The Way We Fall

by Crewe, Megan

  “Sorry,” I said. “My dad had to take my mom to the hospital yesterday.”

  He let out a strangled sort of laugh and said, “Why are you sorry? I’m sorry. I should have figured out something was wrong. Why would you want to be practicing headlocks when you’re dealing with that?”

  He didn’t move, though, and he didn’t say anything else, so after a moment I raised my head. He was watching me, both concerned and nervous. Like I was a fox with my leg in a trap and I might bite him if he tried to help. I remember noticing, inanely, that his eyes were sort of green, even though I’d thought they were brown, but maybe it was just because he was wearing a green shirt today. Then he started talking again.

  “My mom’s sick too,” he said. “My dad’ll probably be soon if he isn’t already, considering they’re still sleeping in the same bed. I’ve been crashing at Warren’s. Mostly I’m worried he’ll get it. He was sick a lot when he was a kid.”

  “Make sure he wears one of those masks I gave you when you go around with the truck,” I said. “And you too. If you want, I can give you gloves. My dad’s been wearing protective gear at the hospital and when he was looking after my mom, and he’s still fine.”

  “Yeah,” Gav said. “We’ve been using the masks. And sure, I’ll take some gloves if you have extras. Thanks.” He looked down at the floor and then at me again. “Do you want me to go?” he asked. “Or…I mean, I can stay if you want.”

  Him leaving would mean going back into the living room with Meredith and pretending everything was fine. I wasn’t sure I could do that.

  “Actually,” I said, “maybe a little fighting practice would be good. Blowing off steam, right?”

  Which is how we ended up having a martial arts class in my living room. I asked Gav if he could teach Meredith too, and he said sure, so we paused the movie and pushed the ottoman off to the side. “This isn’t professional or anything,” he said, but he seemed to know a lot. When you’re actually trying techniques on other people, I guess you figure out what works and what doesn’t pretty fast.

  He showed me how to break a hold on my arm, and what to do if someone grabbed me from behind, and quick moves you can do that cause enough pain to buy you time to run away. Even Meredith could handle most of those. At one point she jabbed at his eye a little harder than she meant to, and he ended up sitting on the couch holding it and wincing while I wrapped an ice cube in a napkin for him.

  “I think you’ve got that move down,” he said to Meredith. “And see, it works!”

  Meredith was kind of shy at first, but after poking Gav’s eye, I think she felt she owed it to him to be friendly. By the time he’d shown us everything useful he could come up with, she was talking to him like he was her new best friend. She hasn’t seen any of her real friends since she moved in with us, maybe not since school shut down, depending on how paranoid Uncle Emmett was. She must get bored having just me and sometimes Drew for company.

  Then I wondered if any of her friends are even still alive. Another awful thought to add to an already long list.

  But depressing as I sound right now, it was good. I even laughed once. Gav was putting on his shoes, and Meredith said, out of the blue, “What’s your real name?”

  “What?” he said.

  “Gav isn’t a real name,” she said. “It’s a nickname, right? Like my mom used to call me Mere, and I call Kaelyn Kae sometimes. So what’s your real name?”

  “Oh,” he said, and waffled while he tied his shoelaces. “It’s Gavriel.”

  That’s when I started laughing. He shot me an evil look, smiling to show he didn’t mean it.

  “That’s like a Knights of the Round Table name,” I said. “No wonder you think you have to save everyone. Trying to live up to it.”

  “That must be it,” he said.

  He asked how we were for food, and I said we were fine, because we have everything I grabbed from Uncle Emmett’s house too. It doesn’t seem

  Oh god, Leo. I don’t know what to do. I stopped writing for a sec because I had an itch, but when I scratched it, it didn’t go away, and then it moved, it was on my hip and now it’s my stomach. I told myself I just had dry skin and put on some of the expensive cream Dad uses for his eczema, but it didn’t help. What if

  No. I won’t think that. I’ll go make dinner, and that’ll distract me, and then the itch will go away. I’m just extra nervous because of everything that’s going on. That’s all.

  Now I know how Mom must have felt. She looked like she was fine, but she sensed it, creeping under her skin until she couldn’t ignore that something was wrong. So she shut herself away from us before she got any worse.

  I went downstairs to cook dinner yesterday, like I intended, but then I saw Drew and Meredith playing Connect Four on the dining room table. And I thought, What if I am sick? I’m the last person who should be touching anyone’s food. The spot on my stomach was still itching. For a minute or two it would ease up, and I’d started to feel relieved, and then my skin would start tickling even worse than before.

  I gave it an hour, because that seemed scientific somehow, and then I put on my mask and some gloves from the box Dad left in the hall. Even with the mask on, I tried not to breathe as I was moving Meredith’s things out of my bedroom. I dragged out the cot, but didn’t know where to put it. Maybe they’ll set it up in the living room? I left it by the top of the stairs so they could decide. Then I got the suitcases she’s been living out of even though I told her there was room in my wardrobe, and a few books and toys she’s left scattered around, and piled those beside the cot.

  The itch was killing me. Just as I was about to pick up the shirt she’d left on my computer chair, my hand got away from me and went for it. I had to toss out that glove and grab another.

