The Fall Read online

  For, you know, a social outcast everyone hated.

  We never once spoke in school.

  Not once.

  I SEE HER FLYING WITHOUT WINGS

  That’s when I finally stammer

  hello

  & she’s gone.

  THE GODDESS

  I can’t explain Athena’s power without stating the obvious.

  She was beautiful. I mean, smoking. Everybody knew it. You couldn’t not look at Athena Luikin. The blond hair, the lips, her flawless skin, and tight body. Athena was a legend from the time when five different elementary schools came together in one building.

  The guys talked.

  “Have you seen…?”

  “She’s in my English class.”

  “Smoking hot.”

  She was the original sexy girl in our lives. Athena’s outward appearance gave her celebrity and power. It’s easy to see now that Athena had issues of her own. Inside that spectacular body there was, I suppose, an ordinary person with the usual assortment of flaws and insecurities. Back in the early days of middle school, she seemed like a gift from Mount Olympus, so the guys were all willing to accept a certain level of elitist behavior. We just naturally assumed she was better than us and, really, on many levels, she just was. To this day, I’m not sure why girls follow her lead, but they do. Maybe everybody gives “pretty” too much credit.

  Athena hated (hated, hated!) Morgan Mallen and made it her life’s mission to make Morgan as miserable as possible. And when it came to dealing out misery, Athena had a natural gift for it. I’m saying she was good at it.

  Look, that’s life. There are always going to be unpopular people in the world—and everybody knows that girls can be so cruel. Sure, guys can be brutal too. There’s some big dummies walking around, knuckles dragging. I once watched Dominick Demeri beat Eddie Santana to a bloody pulp just for cutting his legs out from under him on the basketball court. It wasn’t intentional, but Dominick didn’t see it that way. He went a little crazy. The next day, life moved on, and after Eddie got out of the hospital, nobody thought about it much. I didn’t anyway.

  Athena had a different style. With one withering remark, she could shred someone’s soul into thin strips. She’d tease the jugular vein out of your throat, sprinkle sugar on it, and suck it down like a raw oyster while you watched.

  Athena was relentless. Each night, she’d dream up new ways of torturing her enemies—new lies, new hurts, new games. She never stopped, like in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (the crappy one with the chill blonde who plays the T-X that’s been sent back to kill John Connor’s … oh, never mind).

  Long after lesser people might have moved on to the next thing, Athena kept putting on the pressure until some sick, mean instinct inside her felt satisfied.

  For at least an entire year, probably more, Morgan was target #1 on Athena’s hate list. I’m not really sure why. I heard rumors. Morgan talked to the wrong guy. Maybe something happened between them, or not. Morgan and Athena might have been friends once. I don’t know exactly, not sure I even want to know. Some crazy female drama. The main thing is this: Athena tagged a bull’s-eye on Morgan’s back, labeled her a slut, then handed out weapons to the rest of us.

  You know what we basically said?

  (This is the killer.)

  “Sure, if we can be your friend!”

  We all wanted to be friends with Athena Luikin. After all, she was a goddess in tight jeans and a North Face jacket.

  COULD HAVE SAID

  Some things I could have said but didn’t:

  “You are not alone.”

  “Things will get better.”

  “I care about you.”

  “Your life is important.”

  “I am here for you.”

  Things I said:

  “You are a fat ugly beast.”

  Those are the facts, folks.

  THE LIBRARY

  The first time we laughed together was a Saturday or Sunday in November. I had gone to the town library with my mom. She went to look at the “Hot New Fiction” shelves, and I wandered over to the videos. I remember I was in the W section—scanning World War Z, War of the Worlds, whatever—and Morgan kind of quietly came up and said, “I saw that thing you did.”

  And I was like, “What the what?” I didn’t expect to see her there, in public, and I didn’t realize we were on speaking terms.

  “At the sliding doors,” she said. There was something playful in her voice, like she was enjoying this. “That thing you did with your hand.”

