through high school understands you have to stick together against parents, teachers, and cops. It's one of those invisible lines: us against them. You just know this, like you know where to sit and who to talk to and what to eat in the cafeteria, without even knowing how how you know. If that makes sense. you know. If that makes sense.

"Should we go back and warn them?" I ask Lindsay, and she pauses too and squints at the sky like she's thinking about it.

"Screw it," she says finally. "They can take care of themselves." As if to reinforce her point, the bell for final period rings and she gives me a shove. "Come on."

She's right, as usual. After all, it's not like they've ever done anything for me.

FRIENDs.h.i.+P: A HISTORY.

Lindsay and I became friends in seventh grade. Lindsay picked me out. I'm still not sure why. After years of trying, I had only just clawed my way up from the social bottom to the social middle. Lindsay's been popular since first grade, when she moved here. In the cla.s.s circus that year she was the ringleader; when we did a production of The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz the next year she was Dorothy. And in third grade, when we all performed the next year she was Dorothy. And in third grade, when we all performed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, she got to play Charlie.

I think that pretty much gives you an idea. She's the kind of person who makes you feel drunk just by being around her, like suddenly the world's edges are dulled and all of the colors are spinning together. I've never told her that, obviously. She'd make fun of me for lezzing out on her.

Anyway, the summer before seventh grade a bunch of us were at Tara Flute's pool party. Beth Schiff was showing off by doing cannonb.a.l.l.s in the deep end, but really she was showing off the fact that between May and July she'd sprouted a pair of C-cup b.o.o.bs-definitely the biggest of any girl there. I was in the house getting a soda when all of a sudden Lindsay came up to me, eyes s.h.i.+ning. She'd never spoken to me before.

"You've got got to come see this," she said, grabbing my arm. Her breath smelled like ice cream. to come see this," she said, grabbing my arm. Her breath smelled like ice cream.

She pulled me into Tara's room, where all the girls had piled their bags and their changes of clothes. Beth's bag was pink and had her initials marked in purple embroidery on the side. Lindsay had obviously gone through it, because she immediately crouched down and reached for a clear zipper case, like the kind we had to store pens in when we were in grade school.

"Look!" She held it up, rattling it. Inside were two tampons.

I don't remember how it started, but suddenly Lindsay and I were running through the house, checking bathroom cabinets and drawers, gathering up all the tampons and pads that Tara's mother and older sister had in the house. I was so happy I was dizzy. Lindsay Edgecombe and I were talking talking, and not just talking but laughing, and not just laughing but laughing so hard I had to squeeze my legs together to keep from peeing. Then we ran out onto the deck and started throwing handful after handful of tampons down onto the pool party below. Lindsay was screaming, "Beth! These fell out of your bag!" Some of the tampons swirled down into the water and all the guys were suddenly pus.h.i.+ng and shoving to get out of the pool like they were going to be contaminated. Beth stood on the diving board, dripping wet and shaking, while the rest of us nearly died laughing.

It reminded me of the time my parents took me to the Grand Canyon in fourth grade and made me stand on a ledge to get photographed. My legs hadn't been able to stop shaking and my feet got a tingling feeling in the soles, like they were itching to jump: I couldn't stop thinking about how easy it would be to fall, how high up we were. After my mom took the picture and let me back away from the ledge, I started laughing and couldn't stop.

Standing on the deck with Lindsay I got that exact same feeling.

After that Lindsay and I were best friends. Ally came in later, after she and Lindsay were in a field hockey league together the summer before eighth grade. Elody moved to Ridgeview freshman year. At one of the first parties of the year she hooked up with Sean Morton, who Lindsay had had a crush on for six months. Everyone thought Lindsay would kill Elody. But the next Monday at school Elody was at our lunch table, and she and Lindsay were bent over a plate of curly fries, giggling and acting like they'd known each other forever. I'm glad. Even though Elody can sometimes be embarra.s.sing, I think deep down she's the nicest of any of us.

THE PARTY.

