The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  Mom doesn’t like arguing—she says she finds it more effective to “gently but firmly nudge.” But if something’s really important to her, she’s not afraid to put her foot down. Dad wanted Drew to lose his internet and phone privileges after the making-out incident, but Mom said he was being ridiculous, and that was the end of it.

  “She’s only sixteen,” Dad said, as if that made me a toddler.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “And like any normal sixteen-year-old, she’s only going to listen if you give her a reason to.”

  Dad took his hands out of the sink and dried them, then ran his fingers through his hair.

  “What is it?” I said. If he’d told me what he knew before, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to Rachel’s in the first place. Did he really think keeping secrets would protect me?

  “Rachel’s father is very sick,” he said. “We’re not sure what’s wrong with him.”

  “‘We’?” I repeated. “Did you go see him?”

  He smiled tightly. “I’m the only microbiologist on the island,” he said. “The hospital staff realized they couldn’t identify the condition they were attempting to treat, so it made sense for them to involve me. We were hoping the cause might be something environmental. Two other fishery workers were admitted to the hospital last week, and another this morning, with similar symptoms: coughing, sneezing, persistent itching, and a fever, followed by a severe decrease in social inhibitions. And finally, panic brought on by mental confusion.”

  “They’re hallucinating,” I said, remembering Mackenzie’s theory. “Because of the fever?”

  “We’re not sure,” he said.

  So basically some freaky disease is completely messing with people’s brains, and no one has any idea what it is or where it came from. What’s the point of having doctors if they can’t figure out things like this?

  Mom slid her arm around me and rubbed my shoulder. “Will that happen to Rachel too?” I managed to ask.

  She had all the other symptoms when I saw her. Will she be going crazy in her backyard tomorrow? How are they going to help her?

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “I’ll have to talk to her mother tomorrow morning about bringing her into the hospital so we can keep her under observation. But what concerns me the most is that, from what you’ve told me, we appear to be dealing with an infectious agent. It seems most likely Rachel picked up the condition from her father.”

  I remembered what Dad had said earlier, and my heart started beating faster. “You think she might have given it to me,” I said. “That’s why you don’t want me to go to school.”

  “There’s a small chance,” he said. “Very small, because you were careful and the contagion doesn’t appear to be spreading easily. Rachel’s the only case I know of where the condition was clearly passed from one individual to another. But we can’t be absolutely sure. And she may have infected other kids at school. I’m going to ask Drew to stay home as well.”

  “But she hasn’t been at school since she got sick,” I said.

  “You can’t be sure of that,” he said. “We don’t know how long the incubation period might be. She could have been carrying the bacteria or virus last week before the symptoms started showing.”

  I considered everything as calmly as I could. If anyone had caught this mystery disease from Rachel on Friday, the last time she was at school, they’d have come down with it by now, wouldn’t they? I haven’t seen anyone in class coughing or sneezing. And Dad thought I was probably safe. Rachel was living with her dad, after all. That’s a lot more close contact than I’d had with her.

  At the same time, I was imagining sitting at home for the next three days—on my own. I’ve been doing okay, but I still get nervous about speaking up in class, and to be honest, I’m a little terrified of showing up at swim tryouts on Thursday. Giving in to Dad would be an easy way out. Which was exactly why I shouldn’t.

  “What if I’d like to keep going to school?” I asked. “I mean, there’s cautious and then there’s paranoid, right? Only five people are sick. For all we know, they could get better tomorrow.”

  Dad exchanged a look with Mom over my shoulder. His mouth tensed, but he nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “But if you notice anyone in your classes with any of the symptoms I’ve mentioned—or if you feel at all unwell…”

  I held up my hands. “I’ll stay at home and I won’t argue,” I said. “I promise.”

  But even though I know if there was really an emergency, Dad would never have agreed, once I got up to my room, I couldn’t make myself turn off the light. I keep wondering, what if those people don’t get better? What if I did catch it, whatever it is?

  I hope you’re sleeping well out there in New York, Leo. Then at least one of us is.

  Rachel must be in the hospital by now, so the doctors can look after her. I hope she’s okay.

  No one’s saying anything about the mystery sickness at school. Just the same old complaints about teachers and homework, and gossip about who’s dating who. I can’t be the only one who knows what’s going on. The doctors and nurses know, and they talk at home, and some of them have kids here.

  It’s like we’re trying to fill up every second of silence with meaningless talk so we don’t have to say anything real or scary.

  Every time someone clears their throat, I flinch. I saw Quentin scratching his arm during English, and I froze up until I noticed he had a mosquito bite there. And then in the cafeteria line, the smoke from the grill made me sneeze, and I felt like everyone around me instinctively shifted away.

  I haven’t seen anyone who looks like they have an actual cold, though. And just in case, I’ve been washing my hands between classes and trying not to stand too close to anyone. It’s weird. I spent all last week trying to be Kaelyn the Super Friendly, and now I’m worried I’m endangering people if I breathe in their general direction.

  I’ve been thinking maybe I shouldn’t hang out with Meredith, just for this weekend. And then I wonder if any of those dockworkers who got sick has kids in the elementary school with her. Is anyone keeping an eye on them, making sure they’re not infected? Maybe she should stay home until the doctors are sure.

