Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

by Lindsay Ribar

  “Oh,” I said, because what the hell else was I supposed to say? “At least don’t tell Brandy.”

  Leah narrowed her eyes. “Right. Brandy. Does that girl know anything true about you?”

  “What do you—”

  “She doesn’t know about your weird magical powers. You’re planning on lying to her about kissing me.”

  “You kissed me,” I reminded her.

  “Uh, yeah, and you kissed me right back,” she said. “So, what else? Do you just lie to her about everything?”

  No, not everything. But lying about the reaching thing covered a lot of territory, considering how many times I’d stolen from Brandy.

  “I love her,” I said. “I don’t lie about that.”

  She nodded. “I love someone else, too,” she said, moving close to me again. Too close. “And that’s the one thing I do lie about.”

  Jesse. Yeah. Until her admission a few minutes ago, she’d tried claiming they were just friends.

  Her eyes flicked over to the letter again, sitting there on the desk, spilling secrets. Her hand touched my sleeve, then crept up to rest on my shoulder. Her face was so close to mine. Her eyes were dark, and her lips were full and perfect and there was that little mole right above the left corner. The one I’d failed to steal.

  “Leah?” I said, my throat suddenly dry. “I told you. I have a girlfriend.”

  “Watch me care,” she said.

  She kissed me again. And again, I kissed her back. This time, we didn’t stop.

  BEFORE

  Brandy’s dad lived in Brooklyn, and her mom lived up in Washington Heights. While she mostly lived with her dad, she spent alternate weekends with her mom. Or, at least, that was what her dad thought. In reality she spent maybe one weekend every two months at her mom’s place (I’m still not sure how she’d made that happen), and the rest of the supposed Mom Weekends, she spent at Theo’s. And on Theo Weekends, she could stay out all night, without either of her parents trying to chase her down.

  These were Brandy’s favorite weekends. And even though they invariably ended with BrandyAndTheo going home together and probably doing stuff that I really didn’t want to think too hard about (Theo lived in an old brownstone so huge that his parents probably didn’t even notice his girlfriend practically lived there), they were kind of my favorite weekends, too.

  This particular Saturday night, Theo, Brandy, Brandy’s friend Lauren, and I had hit up two clubs and one of those shitty midtown pubs that never asked for ID. Then? Pizza. We always ended our nights with pizza.

  Eventually Lauren went home, and Theo went to the bathroom, leaving me alone, temporarily, with the remains of a large pepperoni pie, and the girl of my dreams. Her eye makeup was smeared all over, and her blond ponytail was more than a little bit askew. She looked completely happy, and completely gorgeous.

  “You’ve got glitter on you,” she said, touching her left cheek with two fingers.

  I touched the same spot on my own cheek; sure enough, my fingers came away sparkly. I shrugged. “Well, so do you.”

  Brandy smiled. “Yeah, but mine’s intentional. What’d you do, rub cheeks with Laur?”

  I frowned. Not at what she’d said, but at the way she’d said it: kind of suggestive, kind of hopeful.

  “Because that’d be so cute,” she went on. “The two of you. Aw.”

  “Uh, no it wouldn’t,” I said. And then, because that had come out meaner than I’d intended, I added, “She’s not into me anyway.”

  Brandy laughed, leaning back in her pleather seat. “Hello, are you blind? She’s completely into you. She has been for months. Why do you think I keep inviting her out with us?”

  Well, I’d thought it was because they were best friends, and that was what best friends did. Invite each other out. Occasionally it’d also occurred to me that it was to keep me from feeling like a third wheel. But I hadn’t seen this one coming.

  “Oh,” I said stupidly.

  “Yeah,” said Brandy. “And because I am sick of waiting for you to notice, and because I am an excellent wingman, I’m gonna give you a piece of advice: Ask her out already.”

  I remember intending to say But I’m not into her or I don’t feel like we’d be good together or something like that. Something nice and vague and not incriminating.

  Instead, what came out was, “But I’m into you, not her.” Maybe because it was like five in the morning. Too late for anything but blunt honesty, I guess.

