Before I Fall Page 0,129
She was lost somewhere, trapped in a fog, maybe of memories, maybe of all the things that could have happened differently.
A car roars behind me, making me jump. On the landing I lose my footing and go on hands and knees to the ice as the car speeds by, followed closely by a second car, its engine as loud as thunder. Then honking, waves of sound rolling toward me, getting louder and louder. I look up and see the headlights of a car bearing down on me. I try to move and can’t. I try to scream and can’t. I’m frozen, the headlights growing as big as moons, floating there. At the last second the car swerves a little, passing so close to me I can feel the heat of the engine and smell the exhaust and hear a line of music pumping from the radio. Light it, blaze it, tear it up. Then it’s gone, still honking, passing away into the night as the bass from the speakers grows dimmer and dimmer, a distant pulse.
My palms are cut up from the pavement, and my heart is pounding so quickly I’m pretty sure it’s going to leap out of my chest. Slowly, shaking, I stand up. Another car passes on the other side of the road, this one at a crawl, water from its tires pinwheeling in both directions.
And then, fifty feet ahead of me, I see a figure in white emerge from the woods, unfolding from a crouch like a long, pale flower. Juliet. I start going toward her, slowly now, trying to avoid the slick patches of dark ice. She stands there, perfectly still, like she doesn’t even feel the rain. At a certain point she even lifts up her arms, parallel to the ground, as though preparing to take a dive off the high board. There’s something beautiful and terrifying about seeing her in that position. It reminds me of when I was little and we would go to church on Christmas and Easter, and I was always afraid to look at the pulpit, where there was a wooden statue of Jesus mounted on the cross.
“Juliet!”
She doesn’t respond; I’m not sure if she doesn’t hear or is just ignoring me. I’m fifteen feet away, then ten. There’s a low rumbling behind me. I turn and see a big truck bearing down through the darkness. Again I have a random thought—he should totally have his license suspended, he’s going way too fast—and when I turn around again I see that Juliet is staring up the road, tensed, arms at her thighs, and she reminds me of something, but it takes me a second to realize what it is, just like it takes me a second to realize what’s going on—she looks like a dog about to go after a bird—and then everything clicks together, and as she begins to move, a white blur, I’m moving too, running as fast as I can and closing the distance between us as she’s sprinting out across the nearest lane. The truck blasts its horn, a sound so large it seems to fill the air with vibration, and then I slam into her with all my weight, and we roll, tumbling, backward into the woods. I’m screaming and she’s screaming and pain blooms in my shoulder. I roll over onto my back, the black branches overhead a thick net.
“What are you doing?” Juliet’s yelling, and when I sit up her face has finally lost its composure and is twisted with anger. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” My anger flares up too. “What are you doing? Jumping in front of random trucks—I thought the whole point was to wait for Lindsay—”
“Lindsay? Lindsay Edgecombe?” Juliet’s anger drops away and she looks completely confused. She brings her hands up to her head, squeezing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I’m suddenly uncertain. “I—I thought. You know, like this was your big revenge—”
Juliet laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Revenge?” She shakes her head, and again that veil seems to drop over her face. “Sorry, Sam. For once this isn’t about you.” She stands up, not bothering to wipe off the thick tracks of mud and leaves that are clinging to her. “Now please leave me alone.”
My head is spinning and I’m having trouble focusing on her, like we’re separated by miles instead of a few feet. The rain is coming down harder now, jagged pellets of it. Little snatches of