The Girl Who Fell

by S. M. Parker

  I squint my eyes closed, shake off the impossibility. Then look again.

  November 11.

  Impossible.

  I open my desk drawer, frantically dig in my file folder that holds all things Boston College. My fingers clasp the edge of the envelope. The one my acceptance letter arrived in.

  In the corner, in eraser-red ink is the postmark date.

  November 13.

  More than a month before Alec brought me the letter.

  An entire month.

  I look at the date on the letter again. Two days earlier. It took two days for the letter to be sealed and receive a postmark.

  So why did it take a month to reach me?

  Did Alec have it before he gave it to me?

  And then, the most awful suspicion: Had he been holding on to it? So he’d have time to convince me to hitch my future to his?

  And as oxygen drains from my room and the scene from last night reemerges, I think it’s possible.

  Probable, even.

  And that’s when I hear Lizzie’s words: Manipulation 101. And Gregg’s: The kid’s got issues. I remember the times Alec wanted to be with only me. The distance he wanted me to have from Gregg and Coach, even Alumni Weekend.

  But didn’t I want all those things too?

  I do. I did.

  I wanted Alec so much, the rest didn’t matter.

  And it is this realization that collapses me against the wall, sinks me into a blurred heap because I can’t separate what is real and what is Alec and what is me.

  Chapter 31

  I knock on Mom’s bedroom door even though it’s open. She looks up from where she’s reading in bed, beckons me in.

  “I thought you were going to the Slicers.” I can’t keep my voice from cracking.

  Mom removes her reading glasses and her eyes lock on mine. “Changed my mind.” She pats the bed, makes room for me. “Zephyr, what’s the matter?”

  I fall into her arms and the deluge opens. I cry for Boston College. For lines being blurred. For doubting Alec. For believing in Alec. For forgetting me. For believing in the new me Alec made. I hate all of me and most of me and I don’t know how to escape the skin I’m in.

  Mom strokes my back. “Whatever it is will be okay, Zephyr.”

  She has no idea.

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Where do I even start? The day at the park? Sex in the woods? Alec bringing me dinner and the news of my future? These things are too beautiful and kind and exactly what I wanted, so how can I be questioning them now?

  “I think Alec did something, Mom. Something so bad and I can’t know for sure but now I can’t take back what I’ve done.” I sob against her.

  “Did he hurt you? Are you in trouble?”

  I shake my head.

  She comforts me, but then separates us. Our eyes are only inches apart, and I don’t like the person I see reflected. “Then let’s start with the facts. We’ll go from there.”

  I nod, thankful for the rational side of my mom, the one that can help separate the truth from my suspicions. I drop my gaze as I tell her about my plan to go to Michigan with Alec.

  She tries to hide the way shock deflates her, but I know she’s calculating physical distance, the uncharacteristic reasons behind my decisions. “And now you regret that decision? Or did you two break up? Is that why you’re upset now?”

  I hand her the letter from Boston College and she surveys it quickly. “Look at the date.”

  “November eleventh.”

  “I didn’t get it until a month later.”

  “You think it got lost in the mail?”

  “Maybe. But, the thing is . . .”

  “What?” Mom presses, her word filled with too much concern. “What is the thing, Zephyr?”

  “Alec brought me the mail that day, the day the letter came.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I’m not sure that’s when the letter arrived.”

  “What are you saying?”

  That Alec may have orchestrated the biggest mistake of my life. “I think maybe he might have had it for a while.”

  “What possible motive would he have for that?”

  “I think he waited until I was open to changing schools.” And then it all sounds too calculated. A small laugh jumps out at the absurdity of my suspicions. “Oh my god, I sound like a crazy person.”

  “Zephyr, I’m not going to lie and tell you I approve of the plans you made to attend Michigan because of a boy, or let you off the hook without telling you how disappointed I am that you didn’t talk to me about any of this, but you are not crazy and this is not the end of the world. You can still go to Boston College.”

  And the truth hammers me. “No Mom. I can’t. I declined their offer. I sent the paperwork. It’s done.”

  Mom goes rigid, the color erased from her face. “Please tell me that’s not true.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “Oh Zephyr.” Mom releases me fully then, sinks back into her propped pillows. “How could you let this happen?”

  It is a question I can’t stop asking.

  • • •

  I drive through town, intent on my destination. My knuckles whiten with the death grip I have on the steering wheel, but I can’t relent. It’s irrational, I know. But if I ease off the slightest bit, I’m afraid I will disappear. That I will be swallowed by all my doubts. When I reach the house, it is an effort to pull my hands free of the wheel and step out into the cold. But I do, because I have to. Mom’s advice was dead-on. Do the thing that I can control. Fact check. Talk to Alec. And listen to my gut.

  I can’t separate out the timing of my letter from Boston College. The scene of Alec and that girl. Alec’s jealousy. But then there is the Alec who set aside his jealousy when Gregg got hurt, the Alec who helped me with Finn, the one who keeps me safe in his arms, promises me forever. Confusion circles in my head on an unrelenting loop and spits me out in front of Lani’s house now.