  Oh, that. When I walk up to an automatic door, like at the supermarket or the library, I try to perfectly time a wave of my hand to make it feel like I’m magically opening the door.

  I know, it’s stupid. I’m an idiot. That’s been established.

  “I didn’t think anyone was watching,” I confessed.

  “So what’s that about?” she asked, grinning.

  My cheeks felt warm, like blood was rushing into them. “It’s Obi-Wan Kenobi,” I reluctantly explained. “You know, ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’”

  She gave me a blank stare. “Is that a movie quote?”

  She had no clue what I was talking about.

  “Star Wars, Episode Four, which is really the first one,” I said. I gestured with my hand and said in my best Obi-Wan voice, “You don’t need to see his identification.”

  Nothing, no reaction.

  “You’ve seen Star Wars, haven’t you?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. I know what it is, it’s not like I live under a rock. I just don’t think I’ve ever watch-watched it.”

  “Watch-watched it?” I laughed. “As opposed to…?”

  “When the TV’s on but you’re not really watching,” she said, “and you eventually change the channel.”

  “Seriously?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a nerdy dad in dork jeans,” she said. “I’m a normal teenage girl—we don’t care about Star Wars.”

  (Normal? Yeah, I heard that too.)

  “I’m not a dad either,” I pointed out, “but I loved those movies when I was a kid.”

  She lifted up on her toes and chirped, “I bet ten bucks your father made you watch them, like it was some important bonding ritual. A guy thing.”

  “He did!” I laughed. “It was a really big deal for us. I can remember it like it was yesterday—he even let me drink orange soda!”

  “It’s called brainwashing,” she said. “You owe me ten bucks.”

  “I didn’t bet.”

  “Pay up,” she said, palm out.

  At that point, more people crowded in the aisle between the shelves. I saw my mother heading in our direction and felt weirdly exposed. So I quickly grabbed a movie, any movie, and mumbled, “Gotta go.”

  She already had a horror movie in her hand, studying the back of it. “Seen it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, no.” I shrugged.

  A small wave of my hand, Obi-Wan-like, and poof, I was gone.

  We never got the hang of good-byes.

  ABOUT ME

  I remember reading that Max was the most popular name for dogs in America. The second most popular was Daisy.

  You already know the name of my dog.

  The incredibly lame thing is that I was originally going to call him Daisy, until my parents explained that she was actually a he and might feel uncomfortable with a girl’s name. My dad said, “Like the Johnny Cash song, ‘A Boy Named Sue.’”

  (Whatever, Dad, with your endless geezer references.)

  So I thought and thought until I came up with Max. Because I’m a genius, right? A true original, that’s me.

  If you are looking for unique and amazing—a trailblazer, an adventurer—then you better get moving. Because I’m not that guy. I’m pretty average. Maybe a little below average, honestly. Except for my height. I’m tall for my age, almost six feet and growing like a weed, as my mom likes to say.

  I’v
e never had a girlfriend. Basically, girls terrify me, especially the good-looking ones. My brain goes slack. My tongue swells to the size of a kitchen sponge. Any words I summon come out like, “Bluh, urg, blork, splurge.” Other times when I get near a girl, I power down completely. No Wi-Fi, no signal. I got nothing. That’s just the way I am. I stare at the floor and blink and blink and blink.

  But with Morgan, it was different, maybe because I didn’t see her that way. Not at first, maybe not ever. It’s confusing to explain and, by now, pretty pointless.

  I’m a follower, if you want to know the truth. What can I say? I’m happy when I can hang out with the guys, fall in with a crowd, sit down at a lunch table that has jokes and laughter and a few upscale kids. I don’t want to be in charge of anything. Which is good, because I’m so not, and I’m happy that way. Leave the decisions to somebody else. I’m happy going along for the ride.

  Used to be, anyway.

