The Edge of Falling

by Rebecca Serle

  He shook his head. “You don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m not the same person I was before. You don’t want to be with this girl. It’s okay. I understand.”

  He sank down to his knees then. I thought maybe he was going to start praying. “I don’t think you want me to help,” he said. “I just think it might be easier for you if I wasn’t here.”

  I wanted to tell him how wrong he was. That this wasn’t about him helping; there was nothing he could do. He didn’t understand that when your sister dies there isn’t anything anyone can do. And I was mad at him. I was angry that it was his bracelet, his piece of protection, I kept seeing at the bottom of the pool. It was supposed to keep me safe, and instead it had killed her. It was at that moment, with him on his knees, that I understood something had been broken in me that was still whole in him. That I understood that we were nothing alike at all.

  I blink and look at Astor. “It’s just . . . my life for the last eight months has been pretty unrecognizable. It’s hard to know what I am anymore.”

  “You’re real,” he says. “You’re not a fake like those girls Abigail and Constance.” He leans forward, stretches his fingertips across the table toward mine for a second time. “I just know. I could tell the moment I met you.”

  Something about the way he says the last word, “you,” like it’s chocolate on his tongue, like he’s reveling in it, makes me take his hand. I want to believe him. To see what he sees in me. In fact, for the first time since January, I feel understood.

  We stay that way, our fingers looped together over the linen tablecloth, for what feels like a long time. Time passes differently when really terrible things happen. It glides out, stops short, hurtles itself backward. It’s hard to mark the moments. They don’t follow any kind of linear trajectory. But sitting with Astor in that bistro downtown something shifts, like a tectonic plate clicking into place underneath us. Time stops entirely. I’m not trying to go back to before Hayley and I’m not trying to push forward, to figure out a way to “move on.” I’m just here, now. I don’t have to carry the same burden with Astor. I don’t have to pretend I’m capable of anything I’m not.

  He doesn’t need me to be different.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Be careful—it’s Ming,” my mother says as an assistant takes a vase down from the bookcase in our living room. Vanity Fair is here, and they’re doing a piece on us for their “New York Royalty” issue. It will come out in three months.

  We’re taking a family portrait that will go next to the one of my grandfather that hangs above the mantel. My mother is micromanaging the situation, and my dad and Peter are in a corner, checking sports scores.

  Hayley runs between my mother and Peter. She’s refusing to change out of her dress—the white-and-blue one she calls her Alice in Wonderland. It has some paint splattered on it from this morning’s activity, an imperfection our mother is refusing to overlook. She’s not in a good mood—my uncle hasn’t shown up.

  My dad looks up from his phone just in time to catch Hayley as she saunters over. She seems to be showing off the paint stain like an award.

  “Hi, baby,” Dad says.

  Hayley sticks her hands right on her hips. She knows what he’s up to.

  “You think you could do this one thing for your mother?” he asks, pointing to the crusted fuchsia marks.

  Hayley has been screaming no at Mom, but for Dad she stops. I can see her thinking. So can Mom, but she pretends not to be listening.

  “Okay,” Hayley says. “But then we go to Sherman’s.”

  Sherman’s is her paint-supply store on Madison. My father holds up his hands in victory. “Of course,” he tells her. “Right after we take this picture.” She nods, and runs from the room. But then she turns back. She runs straight at my dad, gives him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Knew that would cost me,” he says when she’s left. “But worth it,” I say.

  My dad glances at my mom, who is back to business, refluffing throw pillows. He doesn’t say it, but I can tell he’s thinking the same thing.

  * * *

  I roll over in bed, the last remnants of dream memory dissolving into the morning sun streaming through my window. That afternoon, almost two years ago now. It was the start of so much. My parents have always been high in New York social circles—old money, etc.—but that Vanity Fair piece skyrocketed things. It made us seem like we were folklore, fantasy. It made us seem great. I remember Hayley coming home from school asking why people kept bugging her about Granddad. “Did he do something bad?” she asked.

