Before I Fall Page 0,132

even look in her direction the wrong way, like one of those tiny attack dogs that are always barking and snapping in the air before they’re jerked backward on the chains that keep them in one place.

Millions of individual snowflakes, spinning and twirling and looking, all together, like rolling waves of white. I wonder if it’s true that they’re all different. “Juliet told me.” I lean back against the headrest and squint so that everything disappears but the whiteness. “About the Girl Scout trip. When you were in fifth grade—when you were still friends.”

Lindsay’s still not saying anything, but I can feel her trembling a little next to me.

“She told me it was really you who—you know.”

“And you believed her?” Lindsay says quickly, but she does it automatically, dully, as though she doesn’t expect it to do any good.

I ignore her. “Remember how everybody used to call her Mellow Yellow after that?” I open my eyes and look at her. “Why did you tell everyone it was her? I mean, in the moment, okay, I get it, you were scared, you were embarrassed, but afterward…? Why did you tell everyone? Why did you spread it?”

Lindsay’s shaking is getting worse now, and for a second I think she won’t answer, or she’ll lie. But her voice is steady when she speaks, steady and filled with something I don’t recognize. Regret, maybe.

“I always thought it wouldn’t last.” She sounds as if it still amazes her after all these years. “I thought eventually she’d tell everybody what really happened. That she would stick up for herself, you know?” Her voice breaks a little, a note of hysteria creeping in. “Why didn’t she ever stick up for herself? Not once. She just—she just took it. Why?”

I think of all the years that Lindsay’s been holding on to this secret knowledge, this secret self who cried every night and scrubbed pillows clean of pee—the scariest secret of all, the past we’re trying to forget.

And I think of all the times I sat in squirming silence, terrified I would say or do the wrong thing, terrified the dorky, lanky, horseback-riding loser inside me would rise up and swallow the new me, like a snake feasting on something. How I cleared the shelves of my trophies and dumped my beanbag chair and learned how to dress and never ate the hot lunch, and, above all, learned to stay away from the people who would drag me down, and carry me back to that place. People like Juliet Sykes. People like Kent.

Lindsay rouses herself and pops the door open. I cut the engine and get out of the car with her, throwing the keys over the roof. She catches them in one hand. Headlights flare to life, and I turn, squinting, holding up a hand in the general direction of the car idling behind me. I mouth, “Two minutes.”

Lindsay nods toward Kent, who is parked behind us, waiting to drive me home. “You’re sure you’re all good? To get home and everything, I mean.”

“I’m sure,” I say. Despite everything that has happened tonight, the thought of sitting next to Kent for a whole twelve minutes on the way to my house fills me with warmth. Even though I know it’s not right—even if I know, somewhere deep inside me, that it won’t work out, that it can’t work out for me with anyone anymore.

Lindsay opens her mouth and closes it. I can tell she wants to ask about Kent but thinks better of it. She starts to walk up toward the house, hesitates, and turns.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry about…everything.”

She wants me to tell her it’s okay. She needs me to tell her that. I can’t, though. Instead I say, quietly, “People would like you anyway, Lindz.” I don’t say, if you stopped pretending so much, but I know she understands. “We’d still love you no matter what.”

She balls up her fists and squeezes out, “Thanks.” Then she turns and heads up to the house. For a second the light falling on her face makes her skin look wet, but I’m not sure whether she’s crying or whether it’s the snow.

Kent leans over and opens the door for me and I slide in. We back away from Lindsay’s house and turn onto the main road in silence. He drives slowly, carefully, twin funnels of snow lit up by the headlights, both hands resting lightly on the steering wheel. There’s so much I want to say to him,