The Way We Fall

by Crewe, Megan

  We were sitting in my room with Fossey and Mowat bouncing around like they do, when Fossey knocked over my coyote notebook. Meredith picked it up and flipped through the pages.

  “Cool!” she said, seeing my sketches. “Are you writing about dogs?”

  “There’s a family of coyotes living in the forested area north of the harbor,” I said. “I’ve been watching them and writing down what they do.”

  “Are they dangerous?” she asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “I have to be extra careful if I want to see them, they’re so scared of me.”

  She looked up with her eyes wide. “Could I see them too?” she said. “Can you take me?”

  I’ve always gone by myself, but I thought maybe I should share the things that are important to me with other people more. Meredith was so excited, like we’d be on a real expedition. How could I say no?

  Everything went perfectly. We walked out to the forest, and I showed Meredith the spot on the hill between two fir trees where I like to watch, because the breeze usually blows my scent away from the den instead of toward it. The sun was beaming, the grass smelling warm and green as if fall’s still far away. We lay down on our stomachs, and after a few whispered questions Meredith stayed so quiet I could have forgotten she was there.

  For a little while I was worried we wouldn’t see anything. Then the parents and the pups, which are almost fully grown now, trotted back to the den from their day of hunting or scavenging. The pups started play-fighting. I saw more than I do most days when I’m on my own. I kind of kicked myself for not bringing the notebook along, but we weren’t really there for me.

  On the way home, I told Meredith about the first time I saw a coyote. You’d remember, Leo. The day Mom took you and me and Drew out to pick blueberries, when we were five and he was six. At one point I looked up and saw a coyote standing a few feet away, watching me. I still remember those dark yellow eyes.

  It’s a good memory now, but back then I was terrified. I thought the coyote was going to eat me. I turned to yell for Mom, and the coyote flinched, spun around, and dashed away.

  “But why would the coyote be scared?” Meredith asked.

  “Because people hurt them a lot more than they hurt us,” I said. “We assume we know everything about animals, like that certain ones are mean; but if you pay attention, you realize they’re just looking out for themselves like we do.”

  Meredith couldn’t stop talking about the coyotes after we got home, like seeing them had been the most amazing thing ever. I had no idea Dad was upset until after Uncle Emmett picked her up. He called me into the living room, with that stern expression Drew and I call his scientist face.

  “I don’t think you should take Meredith to the coyote den again,” he said.

  “What?” I said. After seeing how happy she was, I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right.

  “She’s nine years younger than you,” he said. “She doesn’t understand how important it is to be careful around wild animals. You know there’ve been reports of coyotes attacking kids in other places.”

  “Only with kids a lot younger than Meredith,” I said. “I was showing her how to be careful. She’s—”

  He cut me off. “We’re not discussing this any further,” he said, as if it’d been much of a discussion in the first place. “There are lots of other things the two of you can do.”

  And then he walked off into his study.

  You know my dad—he’s always been supportive of me studying animals. And I started going out to observe the coyotes on my own when I was only a little older than Meredith. I don’t see why he’d be so worried now.

  Maybe he’s not really upset about the coyotes, just stressed out by whatever was bothering him before. I’ll have to talk to him again later, when he’s in a better mood.

  Rachel’s dad was raced to the hospital last night.

  I found out when I got to school this morning. A bunch of people were already talking about him—in hushed voices, but loud enough that I heard Shauna, who sits behind me in homeroom, say the words “psycho” and “ambulance” after Rachel’s name.

  Normally I’d have waited for Mackenzie to show up and gotten her to fill me in. Even when we were kids, Shauna would wrinkle her nose when I brought in tadpoles to show the class, and snickered if I turned up at school with bits of grass on my clothes, which wasn’t unusual. But I figured the new Kaelyn wouldn’t let a little nastiness years ago stop me from finding out what’d happened, so I swiveled in my chair and asked, “What’s going on?”

  Shauna did a double take, as if she couldn’t believe I’d actually spoken to her. Her eyebrows rose into perfect arches. “You mean you don’t know?” she said. I guess she assumed since I hang out with Rachel, I should be in the loop already.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, and a couple of Shauna’s friends giggled. But it didn’t really matter, because right then Mackenzie slid into her seat beside me. I turned toward her, hoping my face hadn’t flushed dark enough to show.

  “Pretty freaky, isn’t it?” Mackenzie said.

  “What?” I said. “I haven’t heard yet.”

  “Rachel’s dad,” she said, and lowered her voice. “He went totally crazy last night. Woke up the whole street at two in the morning, banging on the backyard fence and shouting.”

  “Shouting about what?” I asked. I remembered how he’d acted last week, and suddenly I felt shivery inside. So he hadn’t been drunk after all. There was something really wrong with him.

  “No one knows!” Mackenzie said. “He kept going on about how he had to stop ‘them,’ but nobody was there! At least that’s what I’ve heard. Someone called the police, and they brought a doctor to sedate him. Apparently he got sick with the flu after he broke his leg. My mom studied to be a nurse, you know—she said if your temperature goes high enough, you can get delusional, so maybe that’s what happened. I mean, why else would he act so freaky?”

