The Edge of Falling

by Rebecca Serle

  No one ever asked me why I went up to Abigail’s roof to begin with. Not the Post. Not Claire. Not even Abigail herself.

  The one question they should have asked they didn’t, just like the one question I should have asked that night in January I didn’t.

  Hayley, where are you?

  I keep on walking.

  I’m on Seventh Avenue, headed straight for Columbus

  Circle, when I spot Trevor. He takes violin lessons down in the Fifties, he has forever, and I see him standing on the sidewalk, running his foot along the pavement.

  It’s unfortunate that he is standing here right now. That it had to be him, in this moment. I know what I’m about to do is no good. That I should just keep walking. But I can’t stop myself. I don’t know how. That’s the thing about anger—it’s a transformative force. It can bring you back and then get behind you, push you forward. I’m angry with Claire about that article, angry with Peter for lying, but when I see Trevor, holding his music case, his eyes slightly squinting into the sun, all that rage gets directed like water through a funnel—one clear, straight line. His disappointment about the Journal, his comments about Astor, his eyes at the dance, standing on the stairs. It all makes me rage. The fact that he’s still here. That he reminds me so much about everything I don’t have anymore.

  I move up to him fast. He’s surprised to see me, and he kind of warbles, takes a step back. I’ve spent months running from him, but now the serendipity of him being on the street feels like destiny finally handing me a card. It’s my turn to confront him now. To make him listen to what I have to say.

  “Did you read that Page Six piece?” I ask.

  “What are you—?” He’s still trying to catch up—did I seek him out? Do I remember his violin schedule? Yes, actually, but I don’t tell him that.

  “Peter is living at Claire’s,” I continue.

  Trevor squints at me but doesn’t seem surprised.

  “Did you know that?”

  He blows some air out through his lips and nods.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Claire didn’t—”

  “Who does Claire think she is?” I interrupt. “She’s butted into everything. She’s run her big mouth all over Manhattan. I thought she was my friend.” Trevor looks at me, incredulous. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Trevor—”

  “No. Caggie, I’m sorry, but you have to get this.” He steps closer to me, and I see the side of his mouth twitch, the little corner of his cheek flaring the way it does when he’s really concerned. I used to watch that cheek when we were studying, saw it wink at me when he first leaned down, close, and told me he loved me. “You don’t get it. Claire is the only one who’s actually been brave enough to say something. To do something. Do you know why Peter is there?”

  “No,” I admit.

  “He didn’t want to leave you.” Trevor’s hair falls into his face, but I can see his eyes staring at me. The purest blue. “He wanted to stay to make sure you were okay.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say, glancing away. “Why would he do that?”

  Trevor exhales. “Come on, Caggie. You’re not the only person who lost someone in all of this.” He holds his gaze to mine, and I recognize something in it, something I haven’t seen in a long time. The way he used to look at me. How I knew how much he cared.

  “I know,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “You don’t.”

  “Of course I do. You’re not my brother, Trevor. You’re not in this family.”

  “No, you’re right, I’m not. But I was . . .” His voice catches.

  “I screwed up, Caggie.” He steps closer, like he’s testing the waters. I don’t move. “I should never have left this summer. I should have stayed with you, even if you wouldn’t let me in. I should have seen you every day. I should have been with you.” I shake my head. I can’t deal with this, not now. There is too much spinning. Claire and Peter and Astor—spokes on a wheel turning faster and faster, about to puncture something. “Look at me,” he says.

  I pick my head up, just slightly. “Don’t do this, Trevor,” I say. But it’s quiet. Shaky. I’m losing ground.

  “I made a mistake,” he says. “I thought things would be better for you if I wasn’t here.”

  “How?” I whisper.

  “I don’t know,” he says. He shakes his head. “It was stupid. But you kept pushing me away.”

  “Trevor . . .”

  He looks at me, head-on. “I didn’t go to California this summer,” he says. “I helped Peter at the beach house.”

  I gape at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “There was no one else to do it. I thought at least that was a way I could help.” He steps closer to me still and puts his hand on my elbow. Cups it the way he’s done so many times before. “I love you, Caggie. Don’t you know that?”

  “I . . .” But in the next instant he kisses me. He puts his hand on the side of my face and one around my waist and draws me close to him. His lips feel like relief. Everything else melts away, and for a moment I’m just focused on what it feels like to be with him. Wonderful, exhilarating. The purest kind of perfect.

  But so many things are wrong. We can’t just kiss here like nothing happened. We can’t just pretend that we can move on to okay when there is so much standing in the way.

  “I have to go,” I say, pulling back.

  Trevor loosens his arms around me. “Caggie, please, can’t we talk about this?”

  I look at him. Maybe I’m crying. I can’t even feel my face. “No,” I say. “It’s over, Trevor.”

  He doesn’t fight me as I walk away.

