The Girl Who Fell (2 page)

I prefer to believe my preference for remaining romantically unattached stems from the fact that I have a carefully mapped-out plan for my future, and there's no point in hijacking that with unnecessary dating drama now. The best boyfriend in the universe will be at Boston College. With me, next year. See? Perfect. Hooking up with a guy in Sudbury will only anchor me to a place I've wanted to escape since I was a freshman. So why can't I help but wonder . . .

If New Boy smells like oranges . . .

Has a British accent . . .

Plays sports . . .

Has secrets he'll tell only me?

When the bell rings, I jolt.

“Twitchy much?” Gregg jokes while gathering his books.

I stuff my books into my bag, stand, and force myself not to watch New Boy. I take one last look at the maple tree outside. The finch is gone. A spiral of panic swirls in my stomach. Nothing seems grounded lately.

And then Gregg's voice: “Zee, this is Alec.” I turn and New Boy appears from behind Gregg like a shadow.

My heart quickens. The classroom goes fuzzy around the edges, as if my brain is only capable of taking in this one boy and nothing else. I try to appear calm. “Hey.”

“Your name is Z?” he asks, with a distinct lack of British accent.

My pride ruffles. “Zephyr, actually.”

His eyes throw an apology. “What does it mean?”

“What does Alec mean?” I counter. I'm aware my reply is obnoxious, but that question has always annoyed me.

“It means ‘gentle breeze,' ” Gregg says. “But I called her Zipper until we were about seven.”

I redden.

“Her parents were hippies.” Gregg knows my family story almost as well as I do.

I think of my mother, stuck in her unmovable fierceness, and my father, God knows where right now, and I don't see a shred of hippie. “They were young,” I clarify. They were only nineteen when I was born. I can't imagine having a kid
next year
. Talk about hijacking college plans.

“Well, it's a cool name,” Alec says. Damn if my blush doesn't deepen. But something else. Does his face redden too?

“Alec's transferring from Phillips Exeter,” Gregg tells me.

My eyebrows knit. “To
here
?”

Alec laughs. “You don't approve?”

“No. I mean . . . it's just . . . why would you do that?”

“For Sudbury High's world-class foreign language program.” A smile plays at the corner of his mouth.

“Sorry, I just meant . . . Exeter is such a better school.”

Gregg laughs. “How long are you gonna dig this hole, Zeph? We've got a meeting with Coach.”

Alec's gaze dips to my chest and I flatten my bag against me like a shield. He lifts his eyes quickly, a blush definitely blooming. “Do you play? Um . . . field hockey.” It's impossible not to see his feet shift with embarrassment.

That's when I remember the emblem on my sweatshirt, the two field hockey sticks crossed in an X. Duh. I clear my throat. “Um, yeah. Forward.”

“Zeph's the captain of our field hockey team,” Gregg says.

“Cocaptain.”

“Still, the best Sudbury's seen,” Gregg adds.

Alec's eyes widen. “Impressive.”

His acknowledgement sends a shiver racing across my skin, like heat and ice tripping over one another.

“You playing this weekend?” Gregg asks.

“Thursday's our last game of the regular season.”

“I'll be there,” Gregg says as if this is news. He's never missed one of my games. “You coming to Waxman's kegger on Friday?”

“Probably.” Ronnie Waxman has a kegger every weekend. It's pretty much the apex of Sudbury's social scene.

“Come. You can help me show Alec around.”

Alec is cute and new. He won't need a tour guide. “Sure, but keep in mind, this is Suckbury. You're likely to be disappointed by local customs.”

Alec draws up the softest of shy smiles. “I don't know, I thought French would be lame.”

My heart hiccups.

“Look, we gotta see Coach. Let's roll.” Gregg slaps Alec's back before he slips out the door. The classroom empties except for me and Alec, and Mrs. Sarter wiping down the board as if it's an aerobic workout.

Alec takes a step back and motions for me to go ahead. “Ladies first.” He lowers his head as I pass, like I'm royalty. It makes me wonder if chivalry is standard private school curriculum.

Just as I'm through the door, I hear, “Zephyr actually?”

