Free to Fall

by Lauren Miller

  Tarsus didn’t hesitate. “You would have failed the exam.”

  “But in real life, the dock—”

  “Collapsed. Yes, I know. But reason dictates that an overloaded dock should be evacuated to prevent collapse, not left as is in order to cause it.” She was watching me closely. “So if you’d left all those people on the dock despite knowing that the crates would explode, then I would’ve had to assume that one of two things had occurred. Either you’d been paralyzed by indecision or blinded by an irrational impulse. Both would’ve been grounds for a failing grade.”

  “So you were trying to trick me,” I said.

  Tarsus’s mouth curved into an icy smile. “Trick you? Now you sound paranoid. Perhaps a visit to the campus health center would do you some good. I can write you a referral if you’d like.”

  I swallowed, my throat like sandpaper. “What did I do to make you hate me so much?”

  Tarsus just laughed. “I don’t care about you enough to hate you, Rory.” She turned away then, having gotten the last word again. “Please close the door on your way out.”

  I somehow made it through history, but there was no way I could choke down lunch. So I changed into sweats and went for a run through the woods instead, letting the sound of leaves crunching beneath my sneakers drown out the cacophony of noises in my head. It started to drizzle as I was starting my third lap around the cemetery. Without thinking, I climbed over the fence and sprinted toward the mausoleum, cutting across the graves to get there faster. Other than the rhythmic sound of rain split-splatting on dry leaves, it was quiet as I approached. It wasn’t until I’d slipped through the wrought-iron gate of the mausoleum that I heard the music.

  I put my knuckles to the granite to knock, but that seemed a little ridiculous, and it’s not like they would’ve heard me anyway. So I took a breath and leaned the weight of my body into the stone the way I’d seen North do. The rock slid away.

  I was expecting the whole band so I jumped a little when I saw only North. He was on the floor, leaning against the marble coffin, a laptop on his lap, its speakers blaring.

  “Rory,” he said as I stepped inside the tomb. There was surprise in his voice, and relief. He set his computer aside and scrambled to his feet.

  “I got your note,” I said.

  “How’d you know I was here?” He moved toward me slowly, his eyes never leaving my face, as if he were afraid I might disappear.

  “I didn’t,” I said. Then softer, “I just hoped you were.” I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “You said you could explain.”

  He nodded. “I can. But you should probably sit down.” He gestured toward the mourner’s bench behind us.

  My stomach dipped. “Okay,” I said, and sat.

  He sat down next to me, angling his body toward mine so our knees were nearly touching. “I tried so many times to get in touch with you,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. His hair was wet from the rain. “But no matter whose account I used, you blocked me. I even thought about sneaking on campus, but the school got a restraining order against me last year and—”

  “Wait, what?”

  He looked sheepish. “The guys and I broke into one of the buildings to record. The one with the organ and the gold dome.”

  “You broke into the Grand Rotunda? Didn’t you know there’d be an alarm?”

  “I disabled the alarm. They caught us when the canister blew.”

  “The canister?”

  “We were using a huge canister of compressed air to play the pipes like a xylophone,” North explained. “Or trying to. It exploded the first time we tried to let air out.”

  “Holy crap. Did they arrest you?”

  “Just me,” North replied. “I told the other guys to run.” He saw the look on my face. “It sounds like a big deal, but I wasn’t seventeen yet, so it was juvie court, and they let me plead it down to a misdemeanor that’ll come off my record completely when I turn eighteen.” His expression darkened. “The school sued me separately, though, and got the restraining order. I can’t come within fifty feet of their property line.” He smiled a little. “Not that you’re not worth some jail time,” he said, nudging my knees with his. Then his eyes got serious. “But a criminal record would destroy my career.”

  His career? It was an odd word choice for a guy who made coffee for a living.

  He took an unsteady breath. “There are things you don’t know about me, Rory,” he said then, and my arms prickled with goose bumps. I inched back on the bench, drawing my knees to my chest. “And I want to tell you. It’s just—” He stopped. His eyes were searching mine, jerking back and forth and back and forth like the sound bar on a decibel meter, and his back foot was jiggling like a jackhammer.

  “It’s just what?”

  His eyes dropped to his knees. “I’ve never told anyone what I’m about to tell you. Literally, not a single person. So, it’s just—” He lifted his eyes again. “Can I trust you, Rory?”

  “Of course,” I said, and reached for his hand. We both jumped a little when we touched, but I didn’t pull away this time, and he turned his palm up to face mine. My heart was pounding like a drum.

  “First,” he began, “there was never anything going on between Hershey and me. What you saw that night wasn’t what you thought you saw.”

  I nodded. “Hershey told me what happened.”

  “Yeah. I doubt she told you all of it.” His voice was grim.

  “So tell me the rest.”

  “The day we met, when I made you the matcha. That night, Hershey came back—late—just as we were closing. I think she was a little drunk.”

  The night of the welcome dinner. Hershey snuck out that night. She’d been drinking, too. The airplane bottles of Baileys and whatever else.

  “What did she want?” I asked, even though I knew what she wanted. She’d made it clear that afternoon when we met North.

