We All Fall Down

by Natalie D. Richards

  “Okay, so evaluating the first set of results and then the library for records?” she asks.

  “That’s the plan. We should probably start on the presentation structure.”

  “Ugh, I hate that medium. We need something more than statistics and slides if we’re going to stand out. What about a video?”

  “For water research?” I wrinkle my nose. “Seems a little tedious for video.”

  “Which means it will be twice as tedious if we don’t find a way to make it interesting. I can find some videos of the river, the treatment plant…maybe some of the old factories. We can do voice-over with some of the historical information and statistics. Think of it… It will look like a news segment and a science project.”

  I pause, resisting a cringe. I don’t know anything about video work. That kind of technology has never been my strong suit. But how do I say that to a girl who speaks three languages and has earned awards in a variety of academic clubs back in Chicago?

  Melanie touches my arm, giving me a smile that I’m sure is meant to make me feel better. “I can totally take on this portion! I’ve got a great multimedia team on my school website. We do stuff like this all the time.”

  “I guess I can focus on the labs and statistics then.”

  “See?” She links her arm with mine, her slim gold bracelet cool against my wrist. “We’re a perfect team.”

  We are a good team. Melanie is the star of the show, and I’m usually more than happy to stay behind the scenes. And we’re friends—or something like it, at least. Sometimes when I’m around her, I think I could be as successful as she is.

  Melanie sighs. “I was hoping for better cutting-edge lab equipment. Maybe I should have gone with the urban sustainability program at Duke.”

  Then, there are times like this. When it’s crystal clear that Melanie and I come from very different worlds and have very different futures.

  “I’ll start on the chemical tests today,” I say, eager to bring the topic back to what we have in common.

  “I doubt we’ll find much on a chemical level. They’d already find most of that at the water plant where the water is filtered. Anything alarming would probably have made news.”

  That catches my attention. “Water company executives would be the most likely people to hide that kind of information. Look at what happened in Flint, Michigan.”

  “True…”

  Her voice trails off, and I think it’s because she’s working out a response, but her gaze moves right past me, and the vague appreciation in her eyes tells me that someone is behind me. And the someone is both male and attractive.

  “Paige?”

  I turn as I hear his voice, my fingers uncurling from the fists I hadn’t known I’d been holding. He’s cleaned up from the last time I saw him, freshly showered and sporting a new scrape down one of his shins. It should feel terrible and scary seeing him here.

  Mostly, it feels like coming home.

  Theo

  Six years. That’s what I’m thinking while we stand here on the sidewalk—me, Paige, and the girl I don’t know. I’m not introducing myself because I’m still caught up in the fact that I was joined at the hip with Paige for six freaking years, and I somehow never noticed how perfect her face is, freckles and pointy chin and soft lips and—

  I punched that face. I aimed at an asshole and somehow hit the only person on the planet I really give a damn about. What the hell is wrong with me?

  “What are you doing here?” Paige asks. Probably because I’m not saying anything. I’m standing here, hands in my pockets, staring like an idiot. Her friend—cute girl with an expensive-looking smile—nudges her shoulder, singsonging her name.

  “Oh, sorry,” Paige says, gesturing at me. “Melanie, this is Theo. Theo, this is Melanie.”

  “Hey, nice to meet you,” I say, and then, because we’re all standing around awkward as can be… “I’m sorry. Do you have a second?”

  “I’m on my way to the lab,” Paige says.

  “Ah, I had something I wanted to ask you about.”

  “You couldn’t have called?” she asks.

  She probably wouldn’t have answered, and I give her a look that says as much. Her face washes pink under her freckles. Melanie waves her hands at us.

  “Don’t worry. I can get our experiment started. I’ll tell Dr. Lutmer you ran back for notes. We’ll meet up after?”

  “I’ll only be a minute.”

  When we’re alone, Paige’s guard slams up, her arms crossing over her chest. “You probably shouldn’t be here.”

  “I know. I know. And I’m sorry. I should’ve called, but I didn’t think you’d answer.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have,” she admits. She looks tired.

  “Are you sleeping all right?”

  She laughs harshly. “Why is everyone obsessed with my sleeping?” Then she sighs. “Sorry. Things are… My mom found out I ran into you.”

  “I bet that went super well.”

  She smirks. “Definitely not super well. And if Melanie gets chatty about meeting you, it could get a lot worse.”

  I cringe. “Melanie knows about me?”

  She shakes her head. “No. Mom wouldn’t—she tries not to talk about it. Because she still thinks I’m a mess. She wants me to go home. To recover.”

  She doesn’t have to use air quotes, because we both already know her mom’s deal. Nice enough lady, but cut the apron strings already. I cock my head. “How the hell is she going to handle it when you get in at NYU or something?”

  Paige laughs. “At some point, are you going to loop back to your original question?”

  My whole chest goes warm. She used to say that to me, whenever I’d be prattling on and on, totally forgetting whatever I was getting to in the first place. Squirreling around is what she called it.

  She fights back the smile, but I can still see it in her eyes. And I see more than that. I see the shadow of how she looked at me when I didn’t bother to notice, or care. But I care now—now that it’s too late to matter.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers, and I can’t help but step closer.