After school we go to Ally's. When we were younger-freshman year and even half of soph.o.m.ore year-we'd sometimes stay in and put on clay masks and order as much Chinese food as we could eat, taking twenties from the cookie jar on the third shelf next to Ally's refrigerator, where her dad keeps an emergency thousand dollars at all times. We called them our "egg-roll emergency" nights. Then we'd stretch out on her enormous couch and watch movies until we fell asleep-the TV in Ally's living room is as big as the screen in a movie theater-our legs tangled together under an enormous fleece blanket. Since junior year, though, I don't think we've stayed in even once, except when Matt Wilde broke up with Ally, and she cried so hard that the next morning her face was puffy, like a mole's.

Today we raid Ally's closet so we don't have to wear the same outfit to Kent's party. Elody, Ally, and Lindsay are paying special attention to how I look. Elody puts bright red polish on my nails, her hands shaking a little so some of it gets on my cuticles and makes it look like I'm bleeding, but I'm too nervous to care. Rob and I are going to meet up at Kent's and he's already sent me a text that says I evn made my bed 4 u. I evn made my bed 4 u. I let Ally pick out my outfit-a metallic gold tank top, too big in the chest, and a pair of Ally's crazy four-inch heels (she calls them her stripper shoes). Lindsay does my makeup, humming and breathing vodka onto me. We've all taken two shots, chasing them with cranberry juice. I let Ally pick out my outfit-a metallic gold tank top, too big in the chest, and a pair of Ally's crazy four-inch heels (she calls them her stripper shoes). Lindsay does my makeup, humming and breathing vodka onto me. We've all taken two shots, chasing them with cranberry juice.

Afterward I lock myself in the bathroom, warmth tingling from my fingertips up to my head, and try to memorize exactly how I look there, in that second. But after a while all of my features seem like they're just hanging there, like something I'm seeing on a stranger.

When I was little I used to do this a lot: lock myself in the bathroom and take showers so hot the mirrors would cloud completely over, then stand there, watching as my face took shape slowly behind the steam, rough outlines at first, then details appearing gradually. Each time I'd think that when my face came back I would see somebody beautiful, like during my shower I would have transformed into someone brighter and better. But I always looked the same.

Standing in Ally's bathroom, I smile and think, Tomorrow I'll finally be different. Tomorrow I'll finally be different.

Lindsay's kind of music-obsessed, so she makes us a playlist for the ride to Kent's house, even though he lives only a few miles away. We listen to Dr. Dre and Tupac, and then we blast "Baby Got Back" and all sing along.

It's the weirdest thing, though: as we're driving there along all those familiar streets-streets I've known my whole life, streets so familiar I might as well have imagined them myself-I get this feeling like I'm floating above everything, hovering above all of the houses and the roads and the yards and the trees, going up, up, up, above Rocky's and the Rite Aid and the gas station and Thomas Jefferson and the football field and the metal bleachers where we sit and scream our heads off every homecoming. Like everything is tiny and insignificant. Like I'm already only remembering it.

Elody's howling at the top of her lungs. She has the lowest tolerance out of all of us. Ally's got the rest of the vodka tucked into her bag but nothing to chase it with. Lindsay's driving because she can drink all night and hardly feel it.

The rain starts when we're almost there, but it's so light it's almost like it's just hanging in the air, like a big curtain of white vapor. I don't remember the last time I was at Kent's house-his ninth birthday party, maybe?-and I've forgotten how far it's set back in the woods. The driveway seems to snake on forever. All we see is the dull light from the headlights bouncing off a twisting, gravelly path and revealing dead tree branches crowding closely overhead, and tiny pellets of rain like diamonds.

"This is how horror movies start," Ally says, adjusting her tank top. We've all borrowed new tops from her, but she's insisted on keeping on the fur-trimmed one, even though she was the one who was initially against it. "Are you sure sure he's number forty-two?" he's number forty-two?"

"It's just a little farther," I say, even though I have no idea, and I'm starting to wonder whether we turned too early. I have b.u.t.terflies in my stomach, but I'm not sure whether they're good or bad.

The woods press closer and closer until they're nearly brus.h.i.+ng up against the car doors. Lindsay starts complaining about the paint job. Just when it seems like we'll be sucked up into the darkness, all of a sudden the woods stop completely and there's the biggest, most beautiful lawn you can imagine, with a white house at its center that looks like it's made out of frosting. It's got balconies and a long porch that runs along two sides. The shutters are white too, and carved with designs it's too dark to make out. I don't remember any of it. Maybe it's the alcohol, but I think it's the most beautiful house I've ever seen.