I spin to face Alec. I should respond with something brilliant but my voice betrays me.

“It was nice to meet you.” Alec's damn shy smile softens his every beautiful feature.

“Thanks.”
Thanks?
I can only imagine what Lizzie would say if she were here.
Not the most memorable first impression, Zee.
I manage a nod and dart down the hall thinking Alec's
Zephyr actually
was both adorable and clever. A dangerous mix.

When I get outside, Lizzie's waiting for me in the courtyard, sitting at our picnic table. Her cropped hair looks ice white in the sun as she hunches over the small spiral-bound notebook she clutches with two hands. She flips a page, reviewing the shorthand reporter code I have yet to break. This is her process, the way she decides what story will appear on the front page of the school's
Sudbury Sentinel
.

“This seat taken?” I sit, and swipe an impeccably julienned carrot from Lizzie's lunch bag.

Lizzie lowers her notebook with a sigh. “This place might kill me, Zee.”

“Dramatic much?”

“I'm serious. There is exactly nothing going on at this school. Unless I'm expected to use my professional genius to dissect the nutrients in the caf's tater tots or dig into the bizarre—and might I add—disturbing flirting rituals of some of Sudbury's faculty.”

“Please spare us that.”

Lizzie smiles, her face softening. “I need to get out of here.”

“You and me both.”

Lizzie and I have wanted to be free of small-town Sudbury since we met in fifth grade. She's always had plans to be a reporter in a big city. At twelve, she wore a fedora, complete with a tab of paper that screamed
PRESS
in orange crayon. While other kids played tag, Lizzie taught herself shorthand.

Me? A marine biologist working off the shores of Cape Cod. Or Cape Town.

Lizzie peers over her New York cool black-rimmed glasses. “I hear Sudbury's snagged itself a transfer student.” She squints, scans the crowd in the quad.

“Alec. He's in my French class.”

Her mood perks. “You met him? Any scoop there?”

“I'm not trained in human observation the way you are, Lizzie.” I pop the top of my Sprite and it hisses with release.

“Oh come on. There has to be something.”

I take a short sip. “He's friends with Gregg. Plays hockey. Moved here from a private school.”

Her smile winks. “But you weren't paying attention, right?”

“I guess some might say he's cute.”

“ ‘Cute' does not a headline make, Zee. Rumor has it he got expelled from his posh school for having a girl in his room.”

“I met him for, like, two seconds. It didn't really come up.”

Lizzie stretches out along the table. I envy the way she's always seemed so comfortable in her own skin. “But he's nice?”

“Like I said, our conversation wasn't deep. He could be a total player for all I know.”

“News flash: All guys are players. It's called having a Y chromosome.” Lizzie arches her neck toward the sun in a way I never could. Not without feeling everyone's eyes critiquing me. “Perhaps we should investigate. See if this boy is crush-worthy.”

“Not interested.”

“In him or any crush?”

“Come on, Lizzie. I've got, like, zero time for any of that. All that matters is getting my ass to Boston next year.”

She turns to narrow her eyes, study me. “Maybe. I mean, I get it. But we're here now and he might be an attractive prospect. He could help keep your mind off some things.”

I shoot her a look, one that warns she's going too far.

“I'm on your side, Zee.” She throws up her hands. “I just don't want you to shut out opportunity now because you're thinking a thousand steps ahead about how your heart might get hurt.”

Lizzie's been dating Jason since sophomore year. He's a year older and attends NYU. He comes home a lot, or she goes to New York. Each time they meet up it's like no time has passed between visits. I can't imagine getting lucky enough to share that depth of trust with another person. “And how is Alec an opportunity?”

“I'm not talking about Alec, Zee. I'm talking about taking chances. Making this year a little more than doing time.” Her voice softens. “It's our senior year, our last chance to do whatever we want without consequences. Promise me you'll at least be open to different. Whatever form it takes.”

I cringe at the thread of pity I hear in Lizzie's voice.

And her words don't leave me for the rest of the day. All through the grueling sprints of field hockey practice I can't wrestle free of Lizzie's advice: embrace different. But she doesn't get how hard
different
has been without Dad. I've kind of had my fill of different for a while.

