Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  “He said there was someone else there that night.” I free the first photo from Jason’s wall. “He didn’t mean to, but he said it. I knew it had to be Allison, but I didn’t understand why she’d stay silent.” Laura is standing in the doorway when I turn, outside Jason’s room, never in. She’s shaking too, and that’s before I lift the photos.

  The words start off slow, testing to make sure Laura doesn’t run screaming from the house, then grow faster, surer when she stays. I tell my sister everything about my last visit with Jason, everything about seeing Allison, everything I couldn’t tell Heath.

  Everything that is starting to make a horrible kind of sense.

  Jason loved Allison with every fiber of his being. I saw too much proof of that love for nearly a year while they were dating to ever doubt it. He would have died for her.

  He had, I was sure now, killed for her. She was the reason he and Cal fought. And if she’d been there, maybe come upon them right...before. Maybe she ran. Jason said he’d run after someone. That would explain her guilt. Maybe if she hadn’t run, she could have stopped it. Maybe if Jason hadn’t run after her he might have stayed...there might have been time for him to regret his actions in time to get help for Cal...maybe... I can’t think too long about this, or it’ll all collapse like a house of cards.

  The more I talk, the wider Laura’s eyes get, bugging out completely when I start toward the hall. “I have to talk to Allison again.”

  “No!” It’s not the cry that leaves my sister’s lips that arrests me; it’s her charging into Jason’s room and clutching my arm. “Please, you can’t go. You can’t go. Not you too. Not—” She buries her face in my shoulder, sobs and pleas alternating from her.

  The photos flutter to the floor as my arms come up to hold my little sister, each rack of her body calling a tear to pool unshed in my eyes. Laura’s terror is palpable, and with crystal clarity, I understand it. My arms tighten. Laura has already lost one sibling, and I’ve just told her I’m planning to confront the person who may have driven him to commit murder.

  I have to go though, have to know what truly happened that night, but every time I try to release her and explain, Laura redoubles her grip and tears. I’ve never seen her like this. It’s so alarming, and loud, that I’m worried Mom will hear from downstairs.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, rubbing her back. “I’m not going anywhere. Laura, I promise I’m not leaving.”

  Her small, tearstained face lifts. “You can’t go.”

  “I won’t. Come on, let’s go to my room, okay?”

  Laura clutches at me all the way down the hall to my room where we awkwardly crawl onto my bed, holding each other the way we used to when we were little and Jason would pressure us into watching a scary movie.

  We don’t watch any scary movies that night. We watch Some Like It Hot and with my sister’s head on my shoulder and her silky soft hair under my chin, I almost forget the two photos on the floor of Jason’s room.

  Marilyn Monroe’s Sugar Kane is singing “Runnin’ Wild” on the train for the second time that night when I’m at last able to slip out from beside Laura’s sleeping form and tiptoe down the hall to Jason’s room.

  The pictures are right where they fell.

  It’s after midnight, but instead of going quietly back to my room, I grab my keys and move whisper-quiet downstairs and out the front door.

  CHAPTER 38

  I don’t register a single car, a solitary landmark, not one single person on my way to see Allison, though for all the miles I drive I must pass countless people and vehicles.

  The first thing I see is the neon red-and-gold sign from Rosanne’s Diner glowing in the night. It’s late, after 2:00 a.m. so the diner is even emptier than my previous early-morning visit. But Allison is there. I see her through the windows when I approach.

  And she sees me.

  Allison wasn’t enough for you? First it’s your brother’s girlfriend and now the sister of his murderer.

  That’s what Gwen said to Heath. Nausea churns my stomach. He never mentioned her, not once in all the conversations we had, in all the times I confessed how desperately I just needed to understand. Is she the reason he shut me down so completely at his work? Did he know that she’d been there that night? Was he protecting her too? And why? For his brother’s sake or his own?

  Could I have been this stupid? Everyone I trusted betrayed me. Why did I think Heath would be any different?