  Brandy’s mouth made an O.

  “Um, forget I said that. It’s late. I’m tired.” I rubbed my hands over my eyes, probably getting glitter all over the place.

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, her voice all low, “You know, I used to think about that. You and me.”

  “You … wait, really?”

  She nodded. “I thought about asking you out.”

  My stomach folded in on itself. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t you?” she said.

  Because I didn’t want to risk her saying no. That was the real answer. But that would’ve made me look like a spineless coward, so I just said, “I dunno.”

  “Same,” she said. “And then Theo just … got there first. I figured I’d give it a shot. And. Well. He’s nice.”

  “I’m nicer,” I said.

  “Ha.” Brandy fiddled with the straw in her soda cup, not quite looking at me. “Well, I’ll give you a call if things don’t work out with Theo. How’s that?”

  “You should give me a call anyway.” I remember not being sure, even then, whether or not I was joking.

  Brandy’s face, however, was dead serious. “I’m not a cheater, Aspen. And I’m not breaking up with him for you. Got that?”

  Theo came back from the bathroom then, and dug into his third slice of pizza. I watched as Brandy put her hand on his back, a small and silent gesture of togetherness. She caught my eyes, and I nodded.

  Yeah. I got it.

  I mean, Leah and I did stop making out eventually, but it wasn’t for a good long while, and it wasn’t until we heard the distinct sound of footsteps, perilously close to where we stood. Then Leah patted my shoulder in this weirdly businesslike way, snatched Heather’s letter off the desk, and ran out of the room.

  By the time I’d regained enough composure to follow her back out into the store, Leah was digging her purse out from under the register. Harry was lurking nearby, watching her.

  “You’re sure everything’s okay?” he was saying. “Is it something to do with Jesse? Is he ever planning on coming back to work?”

  Leah shook her head. “He hasn’t decided yet. But no, it’s not about him. I just need to … there’s some stuff, is all.” She straightened up, looked right at me, and jerked her head toward the door.

  As I followed her outside, obedient as a puppy, I felt Harry’s eyes on me. Maybe making assumptions. Maybe assumptions that were right.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Leah—right before I noticed where she was heading: away from the commercial part of town, toward the residential one. “We’re not going to your house, are we?”

  She rolled her eyes. “We’re going to Jesse’s place, not mine.” And she kept walking.

  “Whoa,” I said, holding my hands up as I took a step back. “If you wanna tell him you kissed me, that’s your business. But I so don’t want to be there for that conversation.”

  “Oh my god,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “This is not about the kissing. This is about me wanting you to tell Jesse why he’s suddenly blind. Remember? That whole thing where you stole his sight?”

  “It wasn’t me, though! I already swore—”

  “I know,” she said impatiently. “But didn’t you read Heather’s letter? She said she offered something to the Cliff. The color of her hair. Then she said the Cliff wasn’t interested. It ignored what she offered, and it went for something bigger instead. What did you say you stole from Jesse? His competitive streak?”


  I bit my lip. I’d also seen the similarity, when I’d read Heather’s letter the first time. Apparently it was too much to hope that Leah wouldn’t see it, too.

  “And the Cliff went for something bigger instead,” I said, resigned. “Again. That doesn’t mean it was my fault.”

  Leah glared. “You’re still coming with me. Jesse can’t spend the rest of his life not knowing that his sight was stolen from him.”

  And then she turned and walked away. I jogged to catch up. “Leah, come on. Leah!” I said, grabbing her arm when she didn’t turn around. “I’m not telling him anything. Neither are you. You were friends with Heather, right? So you know how important it is to keep this stuff a secret. I can’t just go around telling everyone—”

  “Why not?” she said, infuriatingly calm.

  “Because … just because. It’s one of those things you don’t go around telling people.”

  Leah just looked at me.

  “Besides,” I added, “it’s not like telling him would help him. I can’t exactly fix him, you know. Once something’s been stolen, it can’t be reversed.”

  “Unless you took someone else’s sight and gave it to Jesse,” said Leah. “Heather said that was an option. You know—right before she refused to do it for Rachel.”