  I could have told her the things he’d said last Thursday. But chances are Mackenzie wouldn’t keep her mouth shut, and Rachel and her mom must be stressed out enough without me adding to the gossip.

  “How’s Rachel handling it?” I said. “I haven’t seen her today.”

  “Me neither,” Mackenzie said. “Looks like she stayed home, or maybe she’s at the hospital. I can’t blame her. I’d take any excuse I could to skip.”

  I hope Rachel’s all right. I kept wondering about her and her dad all day, but I didn’t want to call in case I interrupted her at a bad time. When I got home, it occurred to me that Dad might have heard something. Even though he’s at the new ocean research center now, he still hangs out with some of the people he used to work with at the hospital.

  After dinner he was sitting in the living room with one of his Sudoku books. When I came over, he looked up and said, “Kae. How are you feeling?”

  He’s been saying that instead of “How are you?” since our summer visit here last year, when I got a bad fever and had to spend two days in the hospital. I could understand for the first week or so, but now it’s kind of annoying. Like he figures I might still not be over one little bout of food poisoning.

  “All good,” I said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  But before I could go on, Drew dashed in and grabbed the TV remote. He had that determined look he always gets when he’s about to push the issue. Dad obviously noticed too, because his shoulders stiffened up.

  “Great episode of Queer as Folk on rerun tonight,” Drew said as he turned on the TV. “Can’t wait!”

  Dad glared down at his book. “Maybe your sister would like to watch something else,” he said, as if I wanted to be pulled into their passive-aggressive wrangling.

  “Then she should have called dibs,” Drew said. “Hey, you know how I helped build that petition website for same-sex marriage rights in North America? We’ve got more than a thousand names already. Pretty cool, eh?”

&nbs
p; “Ah,” Dad said, shifting his Sudoku book and raising his pencil, “the seven goes here.”

  The show’s opening came on, and Drew flopped onto the couch. “Amazing how they managed to fit so many hot guys into one show,” he said, turning up the volume.

  Dad broke sooner than he usually does. He got up and stalked out of the room. Drew rolled his eyes.

  You’d think, given how smart Dad is about science and medicine, he wouldn’t be quite so stupid about Drew being gay. But he acts like the idea of having a son who’s attracted to guys is so inconceivable he can’t even acknowledge it. I doubt he’d have agreed to look for a job on the island so quickly when Mom suggested moving back if he hadn’t walked in on Drew making out with his best guy “friend” a few months before. And Drew, of course, is determined to shove it in his face until…until he forces Dad into a total meltdown? I don’t know what he expects to happen.

  I realize Drew’s completely in the right, but sometimes I want to scream at both of them.

  Even if Dad had gotten over his bad mood from yesterday, I had a feeling his “conversation” with Drew made it come back. It didn’t seem like a good time to bug him with a bunch of questions. At least Rachel’s dad is being looked after now. I’ll probably hear all about his recovery in school tomorrow.

  Rachel wasn’t in school again. No word about her dad.

  Mackenzie didn’t seem to think her being absent was a big deal, but I couldn’t imagine Rachel skipping school two days in a row unless her dad was pretty much dying—and someone would have been talking about it if his condition was that bad. This is the same girl who argued that she didn’t need to go home after puking her guts out during last year’s English exam, after all.

  Rachel’s never said anything, but I suspect there isn’t enough money for her to go to college unless she gets a good scholarship. Her dad just has the fishing, which isn’t going well for anyone these days, and her mom doesn’t work at all. It’s got to be tough.

  So after school I called her to see how she was doing.

  “Kaelyn!” she said when she picked up. “I’m so happy you called. I missed you!”

  I hadn’t been expecting such an enthusiastic response. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’ve got this stupid cold and Mom said I have to stay home and rest,” she said, and sneezed. “God, it’s so boring. You want to come over? She probably wouldn’t like that, but she’s out grocery shopping, and what she doesn’t know can’t hurt, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. Maybe she was acting weird, but I’d wanted to be better friends with her. Seemed like a good time to try.

  When I rang the doorbell, Rachel opened the door and flung her arms around me. She only let go to cough into her elbow and then scratch her collarbone. Her nose was red. Just like her dad when I’d been over before—sneezing and coughing and scratching.

  I started feeling nervous then. But Rachel seemed so excited to see me, and a real friend wouldn’t just take off. All she had was a cold. Her dad had gotten it really badly, but it wasn’t like they’d put her in the hospital too.

  So when she tugged my wrist, I followed her into the family room.

  On the TV, a VJ was interviewing some hip-hop singer. Rachel pulled me onto the couch and slung her arm over my shoulder.

  “Talk,” she said. “I want to know everything I’ve missed. I’ve been stuck in this boring house too long.”

  There wasn’t much to talk about. I didn’t think she’d want to hear that everyone at school was gossiping about her dad. I told her they’d announced swim team would be starting soon, since I’ve decided I’ll try out and maybe she’d want to come too, and then I remembered the story Mackenzie told at lunch—one of her usual “this famous person my parents know” deals, but really funny this time. As I started getting into it, Rachel grimaced.

  “She’s such a snot, isn’t she?” she said.