  Because he was supposed to know what it felt like. We were supposed to be the same.

  I physically try to shake these thoughts from my head, though the gut-twisting sickness stays slick inside me as I watch Allison jerkily shove a notepad into another waitress’s hands before pushing open the glass door to join me in the parking lot. She never takes her eyes off me, not once.

  “I know about you and Calvin,” I say. I’m expecting the revelation to send Allison reeling, collapsing to the ground again. I’m not expecting her to slowly close her eyes and let out a breath it feels like she’s been holding for years.

  “How?” she asks, her eyes still shut.

  “I found a photo of you with him.” I swallow. “And from Heath.”

  Allison’s eyes fly open as the implications hit her. They hit me too as the memory of being in Heath’s arms when his mom and sister walk in crashes over me like a bucket of ice water. And then Laura, shaking and seeming so small in my arms.

  Emboldened, I cut off Allison as questions begin to fly from her.

  “When?” I say, not needing to elaborate further.

  She pleads with me silently, but I don’t so much as blink. At last she lowers her eyes to a thin gold bracelet on her wrist. “We didn’t mean to fall in love, and we tried to deny it for so long because we both loved Jason too. But it didn’t stop, even when we stayed away from each other.”

  “You didn’t try very hard.” I pull out the torn photo of her with Jason and Cal, the one where she isn’t gazing longingly at her then-boyfriend. Allison can barely bring herself to look at the two halves when I hold them together.

  “That’s why we knew that we had to tell Jason the truth before—before anything happened. We owed him that much. I wanted to do it by myself, but Cal insisted we face him together. So we did...and...” Allison’s lips tremble. “It was awful. He didn’t believe us...and then...” Her voice goes hollow. “It was worse when he did.”

  My eyes squeeze shut thinking how destroyed Jason must have been, not just over losing the girl he loved, but losing her to his best friend, just like Uncle Mike lost Mom. And I never knew. None of us did. He never said a word. I open my eyes and a single tear trails down my cheek as Allison goes on.

  “He was so angry. He—he drove his fist through the window of Cal’s truck. He started to get sick, you know, because of the blood, but when we tried to help him...he broke the other window.”

  I feel cold, listening to her recount Jason’s violent outburst, remembering the way he screamed at me on the phone. The rumors of his temper back in high school.

  “That was a week before Cal died, and he was so upset about what happened with Jason that he broke it off. He said that we were a mistake, and if we’d given it more time apart we would have realized it before we hurt Jason.” Her fingers twist tight around the bracelet. “The day before he died he even told me he was going to look into transferring to another school out of state. That was the last time I saw him. I wasn’t there, Brooke, but I know...” Her eyes well with fresh tears. “They met up that night so Cal could tell Jason he was leaving. The last thing he tried to do was make it right between them.”

  It’s my turn to stagger this time, shaking my head and acutely trying to block out Allison’s words. “And you were just going to go back to my brother like nothing ever happened?”

  “No,” she whispers. “If I couldn’t be with Cal I didn’t want to be wi
th anyone.”

  “You told Cal’s brother this?” I ask, even though it shouldn’t matter anymore, even though nothing matters anymore.

  She hesitates, and then nods. “A month ago, maybe. I was at his house and...”

  I almost double over. The day he kissed me. I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me. Why does that hurt? Why do I care if my heart is breaking when it was already broken beyond repair?

  “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” Allison, openly crying now, takes a desperate step toward me but I instantly retreat. “I did love Jason. I did. God help me, I did.” She collapses. Not physically, she keeps her feet, but emotionally she shreds before my eyes. Her voice is so choked with tears that I can only make out every other word and have to fill in the ones I miss.

  She had to disappear after Cal died. She blamed herself for what Jason did that night and she was afraid that if she came forward and talked to anyone about her relationship with both Jason and Cal, then they might have grounds to add premeditation to the charge. That would have meant life in prison at the very least, and more than likely the death penalty.