  But it was still just an itch, and part of me believed there could be another explanation, like I was the one person in the history of the universe to get chicken pox twice, or I’d managed to contract some new form of measles, either of which, honestly, would be better.

  My door doesn’t have a lock, so I sat on the bed listening for the creak of the stairs, and when I heard someone coming, I stood by the door in case they tried to open it. Thankfully, the first person who came up and noticed the cot was Drew and not Meredith. I’m sure he figured out the most likely explanation right off.

  “Kaelyn?” he said, just outside the door.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think…” I didn’t want to say it out loud, so I settled for, “I’m worried. Can you make sure Meredith doesn’t come in? And when Dad gets home, I want to talk to him.”

  He said he’d tell Meredith, but just to be sure, I shifted my bed over so it would hold the door shut. Then I lay down and tried to sleep. But my thoughts kept jumping around, and the itch wriggled over to my armpit, and I felt too hot when the blanket was on and too cold when it was off. I might have dozed somewhere in there.

  Around midnight, there was a light knock on the door and Dad’s voice asking softly, “Kae? Are you awake?”

  I sat up and said, “Yeah, just a second,” so I could move the bed. He came in with his mask in his hand instead of on his face, so I put mine back on. Maybe he assumed that if I wasn’t coughing or sneezing, I wasn’t contagious, but I wasn’t going to let him take that chance.

  He sat on the computer chair with his hands clasped in front of him, and said, “Drew says you’re not feeling well.”

  He sounded exhausted, and like he was trying incredibly hard to sound calm and optimistic. I knew what he really wanted was for me to say I’d been wrong, or to show I was just being paranoid. And suddenly I felt guilty, for doing this to him on top of whatever is happening with Mom, as if I had any choice in it. But lying wouldn’t fix anything.

  So I told him about the itch that wouldn’t go away, and how I couldn’t sleep, and he nodded and said it was too early to tell and he’d take a little blood in the morning so we could find out for sure. He went out and came back with a glass of water and
a pill to help me sleep. When I got up to take them from him, he set them on the desk and hugged me.

  It wasn’t the safest thing he could do, but in that moment I didn’t care. I hugged him back until the itch got so bad I had to step away to scratch at it.

  The whole time I felt like I was being so levelheaded, so mature. I think somehow I believed if I stayed calm it’d go away.

  But this morning, right after Dad left for the hospital, I got a tickle in my throat. I had to call Drew through the door to bring me another glass of water, which I made him leave outside and took after he was gone. It’s been half an hour, and I’m still coughing, off and on.

  What the hell else could it be? I’ve got the virus.

  I can’t see Meredith or Drew or anyone except Dad again.

  I’m going to be stuck in this little room until I get so sick Dad has to drag me away.

  The virus is going to eat away at my brain until I can’t control what I say or what I think, until I’m blathering all sorts of horrible things, like Rachel’s dad did, like Mom, until I’m screaming at people who aren’t even there, and I won’t even know how crazy I am. God. I’ve got to

  Leo, if somehow you’re reading this, if you’ve come back and you were trying to figure out what happened and you found this journal, burn it. Burn it now. I’ve just coughed on it and I’ve been breathing on it, and the virus is probably crawling all over every page.

  It’s not like I’ll have time to write much more anyway.

  You know how people in books and movies make deathbed confessions? They realize they’re about to go, and they just have to get those long-held secrets out while they still can.

  I’ve been thinking about that, since I don’t have a whole lot to do other than think—and cough and sneeze and try not to scratch any one spot too much. Dad offered to keep me company the way he did with Mom, said we could play cards or something. But every time I look into his eyes it’s like I can see his heart breaking no matter what face he puts on, and it reminds me of what’s going to happen to me, and mine breaks too. I know he wants to be with Mom at the hospital, and doing more research, and a lot of things more important than playing cards. So I told him I’d rather be by myself, and he’s mostly let me.

  At least his meds are helping keep the fever down. And he must have given me something to help me stay calm. I feel a little woozy. Like I’m not totally here.

  But, getting to the point, I was wondering whether there was anything I should tell Dad, or Drew, or Meredith, before I can’t control what I’m saying anymore. And there isn’t. Not that I’ve been totally honest with them my whole life, but I haven’t hidden anything big.

  The only real secret I’ve kept has to do with you, Leo. I’ve been holding on to it so long, I haven’t even wanted to write it down. But I might not get another chance.

  It happened the summer I was fourteen, before I started high school in Toronto, before we had our fight and stopped talking. Dad and Mom and Drew and I were visiting the island for a week, like we had every July after we moved. The last day of the trip, you came over and we went down to West Beach, eating homemade blueberry ice cream from the Camerons’ shop and ambling along the sand. A totally normal day.

  Around dinnertime, I said I should head back. As we were walking down the street, there was a kid riding his bike up and down the road, the training wheels rattling away. I wonder if you even remember that?

  He passed us a couple times, and then he braked a little ways ahead of us and narrowed his eyes.

  “I’ve seen you around before,” he said to you. “Shouldn’t you be living in China?”

  He hadn’t even looked at me, but I stiffened up right away. You just cocked your head and shrugged.

