The Girl Who Fell (28 page)

My fingers scratch into his neck, feverishly pulling him closer. I feel the door open behind me and we fold into the car, stretching across the back seat. He raises his fingers to my face and traces the line of my bottom lip. “You are mine, Zephyr Doyle.”

His words are a frightening and precious brand. A promise.

His lips fill my ears with
thank yous
and
I love yous
and
I would have done the same for yous
. I can't believe for a minute I questioned making a different choice.

We connect in our practiced dance, but this time things are different. Our bond is deeper. Something I could not have dreamed possible even yesterday.

And I understand what Alec means when he talks about sacrificing for someone you love, really love. How it proves your feelings in an exponential, inarguable way. In a way that words never could.

I just had no idea sacrifice could feel so good.

A blue curbside mailbox—its mouth hinging open and swallowing up my certainty—is the new symbol of love. The world can have its paper hearts and glitter. I have my signature in ink, my future with Alec. And there is an atmosphere of difference between the me of yesterday and the me that has committed to a boyfriend in the way that I have. In this new reality, there is no rainfall, no doubt, only me and Alec and my deepest heart.

This push into a new world somehow manages to make even the jungle-like Sudbury High cafeteria less annoying. Like I'm physically here with Lizzie while the best part of me remains with Alec.

Maybe my spanning two worlds is the reason I don't see Gregg until he twists one of the chairs at our table, straddles it backward.

“What up, Five? Dizzy Lizzie?” Gregg scores an orange slice from Lizzie, pops it in his mouth as he tosses her a shiny wink.

“Noggin looks good,” Lizzie says.

“Yeah, are you sure you even had a concussion?” I say.

Gregg taps on his head. “Nothing to slow me down.”

“Can you play hockey?” Lizzie. Her finger forever on the newsbeat pulse.

“Verdict's still out, but I'll work my charms.”

If anyone can charm doctors despite their infallible X-rays, it's Gregg.

Gregg raises his chin to a kid walking past, his signature silent hello. It strikes me as strange how I know all Gregg's gestures. Can you even unknow something? Someone?

Lani saunters over to our table and sits on Gregg's knee. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek with all the intention of a branding iron.

Lizzie clears her throat, kicks my leg.
Awkward.

“What are you kids talking about?” Lani asks.

Gregg shoots me the briefest look and there's something distant there. It's too quick to identify fully. “I've got strict instructions from my mother to make sure Zeph is coming to Anna's wedding.”

“Is she bringing Alec?” Lani asks Gregg, even though I'm sitting right here.

Gregg drapes that dark look on me again. A dare? “I doubt it. She's coming with her mom. They're family friends.”

Only then does Lani drop a condescending pucker my way. “Well, I'm sure you'll have a swell time with your mom, Zephyr.”

“Are you going?” I ask her.

Something uncomfortable exchanges between her and Gregg and she shifts off his lap. “Come on, let's go sit at our table.” I interpret her nonanswer as a no.

Gregg rights his chair and tucks it under the lip of our table. A bolt of shock ripples through me when Gregg bends to my ear, so close. So unexpected.

“How am I doing?” His whisper almost disappears before reaching me.

“With what?”

The faintest response. “Acting like I'm over you.”

A small metal marble pinballs within my chest, banging and clanging against all the routes inside of me. Setting off bells.

When Gregg stands, he bumps right into Alec.

They exchange the requisite jock fist bump and I see Lani staring at me. Like she's seeing me for the first time. Then she pulls Gregg away and Alec lifts me from my chair. He kisses me so hard he thrusts me against the windowed walls of the cafeteria. He presses me there, his body fusing into mine. I can't slip breath into the space between us, his hands locking my hips in the puzzle of his.

I raise my hands to his chest, try to push him back. But he kisses me harder and there is a slip of time before I hear the chanting, the swell of cheers for me and Alec to
Do It, Do It, Do It
. I pull my lips from Alec's and shove hard against him. The caf lets out a collective, disgruntled
Boo!
At our table, Lizzie's trying to keep her jaw attached to her skull, but then there's Gregg, watching. Except it is not Gregg. He has morphed into a boy built of smoke and fire.

