Лорен Оливер - Before I Fall

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 button 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 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 bitch, 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, God.” 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 bitch —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?

I throw my phone into my bag and rest my head in my hands, waiting for my pulse to return to normal. All of the happiness I felt earlier is gone. Even the Otto and Winters situation doesn’t seem funny anymore. Bridget and Alex and Anna and Sarah Grundel and her stupid parking space and Lauren Lornet and the chem test—it feels like I’ve been caught up in some enormous web and every way I turn I see that I’m stuck to someone else, all of us wriggling around in the same net. And I don’t want to know any of it. It’s not my problem. I don’t care.

You’re a bitch.

I don’t care. I have bigger things to worry about.

Finally I stand up. I’ve given up on going to Spanish. Instead I splash cold water on my face and then reapply my makeup. My face is so pale under the harsh fluorescent lights, I hardly recognize it.

“Come on, cheer up.” Lindsay whacks me on the head with a pillow. We’re sitting on the couch in Ally’s den.

Elody pops the last spicy tuna roll into her mouth, which I’m not sure is such a great idea, as it’s now been perched on an ottoman for the past three hours. “Don’t worry, Sammy. Rob’ll get over it.”

All of them think Rob’s the reason I’m quiet. But of course, it isn’t. I’m quiet because as soon as the clock inched its way past twelve, the fear crept back in. It’s been filling me slowly, like sand running through an hourglass. With every second I’m getting closer and closer to the Moment. Ground zero. This morning I was certain that it was simple—that all I had to do was stay away from the party, stay away from the car. That time would lurch back on track. That I would be saved.

But now my heart feels like it’s being squashed between my ribs, and it gets harder and harder to breathe. I’m terrified that in one second—in the space between a breath—everything will evaporate into darkness, and I’ll once again find myself alone in my bedroom at home, waking up to the screaming of the alarm. I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens. I think my heart will break. I think my heart will stop.

Ally switches off the television and throws down the remote. “What should we do now?”

“Let me consult the spirits.” Elody slides off the couch and onto the floor, where earlier we’d set up a dusty Ouija board for old time’s sake. We tried to play, but everyone was obviously pushing, and the indicator kept zipping onto words like penis and choad , until Lindsay started screaming “Perv spirits! Child molesters!” into the air.

Elody shoves the indicator with two fingers. It spins once before settling over the word YES .

“Look, Ma.” She holds up her hands. “No hands.”

“It wasn’t a yes or no question, doofus.” Lindsay rolls her eyes and takes a big sip of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape we swiped from the wine cellar.

“This town sucks,” Ally says. “Nothing ever happens.”

Twelve thirty-three. Twelve thirty-four. I’ve never seen seconds and minutes rush by so fast, tumble over one another. Twelve thirty-five. Twelve thirty-six.

“We need music or something,” Lindsay says, jumping up. “We can’t just sit around here like bums.”

“Definitely music,” Elody says. She and Lindsay run into the next room, where the Bose sound dock is.

“No music.” I groan, but it’s too late. Beyoncé is already blasting. The vases begin to rattle on the bookshelves. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and chills are running up and down my body. Twelve thirty-seven. I nestle deeper into the couch, drawing a blanket up over my knees, and cover my ears.

Lindsay and Elody march back into the room. We’re all in old boxer shorts and tank tops. Lindsay’s obviously just raided Ally’s mudroom because she and Elody are now also decked out in ski goggles and fleece hats. Elody’s hobbling along with one foot jammed in a child’s snowshoe.

“Oh my God!” Ally screams. She holds her stomach and doubles over, laughing.

Lindsay gyrates with a ski pole between her legs, rocking back and forth. “Oh, Patrick! Patrick!”

The music is so loud I can barely hear her, even when I take my hands off my ears. Twelve thirty-eight. One minute.

“Come on!” Elody shouts, extending her hand to me. I’m so full of fear I can’t move, can’t even shake my head, and she leans forward and yells, “Live a little!”

So many thoughts and words are tumbling through my head. I want to yell, No, stop or Yes, live , but all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut and picture seconds running like water into an infinite pool, and I imagine all of us hurtling through time and I think, Now, now, it’s going to happen now—

And then everything goes silent.

I’m afraid to open my eyes. A deep emptiness opens up inside me. I feel nothing. This is what it’s like to be dead.

Then a voice: “Too loud. You’ll blow out your eardrums before you’re twenty.”

I snap open my eyes. Mrs. Harris, Ally’s mom, is standing in the doorway in a glistening raincoat, smoothing down her hair. And Lindsay’s standing there in her ski goggles and hat, and Elody’s awkwardly trying to pry her foot out of the snowshoe.

I made it. It worked. Relief and joy flood me with so much force I almost cry out.

But instead, I laugh. I burst out laughing in the silence, and Ally gives me a dirty look, like, Now you decide it’s funny?