Before I Fall

Ally catches on first and her mouth drops open. “What the…?”



Elody and Lindsay turn to see what we’re both staring at. Lindsay goes pale at first—she actually looks afraid, which is beyond strange, but I don’t have time to wonder about it because just as quickly her face goes purple, and she looks ready to rip someone’s head off. That’s a more natural look for her. Elody begins giggling hysterically until she doubles over and has to cover her mouth with both hands.



“I can’t believe it,” she says. “I can’t believe it.” She tries to start singing “Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est,” but we’re all still in shock and don’t join in.



You know how in movies someone says or does something inappropriate and the record scratches and there’s dead silence all of a sudden? Well, that isn’t exactly what happens, but it’s close. The music doesn’t stop, but as everyone in the room starts to pick up on the fact that Juliet Sykes—bedwetter, freak, and all-around psycho—is standing in the middle of a party giving four of the most popular girls at Thomas Jefferson the stink eye, conversation drops off and a low sound of whispering fills the room, getting louder and more insistent until it’s a constant hum, until it sounds like wind or the ocean.



Juliet Sykes finally steps away from the door and into the room. She walks slowly and confidently toward us—I’ve never seen her look so calm—stopping three feet in front of Lindsay.



“You’re a bitch,” she says. Her voice is steady and too loud, like she’s deliberately addressing everyone in the room. I’d always imagined her voice would be high-pitched or breathy, but it’s as full and deep as a boy’s.



It takes Lindsay a half second to find her voice. “Excuse me?” she croaks out. Juliet hasn’t made eye contact with Lindsay since the fifth grade, much less spoken to her. Much less insulted her.



“You heard me. A bitch. A mean girl. A bad person.” Juliet turns to Ally next. “You’re a bitch too.” To Elody, “You’re a bitch.” She turns her eyes to me and for a second I see something flashing there—something familiar—but just as quickly it’s gone.



“You’re a bitch.”



We’re all so shocked we don’t know how to respond. Elody giggles again nervously, hiccups, and goes silent. Lindsay’s mouth is opening and shutting like a fish’s, but nothing’s coming out. Ally’s balling up her fists like she’s thinking of clocking Juliet in the face.



And even though I’m infuriated and embarrassed, the only thing I can think when I look at Juliet is: I never knew you were so pretty.



Lindsay pulls herself together. She leans forward so her face is only inches from Juliet’s. I’ve never seen her so angry. I think her eyes are going to pop out of her head. Her mouth is twisted into a snarl, like a dog’s. For a second she looks really and truly ugly.



“I’d rather be a bitch than a psycho,” she hisses, grabbing Juliet by the shirt. Spit is coming out of her mouth—that’s how angry she is. She shoves Juliet backward, and Juliet stumbles into Matt Dorfman. He pushes Juliet again and she careens into Emma McElroy. Lindsay starts screaming, “Psycho, Psycho,” and making the high-pitched knifing noises from the movie, and suddenly everyone’s screaming out, “Psycho!” and making the motion of an invisible knife and screeching and pushing Juliet back and forth. Ally’s the first to overturn a beer on her head, but everyone catches on to that too; Lindsay splashes her with vodka, and when Juliet stumbles my way, half drenched, arms outstretched, trying to get her balance, I grab a half-finished beer from the windowsill and dump it on her. I don’t even realize I’m screaming along with everybody else until my throat is sore.



Juliet looks up at me after I dump the beer out. I can’t explain it—it’s crazy—but it’s almost a pitying look, like she feels bad for me.



All of the breath leaves my body in a rush, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Without thinking, I lunge at her and shove as hard as I can, and she goes backward into a bookshelf that almost falls over. I’ve pushed her back toward the door, and as everyone is still squealing and laughing and screaming “Psycho,” she runs out of the room. She has to squeeze by Kent. He’s just come in, probably to see what everyone’s screaming about.



We lock eyes for a moment. I can’t exactly tell what he’s thinking, but whatever it is, it’s not good. I look away, feeling hot and uncomfortable. Everyone’s buzzing with energy now, laughing and talking about Juliet, but my breathing won’t go back to normal and I feel the vodka burning my stomach, creeping back up my throat. The room is stifling, spinning faster than before. I have to get out for some air.



I try to push my way out of the room, but Kent gets in my face and blocks my way.



“What the hell was that about?” he demands.



“Can you let me by, please?” I’m not in the mood to deal with anyone, and I’m especially not in the mood to deal with Kent and his stupid button-down shirt.



“What did she ever do to you?”



I cross my arms. “I get it. You’re friends with Psycho. Is that it?”



He narrows his eyes. “Pretty clever nickname. Did you think of that all by yourself, or did your friends have to help you?”



“Get out of my way.” I manage to squeeze past him, but he grabs my arm.