Ugh. Maybe I have turned into a sad abandonment cliché.

By the end of the week nothing matters except winning our game. There's no room to think about crushes or Dad disappearing or Mom trying to hide how her world has detonated into a thousand shards.

“Huddle up!” Coach's sharpened-knife voice slices through the locker room, and we quickly round into one. I breathe in the scent of lemons and too much bleach, and the adrenaline skulking about, readying to be set free. The room smells like I feel. Bottled, reined in. I need air. And the space to run.

And then Coach's speech: “This is it, ladies. An entire season—an entire career for some of you—is waiting for its punctuation mark. Will it be a period? That small dot at the end of a sentence that the reader glazes over? Or will you leave this season with an exclamation mark? A long streak of ink that proclaims you as victors, unbeatable!” Coach doubles as Sudbury's freshman English teacher.

We bang the butts of our sticks against the concrete floor until Coach's hands quiet us.

“Focus hard. Feel your youth. Use it.”

It's her mantra. We all know it by heart and I am suddenly thankful for the things I can count on.

As if she knows what I'm thinking, she scans the room and I watch her trying to stamp this moment into her memory, fix it there like a photograph. Or maybe that's me.

Coach's face reddens then in the way I'm used to, all the blood rushing to her rallying call. “The word ‘lose' does not exist! Not in your wheelhouse! Do you understand?” Her words ricochet off the cement walls, their echo washing away the bleach and the lemons. Leaving room only for the pulsing adrenaline. “Get out there and win!” My heart resets, beating with the pregame intensity I've known in all of my four years at Sudbury. When we raise a collective cheer, our pooled enthusiasm climbs into me, shares my skin. It feels familiar and safe.

The room thunders with the beat of a thousand sticks smashing against the cement floor. I gather my gear and slam my locker, the sound of its tinny, hollow screech singular amid the noise. A sound I won't hear again after tonight. Unless we win. Unless we make it to the playoffs. And in this moment I realize I'm not willing to let go of Sudbury. Not yet. No part of me wants tonight to be my last night in this uniform. I tuck my mouth guard under the strap of my sports bra, feel the weight of a hand patting me on the back. Then another. I grab my cleats and in a terrifying flash I realize I'm not even sure who I'll be without my teammates—without field hockey. I draw that fear down, deep into my core.

I'll use that fear to win tonight.

Prolong the season.

Cool air sweeps over me as I exit the gym, the bright lights of the distant field marking our arena: a rectangle of cropped grass, regulation lines, and more hope than any space should be able to contain. It feels odd to realize I'll miss even these lights, these electric eyes that have been watching over me for four years. My stomach dips with unexpected sentiment just as I hear Gregg's call.

“Wait up, Five!” I turn, even though my jersey says 23. When I was a freshman, five wasn't available so Gregg suggested two numbers that add up to my lucky number. I've been 23 ever since.

Gregg jogs to me, his smile moon-wide.

“Hangin' around the girls' locker room, huh? It's kind of a creeper move.”

“Funny.” He bends into an almost-bow. “I'm here to carry your cleats.”

“Come again?”

“It's an epic night, Zeph. I thought I might have the honors.” He reaches for my cleats and my game shoes look small in his palms. A wash of gratitude feathers over my skin.

We head toward the field, my feet bare except for socks. It's the only way I've ever walked to a game. Ever since the first time I played for Sudbury when I was running late and the Junior Varsity coach yelled me out of the locker room before I had all my gear on. I scored two goals that night. Got promoted to Varsity three games later. The cold pavement seeps through my socks and licks at my toes, but it only energizes me. Baseball players aren't the only ones who hold on to their superstitions like lifelines.

“You psyched?” Gregg asks.

“Um, kind of petrified.”

He thrusts out his arm, stops me short. “Why?”

I stare into the washed blue of his eyes and my worry forces itself out of my rib cage. “This could be my last game for Sudbury. Or my last field hockey game ever. What if I fuck it up? What if we lose?” There are so many unknowns next year. What if I'm predisposed to bailing on all that's important to me—like Dad? What if I let the team down? “What if—”