  “She basically told me she was game for a no-strings-attached arrangement,” North said. “I politely declined.”

  I couldn’t help it. I giggled. “How’d she take that?”

  “Not so well,” North said with a laugh. For a second the heaviness of the moment lifted. “She said, and I quote, ‘It’s a long way down from here.’”

  “She didn’t!”

  “Oh, yes. She did.” North shook his head in disbelief. “I have to give her points for a healthy self-image.” He shrugged a little. “I shouldn’t have cared, I guess, but I felt bad about rejecting her and then immediately going after you. That’s why I asked you not to say anything to her about us. I didn’t want to rub it in her face that I was crazy about you.”

  “Crazy about me, huh?” I managed to sound teasing, but I felt lightheaded, like I might faint.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” North said, squeezing my hand. “I need to get the rest of this out, first.” I nodded. “Okay. So. The night of your dance she came into Paradiso for coffee, piss-drunk, then puked all over herself. She had puke splatter on her arms and was very worked up about getting it on her dress. So I told her she could get cleaned up at my place and sleep it off for a couple hours.”

  “Nice of you,” I said.

  “She was your roommate. And your friend, I thought.” The way he said I thought made my stomach sink. Where was he going with this?

  He took a breath before continuing. “While she was in the shower, I got out her phone to text you. She’d just been on it, so it was still unlocked. When I clicked on her message pane, I saw an outgoing message to a blocked number attaching a document with your name on it.”

  I pulled my hand back. “What do you mean, a document with my name on it?”

  “The file name. Well, technically it was your social security number, but I recognized it.”

  “Wait, what? You know my social security number?”

  North took a breath. “Yes. And I can explain. But you need to know what was in this document first.”

  “You opened it?” />
  He nodded. “It was the fifth time she’d sent the document to that same blocked number, and each time the file size got bigger. I had a really bad feeling about it. And I was right.”

  I felt sick. “What do you mean?”

  “It was a log,” he said. “Like, a journal, with dates and times, but it was all stuff you’d done. Conversations she’d had with you.” His voice got faster, more urgent, as he went on. “And there were references to audio files that weren’t attached to the message, so while she was in the shower, I imaged her Gemini. You showed up right as I started, and I knew if Hershey heard you, she’d catch me.”

  I held up both hands, stopping him. “What do you mean, you ‘imaged’ her Gemini?”

  “I made a copy of its contents,” he explained. “So I could go through it after she’d left.”

  “I don’t understand. How?”

  North hesitated, his eyes doing the back-and-forth thing again. “I’m a hacker,” he said finally, watching closely for my reaction. “I do that kind of thing for a living.”

  “A hacker,” I repeated. Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “So, what, you get paid to break into people’s handhelds?”

  “Among other things. Look, Rory, I’m not going to try to rationalize it to you. I know it’s illegal—”

  “Very illegal.” I wasn’t trying to be judgy, but it came out that way. He slid back on the bench, away from me.

  “Yes,” North said, sounding more guarded now. “Very illegal. Which is why my clients pay me a lot of money for my services, and why no one but you knows what I really do.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” I asked.

  “Most of my work relates to public image restoration,” he said. “A person does something embarrassing, pictures end up online, and with Forum’s ridiculous privacy policies, there’s no way to take them down once they’re up. Even if you hide the photos from your timeline, they’re still there. Same with wall posts and status updates. They live forever.” North shrugged. “So people pay me to remove them.”

  “Rich people.”

  “Very rich people. With a lot to lose. People who need my services but prefer that I not formally exist.”

  “So your Forum profile—”

  “Is there in case anyone starts digging. My name is real, but nothing else. All the check-ins, the status updates, the Forum chats—all fake.” He slid closer to me and took my hands. “I hid it from you because I didn’t want you to think I was that guy. I wanted to be real with you. I wanted to just be me.”

  His breath smelled like coffee and breath mints. I kissed him right then, leaning forward so quickly my feet landed on his and our teeth knocked together before we found each other’s lips.

  We pulled away a few seconds later, both breathless, him from surprise and me from the exhilaration of what I’d just done.

  “I confess to lying to you and I get that? I should hide stuff from you more often,” he quipped.

  I swatted him on the arm. “No. You shouldn’t. You get a one-time pass, that’s all.”

  “I’ll take it,” he said, and smiled. Then his brow furrowed, and the giddy joy I’d been feeling evaporated.

  “I need to see that file,” I said.

  “Yes, you do.” North pulled a clunky iPhone from his pocket. It was nearly twice the size of my Gemini. He tapped the cloud icon on his screen.

  “Wait, how do you have service?” I asked him.

  “I’m using Wi-Fi instead of the Li-Fi. It’s the old communications infrastructure, before VLC replaced cellular. Since I’m here so much, I installed an access point on the roof.” He typed a few words onto his screen then handed it to me. He was quiet as I read.

  By the end of the first page I thought I might puke. It was a log, like North had said, of everything I’d said and done since we arrived on campus, and every entry was written to make me sound unstable. I was “paranoid” that Dr. Tarsus hated me, “obsessed” with Lux, “evasive” about my mom’s past, and “preoccupied” with my mom’s necklace. Midway through the second page I stopped reading and closed my eyes.