“Why?” he says. We’re standing so close together I can smell that he’s just eaten peppermints and see the heart-shaped mole under his left eye, even though everything else is blurry. He’s looking at me like he’s desperate to understand something, and it’s worse, much worse than anything else so far—than Juliet or his anger or the feeling I’m going to be sick any second.



I try to shake his hand off my arm. “You can’t just grab people, you know. You can’t just grab me. I have a boyfriend.”



“Keep your voice down. I’m just trying to—”



“Look.” I succeed in shaking him off. I know I’m talking too loud and too fast. I know I sound hysterical, but I can’t help it. “I don’t know what your problem is, okay? I’m not going to go out with you. I would never go out with you in a million years. So you can stop obsessing over me. I mean, I shouldn’t even know your name.” The words fly out and it’s as though they strangle me on the way up: suddenly I can’t breathe.



Kent stares at me hard. Then he leans in even closer. For a second I think he’s going to try to kiss me and my heart stops.



But he just puts his mouth up to my ear and says, “I see right through you.”



“You don’t know me.” I jerk backward, shaking. “You don’t know one thing about me.”



He holds his hands up in surrender and backs off. “You’re right. I don’t.” He starts to turn away and mutters something else.



“What did you say?” My heart is pounding in my chest so hard I think it will explode.



He turns to look at me. “I said, ‘Thank God.’”



I spin around, wishing I hadn’t borrowed a pair of Ally’s heels. The room spins with me and I have to steady myself against the banister.



“Your boyfriend’s downstairs, puking in the kitchen sink,” Kent calls after me.



I give him the finger over my shoulder without turning around to see if he’s watching me, but I get the feeling he’s not.



Even before I go downstairs to see whether what Kent said about Rob is true, I know it: tonight isn’t the night after all. The combination of disappointment and relief is so overwhelming I have to hold on to the walls as I walk, feeling the stairs spiral up under me like they’re going to slip away any second. Tonight isn’t the night. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and be exactly the same, and the world will look the same, and everything will feel and taste and smell the same. My throat gets tight and my eyes start to burn, and all I can think in that moment is that it’s all Kent’s fault, Kent’s and Juliet Sykes’s.



Half an hour later the party starts to wind down. Inside, someone has ripped the Christmas lights off the wall and they’re trailing along the floor like a snake, lighting up the dust mites in the corners.



I’m feeling better now, more like myself. “There’s always tomorrow,” Lindsay said to me, when I told her about Rob, and I run the phrase over and over in my head like a mantra: There’s always tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow.



I spend twenty minutes in the bathroom, first washing my face and then reapplying makeup, even though my hands are unsteady and my face keeps doubling in the mirror. Every time I put on makeup it reminds me of my mother—I used to watch her bend over her vanity, getting ready for dates with my father—and it calms me down. There’s always tomorrow.



It’s the time of the night I like best, when most people are asleep and it feels like the world belongs completely to my friends and me, as though nothing exists apart from our little circle: everywhere else is darkness and quiet.



I leave with Elody, Ally, and Lindsay. The crowd is thinning as people take off, but it’s still hard to move. Lindsay keeps calling out, “Excuse me, excuse me, move it, feminine emergency!” Years ago we discovered at an under-eighteen concert in Poughkeepsie that nothing clears people faster than referencing a feminine emergency. It’s like people think they’ll catch it.



On our way out we pass people hooking up in corners and pressed against the stairwell. Behind closed doors we hear the muffled sounds of people giggling. Elody slams her fist against each door and yells out, “No glove, no love!” Lindsay turns around and whispers something to Elody, and Elody shuts up and looks at me guiltily. I want to tell them I don’t care—I don’t care about Rob or missing my chance—but I’m suddenly too tired to talk.



We see Bridget McGuire sitting on the edge of a bathtub with the door just cracked open. She has her head in her hands and she’s crying.



“What’s wrong with her?” I say, trying to fight the feeling of swimming in my own head, of my words coming from a distance.



“She dumped Alex.” Lindsay grabs on to my elbow. She seems sober, but her pupils are enormous and the whites of her eyes bloodshot. “You’ll never believe it. She found out that the Nic Nazi busted Alex and Anna together. He was supposed to be at a doctor’s appointment.” The music’s still going so we can’t hear Bridget, but her shoulders are shaking up and down like she’s convulsing. “She’ll be better off. Scumbag.”



“They’re all scumbags!” Elody says, raising her beer and spilling some of it. I don’t even think she knows what we’re talking about.



Lindsay takes her cup and sets it on a side table, on top of a worn copy of Moby Dick. She pockets a little ceramic figurine too: a shepherd with curly blond hair and painted eyelashes. She always steals something from parties. She calls them her souvenirs.



“She better not hurl in the Tank,” she says in a whisper, tipping her head back toward Elody.