  I don’t know what to think of any of this, so I don’t. I shut my brain off. I turn down Fifty-eighth street toward Broadway and then up to Fifty-ninth. Around the Plaza. We had Hayley’s eighth birthday there, in the Eloise Suite. We brought her friends downstairs for high tea. She may have been an artist—sensitive, wise beyond her years—but she was also just a little girl. She loved dressing up in pink, eating sugar cookies, and sliding on white elbow gloves. I remember I put together the gift bags for that birthday: little Eloise totes with her guests’ names stenciled on the front. Fake pet turtles, a box of wax crayons, and black patent-leather Mary Janes in each of their sizes.

  The next day, when we were checking out, Hayley wanted to know where my gift bag was. I told her the bags were just for her friends. She looked at me, really puzzled, and then said, “But you’re my sister.”

  You’re my sister.

  Here is the truth. What I can’t say to Peter or Trevor or Claire: It doesn’t get better; it gets worse. I miss her more every single day. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what about death? What happens when you know there will never come a time when the ache will be alleviated? How do you deal with missing someone forever?

  I walk the last eight blocks home, and when I get there, Astor is standing outside. In the chaos of Peter and Claire and Trevor I almost forgot about everything that is going on with him. And that I’ve avoided about ten of his phone calls. He looks nervous. He’s tapping his foot against the pavement like he’s trying to chip it away. His shirt is untucked, and his cheeks are flushed. Beads of sweat hang from his forehead.

  “Caggie,” he says. He sounds like he’s been waiting forever.

  He pulls me to him as soon as he sees me. Puts his hands around my waist and drags me in like a tow truck. I feel numb. Blank. So overloaded with everything that there isn’t space for anything. Even when he starts kissing me—fast, furious—I can barely feel his lips at all. I try to pull back, but he keeps me close, his arms locked around me. I start to feel like I’m suffocating. He’s crushing me, and the more I try to squirm, the tighter he holds me. I suddenly remember something I came across in my Google searches on drowning. How if you’re trying to rescue someone from the water, they will try to climb on top of you in order to save themselves. They’ll hold you down. Often the people
who try to rescue are the ones who end up drowning.

  “Stop.” I yank myself back far enough to look at him, and the moment our eyes lock, he releases me.

  He’s still got a hold of my hand, and I let him trace my fingers with his thumb. He glances down the street, then pulls me up onto my front steps. “He found out,” he says. His eyes dart back and forth, like someone is watching us. “I tried to call you. I called you a million times.”

  “Who?” I ask, groping for time, but I already know he’s talking about his dad. The image of the glass frame pops into my mind like red paint lobbed at a white canvas. Loud. Screaming. Sudden. Hysterical, even.

  “He found out about what?” I swallow.

  “We had a deal,” he says.

  I get the distinct impression he isn’t speaking to me, not really. He’s talking to himself, relating the story out loud so it becomes something he can sort through. Pieces of a puzzle he’s got to take out of the box and set faceup on the floor.

  “My dad and I. If I stayed in school and didn’t flunk out this time, I could stay.” He glances at me, like it’s a look he’s stealing. Something that doesn’t belong to him. “I thought it would be easier to get my records. I didn’t think it would matter, but they kicked me out. Kensington.” I hear him swear under his breath.

  My stomach bottoms out. I feel sick. It’s the same feeling I got standing in his mother’s shrine room. I think about his father on the phone. The intensity in his voice. He wanted to send him away. And now, standing here, I know where he wants him to go. I remember Peter’s warning: They left because he turned into a fucking psychopath.

  “I need somewhere to go,” he says.

  He’s still holding tight to my hand, so tight that I’m afraid to look down. I’m afraid his knuckles will be white. That I’ll be able to see blood draining.

  “Okay,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.” I try to keep my voice level, but it won’t stop shaking.

  I hate this thought for creeping in. I hate it like I hated every single person who told me after Hayley died that they “were there.” I resent it, but that doesn’t stop it from coming: Maybe Astor’s father is right. Maybe he needs help.

  “I need to disappear,” he says.

  “London?” He looks at me like he can’t believe what I just suggested.

  “To who?”

  “Friends?” I mumble. I’m losing ground. Standing on quicksand. I can tell he has something else in mind, something that is absolutely, unquestionably, not an option.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he says.

  “I don’t want you to either,” I say. They’re just words. I don’t even know if they’re true.

  He pulls me close again. “What do you want to do?” I whisper. I just want him to ask already. Get it out in the open. I know it’s coming.

  He says it so quietly, so gently, that the words don’t make an impact at first. They slip in on silk.

  “Your beach house.”

  It’s like all the air gets sucked off the street. I can even hear it whoosh away.

  I don’t respond, just swallow.

  “No one is there,” he says. “It’s empty; they’d never even know.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not going out there.” It’s one thing for Peter and Trevor to have been out there this summer, but I’m not going back there, not ever. That place is a tomb. It’s a grave site. It isn’t a house; it’s the scene of a crime. In my head, when I think about it, I think maybe it doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it died with her. The only time I’ve talked about the house with him is when I’ve been complaining about Peter. The fact that he’s stored the information makes my chest feel tight.

  “Caggie, please. If we don’t leave, he’s going to send me away.” His eyes are fired up, raw. It’s like he’s come apart at the seams—even his clothing, normally pressed, even, buttoned, has come undone.