  I’m still going to swim tryouts tomorrow, and I haven’t totally gone back to my loner ways. Tessa showed up late for biology this afternoon, and I noticed her standing in the doorway looking at the spot where she normally sits, in the back near Shauna. Shauna had called her friends over so they could whisper about boys and parties and whatever else they talk about, and Tessa’s usual place was taken. The only seat left was next to mine, there at the front.

  “Hey,” I said, pointing to the desk. “You can sit here if you want.”

  I don’t know Tessa very well, of course, since she moved here while we were living in Toronto. But anyone could see she doesn’t care much about impressing people. She never dyes her hair to be “auburn” instead of carrot red, or puts concealer over her freckles, like Mackenzie does. And she’s never talked much with Shauna, just smiles quietly when Shauna tries to drag her into a conversation. Really, she seems like she’d rather not be bothered with the rest of us. Well, most of us—obviously she bothered with you, Leo.

  So I have no idea why, today, she looked at me, and at the empty desk, and then said, “That’s okay.” She walked right by me to Shauna’s group and said something I couldn’t hear. Melissa, who normally sits next to me, gave up Tessa’s seat and came back.

  My face got kind of hot, and I spent the rest of class staring at my textbook. I guess even though your girlfriend doesn’t care about Shauna at all, she’d still rather be around her than me.

  Maybe she’s heard about the people getting sick, and she knows I was with Rachel a lot. It isn’t important. But just writing down what happened, I feel uncomfortable, as if I did something wrong.

  Whenever I go into history, I can’t stop looking at Rachel’s empty desk. The longer I sit there, the more edgy I feel. Especially since everyone else
seems to have forgotten about her. Mackenzie didn’t even mention her today.

  Mrs. Harnett remembers her, at least. At the end of class, she pulled me aside. “I understand Rachel may not be back at school for some time,” she said. “You could finish the presentation project on your own if you’d like, or you could join another pair and we’ll have one group of three.”

  She was talking about the situation so calmly, and all of a sudden my eyes prickled, like I was about to cry. I don’t know why. It’s just one project—of course Rachel can make up the grade later.

  “I’ll keep going by myself,” I said. “Until she’s better.” I wanted to believe she might even get back before the due date.

  But then when Dad finally got home last night, I asked him how Rachel was doing, how everyone’s doing, and he frowned. It turns out the doctors have been checking the families of the other patients, and a bunch more people have symptoms.

  “But you’re working on it, right?” I said. “They’ll get better?”

  He hesitated, and I said, “Dad, I need to know! You can’t keep not telling me things.”

  “It’s hard to say at this point, Kae,” he said. “We’ve been able to alleviate the symptoms in the short term, but we’re still not sure how to eliminate them completely. And signs are pointing to the contagion being a virus, not a bacterial infection.”

  “Well, that’s good, right?” I said. “That you’re figuring out what it is?”

  “In some ways,” he said. “A virus is harder to tackle—our options for treatment are more limited. But you should know we’re doing everything we can.”

  Which doesn’t make me feel any better. I almost wish I hadn’t asked.

  Yesterday, life started to feel almost normal again. Dad still worked late, but school was business as usual. Shauna was trying to convince Tessa to host a party at her house, because apparently her parents have gone off on some trip. I made it through both Thursday and Friday swim tryouts, and Mrs. Reese gave me a thumbs-up as I was leaving, so I think I’m on the team. And Mackenzie and I went across to the mainland to see the new Christopher Nolan movie in the big theater last night.

  The guy at the concession stand was kind of cute. I chatted with him after the movie was over, until Mackenzie got impatient and said we had to go.

  I couldn’t stop grinning the whole way home. Not because I’m so crazy about him. I hardly know him. But it would be nice, you know, to crush on someone. Someone who might crush on me too.

  But then this morning—five in the morning on a Saturday—Dad got a call and rushed off. He tried to be quiet, but we all woke up anyway. Once we realized he was gone, none of us could get back to sleep. So Drew and I sat at the table, still half asleep, and Mom fried hash browns.

  She only does that for special occasions, or when she wants to make us feel better about something, because she says it’s a lot of work for food she doesn’t like to eat herself. She made hash browns the day she and Dad announced we were moving. So I could tell she’s expecting bad news.

  “Maybe they called him because someone got better in the middle of the night,” I said, as if by saying it I could make myself believe it.

  “We can hope,” Mom said.

  Even if they’re the perfect combination of crispy and tender, hash browns are hard to swallow when it’s two hours before you normally wake up and your stomach is full of knots. I only managed a few mouthfuls. Drew got through his whole plate, but he sat there chewing the last bite for a full minute before he swallowed. Mom didn’t eat any. She just shrugged and scooped the rest into a Tupperware container for later.

  We stayed at the table until the sun came up, eyeing the phone. Then Drew said, “Come on. It’s Saturday morning. Let’s see what’s on TV.”

  Mom passed, saying she was going to try to get a little more sleep. Every second week she does a Saturday shift on top of her usual work at the gas station café, but I don’t think she’ll go in today.