We're all silent for a minute, looking. Half the house is dark, but warm light is s.h.i.+ning from the top floor, and where it makes it to the lawn it turns the gra.s.s silver.

Lindsay says, "It's almost as big as your house, Al." I'm sorry she spoke: it feels like a spell has been broken.

"Almost," Ally says. She takes the vodka out of her bag and swigs it, coughs, burps, and wipes her mouth.

"Give me a shot of that," Elody says, reaching for the bottle.

The bottle's in my hand before I realize it. I take a sip. It burns my throat and tastes awful, like paint or gasoline, but as soon as it's down I get a rush. We climb out of the car and the light from the house surges and expands, winking at me.

Walking into parties always gives me a crampy feeling at the bottom of my stomach. It's a good feeling, though: the feeling of knowing anything can happen. Most of the time nothing does, of course. Most of the time one night blends into the next, and weeks blend into weeks, and months into other months. And sooner or later we all die.

But at the beginning of the night anything's possible.

The front door is locked and we have to go around the side, where a door opens onto a really narrow hallway all paneled in wood and a tiny flight of steep wooden stairs. It smells like something I remember from childhood, but I can't quite place it. I hear the tinkle of breaking gla.s.s and someone yells, "Fire in the hole!" Then Dujeous roars from the speakers: All MCs in the house tonight, if your lyrics sound tight then rock the mic. All MCs in the house tonight, if your lyrics sound tight then rock the mic. The stairs are so narrow we have to squeeze up in single file because people are coming down in the opposite direction, empty beer cups in hand. Most of them have to turn so their backs are against the wall. We say hi to a few people and ignore the rest. As usual I can feel all of them looking at us. That's another nice thing about being popular: you don't have to pay any attention to the people paying attention to you. The stairs are so narrow we have to squeeze up in single file because people are coming down in the opposite direction, empty beer cups in hand. Most of them have to turn so their backs are against the wall. We say hi to a few people and ignore the rest. As usual I can feel all of them looking at us. That's another nice thing about being popular: you don't have to pay any attention to the people paying attention to you.

At the top of the stairs a dim hallway is hung all over with multicolored Christmas lights. There are a series of rooms, each leading off the next, and all seem to be filled with draped fabrics and big pillows and couches and all are packed with people. Everything is soft-the colors, the surfaces, the way people look-except the music, which pumps through the walls, making the floor vibrate. People are smoking inside too, so everything's happening behind a thick blue veil. I've only smoked pot once, but this is what I imagine it's like to be stoned.

Lindsay leans back and says something to me, but it gets lost in the murmur of voices. Then she's moving away from me, weaving through the crowd. I turn around, but Elody and Ally are gone too, and before I know it my heart is pounding and I get this itchy feeling in my palms.

Recently I've been having this nightmare where I'm standing in the middle of an enormous crowd, being pushed from left to right. The faces look familiar, but there's something horribly wrong with all of them: someone will walk by who looks like Lindsay, but then her mouth is weird and droopy like it's melting off. And none of them recognize me.

Obviously standing in Kent's house isn't the same thing, since I pretty much know everybody except for some of the juniors and a couple of girls who I think think might be soph.o.m.ores. But still, it's enough to make me freak out a little. might be soph.o.m.ores. But still, it's enough to make me freak out a little.

I'm about to head over to Emma Howser-she's super cheesy and normally I wouldn't be caught dead talking to her, but I'm getting desperate-when I feel thick arms around me and smell lemon balm. Rob.

He puts a wet mouth against my ear. "s.e.xy Sammy. Where've you been all my life?"

I turn around. His face is bright red. "You're drunk," I say, and it comes out more accusatory than I meant it to.

"Sober enough," he says, trying and failing to raise one eyebrow. "And you're late." His grin is lazy. Only one half of it curves upward. "We did a keg stand."

"It's ten o'clock," I point out. "We're not late. I called you, anyway."

He pats his fleece and his pockets. "Must've put my phone down somewhere."

I roll my eyes. "You're a delinquent."