  North scooted over so he was next to me, and he put his arm around my shoulder. “Do you have any idea who she’s been sending this to?”

  I shook my head, at a loss. Someone in the secret society maybe? Could this be part of their evaluation? It seemed plausible that they’d ask roommates for dirt. But why would mine throw me under the bus like that?

  My eyes were still closed when North kissed my tear-streaked cheek. His nose was cold, and feeling it on my face made me smile despite everything.

  “I should go,” I said reluctantly, handing back his phone. “I have class this afternoon, and I have to talk to Hershey.”

  “Are you going to tell her what you know?”

  “I have to. But I won’t mention you, don’t worry,” I assured him.

  “Mention me all you want,” North said, standing up. “Tell her I saw the log on her phone and opened it. Just as long as she doesn’t know how I got the rest of it.” He gave me his hands and tugged me to my feet. My body bumped against his and I felt it all down my spine.

  “Thank you,” I said, stepping back a little, putting some distance between us. If I stayed this close to him, there was no chance I would make it to my next class. “For finding the file, for showing it to me.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and slid open the mausoleum door. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me, a thousand slow kisses, in the rain.

  Hershey was sprawled out on her bed doing homework when I got back after my last class.

  “Hey!” she said, all smiles. “How was your day?”

  My gut twisted, like a towel being wrung out.

  “I know what you did,” I spat, my voice tight, fully aware that I sounded like a sixth-grade girl.

  Hershey’s smile faded. “Huh?”

  “I read what you’ve been writing about me.”

  Hershey went pale. “Rory. Oh, God. I can explain.”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice like ice. “Please do.”

  Hershey took a shaky breath. “The day I got into Theden, I got a call from Dr. Tarsus. I thought she was just calling to congratulate me on getting in. But then she said she needed my help. That another girl from my school had been accepted, but she thought the admissions board had made a mistake, and she needed me to help her prove it.” Dr. Tarsus. I put my palm on the surface of my desk to steady myself. It wasn’t the secret society after all. It was much, much worse.

  Wringing her hands, Hershey went on. “She said they shouldn’t have let you in because of your mom. Because she was ‘akratic.’” Tears were rolling down Hershey’s cheeks, leaving streaks in her bronzer. “She said we could force your dismissal by presenting evidence to the executive committee that you were unstable, but that I couldn’t tell anyone what we were doing until she’d built her case. She said she’d make sure I had access to you, all I had to do was keep a log and record some conversations.” Hershey gave her head a hard, angry shake. “I should’ve told her to go f—”

  I cut her off. Her should’ve’s were useless to me. “So she knows I hear the Doubt,” I said dully. “You were recording our conversation on Friday. That’s why you kept asking me about the voice.”

  “No,” Hershey said firmly. “No. I haven’t written down or recorded a single thing since you helped me on Thursday night and won’t ever again.” She came toward me and reached for my hands, but I snatched them back. “Rory,” she said, “I am so sorry I did this.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I was flattered, I guess, that she’d ask for my help.” She sounded ashamed. “And by the time that wore off, too envious of you to stop.”

  “You expect me to believe you did this because you envied me?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Wow, you must really think I’m an idiot.”

  “Of course I envied you, Rory. You were a freaking Hepta and, worse, you didn’t even know it. Everything came so easily to
you.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Easy? I worked my ass off to get here, and I’ve been working twice as hard ever since. And now you’ve taken all of it away from me.” Something caught in my throat. I pressed my lips together to keep from crying.

  Hershey put her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Rory. I’ll fix this. I’ll tell her I won’t do it anymore. Then I’ll go to the dean. I promise you, I won’t let her hang you out to—”

  “Don’t you get it?” I spat, shrugging away from her. “It’s too late. You already gave her the rope.”

  I turned on my heels and walked out.

  17

  I WAS OUTSIDE PARADISO six minutes later, heaving from the run. I could feel my hair plastered to my forehead and could only imagine how crazy I must look. Sweatpants, no jacket in fifty-degree weather, nose red, eyes rimmed with the morning’s mascara. Not exactly how I wanted North to see me. But too late, he already had.

  He left a customer at the counter to meet me at the door.

  “Hey,” he said in a low voice. “How’d it go?”

  “One of my teachers put her up to—” I stopped as my eyes landed on my lit teacher, who was watching me from the condiment station. North followed my gaze and lowered his voice even more. “Why don’t you head up to my apartment?” he said, pressing his keys into my hand. “I get off at five.” I slipped my Gemini from my back pocket to check the time. It was four-thirty.

  “Okay,” I said, closing my fingers around the keys. My teacher wasn’t paying any attention to me now, but I felt the need to be stealthy. Maybe Tarsus wasn’t the only faculty member who wanted me out. Plus North wasn’t exactly citizen of the year. It didn’t help either of us for us to be seen together.

  As I mounted the steps to North’s door, I toggled my privacy switch. I didn’t want Hershey coming to find me here. I didn’t want to hear her apology, partly because I was afraid I might forgive her.

  I let myself into the apartment and locked the door behind me. Stepping out of my boots, I wandered over to North’s bookshelf in bare feet.