Before I Fall(76)

One wall is almost all windows. It faces out onto the front lawn. Outside, the night looks silvery and frosted, all the trees wrapped in a shroud of ice, like they’ve been built out of plaster. I begin to wonder if everything in this world, the world I’m stuck in, is just a replica, a cheap imitation of the real thing. Then I sit down on the carpet—in the exact center of a perfect square of moonlight—and I begin to cry. The first sob is almost a scream.

I don’t know how long I’m there—at least fifteen minutes, since I manage to pretty much cry myself out. In the process I snot all over myself and completely ruin my fur shrug with mascara and face gunk. But at a certain point I become aware that there’s someone else in the room.

I get very still. Parts of the room are lost in shadow, but I can sense something moving at its periphery. A checkered sneaker flickers in and out of view.

“How long have you been standing there?” I ask, wiping my nose for the fortieth time on the back of my arm.

“Not long.” Kent’s voice is very quiet. I can tell he’s lying, but I don’t mind. It actually makes me feel better to know I wasn’t alone this whole time.

“Are you okay?” He takes a few steps into the room so the moonlight hits him and turns him silver. “I mean, you’re obviously not okay, but I just wanted to know if, you know, there’s anything I could do or something you want to talk about or—”

“Kent?” I interrupt him. He always did have a habit of launching into tangents, even when we were little.

He stops. “Yeah?”

“Do you—could I maybe have a glass of water?”

“Yeah. Give me a sec.” He sounds relieved to do something, and I hear the whisper of his sneakers on the carpet. He’s back in under a minute with a tall glass of water. It has just the right amount of ice cubes.

After I take a few long gulps I say, “Sorry for being back here. The sign and everything.”

“That’s okay.” Kent sits cross-legged on the carpet next to me, not so close that we’re touching but close enough that I can feel him sitting there. “I mean, the sign was pretty much for other people. You know, to keep people from breaking my parents’ shit or whatever. I’ve never really had a party before.”

“Why did you have one now?” I say, just to keep him talking.

He gives a half laugh. “I thought if I had a party, you would come.”

I feel a rush of embarrassment, heat spreading up from my toes. His comment is so unexpected I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t seem embarrassed though. He just sits there looking at me. So typical Kent. He never understood that you can’t just say something like that.

The silence has lasted a couple beats too long. I grasp for something to say. “This room must get a lot of light during the day.”

Kent laughs. “It’s like being in the middle of the sun.”

Silence again. We can still hear the music, but it’s muffled, like it has to travel miles before it reaches us. I like that.

“Listen.” Just trying to say what I want to say makes a lump swell up in my throat. “I’m sorry about earlier. I really—thanks for making me feel better. I’m sorry I’ve always been…” At the last second I can’t say it after all. I’m sorry I’ve always been awful. I’m sorry there’s something wrong with me.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Kent says quietly. “About your hair.”

He shifts slightly—a fraction of an inch, moving closer—and it hits me then that I’m sitting in the middle of a moonlit room with Kent McFuller.

“I should go.” I stand up. I’m still not very steady on my feet, and the room tilts with me.

“Whoa.” Kent gets up, reaching out a hand to steady me. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I—” It occurs to me I don’t know where to go and I have no body to get me there, anyway. I can’t stand the thought of Tara grinning at me, and Lindsay’s obviously out. At this point it’s so awful it’s funny, and I let out a short laugh. “I don’t want to go home.”

Kent doesn’t ask why. I’m grateful for that. He just shoves his hands in his pockets. The outlines of his face are touched with light, like he’s glowing.

“You could…” He swallows. “You could always stay here.”

I stare at him. Thank God it’s dark. I have no idea what my face looks like.

He quickly stutters, “Not, like, stay with me. Obviously not. I just meant—well, we have a couple guest rooms, with sheets already on the beds and stuff. Clean sheets, obviously, it’s not like we leave them on after people—”