  She couldn’t let the only two people she’d ever loved both die because of her.

  Unbidden, pieces from Jason’s arrest and arraignment come back to me. Evidence that fits Allison’s narrative, things I ignored, things that my happy-in-love brother couldn’t possibly have done...but a blindsided and betrayed one?

  “I’m sorry...sorry...”

  I check the impulse to wrap my arms around her. How can I offer her comfort when she’s taken all hope from me? But I can’t just stand there watching her cry either. People inside the diner have taken notice of us, of the keening noises coming from Allison; a few have even started to approach the door.

  “What can I do?” she asks, tears still spilling down her face.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I don’t know what any of us can do. Pushing away the thoughts of her with Heath and the agony Jason must have felt when she chose Cal over him, I look at the broken girl in front of me. “I wanted it to be your fault,” I say softly. “But it’s not.”

  She lets out one more sob, one so deep and gasping that it sounds like she’s been holding on to it since Cal died.

  Mine stays firmly lodged in my throat.

  Reaching Daphne, I rest my palms on the cool metal side, gazing at my faint reflection in the glass window, trying to imaging hitting it hard enough to shatter, not once but twice even as I fought nausea over the sight of my own blood.

  Then realizing that hitting a window wasn’t enough.

  My shoulders straighten as I pull open the door and slide behind the steering wheel. I no longer believe Allison was there the night Cal was killed, but someone was.

  Someone who actually saw what happened.

  CHAPTER 39

  I don’t know how I survive until Saturday. I work. I skate. I miss Maggie. I can’t think about my brother, so I think about Heath until ice fills my veins. And then I do it all over again.

  Mom’s sitting on my bed when I get home from work Friday night. I know she’s been crying. Her eyes are red, but her cheeks are dry and her makeup has been touched up. I don’t like that I hesitate in my doorway. I knew we’d have to talk—it’s been nearly a week since we’ve said anything meaningful to each other, and I’m not afraid of her, but still, I hesitate. She sees it and awkwardly stands. She takes a step toward me, pauses, then takes another, and then quicker ones until she’s close enough to wrap her arms around me.

  For the first time in my life, my arms don’t automatically encircle her back. They stay limp at my sides while my eyes prick. I know she can feel how stiffly I’m standing but she doesn’t pull away; she strokes the back of my hair.

  “Sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  And the thing is I know she’s sorry. I knew it the second she slapped me, even before her eyes went wide in horror. All week I’ve known she was sorry and ashamed. All week I’ve known I should go to her and tell her it’s okay, that I love and forgive her, because I do. I did lie to her. I knew my actions would send her into a panic and that she’d be terrified and angry when I didn’t come straight home after seeing Jason. I knew all that, and I didn’t even call. I shattered my own phone so I wouldn’t have to.

  And my arms remain at my sides while she hugs me just feet from where I’ve hidden her mother’s quilt.

  For how long, I don’t know, but it becomes clear that she’s not letting go until I respond. I hug my mother like a stranger and it splinters my heart when I do. “It’s okay, Mom.”

  At last she lets me go. Her eye makeup has started to run, but I’ve kept my eyes dry by sheer will. She strokes my cheek, my arms, my hands, seemingly unwilling to let go of me entirely after so many days of complete emotional and, in large part, physical separation as well. She sits us both down on my bed and tells me things I already know, things her own mother never said to her.

  She’ll never raise a hand to me in anger again.

  She’ll never react without giving me a chance to explain again.

  She loves me.

  She’s so sorry.

  So, so sorry.

  She can’t bear feeling so much distance between us.

  Will I forgive her?

  I answer truthfully. I believe her and I forgive her, but she’s the one who hugs me again and I have to force myself to respond in kind.

  It feels like a lie, but I don’t understand why.

  “Mom,” I say, pulling away. “I need to ask you for something tomorrow.”