  “You read the letter, though,” I said. “You can’t use that loophole if it’s something the Cliff took. Heather tried. So did her mom. Jesse’s eyesight wouldn’t be any different.”

  “You could at least try, though.” But she sighed, all deflated, like she already knew it was a lost cause.

  So I didn’t reply.

  “Hey, Aspen?” asked Leah, after another moment of quiet. “What happens if you stop stealing stuff for the Cliff?”

  I shrugged. “It collapses. There’s a big avalanche, and the whole town gets crushed. Rocks fall, everyone dies.”

  She frowned. “That’s what Heather used to say. But it doesn’t make sense. The Cliff isn’t that big, and it’s far enough away that … I mean, geology, right? Even if an avalanche happened, it wouldn’t reach the town. It probably wouldn’t even reach your house.”

  “My grandma’s house,” I said. “And yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But I figure, hey, it’s magic. It’s a magic cliff. It can do what it wants, I guess.”

  Worrying at her lip with her teeth, Leah pulled Heather’s letter from where she’d stowed it in her purse. Unfolding it, she pointed to something at the bottom of the front page.

  And trust me, the Cliff can NOT be allowed to collapse. I didn’t find out the real reason why until after we stopped being friends, but just … trust me.

  “The real reason,” she said. “They told you the same thing they told Heather when she was just a little kid. But she found out later that it wasn’t the truth.”

  My skin prickled, even though it wasn’t anywhere near cold. If it wasn’t really true about the Cliff falling and burying the town of Three Peaks, then what was it?

  I didn’t know.

  But that didn’t mean I’d never known. What if someone had told me, and the knowledge had been stolen away? Somehow, that seemed even worse.

  I had to call my dad.

  As soon as I thought it, my phone rang, making me jump like eight feet in the air. But it wasn’t my dad calling. It was Brandy.

  I swiped the screen to pick up. “Hey, you.”

  Beside me, Leah pointedly rolled her eyes. I ignored her.

  “Hey, where are you?” asked Brandy. “I mean, no rush or whatever, but Theo’s itching to get up to the lake. Coooorey is meeting us there today.”

  My neck tensed at the thought of the lake. A boat. Murky water. The uneasy feeling of not being on solid ground… .

  Stupid bounceback.

  “I’m not sure,” I began … then glanced at Leah. Leah, who wanted answers—and who wanted me to fix her friend—and who’d just kissed me, for god’s sake.

  “Aspen?” said Brandy.

  “Right, yeah!” I said, making my voice sound as urgent as possible. “I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

  “The girlfriend?” asked Leah, when I hung up.

  “Yeah. I gotta go. Sorry.”

  “But what about all this—”

  “Gotta go!” I said again, backing down the sidewalk. “Bye!”

  And I turned and ran.

  Only once I was around the corner, out of Leah’s sight line, did I slow down. I looked back a few times to make sure she wasn’t following me. Because this? This was my mystery. My family. Not hers. No matter how close she’d been with Heather, and no matter what had happened to her sister, this whole situation just wasn’t her problem.

  But it was definitely a problem.

  What was the connection between the things offered to the Cliff and the things taken? There had to be a connection. But … hair color and healthy lungs? A competitive streak and the ability to see? It just seemed so random.

  Or maybe there wasn’t a connection at all. Maybe the Cliff just took whatever the hell it wanted. Which was scary to think about for any number of reasons.

  I walked faster. The sooner I got back to the house, the sooner I’d have Brandy to distract me.

  “Honey, I’m home!” I called out, kicking my shoes off as I shut the front door behind me.

  The sound of laughter came from the living room, followed by Brandy’s voice: “In here!”

  I rounded the corner, and there they were: Theo on one side of the couch, Brandy on the other. Except she was facing him, and her legs were stretched out over the length of the couch. Her feet were in his lap. He was massaging one of them.

  “Hey,” I said, looking back and forth between them. “Um.”

