The Fall by James Preller Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t.”
    â€œI do,” he said. “When someone takes her own life, Sam, it’s a horrible, awful, heartbreaking tragedy. We can never fully understand why.”
    I nodded, sniffled.
    He said, “We can’t know what goes on inside someone’s head, or the circumstances of her life, or exactly why anyone does the things she does. Depression can be a devastating illness. We have to live with that unknowing.”
    I looked into Mr. Laneway’s face. “My parents tell me that I have to move on, but they never told me how.”

 
    CLEAR ALL
    We never touched.
    We never kissed.
    I never put my arm around her.
    Never held her hand.
    But we did text.
    And on the day she died,
    after I heard, I cleared
    every message in my cell,
    wiping away the prints.
    I wish I had that day back.
    I would remember, then,
    not to forget.

 
    GROUNDHOG LIFE
    â€œYou ever see the movie Groundhog Day ?” Morgan asked.
    â€œUm, not sure.”
    â€œYou must have,” she said, knocking me on the shoulder with the side of her fist. “Everybody has. Bill Murray is a weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop, where he has to live the same day over and over.”
    â€œYeah, okay,” I said, remembering. “I might have seen that.”
    â€œThat’s what my life feels like,” she told me. “I go to bed, hoping that after a long sleep I’ll feel better. But each day it’s exactly the same. Nothing changes. I can’t snap the streak.”
    â€œMaybe you need to try something new,” I suggested.
    She looked at me thoughtfully, in that way she had of looking at me. “You mean … something radical?”
    â€œMaybe.” I shrugged. “Go on a hot-air-balloon ride, learn to play the banjo, take up painting, join the Y, go skydiving or something.”
    â€œSkydiving!” she said.
    â€œI don’t know, it’s super expensive,” I said. “How did he get out of the time loop in the movie?”
    She paused, head tilted. “I don’t remember,” she said, smiling. “That’s funny, I have no idea how he finally did it.”

 
    GOTTA GET GOING
    I remember one afternoon—just an absolutely gorgeous postcard afternoon, the kind of day when troubles lift away—I was lazing in the cemetery with Morgan. She checked the time. “Oh shoot, oh crap, oh shoot!” she gasped, and got all panicky and flustered. “I gotta go, I gotta get going, I gotta go!”
    â€œHuh, what?” I said helpfully.
    â€œI gotta go, I’m late, oh shoot!” she said—and I saw that her hands became bees and her hair was tangled and her eyes were wide and wild and—
    (She was crying.)
    I didn’t understand the sudden stress.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” I asked.
    She snatched up her things—her phone, her bag, her cigarettes. (Morgan had started smoking, stealing cigarettes from her mother.)
    â€œIt’s Wednesday. My father picks us up for dinner on Wednesdays at 5:00, and he’s super strict about the time—”
    I checked my cell. “It’s, like, not even five now—”
    â€œI still have to get home, dumbass!” she snapped.
    (And I forgave her instantly, because she was obviously flustered to the maximum, as wigged as anybody I’d ever seen. And over what? A few minutes late? Her hands kept brushing and pulling and adjusting her clothes like crazed bumblebees.)
    She sniped, “I can’t, like, travel back in time, okay? I have to run home—and he’s totally going to flip. I’m so dead,” she sputtered.
    â€œWait, what?” I called in utter failure.
    She ran and ran, and I sat there blinking.

 
    SHE QUIT DANCE
    Sometimes we texted.
    Morgan: I quit dance.
    Me: Why? You love it.
    Morgan: Doesn’t matter.
    Me: But. You. Love. It.
    Morgan: It doesn’t love me back.
    Me: Okaaaaay.
    Morgan: I feel relieved about it.