  I told her no, of course not, he was just a very talkedabout man. Sometimes people said nice things, and sometimes they said things that weren’t very kind at all. The truth is he was strict. He was severe. He didn’t even stay married too long. He didn’t really get along well with anyone.

  Well, anyone besides me. He liked me. My mom said right away. Children weren’t really his thing—he barely once picked Peter up—but it was different with me.

  I remember hours spent on my father’s study floor playing horsie with him, or reading bedtime stories at my uncle’s house in California.

  There was one trip when we were walking on the beach in Malibu, just he and I. We would do that sometimes—duck out of the house and have beach dates together.

  I remember I bent to pick up a shell. It wasn’t anything special. Just one of those white ones with the ridges that line any beach. It was whole, though. That part was unusual. I handed it to him and he gave it back to me. “You keep it,” he said. He put his arm around me then, and we faced toward the ocean. I don’t remember how long we stood there, but it was a while. Long enough for me to watch a boat disappear out to sea. “You’re really mine,” he said. It was soft, but I heard him. “Your father never was, but you are.”

  I never felt like I fit with my family. Not my mom or my dad, not even Peter—he’s way too self-assured. But Hayley was mine, just like I was my grandfather’s.

  Sometimes I still can’t believe they are both gone.

  I throw back the covers and head into the bathroom. I splash some water on my face, apply cream, change into my uniform. The kitchen is quiet. My mother is already gone. I see Peter’s baseball cap on the kitchen table, Mets stenciled across the top. I pick it up. I know he’s not here—my mother was probably cleaning out some drawer or closet or something—but I still press it up against my chest before I set it back down. Like maybe there is a little of him in there.

  A little bit of some kind of home still stored inside the brim.

  I keep my eyes trained off the family portrait—the one that still hangs in our sitting room—as I leave for school. I know I’ll see Hayley, front and center. Smiling wide, new dress on, hands on her hips. Alive.

  “Hey, wait up.”

  I turn around to see Trevor jogging behind me. School has just ended, and I’m trying to hightail it home. Astor and I are going to see a movie tonight—something with sunflowers in the title, at the Angelika—and I want to change first. It’s only been three days since our dinner, but I’m anxious to see him. Some time between classes at school hasn’t really been much. Or enough.

  “What?” I snap.

  Trevor takes a step back. “You didn’t show up yesterday.” “For what?” I ask. I blow some stray hair off my forehead. He just keeps looking at me. “The first day of the Journal.” The Journal is a creative-writing magazine that Kensington funds and puts out. Getting to be a part of it is a big deal. It’s actually published and available to the public, unlike the paper, that is just for us. Getting elected is this ridiculously rigorous process whereby you have to sign up and then be nominated and then go before a board and present your creative vision. Trevor and I got elected last year, way back in December. They plan early. I think we had the upper hand all along, though. It’s pretty common knowledge that Mrs. Lancaster, the faculty point person, has a crush on Trevor. She’s in her sixties, probably, and she’s always saying things to
Trevor like “If I were a lifetime younger, you’d have to watch out.”

  Anyway, the Journal publishes students’ writing pieces and some printed artwork, as well as general submissions. It’s really well respected. Jonathan Franzen once had a piece published in it. A bunch of New Yorker contributors too. Being the school paper editor helped me, and Trevor and I landed ourselves the positions of coeditors along with a faculty member and a creative-writing professor from Columbia. We went out to our favorite diner, Big Daddy’s, to celebrate after we found out. Trevor ordered us both chocolate shakes, and we sat in the booth for hours pouring over old copies of the Journal and talking about how we were going to change it once it was in our hands.

  “I forgot,” I say. “Sorry.” I drop my hands down by my sides. I try not to look him in the eye.