  I stopped and stared at her.

  “I mean Mackenzie,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “As if she’s so special because she was born in L.A. She’s always got her nose up in the air. God, I want to rip it off her face sometimes, don’t you?”

  Sometimes I do. But Rachel? She’s always looked like she was hanging off of Mackenzie’s every word.

  When I didn’t answer right away, Rachel kept going: “And she’s so bossy too—it drives me up the wall! You know, I was kind of pissed for a while because she’s my best friend, and you were, like, trying to steal her for yourself. But you’re really so much nicer than she is. I’m so glad I’ve got you now! We can stick together, right?”

  The weight of her arm across my shoulder had gotten uncomfortably heavy. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.” Except the last thing I wanted to do right then was stick around. It wasn’t just the sneezing and the coughing—she was talking like her dad did last week too. Like she was spewing out every unpleasant and embarrassing thought in her head.

  I shifted away, and she started scratching at her collarbone again, hard enough that the neck of her shirt slid to the side. She must have been working at that spot for hours. The skin was pink—not a flushed pink from pressure, but a dark, raw pink, like the blood was about to break through. Looking at it made my stomach turn.

  Rachel only stopped scratching when she had to sneeze. She dropped her arm for a second, and I leaped up. But a music video came on at the same time. Rachel squealed.

  “I love this song!” she said, jumping off the couch and grabbing my hands. “It’s so amazing!”

  I bobbed along as she danced, wondering how I was going to get out of there. She raised her hands in the air and shimmied. “What d’you think?” she shouted even though the music wasn’t that loud. “I’ve been practicing in my room. Sometimes a striptease too! You know, for when I get a boyfriend. I’m going to rock his world.”

  She spun around, laughing. The squeak of the front door opening right then was the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard.

  “Rachel?” her mom called. “Sweetie, I told you to—”

  She stopped short when she saw us. Rachel kept dancing, thrashing her hair from side to side. I’m not sure what upset her mom more: the fact that I was there, or the fact that her daughter was acting like a maniac. But she was definitely upset.

  “Kaelyn,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice, “I don’t think this is the best time for Rachel to have guests.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “I didn’t know she was going to get so…worked up.”

  Rachel skipped after me to the door. “Mom’s such a spoilsport,” she said in a loud whisper. “She thinks the other parents on the island let their kids run wild. But wild is freakin’ fun!”

  She was scratching that spot again as she waved good-bye. I looked back when I was halfway down the block, and she was still standing there, waving and scratching.

  I’m not just nervous now. I’m scared. I can’t make myself believe Rachel was drunk, or any of the other excuses I could have used for her dad. She was just not herself.

  What the hell is happening?

  Leo,

  It’s one in the morning, and I can’t sleep. I wish I could call you. No matter what happened or how upset I was, you always found something to say that made me feel better. When we were still friends.

  But I haven’t got your number in New York, and even if I did, I doubt you’d appreciate me breaking two years of silence by waking you up in the middle of the night. It’s my own fault for not talking to you sooner. So I’m crouched here on my bed with my reading lamp on, writing in this journal, because I can’t think of anything else to do.

  I couldn’t stop worrying about Rachel after I got home this afternoon. Trying to figure out what weird sickness would make people act so strangely. But bacteria and viruses are Dad’s area, not mine.

  So when he and I were doing the dishes, I started telling him about what happened. The whole story ended up spilling out, about Rachel’s dad last week too. I didn’t look
at him, just at the dish I was drying, because I thought maybe I was agonizing over nothing. But getting it out of my head was such a relief. I was starting to feel like maybe everything was okay when I raised my eyes and saw Dad’s expression. His face had gone pale, and his hands were lying still in the dishwater.

  “Her father touched you?” he said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to raise his voice.

  “Just on the shoulder,” I said. “Nothing inappropriate.”

  “And Rachel, today,” he went on. “She was hugging you—have you been wearing the same clothes all day?”

  My cheeks warmed because I’d felt like an idiot even while I was doing this.

  “No,” I said. “I changed when I got home, and took a shower. I couldn’t help thinking—if what she’s got is contagious—I don’t want to catch it.”

  Dad’s stance relaxed, which made me tense all over again.

  “You think it is?” I asked. “Contagious?”

  “It’s always smart to be careful, Kae,” he said. “You should run whatever clothes are in your hamper through the laundry tonight. And Rachel was at school last week, wasn’t she? After you saw her father?”

  I nodded, and he said, “You should stay home, then. Until the weekend at least.”

  “What?” I said. Part of the reason I’d been worried about getting sick was missing class. Maybe I don’t need a scholarship, but I still have to get good grades to be accepted into any of the top university science programs. And staying home would mess with my new-Kaelyn project too. “Swim team tryouts are this week,” I said. “Mrs. Reese said she’s only going to let people join if they show they’re committed right away.”

  “I’ll ask someone at the hospital to write you a doctor’s note,” he said. “We have to be safe, Kae.”

  “Safe from what? We don’t even know what’s happening!” I said.

  I heard Mom come into the kitchen behind me. She touched my back and said, “Gordon, you should just tell her.”