  “I know.”

  I’m itching to touch her. Reaching. I shove my hands into my pockets. Because I can’t. The last time my hands were on her, I ruined everything.

  “Why did you come?” she asks.

  I shake myself. “You mentioned finding something from the party. Was it on the bridge?”

  “The walking bridge?”

  I nod and lick my lips. “I think something weird is going on. On the bridge. Remember how I told you about that lock with our initials?”

  She tenses, and I get it. It’s certifiably nuts. But screw it.

  “The lock is weird, right? I mean, it shouldn’t be there, and—” I stop because I can’t tell her the lock with our initials is some kind of lucky magic charm that makes the weird voices go quiet. I mean, all of this is crazy, and that makes me sound like a creeper.

  I glance around, making sure no one’s close. “Thing is, Paige, I think something’s wrong with that bridge. Something supernatural. I know you don’t believe in stuff like that, but ever since that night…I’ve heard voices. Even smelled things. All from the party.”

  “You’ve smelled things.”

  “Yes. I know it sounds crazy.”

  She exhales, and I can tell she doesn’t know what to make of this. Hell, I don’t know what to make of it, so I wait her out.

  “Theo, what I found was nowhere near the bridge. My dad found it on his shoe in my dorm room.”

  Huh. Didn’t see that coming. I palm the back of my neck. “Did he walk on the bridge?”

  She looks down. “I really need to go.”

  “Okay, I just wanted to check. It’s weird and…” I don’t want to use the word scary, but it’s
the only one that fits. So I shift gears. “I’m working on the bridge for Denny. Christmas light duty, if you can believe that.”

  “What about the strip mall?”

  “Denny assigned the other guys to finish it up. He won a bid to hang lights and do some walkway improvements before the bicentennial. You always said the bridge needed work, right?”

  She grimaces. “You’re climbing around that thing?”

  “Well, with a safety harness,” I say, which is actually a lie at this point, but intentions and all. “I’ll be good.”

  She glances over her shoulder, at the direction Melanie headed, but she looks reluctant. Like maybe she doesn’t want to leave. Or maybe I’m desperate for her company and deluding myself. Probably that.

  “I’ll let you go,” I force myself to say. “I guess I wanted you to know about the bridge. I thought maybe whatever you found—”

  “An earring,” she says. “I found an earring I lost at the party.”

  I feel sick so fast it makes my stomach cramp. I can see her clear as day on that plastic chair, one silvery earring tangled in her hair. The other gone, because of me.

  “I’m sorry I came,” I say, my voice breaking. “I should have called.”

  “It’s okay. I should get to the lab.”

  “Yeah, of course.” I turn to leave and hear her feet scuff on the sidewalk.

  “Theo?”

  “Yeah?”

  Her face is all screwed up like she’s chewing on whatever she wants to say. Trying to hold in the words maybe, but she finally blurts out a sigh. “Eat something, will you? You’re too thin. Whatever meds you’re on…”

  I laugh like an idiot. I can’t help it. I don’t even want to help it. I want to stand here forever watching her worry about me.

  • • •

  Three hard knocks on the bedroom wall wake me up. I flop off the half-deflated air mattress and hit the wooden floor. There’s a slant of light in an open doorway, and Denny’s long, dark shadow spills across it.

  “Gonna hit eighty-nine today,” he says.

  I scrub a hand over my face. “And I need to know this right now?”

  “If you want to get in any work before the metal on the bridge turns into a skillet you do.”

  I sigh up at the dark ceiling. I don’t give a crap about the bridge. It’s oh-dark-thirty, and the mattress is still inflated enough that my hip bone wasn’t jabbing into the floor yet. Plus, I was actually sleeping, which is pretty unusual at this point.

  His toe nudges my shoulder, none too gently. “Get your ass out of bed, Sleeping Beauty.”

  “I’m up.”

  I’m not actually up for ten more minutes, but that’s all spite. It wouldn’t matter if I stayed here all day; I’m not going back to sleep.

  By ten till five I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Denny’s truck, looking baleful, I’m sure. I hook one hand through the armrest so I don’t slide into him and pop a handful of pills into my mouth with the other. I swallow them with a drink of coffee so hot it scalds my throat all the way down. That’s when I really start to wake up. That’s also when it hits me that I don’t want to be on this bridge in the dark.

  I squirm on the seat and stare out the passenger window as Denny smokes his morning cigarette and steers us past dark houses and shops that look like skeletal remains in the strange light before dawn. He takes the same road I took with Paige, and I squeeze my eyes shut until he parks against the curb.

  “Denny, you know the bridge crap? Have you ever felt anything creepy up there?”

  “What, like a ghost?” He turns to me, the vinyl seat croaking in protest. “Did you take one of those damn tours? I don’t need you to start spooking over every scary story.”

  I wrench the door handle open, shaking my head. “Forget it, man.”

  “Theo,” he says gruffly, and then he takes a long drag off his cigarette without looking at me. Makes me wonder if I imagined him saying it. “People only see strange things when they are looking for trouble. So don’t look for it.”