  When she opens the door, she’s as surprised to see me as I am to be here. She doesn’t even bother with a greeting, just steps aside to welcome me in. Her look stretches beyond me, searching for Gregg before she closes the door behind us.

  The house smells of apple pie. It’s surprising the way I remember so much of this living room from when her mom was our Brownie troop leader.

  “This is unexpected,” Lani says, crossing her arms, judging me already.

  “I know it’s weird timing and it’s lame that I’m interrupting you or bothering you.”

  “No bother. What’s up?”

  I fumble in my jacket, my fingers grabbing onto the swatch of newsprint. It is flimsy between my fingers, near weightless. And yet it is almost too heavy to exhume from my dark pocket. I fight its determination to stay hidden and haul it up, unfold the news clipping for Lani. “Do you remember this?” I don’t look at the paper. Instead, I study her eyes, the way they dart bigger when she reads the taunt etched in red. There is a dash of horror, a spec of disbelief.

  “No.” She shudders.

  My heart plunges because I know as I watch her reaction that this act of treachery was not committed by Lani.

  “I mean, I remember when you signed it at breakfast that day, but that”—she nods toward the slur—“Zephyr, who did that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” It is the biggest lie I tell. I crumple the clipping and shove it deep into my coat pocket.

  “You didn’t think I . . . ?”

  “I had to make sure.”

  “I might be envious of what you and Gregg have, but I would never.” She cups her hand to her mouth and her voice softens. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Zephyr.”

  And in that moment I’m not sure if she’s sorry “SLUT” graffitis my image or if she’s sorry for me because I’m out here on Christmas Eve searching for the person who marked me. Either way, her innocence plays with the gravity around me, shifting it so I sway, my feet liquid. Lani reaches out to steady m
e.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Another lie.

  I manage to get into my car and drive down the road before tears rise up. I pull over and squeeze them back, keeping my eyes shut, seeing Alec bent before me, lacing up my skates with such tenderness, sharing his heat under a blanket in the woods. And I see his gifts. The carnation and the cards pinned to my wall.

  Pinned.

  My eyes dart open.

  Panic sweats my palms.

  I dial Alec’s number, my hands shaking. I am too much of a coward to face him and, worse, I fear he’ll be able to soothe away all my suspicions under his touch.

  “Zephyr. Happy almost Christmas. I was just thinking about you.” Alec’s voice is cheery and light, a world away.

  “A-Alec?” His name breaks over a sob.

  “You okay?”

  “No.” Not in any sense of the word. My heart pounds too fast and too hard. My rib cage struggles to keep it all contained. I can almost see him there, at my wall. Pinning the news clipping onto my collage.

  “What happened? What’s wrong? Can I help?”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “Anything.”

  Did you play me? Did you betray me? Is any of us real? “Remember that day you delivered my acceptance letter from Boston College?”

  “Of course, Zephyr. It was one of the happiest days of my life.”

  And mine. I force my words out, “Did you find it in the mailbox that day?”

  Time buckles for the briefest instant. “What a weird question.”

  “You didn’t get it before then; hold on to it so I’d consider Michigan?”

  “Of course not. Why are you even asking me that? Tell me where you are. I’ll come meet you.”

  “You can’t. I’m not home. I’m out driving. Trying to process.”

  “Zephyr, you’re scaring me.”

  I think of the irony. “And that press clipping. Did you write that word? Break into my house?”

  “What press clipping? Why would I break into your house when I’m there all the time?” Concern builds in his voice. “Where is this even coming from?”

  I hear the Alec from my arms, between my sheets, the one who promises and carries through.

  “How could you ever think I could hurt you?”

  “I didn’t. It was the last thing I expected until I saw you with that girl.” And there it is, in words. The hurt that has so much depth it feels bottomless.

  “Zephyr, we’ve covered this. You know why I did that and I admitted I was stupid and wrong. Why are we still talking about this?” Anger reaches into the phone, frosts his words.

  I still have too many questions about Katie, but that’s not what worries me in this moment. “Alec?” Time bends. Mocks me. “I never told you the press clipping hurt me. How could you know that unless . . . ?”

  “Zephyr, I can obviously hear that you’re upset even if I don’t know anything about some random press clipping.”

  Pieces scramble to fit together, make a whole. Alec knows where my house key is. Has always been crazy jealous of Gregg. Would have had hundreds of opportunities to take my signed photo from Gregg’s gym locker. And if he was jealous enough of me hugging Gregg at Waxman’s to orchestrate an entire scene of practically screwing a girl, what would he have felt if he’d heard Gregg’s words: Acting like I’m over you.

  Oh god. “I need to go, Alec.”

  “Don’t do this, Zephyr. You can’t call me all upset and then just hang up. It doesn’t work that way.”

  And then a voice from deep inside, one that has been silent too long: “And you’re going to tell me how it works?”

  There is a loud bang. His foot pounding a hard surface. I yank my phone from my ear but still hear him yelling, so crisp, too clear. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Good-bye, Alec.”

  It is the first time I say these words and they leave a bitter aftertaste. We’d promised never to say good-bye, Alec always claiming the phrase was too harsh, too final.

