Before I Fall

“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?

“Are you girls drunk?” Ally’s mother stares at each of us in turn and then frowns at the nearly empty bottle of wine on the floor.

“Hardly.” Ally throws herself on the couch. “You killed the buzz.”

Lindsay flips the goggles onto her head. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris,” she says brightly, as if dancing around half naked and decked out in winter sports equipment was a Girl Scouts–mandated activity.

Mrs. Harris sighs. “Not anymore. It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”

“Moooom,” Ally whines.

Mrs. Harris shoots her a look. “No more music.”

Elody finally wrenches her foot free and stumbles backward, collapsing against one of the bookshelves. Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook comes flying out and lands at her feet. “Oops.” She turns bright red and looks at Mrs. Harris like she expects to be spanked any minute.

I can’t help it. I start giggling again.

Mrs. Harris rolls her eyes to the ceiling and shakes her head. “Good night, girls.”

“Nice going.” Ally leans over and pinches my thigh.

“Retard.”

Elody starts giggling and imitates Lindsay’s voice. “We were having a dance party, Mrs. Harris.”

“At least I didn’t fall into a bookshelf.” Lindsay bends over and wiggles her butt at us. “Kiss it.”

“Maybe I will.” Elody dives for her, pretending like she’s going to. Lindsay shrieks and dodges her. Ally hisses, “Shhhh!” right as we hear Mrs. Harris yell, “Girls!” from upstairs. Pretty soon they’re all laughing. It feels great to laugh with them.

I’m back.

An hour later Lindsay, Elody, and I are settled on the L-shaped couch. Elody has the top bit, and Lindsay and I are lying end-to-end. My feet are pressed against Lindsay’s, and she keeps wiggling her toes to annoy me. But nothing can annoy me right now. Ally has dragged in her air mattress and her blankets from upstairs (she insists she can’t sleep without her Society comforter). It’s just like freshman year. We’ve put the television on low because Elody likes the sound, and in the dark room the glow of the screen reminds me of summers spent breaking into the pool club to go night-swimming, of the way the light shines up through all that black water, of stillness and feeling like you’re the only person alive in the whole world.

“You guys?” I whisper. I’m not sure who’s still awake.

“Mmmf,” Lindsay grunts.

I close my eyes, letting the feeling of peace sweep over me, fill me from head to toe. “If you had to relive one day over and over, which one would you pick?”