Before I Fall

A screaming face pressed up against the window.

I let out a squeak of fear before I realize that this, too, is a reflection. There’s a mask mounted on a table just in front of the window, facing outward. I go over to it and lift it carefully from its perch. It’s a woman’s face crafted from newspaper and red stitching, which is crisscrossed over the skin like horrible scars. Words run up the bridge of the nose and across the forehead, certain headlines visible or halfway visible, like BEAUTY REMEDY and TRAGEDY STRIKES, and little scraps of paper are unfurling from various places on her face, like she’s molting. The mouth and the eyes are cut completely away, and when I lift the mask to my face, it fits well. The reflection in the window is awful; I look like something diseased, or a monster from a horror movie. I can’t look away.

“Juliet made that.”

The voice behind me makes me jump. Mrs. Sykes has reappeared and is leaning against the door, frowning at me.

I pop the mask off, return it quickly to its perch. “I’m so sorry. I saw it and…I just wanted to try it on,” I finish lamely.

Mrs. Sykes comes over and rearranges the mask, straightening it, making sure it’s aligned correctly. “When Juliet was younger she was always drawing, always sketching or painting something or sewing her own dresses.” Mrs. Sykes shrugs, flutters a hand. “I don’t think she’s very interested in that stuff now.”

“Did you talk to Juliet?” I ask nervously, waiting for her to kick me out.

Mrs. Sykes blinks at me several times, as though trying to squeeze me into focus. “Juliet…” she repeats, and then shakes her head. “I called her phone a couple of times. She didn’t answer. She doesn’t usually go out on the weekends….” Mrs. Sykes looks at me helplessly.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I say as cheerfully as I can, feeling like each word is a knife going down into my stomach. “She probably didn’t hear her phone.”

Suddenly the thing I want most of all is to get out of there. I can’t stand to lie to Mrs. Sykes. She looks so sad, standing in her nightgown, ready for bed—as though she’s already asleep, sort of. That’s what the whole house feels like, as though it’s wrapped up in a heavy sleep, the kind that stifles you, won’t let you wake, drags you back into the sheets, drowning, even when you fight it.

I imagine Juliet sneaking up to her room in the dark, and the silence, through the atmosphere of sleep so thick it feels solid, the lullaby of creaking floorboards and quietly hissing radiators, the slow revolutions of people orbiting wordlessly around one another…. And then…

Bang.

Mrs. Sykes walks me back to the front hall. “You can come by tomorrow,” she says. “I’m sure Juliet will have everything ready by then. She’s usually very responsible. A good girl.”

“Sure. Tomorrow.” I don’t even like to say the word, and I wave a quick good-bye before dashing once again through the dark to my car.

It’s even colder than it was earlier. The rain, half ice, pings off the hood of my car as I sit there waiting for the engine to warm up, blowing on my hands and shivering, grateful to be out of there. As soon as I’m out of the house, a weight eases up off my chest, like the atmosphere and pressure inside is different, heavier. My first impression was right: it really is a desperate house. I see Juliet’s mom silhouetted by the window. I wonder if she’s waiting for me to leave or for her daughter to come home.

That’s when I make a decision. I know what I’ll do. I’ll go to Kent’s house and I’ll catch Juliet, and if I have to, I will hit her in the face. I’ll make her see how stupid the whole death idea is. (It’s certainly no picnic for me.) If it comes down to it, I’ll tie her up in the back of my car so she can’t get her hands on the gun.

I realize I’ve never really done something good for someone else, at least not for a while. I volunteer sometimes for Meals on Wheels, but that’s because colleges like that kind of thing; BU especially mentioned charity on the application portion of their website. And obviously I’m nice to my friends, and I give great birthday gifts (I once spent a month and a half collecting cow-shaped saltshakers to give to Ally, because she loves cows and salt). But I don’t usually do good things just for the hell of it. This will be my good thing.