  Alec calls back immediately, but I turn off my phone. I don’t have room for more than one voice in my head right now.

  I break open, remembering every beautiful promise he made, and the girl he woke in me. But now I need to go to the only place I know that is truly safe. I drive home, where Mom’s waiting for me in the kitchen, her face drawn with concern. “Are you all right? Did you see Alec? What did he say?”

  “I called him. He denied it.” The letter, that is. I don’t bring Mom up to speed on SLUT and that added bit of humiliation. I can’t let Mom know my failure is bigger than the one choice.

  “Do you believe him, Zephyr?”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Mom. Everything feels so out of control and I don’t even know how to fix any of it.” My lungs grow too small to hold enough air, my ribs strangle. How do I go back to the days before Alec? Can I undo the things we’ve done? Return to a person I barely remember being?

  “Sit.” Mom guides me to the kitchen chair. Her hand plants on my knee. “Breathe, Zephyr. There’s a way through any problem. Let’s take it one fact at a time.”

  I nod, wanting nothing more than her help, her clarity.

  “Tell me one thing you want from this.”

  “The truth.” Breathe.

  She kneads the round of my knee. “There may be too many versions of that. I’m asking you what you want. What would you do if it were in your power? What would you change if you could?”

  “Boston College.” It is the one sure thing that bobs to the surface in this ocean of doubt.

  Mom looks relieved. “Okay. And is that in your control?”

  “Not anymore.” Breathe.

  “What if you went to the admissions board, withdrew your rejection?”

  A light. Hope. “Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know, Zephyr, but if you tell me you want my help I will do everything in my power. But you have to swear this is absolutely what you want; that you won’t change your mind.”

  “I won’t.” If I could get Boston College back I’d never want anything more again.

  “Then that’s where we’ll start.” She pats my knee with this new optimism. “We’ll contact the college first thing Monday, after the holiday break. But for now I think a cup of tea might be all we can do.”

  Tea sounds simple and good. And Monday sounds possible, the first step in a controlled, executable plan. “Yes. Tea.”

  “Chamomile or mint?”

  The house phone rings and Mom stands to answer. “Hello?” A few seconds pass before she gives the phone a blank look, hangs up. “Wrong number, I guess.” She holds up the two boxes of tea for me to consider.

  “Anything but mint,” I tell her.

  I drink the hot tea with Mom, but it does exactly zero to settle me. The quiet of the kitchen, Mom’s concern, my future unknown—again. It’s all too much.

  When I head to my room, I pull up the Boston College website and search the athletics staff contact list. I write an e-mail to the field hockey coach, telling her I’ve been accepted and asking her to meet with me. I detail Sudbury’s 12–1 record, our state title. And I write about what it means for me to be on the field, part of a team. I don’t disclose what I’ve done, what was in the package I mailed to the college.

  I read the e-mail more than a dozen times, changing one word and then fifty. Finally, my nerves step aside long enough for me to press send.

  And I wait.

  Again.

  Chapter 32

  The ability to sleep abandoned me. Last night was too dark and too crammed with the best memories of Alec. I tossed in bed, plagued by his fingers skating across the flat of my stomach, his shape hovering over me in his backyard, my skin exposed to the dusk. The electric touch of his sneaker against mine. The shock of him inside me. The white light he’d build within me.

  But the morning sun wipes away all those memories and sprays light on all my doubt.
>
  If Alec did keep Boston College’s letter from me, wasn’t it because he wanted to be with me?

  And the newspaper photo, the word branded there? There were fifty people in the caf that day and all of them dumb enough to think that would be a funny joke. Maybe the clipping fell out of Gregg’s locker somehow. Maybe a million things could have happened that prove Alec’s innocence and my paranoia.

  Or maybe only one thing happened. The thing I suspect. And fear.

  I lace up my sneakers and head out for a run. The sun is low over the trees, barely awake. Its gold light blankets the snow-tipped pines. There is no sound but my footfall crunching against the crisp snow.

  The roads sleep with the soft of Christmas morning. There are no cars or distractions, only me and my brain working up the nerve to see Alec. And I will. I have to. But my feet have a different mission and I let them run for miles in the early cold. I jog under the umbrella of hush that softens the neighborhoods. No one stirs, not even a dog barking. It is as if time has stopped and I am alone. It is eerie the way Christmas has quieted all movements but I am hungry for this calm, the complete silence. And the power of my legs and lungs to propel me in whatever direction I want to go.

  By the time I return to Ashland Drive, I feel strong enough to face anything. Alec. The truth. I slow to a walk and stretch my arms to the sky. I tilt my head back, relax my neck muscles. The sun bears down on my cheeks and feels almost warm since the wind can’t build momentum through our thick stand of trees. I stop and draw the heat down. My breath slows. The world pulses quiet. Soundless.

  Until a twig cracks in the forest and breaks my meditation. It is a deer, I am sure. Within seconds, another crack echoes in the trees, bouncing off the still limbs, the snow caked on the forest floor. It causes fear to bump along my skin. Because nothing is for certain.

  I race home and into the kitchen where Mom’s brewing coffee. “You were up early.”