Before I Fall

I sit up in bed, pushing away the comforter. I’m covered with sweat even though my room is cold. My throat is dry and I’m desperate for water, like I’ve just been running a long way.

For a second when I look around the room everything seems fuzzy and slightly distorted, like I’m not really looking at my room but only at a transparency of my room that’s been laid down incorrectly so the corners don’t match up with the real thing. Then the light shifts and everything looks normal again.

All at once it comes back to me, and blood starts pounding in my head: the party, Juliet Sykes, the argument with Kent“Sammy!” My door swings open, banging once against the wall, and Izzy comes galloping across the room, stepping all over my notebooks and discarded jeans and my Victoria’s Secret Team Pink sweatshirt. Something seems wrong; something skirts the edges of my memory, but then it is gone and Izzy is bouncing on my bed, throwing her arms around me. They are hot. She curls a fist around the necklace I always wear—a thin gold chain with a tiny bird charm hanging from it, a gift from my grandmother—and tugs gently.

“Mommy says you have to get up.” Her breath smells like peanut butter, and it’s not until I push her off me that I realize how badly I’m shaking.

“It’s Saturday,” I say. I have no idea how I got home last night. I have no idea what happened to Lindsay or Elody or Ally, and just thinking about it makes me sick.

Izzy starts giggling like a maniac and bounces off the bed, scurrying back toward the door. She disappears down the hallway, and I hear her call out, “Mommy, Sammy won’t get up!” She says my name: Thammy.

“Don’t make me come up there, Sammy!” My mom’s voice echoes from the kitchen.

I put my feet on the ground. The feel of the cold wood reassures me. When I was younger I would lie on the floor all summer when my dad refused to turn the air-conditioning on; it was the only place that stayed cool. I’m tempted to do the same thing now. I feel feverish.

Rob, the rain, the sound of bottles shattering in the woodsMy phone chimes, making me jump. I reach over and flip it open. There’s a new text from Lindsay.

I’m outside. Where r u?

I snap my phone shut quickly but not before I see the date blinking up at me: Friday, February 12.

Yesterday.

Another chime. Another text.

Don’t make me l8 on Cupid Day, beeyatch!!!

I suddenly feel like I’m moving underwater, like I’m weightless, or watching myself from a distance. I try to stand up, but when I do my stomach bottoms out and I have to rush to the bathroom in the hall, legs shaking, certain I’m going to throw up. I lock the door and turn on the water in both the sink and the shower. Then I stand over the toilet.

My stomach clenches on itself, but nothing comes up.

The car, the skidding, the screamsYesterday.

I hear voices in the hallway, but the water’s rushing so hard I can’t make them out. It’s not until someone starts pounding on the door that I straighten up and yell, “What?”

“Get out of the shower. There’s no time.” It’s Lindsay—my mom’s let her in.

I crack the door a little and there she is, her big puffy jacket zipped to her chin, looking pissed. I’m happy to see her, anyway. She looks so normal, so familiar.

“What happened last night?” I say.

She frowns for a second. “Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn’t call back. I didn’t get off the phone with Patrick until, like, three A.M.”

“Call back?” I shake my head. “No, I meant—”

“He was freaking out over the fact that his parents are going to Acapulco without him.” She rolls her eyes. “Poor baby. I swear to you, Sam, guys are like pets. Feed ’em, pet ’em, and put ’em to bed.” She leans forward. “Speaking of which—are you excited about tonight?”

“What?” I don’t even know what she’s talking about. Her words are all running past me, blurring together. I’m holding on to the towel rack, afraid I’ll fall over. The shower is on way too hot and there’s thick steam everywhere, clouding up the mirror, condensing on the tiles.

“You, Rob, some Miller Lite, and his flannel sheets.” She laughs. “Very romantic.”

“I have to shower.” I try to close the door, but she wedges her elbow in at the last second and pushes into the bathroom.

“You haven’t showered yet?” She shakes her head. “Uh-uh. No way. You’ll have to do without.”

She reaches into the shower and turns off the water, then grabs me by the hand and drags me into the hallway.

“You definitely need some makeup, though,” she says, scanning my face. “You look like shit. Nightmares?”

“Something like that.”

“I have my MAC stuff in the Tank.” She unzips her coat and I see a white tuft of fur peeking out from her cleavage: our Cupid Day tank tops. I suddenly have the urge to sit down on the floor and laugh and laugh, and I have to struggle not to have a fit right there while Lindsay’s shoving me into my room.