  I turn back, and Denny’s face is a dark smear under a green hat. My mind fills in strange features, eyes that aren’t right, a mouth of sharpened teeth. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I shake my head. I’m being stupid. A kid seeing monsters in the closet.

  Denny loosens his grip on the steering wheel, and the spell is broken.

  “But people do see strange stuff. What do you think is behind it? You think it’s a ghost?” I ask.

  “I don’t know about ghosts. I think it’s something to do with all those damn locks. Forever love bullshit.” He scoffs. “I know half a dozen guys who’ve got a lock on that bridge, and we’re all single. Half the guys I know think those locks are a curse. Probably crazy, but if you put too much stock in those kind of superstitions, it can mess with you. Still, we’re going to piss off a lot of people who think otherwise.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We’re cutting off the locks. The ones on the rails at least.”

  He gets out of the truck and I follow suit, closing my door with my shoulder. We’re cutting the locks off. Maybe it’s not the worst idea. If the superstition in those locks is causing all the haunting problems, getting rid of them might be a solution.

  Except that the lock with my initials has been useful. If anything, it holds the worst of this bad stuff down.

  At the top of the ramp, Denny is at a dead stop.

  I dodge left, barely missing a collision with his back. “What is it?”

  “You tell me.” He turns to me, the red cherry of his cigarette glowing. “Because I’m pretty sure she isn’t out here to visit me.”

  He nods at the bridge. I see her immediately, dressed in a ratty T-shirt and shorts—sleeping clothes. She’s not moving.

  Chills climb up my sides, rib by rib.

  She shouldn’t be here dressed like this, standing so still. Wouldn’t be here at all in any normal situation. I can’t even think of an abnormal situation that would find Paige standing on the bridge at five-thirty in the morning, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.

  Paige

  Everything is soft and blurry when Theo touches my shoulder. I don’t know exactly where we are or what we’re doing, but it’s all right. I can’t make out what he’s saying though. He’s speaking so softly. Like maybe I’m upset. Am I?

  I wake up like I’ve been doused with cold water, gasping. My eyes water in the sudden, glaring details of consciousness. My surroundings come into focus. I’m cold. I’m outside. Someone’s touching me.

  Theo.

  He’s here, hands on my shoulders. The smell of fish and rot. I close my mouth and taste blood.

  And then I scream.

  “Paige,” he says softly.

  It quiets me, my scream gurgling into nothing. No more blood on my tongue, but I can smell it, sharp and coppery. My hip bumps the rail, and I look down, down, down. Shiny tar-colored water gushes fifty feet below. I can’t breathe. Can’t. Breathe.

  Theo’s fingers brush my elbow. “How about one slow breath. Just one. Nice and slow.”

  He says it like always. It’s been months since he’s pulled me out of a panic attack. It feels like no time at all. Because he still knows how. I close my eyes.

  “One slow one,” he says again so softly. “Nice and easy.”

  His fingers are rough and warm. It grounds me to this strange world where I am outside and barefoot and with Theo. Nothing here makes sense, except the part where I’m with him and he’s calming me. He’s been my safety net many times.

  “One more breath maybe?” His voice is an anchor. I shouldn’t cling, but I do, edging closer to him. Closer to his warmth.

  “You’re okay, Paige,” he says. His words break a dam I’ve spent four months creating to hold us apart.

  I nudge my shoul
der against his, and my emotions spill over. I feel his forehead drop to the crown of my head. Another shaky breath. His or mine, I don’t know. But I feel so much better.

  His hands shake on my arms, but I soak in the touch. I’ve craved this. His jittering and twitching and talking and…him. I missed him. He is Theo and I am Paige and this is us. And it wasn’t always bad.

  I scoot a baby step closer. My bare feet scrape against the rough wood, and my stomach shrinks. Reality rolls me under again.

  I’m barefoot on the bridge in the middle of the night. How am I here?

  “I don’t know,” Theo says, so I must have asked it out loud.

  “I was in bed. I wasn’t here,” I say. And then, “How did you find me?”

  “Working here, remember? Have you been sleepwalking again?” He says it right into my hair, our shoulders angled together like two walls meeting in the corner of a room.

  I want to say no, but I start crying instead. It’s humiliating, because I know he must be right. Sleepwalking is a stress symptom for me. Since I was little. If my mother knew, if she had any idea, she’d rip me out of this summer program so quickly. But I’m doing better. I’m better now.

  I don’t want to go back to being that terrified girl anymore.

  I push away from Theo, and he looks as gaunt as I remember from earlier. His hand is still hovering midair, where I’d pulled out of his embrace. I feel even colder now. More frightened.

  “I wouldn’t have walked this far,” I say randomly, only I don’t know if it’s true. My father found me in the backseat of the car once when I was nine years old. Three in the morning, and they woke up when they heard the front door open and close. Found me sitting there, staring dead ahead. I don’t remember, but I remember them talking about it in therapy.

  “You sure?” Theo asks.

  I’m not, so I don’t answer. I cross my arms over my chest, shivering. Theo tugs off his sweatshirt and hands it over. I feel like I should argue, but I don’t. I pull it on and breathe in the smell of bacon grease and construction and old cigarettes. Denny’s house.