  “Something up?” said Brandy, as Theo dug his thumb into the bottom of her arch. I watched, transfixed. I’d never touched her there. I’d never thought to. “You don’t look so great.”

  “No. I mean yeah. I mean no! I’m good.”

  Brandy grinned. “Because if it’s your feet, I’m sure Theo could do you next.”

  “In his dreams,” said Theo, without even looking up. Brandy laughed.

  My neck hurt. My stomach twisted. How did this keep happening? I’d been so careful about keeping their feelings for each other platonic. So careful. Despite all the little seeds of affection I’d stripped away from them, time after time, here they were, sitting there with her feet in his lap.

  “So where’d you go?” asked Brandy.

  “Nowhere important,” I replied, moving over to stand behind her, massaging her shoulders lightly with my hands.

  “Cool,” she said, and tipped her face up. “Spider-Man kiss?”

  I leaned down, and she leaned up. It was pretty strange, kissing upside down like that, and before long she was giggling against my lips. So I pulled away and went back to massaging her shoulders instead.

  “You know, this is the perfect day,” she said. “Two massages at once, from my two favorite boys… .”

  Okay. That was it. Taking care not to let my annoyance show on my face, I reached into the fabric of her shirt again and stripped away, in one swift yank, the pleasure she felt at getting her feet rubbed.

  “Ow!” she cried, jerking her left foot out of Theo’s hands.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking sort of alarmed. “Too hard?”

  “Yeah,” she said, sitting upright again. I lost hold of her shoulders in the process, but it was a small price to pay for the end of Theo’s goddamn foot massage. “It’s … just, I dunno, too much all of a sudden. But hey, shouldn’t we get going? You said you wanted to meet Corey.”

  A small smile tugged at Theo’s lips. “Yup. We should head. Aspen, you need to change or whatever?”

  The lake. Boats. I’d almost forgotten.

  “Okay, now you really don’t look so great.” Brandy stood up and put her palm against my cheek. It was so warm. She looked so worried. “Maybe you should stay home today. Get some rest. Drink some water, for once.”

  And
leave her alone with Theo? For all I knew, Theo’d end up having a threesome with Corey and Brandy out in the middle of the lake. “No, just give me a second to—”

  “Hey, man, stay here.” Theo had gotten up, too, and now he looked concerned. Not devious. Not like he was trying to get me out of the way so he could steal Brandy back. Just concerned. “It’s summer vacay. Sucks to get sick in the summer. So just chill, and chug some DayQuil or something, and we’ll see you later.”

  I could trust Theo, couldn’t I? More than that, I could trust Brandy. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d start cheating just because she had more-than-friends-type feelings for someone else.

  Unlike you, said a snide little voice in my head, which I silently told to shut up.

  Out loud, I said, “Sure. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Tell Corey hi for me, I guess.”

  “Will do,” said Theo. And then they were gone.

  I hadn’t heard Grandma or Aunt Holly when I’d come in just now, but I poked around just to make sure. The house was empty. I couldn’t put this off any longer. I had to call my dad.

  He picked up on the second ring.

  “Aspen!” he said, voice all warm. “I was wondering when I’d hear from you! How’s upstate?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “And Holly?”

  “Still … sad,” I replied. Really it was more like drunk and mean and depressed, but he didn’t have to know that stuff. Besides, that would lead to a whole different conversation than the one I actually wanted to have.

  “Hey, Dad?”

  “What’s up?”

  I sat down on the couch, where Theo had just been. Braced my free hand against the cushions. “Have you ever stolen memories from me?”

  Another pause, longer this time. And then Dad’s cautious voice: “What makes you think I would do something like that? We have a rule—”

  “Just answer the question. Memories. Have you stolen them?”

  Dad swallowed audibly. “Only when I thought it necessary. When it was for your own good.”

  “After Heather’s funeral, right?” I said. “Grandma said I thought her death was suspicious, and I tried figuring out what really happened. I don’t remember any of that. And Mom!” I said, remembering very suddenly, very vividly, a phone conversation we’d had right after she’d left. “Mom said I cried. I don’t remember crying. What the hell, Dad?”