  Trevor folds his arms across his chest. His school blazer is off, and he’s wearing a blue T-shirt, one I know well. It has a small ink stain at the bottom left corner, right by the seam, from the night I chewed through a pen studying for a calculus me he liked it even more now. “It has your mark on it,” he said. “Just like I do.”

  Trevor shakes his head. “I covered for you, but they weren’t happy. It’s a big deal, Caggs.”

  “I’m aware,” I say.

  “Our next meeting is tomorrow,” he says, taking a step closer to me. “Here.” He hands me a piece of paper with a schedule on it. “That has all the information.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” He opens his mouth again, like he’s going to say something, but instead he just lets his arms swing to the side.

  “I gotta go,” I say. I take off before either one of us has the chance to say good-bye.

  Seeing Trevor, talking about the Journal, makes me want to get to Astor even faster. When he rings the doorbell an hour later, it feels like it’s been a month.

  “Miss me?” He’s leaning against the door, and he’s changed from school. He’s now wearing a blue button-down and jeans, and I can tell he’s showered from the way his hair looks—newly done. A tiny bit crunchy at the ends.

  “I just saw you at school,” I say. I keep my hands by my sides. I try not to let my impatience show, although I don’t think I’m doing too good a job.

  “Feels like forever.”

  I have a light feeling in my stomach, like champagne bubbles rising. “Do you want to go?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I slip my bag over my shoulder and close the door. He doesn’t move to let me pass by, and I’m suddenly aware of him next to me. Of the way he smells—like expensive cologne, like Paris—and how it makes me want to move closer. How I want to put my hand around the back of his neck and pull him in.

  He takes my hand.

  “I thought we could walk a bit after,” he says.

  “After the movie? I should probably start my English paper—”

  He swings me around. Fast. My words get lost on the way. “No,” he says. “After this.” He lets go of my hand and loops his arms around my waist. Then he draws me toward him and places a hand on my cheek. He runs his thumb there and then moves his lips over mine. We start kissing. I disentangle my arms from my sides, and then I’m grabbing at his hair, his neck, his shoulders—whatever I can reach. His hands reach around me, travel up my sides. His lips on mine feel hot, frantic. When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard. “Not bad,” he whispers.

  He leans his forehead to mine; I angle myself so I’m pressed against his chest.

  It doesn’t make sense. I barely know him. It shouldn’t make me feel this good to be close to him. Like I want to slip underneath his shirt and breathe against his skin. But I do.

  “Maybe we should skip the movie,” he says, planting a kiss by my ear.

  I lean back and look at him. Raise my eyebrows. “But what would we do?”

  He smiles. So do I.

  I take his hand and lead him back inside. Past the foyer, up the stairs, down the hallway, and into my room. But when we get inside, I’m actually not sure what to do. Trevor is the only guy besides Peter who has even been in my bedroom, and as soon as I open the door, I think maybe I’ve made a mistake bringing Astor here. I’m acutely aware of the voice in my head, the one that was silenced for a while by his kisses, the one that is now reminding me that I hardly know him.

  “So, this is it,” I say. I stand holding the doorknob, like at any moment I might need to bolt.

  “It’s nice,” he says.

  He picks up a glass figurine of a ballerina that’s sitting on my desk. Something Claire bought me at a silent auction a few years ago. Some of her father’s photos were being auctioned. Claire just liked raising her paddle, and eventually she won something. I kind of love it. It reminds me of her. “Ballet?” He asks.

  I shrug. “It was a gift.”

  “I see.”

  I wrap my arms around me. Something about the way he’s prowling my room, like he’s looking for clues, makes me feel exposed. There is a lot he could find out about me here.

  He sets the ballerina down and comes over to me. “I like your room,” he says.

  He runs his eyes over my face. His gaze feels hot—I swear it might even burn me. And then he reaches forward and takes my face in his hands and starts kissing me again.

  We end up on my bed. He slides his hands down my sides and underneath my shirt. They feel warm against my skin, and I reach up to pull him closer.

