We All Fall Down

  “Did you hear that?” I ask, but I know they didn’t. I can tell by the way they’re looking at me. I’m chilled by the sudden certainty that Paige didn’t call my name. Not here and not now. I try to move back to center, but stumble left. Bill catches me.

  “Will you watch where you’re going?”

  My face goes cold. Bill said it, I’m sure, but something’s wrong. Something humming beneath his words. Paige said that in the car, those words. The boat’s still rocking, Denny’s arms stretched to steady it, his cheeks red from the sun and the beer. His expression is somewhere between concerned and amused, but four beers in, amused is winning.

  “Sorry,” I say, shaking my head.

  Denny laughs, and I climb off the boat on rubber chicken legs. Blink down at them and try to look cool. Normal. Like I’m not panting and staring at the bridge, looking for a girl I know damn well isn’t there.

  “Look, go on campus. Or across the bridge to see that cute waitress. Take a break from all those…” Denny’s voice trails off, but I know what he’s getting at. The pills. He’s been on me about my medications since I got down here.

  I force a smile and tell him I will. Thank him for the idea as Bill pulls the boat back into the current. I even agree to call him before the fireworks. Lying has never been a problem for me.

  I wouldn’t step foot on that campus if someone offered me hard cash. So I turn toward the walking bridge as soon as they’re out of sight.

  The Cheshire Walking Bridge is always busy on holidays. Footsteps and voices rise around me as I head toward home, careful to stay in the center. Careful to keep my hands away from those damn locks.

  Do no harm. It’s what doctors say. My life has been the opposite of that motto. Do loads of harm, usually without even trying. I used to think about that when I wanted to be a paramedic. It sounded cool to be someone who made everything better. Now I clench my fists and give everyone a wide berth. Because all I want is to not break anything—anyone—else.

  My throat goes dry, and I move faster. Need to get home. Close myself into that dark not-cool living room where there’s a bottle of pills that will put me to sleep and the Weather Channel to pass the time until they kick in.

  A chesty blond peels away from the blur of voices and faces. She’s headed in the direction I’m running from, eyes bright and arm linked with a corn-fed boy in an Old Navy flag T-shirt. She smells like lemon candy and lilacs.

  “I wish I knew if I got in,” she sighs, and her voice is wrong, her mouth a fraction of a second off the timing of her words.

  A chill runs down my spine as I pull my gaze away. Steady my hand on the rail. I’ve heard that before. Just like I heard what Denny said. Why am I hearing what Paige said?

  “It’s for college credit.” A mom says this, fluffy brown hair under a red-and-white-striped sun visor.

  I stumble on, because I need a pill. A doctor. Help.

  “Every summer this is where you end up.”

  A boy. Ten-ish with a wad of gum and a roll of his eyes that should not turn my bones to ice. But it does.

  I stop, panting in the middle of the bridge. My hand looks for it, searching through plastic-coated combination locks and tiny suitcase locks. My fingers know the one I’m looking for. They steady the second I touch it.

  I clutch the heavy lock, and my breathing stills. The world goes quiet, and the smell of lemon fades. Okay. It’s over now, whatever it was. I drag in a breath and pull out my phone, because if I’m holding a phone, nobody will think I’m simply standing here. Paralyzed like a freak.

  The foot traffic is thinning, and I hear the trill of a marching band in the distance. Parade must be starting. Maybe everything else is back to normal too.

  I turn over the lock and check for initials. Still there. My laugh sounds like a sob.

  “Wrecked,” I whisper, squeezing the lock one more time, trying to sort out what the hell I’m going to do.

  Go home. Take a pill and go to bed. If it gets bad, I can always call the psychiatrist. Or my therapist.

  Like this isn’t already bad.

  I roll my shoulders and look up. I can’t stand on this bridge all night; I need to move.

  “Theo?”

  My name sounds different. Crisp and less familiar, like she doesn’t quite remember how to frame her lips around the two syllables. Like she’s not sure she remembers me.

  But I remember her. The sound of her voice, the way her hair goes red in the sun. Her bitten-to-the-beds nails and freckled shoulders. I don’t even really have to look at her, because I remember everything.

  And I’d know her anywhere.

  “Hey, Paige.”

  Paige

  He looks terrible. Every bone in my body is scrambling for a compliment to give. That’s how I was raised. Even if you’d like to set a person on fire, you say something nice when you greet them. It’s what you do.

  Except I can’t. He’s sunburned. And gaunt. His shirt is so wrinkled and stained that I’m not sure he’s changed it this week. And none of that is as bad as the hollowness of his eyes.

  His lips quirk in a way that makes me think he’s about to smile. It doesn’t last. One flash of eye contact, and I’m dragged right back to him on the ground screaming my name, and me on a chair spitting out teeth.

  Theo looks away, and I stare at the rusty metal railing, cluttered with locks that make me cringe. I hate those locks now. I wish I’d been smart enough to hate them all along.

  Theo lifts one, letting it drop against the metal rail. I hear my heart beating—too fast—and Theo breathing one shaky breath after another. His hands are shaking too, and he’s definitely thinner.