  I LOOKED AWAY

  I’ve replayed this next scene over in my mind a hundred times, a thousand times. It was the week after I ran into Morgan at the town library. I was walking down the busy, crowded hallway between periods with some friends. I looked up and there she was, books pressed against her body like a shield, arms crisscrossed like a fullback carrying the ball toward the goal line. She was alone and her head was down, shoulders hunched in that way she had. Maybe she sensed me, I don’t know. But Morgan looked up as we passed. Her eyes flickered.

  I saw her see me.

  Her lips parted almost imperceptibly … and there was something … something in her eyes.

  “Cow,” Tim Early uttered.

  “Moo, moo, moooooooooo,” Jeff Castellano lowed, followed by snickers and various barn noises. Chickens clucking, roosters crowing, the snorting of pigs. The laughter came like razors.

  Morgan’s cheeks flushed crimson. Her head down, she pushed forward and plunged through. Down the long hallway, down and away. The laughter had sliced her up, cut her to ribbons.

  But not before her eyes met mine. For one sliver of a moment, one split second, she looked at me in horror and wonderment, amid the cruelty and the laughter. Maybe she wondered what I’d do. If I’d nod or smile or say a word.

  If I’d even recognize that she existed, this person I had laughed with just a few days before.

  All I did that day was look away.

  It’s all I ever did.

  I looked away.

  I was not the droid she was looking for.

  NOT ME

  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please allow me to introduce myself. I am not a bully.

  I almost wrote “a man of wealth and taste,” hearing that Rolling Stones tune in my head, Dad’s classic rock CDs.

  But that’s a song about being the devil, it couldn’t possibly apply here.

  Um.

  Samuel Proctor is not the guy you might imagine. Sure, you might prefer to stuff me into a box, pin a tail on me, label and define me. But I’m not that guy—the bully, the evil one, destroyer of souls, enemy of the state, may he rot in hell.

  I’m more than that.

  For starters, and I know this sounds exceedingly lame, but I love my mom. Love her. I’m a big brother. I take care of my dog, I’m a good friend, a great teammate (even if I’m not an awesome player). When you go up to the plate, I’m rooting for you. When you strike out, I’m the guy who says, “You’ll get ’em next time,” or “Damn, that was a nasty curveball—unhittable.”

  Even if I’m not in the game, I’m the first one to warm up the right fielder between innings.

  Ask anybody.

  I’m a nice guy.

  You can’t take one thing I did—a dumb thing, for sure—and then use that to define me forever.

  I made a mistake.

  I screwed up. (Let’s see you be perfect 24/7.)

  Okay, yes, I confess: It wasn’t technically “one time.” It was more accurately a series of mistakes.

  I let things go too far. I should have done more to stop it. I could have …

  (Should have, could have.)

  If you do one screwed-up thing, does that become the sum total of your life? Of course not, that’s crazy. Across a lifetime, we do billions of things. Zillions of things, as many things as there are stars in the universe.

  I guess it depends on the one thing, right? I sent a few cruel messages. I could have been kinder okay, granted. It doesn’t make me a bully forever. Someday I want to go to college, get married, be a father, have kids, maybe become a lawyer or even a writer. Save lives, work for the environment, travel the world, have adventures. Maybe even, you know, do good.

  She jumped.

  She did it, don’t forget that while you sit in judgment. And, absolutely, I hate Morgan for doing that. What was she thinking? She obviously had problems, and I got caught up in her messy life. I feel terrible about it. Not even about my role (forget me!), but for her. It slays me that she did that to herself.

  Bad thought: I wonder if murderers feel the same way as I do? You know, like, “I stabbed a homeless person eight times in the neck—but other than that, I’m a really sweet guy!”

  Ha.

  Or ugh.

  Can an otherwise all-around great bunch of guys, for example, take advantage of a drunk girl at a party? No way. You do something like that, you suck forever. Your soul goes up in flames. But we hear about it on the news, don’t we? Some poor girl gets into a situation with some Neanderthal guys and there’s nobody around with the courage to lift a finger in her defense. Bunch of bystanders. “Huh? Who? What?”