  “Nah,” you said, like it was no big deal, and held up a finger. “First, I was born in Korea, not China.” Another finger. “Second, my parents wanted me so much they went all the way over there to get me, which I think was a pretty good reason to come back with them.” One more finger. “Third, how old are you?”

  “Six,” the kid said, wide-eyed.

  “Well, there you go,” you said, smiling. “I’ve been an islander more than twice as long as you!”

  So many people must have treated you like you didn’t belong here, for you to come up with an answer that good, that you could roll off your tongue in a second. So many times you must have had to pretend you didn’t care. But right then, all I saw was how cool and confident you were. The way you always were. The way I pretty much never was, no matter how much I wanted to be. I’d seen it thousands of times before, of course. But this time, as I stood there looking at you, it made me want to kiss you.

  Maybe the moment would have passed, just a brief urge that seemed ridiculous a minute later. Except then the kid looked at me and said, “So what country are you from?”

  “Um,” I said. “I’m not. I mean, I was born here.”

  “And if I had my way, you’d quit leaving,” you said to me, like the kid wasn’t even there, and you grabbed my hand. I let you pull me past him because the second your fingers brushed against mine, every other thought emptied out of my head. My face got hot, and I was afraid to look at you the whole way back to Uncle Emmett’s house, in case you’d notice.

  I don’t think you did. You let go of my hand when we got there and gave me a quick hug good-bye and told me to write and call lots when I was back in Toronto, the same as always. But everything was different for me. I didn’t want to let you go. I wanted to believe your heart skipped a little when you looked back at me one last time before you went around the corner, like mine did. When I got on the ferry that evening, I felt like something inside me was tearing, knowing it’d be months before I had a chance to see you again. And the feeling never went away, not when we got to Toronto, not when we moved back here.

  I wanted you to be more than my best friend.

  Maybe if I hadn’t felt that way, we wouldn’t have had the fight to begin with. But hanging on the fringes in that enormous high school while all the city kids gossiped and laughed and flirted, I started to wonder if you could ever fall for a sort of weird, kind of awkward girl like me. Every time I complained about them to you, I wanted you to tell me I was fine the way I was, that they were just boring snobs. Which is why it hurt so much when you said it was my fault I didn’t fit in.

  Maybe if my feelings were less confused I would have called you up the next time we came to visit. But the thought of hearing your voice made my stomach do somersaults, and I chickened out, telling myself you should be the one to apologize first.

  And maybe if I’d gotten over it, we could have made up right after I moved back. I knew we had to talk. But I walked up to the school my first day back and there you were on the steps, your arm around Tessa’s shoulders, your head bent so close to hers your faces were almost touching. And the little piece of hope I’d been holding on to died. I couldn’t even look at you. Every time you glanced my way, I pretended I couldn’t see you. Every class we shared, I sat at the opposite end of the room. Like the ten years we were best friends had never happened.

  I’m sorry for making you think I must have hated you when you hadn’t done anything wrong. I’m sorry for all the petty thoughts I had about Tessa. And I’m especially sorry you’ll never get this apology. You’re going to spend the rest of your life believing our friendship meant nothing to me, when really the problem was I cared too much.

  Drew brought me some chicken soup for lunch a little while ago, but instead of setting the bowl down and leaving, he hesitated on the other side of the door. I waited for the creak of the floor to tell me he’d gone. It didn’t come.

  “I’m not letting you in,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “I just wanted to—”

  His voice cut off awkwardly, and for a minute he was silent. I could feel his presence through the door. His head would be tipped forward, his jaw clenched.

  “I acted like it was wrong to be scared,” he said. “I encou
raged you to get involved, to go out there.”

  My chest got tight. “Don’t,” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Don’t try to make this your fault,” I said. “It’s not.”

  “But—” he started, and I didn’t let him go any further.

  “You know what probably happened?” I said. “How I caught it? I’ve worked it out. I went to the hospital when Mom first got sick, to find Dad, and I was there without a mask. And when Mom came downstairs the other day, when she wasn’t thinking straight anymore, I didn’t have my mask on then either. Those are the only times I’ve been near anyone sick in weeks. And neither of them were because of you or anything you’ve said, Drew.”

  He paused for another few seconds, and then he said, “I was trying to get all of us out of this safe. That’s all I wanted.”

  “I know,” I said. “Me too.”

  He left, and I brought in the soup, but I haven’t got an appetite anymore. It’s sitting on the desk, getting cold.

  Maybe if I’d picked up my mask before I ran off to the hospital that day. Maybe if Dad had thought to lock Mom in her room before she started wandering. I could blame any of us. But what’s the point? None of it changes where I am now.

  I started reading the third act of Hamlet, and I got about two pages in when I realized there’s no point.

  I am never going back to school.

  I am never going to university.

  I am never going to watch wolves stalk through the northern forests or elephants graze the savanna. I am never going to have sex or get married or raise a family. I’m never going to have a first apartment, a first house, a first car. I’m never

  I’ve found the trick to staying sane. Just don’t think about it. Play games and watch videos on the computer, tussle with Mowat and Fossey, re-read my favorite books one last time, and just don’t think.