“What was that?” I ask Alec.

He blushes, leans into me. “Um . . . a kiss.”

My voice hushes with not wanting the entire G block lunch crowd to hear my frustration. “Was that totally necessary? Here?”

Alec steps back, searches my eyes. “You never had a problem with me kissing you before.”

“Yeah, well. You've never used a kiss to basically claim me in front of the entire school.”

Alec's face falls wounded and I see his insecurities. How he saw me with Gregg. A trigger for his own self-doubt. I reach for his hand but he shrugs me off. “I'll give you your space.”

“Alec, don't.”

But he is already turned away, heading toward the door.

“Damn,” Lizzie says when I return to the table.

“The kiss?”

“No. The boys.” She nods to the door where Alec's exiting and then back at Gregg's table. “You know you've got a problem there, right?”

I do. But it's not the one I thought I had.

•  •  •

I run through the woods, past the park, down the side streets of Sudbury where quiet families live in quieter homes. All the while, I'm chased by this new, darker version of Alec. The one who marked me with his mouth, his hands. For everyone to see. It is impossible to outrun him. And even harder to escape Gregg's words. Or the wild look he aimed at me.

It is late by the time I return home and so dark that the slice of moon is already pinned to dusk's canvas. The bright windows of our house beacon like a lighthouse and wash away the fog of boy haunting. My body cools as I walk the driveway. I walk past the mailbox without opening it and my thoughts calm under the weight of physical fatigue.

Inside, Mom has an entire bag of potting soil dumped onto the kitchen island. “Everyone's getting new nutrients.” Her gardening version of hello. I know this potter's musical chairs. Plants in small pots get moved to bigger pots. Their roots find room to spread and grow. Tender shoots get rooted into the tiny pots and we end up with more green in the house, more oxygen in the air.

“Lucky them.” I grab a water and she turns to kiss me, her dirt-stained hands never leaving their station.

“How was school?”

“Good,” I lie. “I'm gonna shower.”

“I'm not cooking tonight.” She spreads her gaze across the island by way of excuse. “But we could order something. Thai food, maybe? We haven't done that in a while.”

“Sounds good. After I get cleaned up.” I resurvey her mess. “And you too.”

“One should never outgrow playing in the dirt.”

I laugh, but in the shower I try my hardest to wash off the dirt. The layer of dust Alec scattered with his too-hard very public kiss. The film of Gregg's words, clinging to me like sin.

I don't get dressed right away. I wrap myself in a towel and fall onto my bed. I focus on the tiny glowing stars glued to my ceiling. I remember the sixth grade versions of me and Lizzie pasting every sticker onto my indoor sky. I remember it like it was yesterday and it seems impossible how time refuses to follow rules. It claims to be linear, but it can bend and slip in too many ways. Parts of me want to be in sixth grade again, when things were easy. Next year was just next year and friends were friends. The past turns my head to the side, to the pictures of my friends from when time was predictable.

Gregg. Lizzie. My father holding me on my first day home from the hospital. My first field hockey uniform at twelve. My first visit to Boston College. The newspaper photo of me winning State. Finn as a pup. My eyes retreat. Return to the newspaper photo of me at State. It is graffiti-marked with the red strokes of a pen.

Thick red marker.

Four capital letters. Block letters. Painstakingly perfect.

And deadly.

SLUT

In the photo under this word, my post-win smile is smeared with the S of the word. S-L-U-T. My brain blurs the letters, wondering if I've read them in the wrong order. Or maybe I've imagined them. I shake my head clear. But the letters remain. All four. Standing at attention. In their persistent order.

My chest fills with more air than it can hold, or maybe not enough. It makes my brain spin. Who would do this? And why? How? I look for the joke, want to see it, but instead I see my full name, my signature in the bottom corner.
Zephyr Marie Doyle
. Every floating curve of my letters, even the capital Z and the way I draw a line through the middle. My handwriting. Gregg's red sharpie.