  He holds my waist with his palms and then backs off a little—kissing my neck, my nose, the bridges of my eyebrows.

  “You’re too much,” he says.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” he says. He props himself up on his elbow and runs a finger in a figure eight over my stomach. I shiver. “I didn’t think I’d find you at Kensington.”

  “What did you think you’d find?” I ask. He lifts his finger. Touches my shoulder. “Abigail, maybe.”

  I exaggerate a shudder. “You’re pretty lucky, then.” “I’d say so.”

  He kisses me again.

  “Tell me something,” he says.

  “Like what?”

  “Something about yourself.” He trails a flat palm down my arm.

  “That’s pretty broad.”

  He kisses my ear. “Try.”

  “I used to ride horses,” I exhale.

  He pulls back and looks at me. “Better than that.”

  “I never had braces?”

  “I heard you saved a girl’s life last year.”

  All at once his hands on me feel like ice blocks. My blood has frozen in my veins.

  “Did I say something?” he asks.

  I sit up, nudging him off me. “It’s fine,” I say.

  He knits his eyebrows together. “Something tells me this isn’t just you being modest.”

  I hug my knees to my chest. “There isn’t anything to tell. People made a big deal about nothing. I don’t like to dwell on it.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything.

  “It happened and it’s over and everything turned out okay. I don’t see the point in talking about it.”

  “I think it’s pretty cool,” he says. He leans down so we’re eye level.

  “It’s not a goal,” I say. “She was just . . . there.” The familiar guilt blooms in my stomach. Acid. Bile. It makes me want to vomit up the truth fast.

  “Still,” he says. “Saving someone . . . doesn’t it make you feel like there is a reason for all of this?”

  “All of what?”

  “Life.” He looks me square in the eye. “Tragedy.”

  In that moment I know he knows about Hayley. I’ve gotten good at spotting it. The way people’s eyes twitch, like their pupils are dilating. The way they can’t maintain eye contact for more than a moment or the way their body goes slack, like they’re responding to the news themselves. It’s easy to tell when people are thinking about Hayley.

  “How do you—?”

  “The Caulfield granddaughter drowns. Life mirrors art. Allie an
d Hayley: the lost Caulfield children.” He spouts out the headlines, the ones that graced the papers for two full weeks after she drowned.

  “Right.” I nod. I sit back against my headboard.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to talk about it. I just didn’t want you to think you had to hide anything from me.”

  He moves forward, cups my chin with his hand. “Cool?” I shake my head yes. “Yeah,” I say.

  “Hey.” He doesn’t remove his hand. “Look at me.” I glance up, and his gaze holds mine. “You don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to talk about anything.”

  People have told me so many times that I don’t have to talk about it. Friends, neighbors, teachers. They’re always saying, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” But what they really mean is I expect you to answer all my questions. I expect you to cry. I expect you to show me the way you feel. Astor is the first person that when he says it, I believe him. Something in the way his eyes look into mine makes me know he’s not going to push me on it. It makes me relax against him. Into him.

  He kisses me again, and then he lies down next to me, so we’re both staring up at the ceiling.

  “I used to think I understood life. That I sort of had it figured out.” He turns his head to look at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

  I nod. “Yeah. But then everything—”

  “Fell apart.”

  I exhale. “That’s how it goes. One minute you’re aboveground and the next you’re under.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. I feel him take my hand. My phone rings. I groan and roll to my side, snatching up my bag. I bounce out my phone. It’s Claire, calling from home. I look at Astor propped up on one elbow on my bed, his blue button-down barely crinkled. Claire would understand, I think. I hit ignore and roll back toward him.

  “I like that,” he says.

  He sits up and starts kissing me again. I kiss him back. I move myself closer to him, and he reaches up and snaps me against his chest. I let my head fall to the side and feel him start kissing my collarbone, then up to my neck, then—

  My cell phone rings again. I lurch back, but Astor is still working on my ear. “What’s wrong?” he murmurs.