Before I Fall Page 0,108
stupid, obvious thing to say, but the way he says it, so honest and simple like it’s the truest thing there is, makes tears prick in my eyes. I take the clothes and the towel and go out into the hall to the bathroom we broke into to find Juliet. I go in and shut the door. The window’s still open and flurries of snow whirl in from outside. I shut the window. It makes me feel better already, like I’m already starting the process of erasing everything that’s happened tonight. Elody will be fine.
After all, I was the one who was supposed to be in the front seat.
I hang the hand towel Juliet left by the sink and strip out of my clothes, shaking. The shower is too hard to resist after all, and I turn the water on as high and as hot as it can go and get in. It’s one of those rain-forest showers where the water pours on you straight from above in a long, heavy stream. When it hits the marble tiles under my feet, it lets up big clouds of steam. I stay in the shower so long my skin gets pruny.
I put on Kent’s fleece, which is supersoft and smells like laundry detergent and, for some reason, freshly mowed grass. Then I snap the tags off the boxers and slip my legs into them. They’re too big on me, obviously, but I like how clean and crisp they feel on my skin. The only other boxers I’ve seen are Rob’s, usually crumpled up on his floor or shoved under his bed and stained with things I have no desire to identify. Last, I put on the sweatpants, which pool over my feet. Kent has given me socks, too, the big fluffy kind. I ball up all of my clothes and leave them just outside the bathroom door.
When I go back in the kitchen, Kent’s standing there, exactly as I left him. Something flickers in his eyes when I come in, but I’m not sure what it is.
“Your hair’s wet,” he says softly, but he says it like he’s actually saying something else.
I look down. “I showered, after all.”
Silence stretches between us for a few beats. Then he says, “You’re tired. I’ll drive you home.”
“No.” I say it more forcefully than I meant to, and Kent looks startled.
“No—I mean, I can’t. I don’t want to go home right now.”
“Your parents…” Kent trails off.
“Please.” I don’t know which would be worse: if my parents have already heard and are sitting there, waiting for me, waiting to grill me and ask me questions and talk about hospitals in the morning and therapists to help me deal—or if they haven’t heard yet and I come home to a dark house.
“There’s a guest room here,” Kent says. His hair is finally drying into little wisps and waves.
“No guest rooms.” I shake my head resolutely. “I want to be in a room room. A lived-in room.”
Kent stares at me for a second and then says, “Come with me.” He reaches for my hand as he passes and I let him take it. We go up the stairs and down the hall and to the bedroom with all the bumper stickers on it. I should have known it was his. He fiddles with the door—“It sticks,” he explains—and finally pops it open. I inhale sharply. The smell is just the same as it was last night when I was here with Rob, but everything is different—the darkness looks softer, somehow.
“Give me a second.” Kent squeezes my hand and pulls away. I hear the rustling of the curtains and I gasp: suddenly three enormous windows, stretching from floor to ceiling and taking up one entire wall, are revealed. He hasn’t turned on a light, but he may as well have. The moon is huge and luminous and bounces through all the dazzling white snow, growing brighter. The whole room is bathed in a beautiful, silver light.
“It’s amazing,” I say. I breathe out; I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath.
Kent smiles quickly. His face is silhouetted in moonlight. “It’s great at night. Not so great at sunrise, though.” He starts to draw the curtains closed.
“Leave them open,” I cry out, and then add, “please.” I suddenly feel shy.
Kent’s room is enormous, and smells like that same incredible mixture of Downy laundry detergent and grass shavings. It’s the freshest smell in the world, the smell of open windows and crisp