I rip the clipping from my wall, the tack tearing a jagged line through the thin paper. I crumple it into a pea even as it grows to a boulder within my fist. And in the space I've just cleared, the collage photo under this clipping is the one of me and Gregg at Mara's christening. Summer sun freckles my face, Gregg at my side. Except only his hand remains. Gregg has been torn from the photo. Leaving me in a blue sundress and a smile too innocent.

Time stiches, distorts my reality. I don't know how many eternities have passed before I go to the kitchen. The island still holds a volcano of dirt, but Mom's hands are clean and she's putting on her coat. “I ordered our usual. I'm on my way to pick it up now. I'd ask you to come, but . . .”

I look to my middle, where Mom's trained her gaze. I'm still in my towel. “Mom, was there . . . did you see . . . did anyone stop by for me today?”

Her brow creases. “No, why?”

“No reason.” I squeeze the pea of newspaper smaller in my grip.

“I'll be back in fifteen. Set the table?”

I nod and Mom's out the door with Finn, his whole body eager for the ride that holds endless possibilities. I wait for a beat before ducking out to check the key rock. The key huddles there, silver and small and completely unaware of its role in derailing my life. The cold outside is so cold that I want to stay here forever. Let the elements freeze my hair, then my blood, then my skin.

Instead, I scribble a note to Mom that I'm not feeling well, that I'm skipping dinner, that I need some sleep. The words smudge with dirt, mocking my illusion that anything in life is controllable. I crawl into my room, crawl into myself, a turtle retreating into its shell. I want to call Lizzie but can't imagine how to tell her what's happened. I can't show her the photo or the red devil ink that pierced “SLUT” onto paper. Talking about this with anyone would make it too real. Realer than the real of right now, and I can't carry that weight.

And I can't call Gregg to ask him why he'd hurt me like this. Did he come over here after he saw Alec kiss me in the caf? He knows where the key is. Finn would have let him in—been thrilled to see him, even. And Gregg used his red autograph Sharpie to make sure I knew it was him.

Gregg had to sneak into my house.

Slip into my room.

Brand his jealousy onto paper—a paper I signed and gave especially to him.

Pin it to my wall.

Know that it would crush me.

When Mom comes to check on me I look half dead. Because I am.

She raises the back of her hand to my forehead, tells me to get some rest. I nod, slink deeper under my covers. But when I hear her bathwater filling, I sneak into the kitchen and grab my coat. I text Lizzie:
Now

I slip outside and jog to the end of my driveway, where I've instructed Lizzie to meet me.

I'm halfway to my full escape when my phone buzzes. I study the small screen, the way the words are too fuzzy. Too jumpy. Untamable under my tears.

Alec:
Where are you?

Gotta do this thing with L.
It's a carefully selected portion of the truth.

See me instead.

Not tonight.

Why?

Because the tectonic plates of my world have shifted.
Tomorrow. Promise.

Tonight.

Can't.

I see Lizzie's car and feel annoyed by Alec's persistence when there's something so much more important I need to do.

“Why all the clandestine?” Lizzie asks when I pull on my seat belt.

“I need to talk to Gregg.” No, yell at Gregg. Sever this so-called friendship once and for all.

Lizzie looks at me sideways. “No offense, Zee, but you look like shit.”

I rein in my anger, try not to give too much away. “Not really a major concern right now.”

She eyes me suspiciously. “What's going on? Does this have anything to do with the lunchroom today? Am I missing something?”

I can't tell Lizzie where any of this came from or why. I only know who.

“Maybe we should talk about it. Before you see Slice.”

“I appreciate the offer but this only concerns Gregg.”

She hesitates. “Okay, if that's what you want.”

“It's what I need.” And I hear the darkness in my voice, how I'm losing the ability to control my emotions.

But as Lizzie drives I secretly hope she will get lost. That she won't remember her way to Waxman's. Then I won't have to confront Gregg. I won't have to admit to another person that I've been leveled.