"I like it when you use those big words." The other half of his smile is creeping upward slowly and I know he's going to kiss me. I turn partly away, searching the room for my friends, but they're still MIA.

In the corner I spot Kent, wearing a tie and a collared s.h.i.+rt about three sizes too big for him, which is half tucked into a pair of ratty khakis. At least he's not wearing his bowler hat. He's talking to Phoebe Rifer and they're laughing about something. It annoys me that he hasn't noticed me yet. I'm kind of hoping he'll look up and come barreling over to me like he usually does, but he just bends closer toward Phoebe like he's trying to hear her better.

Rob pulls me into him. "We'll only stay for an hour, okay? Then we'll leave." His breath smells like beer and a little like cigarettes when he kisses me. I close my eyes and think about how in sixth grade I saw him kissing Gabby Haynes and was so jealous I couldn't eat for two days. I wonder if I look like I'm enjoying it. Gabby did, in sixth grade.

It relaxes me to think about things like that: how funny life is.

I haven't even taken off my jacket, but Rob unzips it and moves his hands along my waist and then under my tank top. His palms are sweaty and big.

I pull away long enough to say, "Not right here here, in the middle of everyone."

"n.o.body's watching," he says, and clamps down on me again. This is a lie. He knows everyone watches us. He can see it. He doesn't even close his eyes.

His hands inch over my stomach and his fingers are pulling at the underwire of my bra. He's not very good with bras. He's not that good with b.r.e.a.s.t.s in general, actually. I mean, it's not like I really know what it's supposed to feel like, but every time he touches my b.o.o.bs he kind of just ma.s.sages them hard in a circle. My gyno does the same thing when I go in for an exam, so one of them has to be doing it wrong. And to be honest, I don't think it's my gyno.

If you want to know my biggest secret, here it is: I know you're supposed to wait to have s.e.x with someone you love and all that, and I do do love Rob-I mean, I've kind of been in love with him forever, so how could I not?-but that's not why I decided to have s.e.x with him tonight. love Rob-I mean, I've kind of been in love with him forever, so how could I not?-but that's not why I decided to have s.e.x with him tonight.

I decided to have s.e.x with him because I want to get it over with, and because s.e.x has always scared me and I don't want to be scared of it anymore.

"I can't wait to wake up next to you," Rob says, his mouth against my ear.

It's a sweet thing to say, but I can't concentrate while his hands are on me. And it occurs to me all of a sudden that I'd never thought about the waking-up part. I have no idea what you're supposed to talk about the day after you've had s.e.x, and I imagine us lying side by side, not touching, silent, while the sun rises. Rob doesn't have any blinds in his room-he ripped them down once when he was drunk-and during the day it's like a spotlight has been turned on his bed, a spotlight or an eye.

"Get a room!"

I pull away from Rob as Ally appears next to me, making a face. "You two are perverts," she says.

"This is a room." Rob lifts both arms and gestures around him. He sloshes a little bit of beer onto my s.h.i.+rt, and I make a noise, annoyed.

"Sorry, babe." He shrugs. Now there's only a half inch of beer in his cup and he stares at it, frowning. "Gonna go for a topper. You guys want?"

"We brought our own." Ally pats the vodka in her purse.

"Smart thinking." Rob brings a finger up to tap the side of his head but nearly takes an eye out instead. He's drunker than I thought. Ally covers her mouth and giggles.

"My boyfriend's an idiot," I say as soon as he lurches away.

"A cute cute idiot," Ally corrects me. idiot," Ally corrects me.

"That's like saying 'a cute mutant.' Doesn't exist."

"Sure it does." Ally's looking around the room, pouting her lips to make them look more kissable.

"Where did you go, anyway?" I'm feeling more annoyed than I should by everything: by the fact that my friends ditched me after thirty whole seconds, by the fact that Rob's so drunk, by the fact that Kent's still talking to Phoebe Rifer, even though he's supposed to be obsessively in love with me. Not that I want want him to be in love with me, obviously. It's just a constant that's always been comforting, in a weird way. I wrestle the bottle out of Ally's bag and take another sip. him to be in love with me, obviously. It's just a constant that's always been comforting, in a weird way. I wrestle the bottle out of Ally's bag and take another sip.