  Her hand is immediately cupping my cheek. “Anything.”

  I take a deep breath. “I want to visit Jason again by myself.”

  Her hand on my cheek stills then lowers in jerky motions to her lap.

  I know what I’m asking, the impossibility of it in her eyes. She’d sooner cut off her own arm than miss seeing her son another week. The fact that I’m asking such a thing, fresh off the heels of her desperate attempted reconciliation no less, it feels cruel. We both know it.

  I still ask though.

  I have to see Jason alone, and she can’t be sitting quietly at another table or even waiting for her turn in the parking lot. It has to be my brother and me, just us.

  Mom’s eyes are swimming as she looks at me. I’m making her choose, and I’ve never felt more disgust for myself.

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “We had a fight last time,” I tell her, thinking that if I give her a reason, something good and sibling-unifying to think her absence will help bring about, it might devastate her less. “It was stupid, but I need to see him, alone, and make it right.”

  I can see how tortured she is thinking about my request. Inwardly she must be writhing. I don’t think she’s going to be able to bring herself to agree, so I do something awful.

  “I promise to call this time. Dad fixed my phone so I can call the whole drive back. You won’t have to...be upset when I get home.”

  She makes a sound like her heart has torn in two, a soft whimpering gasp. I blink back tears waiting for her to say the only thing I’ve left her with.

  “Okay, Brooke.”

  I put my grandmother’s quilt back in the attic that night.

  CHAPTER 40

  Jason stops midstep when he enters the visitation room on Saturday morning and sees me alone at the table. From twenty feet away I see him swallow before the guards urge him to keep moving. After that he practically stalks to me. The first thing out of his mouth isn’t about Mom.

  “What did you say to Allison?”

  I draw back against my seat as he leans across the table, almost glaring at me.

  “Mom’s fine,” I say, finding my spine. “Laura and Dad too. Uncle Mike came for dinner the other night, and he’s good too.”

  Jason’s narrow-eyed expres
sion falters, but only briefly. “What did you do, Brooke?”

  “What did I do?” His continued anger throws a spark that kindles my own temper. “What do you think I did? You let slip about someone else being there the night Calvin was killed, someone you care enough about to protect by staying in this—” my lip curls “—place longer than maybe you have to. Who else is there besides Allison?”

  Jason flinches when I say her name.

  “I thought it was her because...because...” My anger is doused almost as quickly as it ignited. “I found out about her and Cal.”

  Jason screws up his face and shakes his head softly while flexing his hand, a hand that I can now see bears tiny white scars along the knuckles. The memory of finding out about his girlfriend and his best friend still visibly pains him, seemingly more so than the memory of smashing a window.

  I suddenly feel eight years old again, pleading with my infinitely older brother for...something, anything. I was always asking him do things with me, go places, play games. He could have said no or put me off, but he almost never did, and more than that, he’d make it seem like he was having so much fun. With me.

  My heart fractures seeing him now, in this place, fading before my eyes. Even anger isn’t enough to rouse him for long.

  “Jason, please. You have to tell me. I know it wasn’t Allison, but it was someone, wasn’t it? Why are you protecting them? Please.” I let him hear my voice break, and it makes his face twist tighter, his head dropping to his chest. “You know it’s not just you in this place. Mom and Laura, me and Dad, Jase, we’re locked up too.”

  He remembers what I told him last time about Mom crying, Dad retreating and Laura withdrawing, I know he does. But he doesn’t know about me.

  “I don’t sleep anymore,” I tell him. “When I close my eyes at night I see Cal dying over and over again. It’s never the same, because when my mind tries to fill in the details they don’t fit. Nothing about Cal’s death makes sense to me. I wake up gasping and crying and there’s no one I can talk to, because Mom and Dad and Laura are hurting too much to hear.” He looks away like he doesn’t want to hear either, but he’s the only one who has to. “You never asked why I’m not auditioning for Stories on Ice. Don’t you care?”