  We hear about a kid who takes a hatchet to both of his parents. When the police finally cart him away, splattered in blood, there’s always (always!) a clueless neighbor interviewed on the evening news who shakes his head and says, “He was such a nice boy. Quiet and polite. Never met a sweeter child in my life.”

  I guess you can fool most of the people most of the time.

  But can you fool yourself?

  Can you fool the universe?

  So I’m saying, yeah, I get it: If you kill somebody, I don’t care what else you’ve done with your life, you’re basically a crappy person. The one act defines you forever.

  Murderer.

  So is that it with me?

  Did she jump?

  Or was she pushed?

  I guess the question is this:

  Did I help push her? Was that my hand against her back?

  What if I’m just another rubber dummy who watched?

  (Huh? Who? What?)

  Who am I? What am I?

  I still don’t know.

  “GO,” SHE SAID

  When we met, we were usually out walking our dogs. Never on purpose, exactly. I normally took Max for a quick trip around the block. But some days, maybe hoping to see her, I’d head back over to the middle school where I could let Max off-leash. Dogs have a way of letting you know what they like, and Max loved that free-to-roam feeling.

  It was best in the frozen winter, when only hardcore dog lovers stood around hoping their toes wouldn’t snap off. Sometimes I’d see Morgan a long way off, leaving in the other direction while I was coming down the hill where I cut through the woods, and I’d watch her leave. Other days our timing would be great. Always by accident, never planned. We hadn’t yet crossed that line. Funny thing, our dogs became friends before we did. We kind of stood there, watching the dogs sniff each other’s butts, and I’d think that it was pretty cool I wasn’t a dog. A simple nod or handshake was more than enough for me.

  The dogs helped us along, I think, gave us things to talk about. We were becoming something, though it was hard to say what.

  (Friends?)

  I liked being around her, which was weird, because she was the first girl I ever spoke easily with on my own, who wasn’t like a cousin or some girl down the block. Morgan was still unusual, I guess, but I was getting used to her mood swings. She’d get quiet sometimes. What’s the word? Sullen. Morgan had an inside quality, like she l
ived in her head a lot. (I don’t know. Does that make sense?) But overall, she seemed regular to me. And, at other times, pretty lively.

  There was one time we were together, out on the empty field. It was early December, the days getting shorter. The branches of the trees were bare, the grass brown and sad. The promise of snow was in the cold, moist air. That’s how it is with snow, you can feel it before it comes. Maybe other things are like that too, I don’t know. Looking out, I spied a group of guys coming around the corner. I knew them and felt instantly uneasy, standing in the middle of nowhere, talking to Public Enemy #1.

  I interrupted Morgan. “Yeah, look. I better get—”

  Her eyes went from me to the guys and back to me again. And in that second, I saw the resignation in her face and watched her features collapse.

  “Go,” she said, her voice flat.

  “What?”

  “Go!”

  Her voice was raw now. I could hear the hurt.

  I paused.

  She said, “I don’t want to embarrass you, Sam.”

  I whistled for old Max and moved out fast, hoping no one saw us, on earth or in heaven.

  Those are the things I regret the most, now that she’s gone. The little things I did and didn’t do.

  (Someday I have to stop being a coward.)

  I WAS IT

  My heart dive-bombed into my stomach, thwapp-splurch, when I found the note in my locker. Seriously, it felt like a loon had been shot out of the sky. Ka-boom, and feathers flew. Open season.

  TAG, YOUR TURN.

  I held the blue poster board, glanced around to see that nobody was watching, and stuffed it back underneath my science textbook.

  I had forgotten about the game. Or at least managed to push it out of my mind. It had been more than a month since I’d been involved. Now it was my turn again to post the next message. The clock was ticking.