  The two of us went to the living room, and Drew flipped through the channels. Nothing was on except kiddie shows. Finally he settled on a Looney Tunes episode, and we watched Bugs Bunny taunt Elmer Fudd for a while.

  Sometimes I can find that stuff amusing, but today the jokes just seemed stupid. I kept looking at the clock. If Dad takes a long time to call, is that a good sign because he isn’t rushing to save us from some catastrophe? Or does that mean whatever happened is so terrible it’s taking him forever to deal with it?

  The little bit of hash browns I’d eaten must have been digested ages ago, but my stomach wouldn’t stop churning. Drew was lounging on the couch, legs sprawled on the ottoman, like there wasn’t anything more important in the world than a talking rabbit. After a while it got to me.

  “Aren’t you worried?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, still focused on the TV.

  “You’re not acting like it,” I said.

  He reached for the remote and nudged the volume down. Then he turned to me.

  “I think a couple girls in my classes are sick,” he said quietly—I guess so Mom wouldn’t hear, if she was still awake. Because if she had heard, she’d probably have reacted even worse than I did.

  “What?” I said. I had to force myself to lower my voice. “Are you sure?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” he said. “Just, yesterday this one girl in my physics class was sniffling, and in the middle of law, Amy had to leave for a few minutes because she was coughing so hard. They probably just have regular colds. One always starts going around this time of year.”

  “Did you tell Dad?” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he said. “He’d have put us under lockdown. How’s that going to help anything?”

  “It’d stop us from being exposed,” I said. “You really want to get sick too? And he could have made sure those girls got looked at in the hospital, just in case.”

  “If we’re going to get sick,” Drew said, “staying at home isn’t going to help. We’ll probably get it from Dad. He’s the one spending twelve hours a day with the people we know for sure are sick. A guy I know on the soccer team—his aunt’s a nurse. He told me she’s being forced to stay at the hospital because she was helping treat the patients and now she’s got symptoms.”

  He had a point. I knew that. But for some reason, that made me even angrier. It’s easy for him to say Dad’s just overreacting. He didn’t see Rachel or her father—he has no idea how serious this disease is, how it can turn you into a whole different person. How scary it is that more and more people are catching it when the doctors still haven’t found a cure.

  “You could have at least told me,” I said.

  “Because you’d have done something differently?” he asked. “Is that how you’d want to handle this—by hiding at home?”

  “I don’t know!” I yelled. “At least I could have decided!”

  I caught myself before I said anything else, and we sat silently and listened. Thankfully, there was no sign we’d disturbed Mom.

  “I’m sorry,” Drew said, after a moment. “I should have told you. I just hate the way Dad deals with problems by throwing up a wall, without even knowing what he’s trying to ‘protect’ us from. And…”

  When he didn’t keep going, I prodded: “And?”

  “And I’ve been even more pissed off at Dad than usual, for other reasons,” he said, frowning. “A couple weeks ago, Aaron said there wasn’t any point in us staying together, because Dad’s not any closer to being okay with me having a boyfriend, and I guess Aaron doesn’t like the ‘drama,’ even long distance. Even though I’m the one who actually has to deal with Dad.”

  “Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. We’ve never really talked about relationships, since I’ve never had much of one, and Drew’s always kept the details of his private. “I’m sorry. That really sucks.”

  “Yeah,” Drew said. “It does.”

  He stood up and walked out, and I d
idn’t feel like watching TV alone. I was so tired, but when I lay down in my room and tried to sleep, my mind kept racing. I started writing to get everything out of my head.

  Only now I’m thinking even more. Too much.

  I heard Mom go into the bathroom a couple minutes ago, so she’s probably up now. Maybe I’ll ask her if

  Dad finally called. Mom’s still on the phone with him, so I haven’t heard everything yet. But none of the news sounds good. Rachel’s dad just died.

  We went over to Uncle Emmett’s today so Dad could talk to him about the mystery sickness. I was going to take Meredith out for a bit, but Uncle Emmett insisted she should be informed too, so we all sat in the living room. I kept my arm around Meredith. She started chewing her thumbnail as Dad explained what’s going on. Like she doesn’t already have more to worry about than any seven-year-old should, now that her mom’s gone AWOL, without hearing about worse-case scenarios and people dying. How much is she going to understand, other than the scary parts?

  When Uncle Emmett had heard everything, he shook his head.

  “Lot of good that fancy research center’s done for the island,” he said. “So glad you were studying seaweed while this disease was creeping up on us.”

  “Emmett,” Mom said sharply, and he scowled at her.

  I could have kicked him, but Dad didn’t look offended. I guess he’s used to Uncle Emmett making digs at him by now. “You might be surprised,” he said. “The equipment’s being put to good use, believe me.”

  Uncle Emmett stood up and said, “Well, I’ll get started packing.”

  “What?” Mom said. “Where are you going?”

  “Does it matter?” he asked, his voice rising. Meredith shifted, and I squeezed her closer. “You think I should wait around until this virus gets me or Meredith?” he went on. “If the situation is as serious as Gordon says it could be, there’s no way in hell I’m staying here.”