  I try to move around him, toward the door. The air hasn’t returned to the street, and I have the stupid, pathetically hopeful thought that maybe there is air inside. Maybe I’ll be able to breathe if I just shut the door.

  “Just get on a flight somewhere,” I say, fumbling with my keys. “Where does he want you to go, anyway?” But I know. Of course I know. The same place where everyone thought Kristen was this summer. Somewhere they send people who need help.

  He grabs my shoulders and spins me around. “He’ll track my credit card. I just have to disappear. Just until we can figure out what to do next.”

  “Are you asking me to run away with you?” But it isn’t like when he asked me to go to Paris, or Rome. This isn’t romantic. This is desperate.

  “Come on, Caggie. What is here for you, anyway?”

  My keys are rattling in my hands. Shaking against each other. And when I open my mouth, my words do the same. “I can’t go there, Astor.”

  “You can,” he says. He takes my hand in his. Covers it.

  “I’ll be with you. We’ll do it together.”

  “No,” I say. I shake my head; my shoulders are quaking. I feel like one of those bobblehead dolls that bounce around on people’s desks. “I can’t.”

  He keeps his eyes on me but wraps our fingers together.

  Threads his through mine. “Please,” he says.

  I can feel him looking at me, but I keep my gaze down, on our interlaced hands, the keys between us. I can see them wink in the sun, like a penny on the sidewalk. Like the glint of a bracelet at the bottom of a pool. I already know, even before I answer, that I won’t use them.

  I won’t be going back inside.

  Because I understand desperation. There is no reasoning with it. It doesn’t respond to rationalizations. I could stand on my steps and give him every possible excuse and new plan. I could buy him a plane ticket to India myself. But it won’t matter. He’s made up his mind. The only place he’s going to feel safe is the beach house. Have I mentioned yet? Grief makes you crazy.

  “How do you want to go?” I ask. My voice sounds small, resigned. Like it belongs to someone else.

  “I’ll drive,” he says. “I have a car here.”

  I know that I’m headed straight for disaster. But I do it anyway. I don’t know what the alternative is. Just like on that roof, there isn’t a choice here. It’s forward. And forward is east. The thing about loss, huge grief, is that it can make you feel so blank you become untouchable. It can make you feel like you have nothing left to lose.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Astor is driving too fast. It’s getting dark on the highway, and although I know the roads well, I also know the Hamptons are a dangerous place to be reckless on the road. A whole bunch of weekend drivers, people who aren’t used to being in cars. Dinner parties, alcohol. It’s a perfect storm for collisions, and they happen all the time.

  “Slow down,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time. My words get swallowed up by air. All the windows are down.

  Astor seems in a trance. He has for the past hour. Nervous, focused. He barely talks except to occasionally ask me if we’re on the right road, if there’s a shortcut I know about. If we turn left here, will we still get there?

  I have my elbow set in the crease of the open window, my head resting in my hand. I’m keeping my eyes on the road, trying to avoid the memories that come like hot pokers to the skin.

  The last time I drove here, Hayley was next to me in the passenger seat. It was about the same time, dusk, but it was probably a bit earlier given how soon the sun sets in January. The roads had been icy—there had been a snowstorm the weekend before—but the day we drove out, January third, was sunny and all the snow melted. I remember because Claire wanted to sit on her roof and see if we could catch a tan.

  “It’s still going to be like thirty degrees,” I said.

  “The sun doesn’t care whether it’s cold or not—it still shines.”

  The sun does still shine. It did that day and the day after, too. I remember waking up in a hospital and seeing it through the
windows, pouring in through the translucent curtains.

  People think tragedies are blurs, that they fade together like a film dissolve, but that’s not at all how it goes. The memories are sharp, jagged. When you call them up, they could slice right through you.

  Hayley was chatty in the car. Too chatty. She wanted to talk about things I didn’t, like where I wanted to go to college.

  I didn’t know. The University of Iowa, maybe, or somewhere in California, I thought. Close to our uncle. The beach.

  Somewhere “out west.” It’s funny to remember that moment before, to think I was trying to escape something even then. That running from everything didn’t begin with her death.

  Hayley was also curious about Trevor. She always was. She wanted to talk about him all the time. I remember she was disappointed he wasn’t coming out until Saturday morning. I think she had a crush on him. Whatever that means for a tenyear-old. She looked up to him. He would bring her books, talk to her about her painting. Sometimes I think he came over just to see her, and Hayley loved it.

  She was smart—far beyond her years. She could hold her own in any discussion: politics, literature, whatever. My parents always wanted to test her IQ—my mom thought she should skip a grade—but Hayley would never let them do it. I think her secret fear was being different from people, separate. She wanted to be involved in everything, even if it didn’t concern her. She was independent, but she wanted us around. She wanted company. I wince as the memory comes back—sharp and cold and as biting as a fresh icicle straight through the heart. I see myself pulling her out of the pool. I see her gray lips. I watch myself hold her in my arms. In her moment of death she was alone. I wasn’t there to keep her company. To tell her that it was all going to be okay. That’s the thing I regret most. That she died alone.

  My phone rings and it shocks me upright. My hand hits the window edge and I yank it back, rubbing it down on my leg.