Before I Fall(91)

“Get Kent,” I say, sucking in a long breath.

“Who?” Joanne says.

“I have to pee,” Rachel says, hopping up and down.

“Kent McFuller. Now. Do it,” I bark at Joanne, and she looks startled but scurries off into the hallway. Every second feels like an eternity. It’s the first time I really understand what Einstein said about relativity, how time bends around and stretches out like a gummy bear.

“What do you care, anyway?” Rachel says, grumbling just loud enough so I can hear.

I don’t answer. The truth is I have no answer, really. I have to save Juliet—I feel that. It’s my good thing. I have to save myself.

I’m suddenly not sure if that makes me better or worse than someone who does nothing, so I push the thought out of my mind.

Joanne comes back with Kent in tow. He looks worried, his forehead crinkly underneath the shaggy brown hair that’s falling down over his eyes. My stomach does a flip. Yesterday we were in a dark room no more than two inches apart, so close I could feel the amazing heat of his skin.

“Sam,” he says, and leans forward to grab my wrist, staring deep in my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I’m so surprised by the sudden touch I pull away just a fraction, and Kent takes back his hand. I don’t know how to explain the way this makes my insides go hollow.

“I’m fine,” I say, totally aware in that moment of how ridiculous I must look to him: the messed up hair, the sweatpants. He, by comparison, looks actually kind of put together. There’s something scruffy-cute about his checkered sneakers and loose, low-belted khakis, and the sleeves of his oxford are rolled up, showing off a tan he got God-knows-where. Certainly not in Ridgeview in the past six months.

He looks confused. “Joanne said you needed me.”

“I do need you.” It comes out weird and intense-sounding, and I feel a furious fit of blushing coming on. “I mean, I don’t need you. I just need—” I take a deep breath. I think I see a momentary spark in Kent’s eyes and it distracts me. “I’m worried Juliet Sykes is locked in the bathroom.” Just after I say it, I wince. I sound ridiculous. He’ll probably tell me I’m being insane. After all, he doesn’t know what I know.

The spark dies and his face gets serious. He steps beyond me and tries the door, then he pauses for a second, thinking. He doesn’t tell me I’m crazy or paranoid or anything. He simply says, “There’s no key. I could try to pick the lock. We can always break it open if we have to.”

“I’m going to pee upstairs,” Rachel announces, then turns on her heel and wobbles off.

Kent reaches in his back pocket and pulls out a handful of safety pins. “Don’t ask,” he says when I raise my eyebrows. I hold up my hands and don’t push the issue. I’m grateful he’s taking charge without asking questions.

He squats down, bends the safety pin backward, and uses it to jimmy the lock. He’s keeping his ear pressed to the door like he’s listening for a click. Finally my curiosity gets the better of me.

“Do you have an after-school job robbing banks or something?”

He grimaces, tries the door, slips the safety pin back in his pocket, and selects a credit card from his wallet. “Hardly.” He wedges the credit card in the crevice between the frame and the door and wiggles. “My mom used to keep the junk food locked behind our pantry door.”

He straightens up and twists the handle. The door opens an inch, and my heart flies up into my throat. Part of me is hoping that Juliet’s face will appear, furious, or that the door will be slammed closed again from inside. That’s what I would do if someone tried to open the bathroom door when I was inside. That is, if I was still awake—alive—to close it.

But the door just sits there, open that little inch. Kent and I just look at each other at first. I think we’re both scared to open it any farther.

Then Kent nudges the door with his toe, calling “Juliet?” as the door swings open—again, time stretches; it seems to take forever—and in that second, or half second, I somehow have the time to conjure up every horrible possibility, to imagine her body crumpled on the ground.

And then the door finishes swinging, and the bathroom is there: perfectly clean, perfectly normal, and perfectly empty. The lights are on, and there’s a damp hand towel draped over the sink. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the window. It’s wide open, and rain has been battering in onto the tiles below.

“She went out the window,” Kent says at the same time I’m thinking it. I can’t quite place his tone. It’s half sad, half admiring.