  They upped his meds then. I shouldn’t be surprised, and I shouldn’t care, but my brow pinches anyway and my hands itch. I want to tell him to use sunscreen. Eat a sandwich. Get some sleep. I guess old habits die hard.

  He breaks the spell of silence with a cough. “I didn’t mean to…” Theo gestures absently at the other side of the bridge, the college side.

  “Didn’t mean to?”

  “I wasn’t trying to find you,” he says. “I’m with Denny.”

  “Working for the summer?” I ask, but it’s silly because I already know that.

  “We’re finishing up that strip mall.”

  “Up on Route 53? Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  He pushes his hands in his pockets. Changes his mind and yanks them back out. “How’s your class? Do you…do you like it up there at the college?”

  “Yeah, it’s great. I was coming across to get lunch.” I don’t tell him it’s my first time across or that I’m only risking an almost-guaranteed panic attack because I don’t want Melanie to think I’m weird.

  “Great. So you feel…all right?”

  I don’t touch my jaw, but the memory of agony feels like a stain. “Oh yeah. Sure.”

  “Does it still hur—”

  “No, no, it’s all good.”

  We’re talking around the flaming elephant in this room like it’s a flea. Like he hit me with a rogue softball pitch instead of his fist. Maybe it’s not that. Maybe we’re just small-talking, like we used to do after we went a couple of weeks without hanging out.

  It wasn’t often, but sometimes there was a girlfriend. They never lasted. Some random girl would manage—for no comprehensible reason—to captivate every ounce of his attention for a few weeks. Just as inexplicably, she’d start boring him to death. It crushed me the first time. After that, it got easier. I’m never the girl he leaves behind.

  No.

  I wasn’t a girl he left behind. That’s how I have to say it. I have to use past-tense words, because that’s what this is now. We aren’t am and is and are. We are used to be.

  “I miss you, Paige.”

  The words push bone-deep. All at once I’m the used to be me, the one who spen
t years wishing he’d see me the way I see him. Saw him. I’m still messing it up.

  Someone bumps my shoulder and I tense, hand snagging the hot metal handrail. It’s a family heading to the Village. A ponytailed mom and two little girls with red and blue beads in their braids. Theo steps forward and then back, looking twitchy as the family steers around him.

  Another couple passes. A gull lands on a black ballast overhead. I need to go, but then Theo smiles. It’s crooked and begs me to smile back. He touches another lock. It’s different than the others.

  I take a step back. “It’s good to see you, Theo.”

  He winces. “That’s not true.”

  Really time to go. I should have gone a while ago, but I wait. I know he’s going to say things I’m not ready to hear. But maybe it doesn’t matter if I’m ready. It’s time I face it and move on.

  “It’s not good to see me,” he says. “It can’t be. After what I did—” His laugh is hard and sudden. “I’m sorry. For then and now. For everything.”

  My heart skips sideways. He means it. He meant it at the party, and he means it now. Too bad it isn’t enough to fix the damage between us. I wished that changed the way things are, but it doesn’t. I look down at my hand’s death grip on the rail and the slick, brown water rushing below. Did people really jump from here like Melanie said? Bash in their heads on old slabs of concrete and steel beams under the water?

  Wait—did Theo see us talking that day? Did he see me in the water collecting samples?

  He could have dropped those pretzels. He could have seen me earlier too, on the pavilion with Melanie discussing lunch. He could have waited, knowing I’d come. Hoping to talk.

  “Did you see me here, Theo?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Up at the pavilion with my friend.”

  His face screws up. “Today? Here?” Then, “No.”

  He sounds honest, but good liars always do. “Theo, we can’t go ba—”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t be friends,” I say, because it needs to be said out loud.

  For a second, it’s like he can’t figure out how to respond. And then he does.

  “Not ever?”

  I take a breath, and whatever I want to say—whatever I should say—won’t come. I’ve practiced these words before in my therapist’s office. I’ve written them in journals and said them to my mirror. In this moment, I feel a million miles away from the girl who could never be friends with Theo.

  It’s hard to say never to the boy who doesn’t eat, but throws away my lunch trash. To the one who hates TV, but binge-watches anime with me. Theo once drove two hours to get me a Chipotle burrito when I freaked out over a B-minus on a final.

  Road trips. Laughter. Love. Those are Theo memories. But he is still the boy who hit me. Hairline fracture and two broken molars. Blood. Pain. Fear. Those are Theo memories too.

  Theo’s sigh tells me he understands my silence. He doesn’t look at me, but his fingers wrap around that thick, bronze padlock again, and my stomach goes sour.

  “Stupid.” His laugh breaks my heart. “I thought this was a sign.”

  “I have to go.”

  The lock drops, clanging hard against the railing. “Okay.”

  “Theo, I’m…”

  “It’s okay,” he says, trying to smile. His hands are shaking worse.

  I could fix it. Everything in me wants to do it. I want to snatch him up in a hug and tell him I’m still mad, but I’ve gotten over mad before. I want to see the relief come over him when he agrees—because he always agrees when he’s screwed up. Theo specializes in hindsight. He would apologize again and hug me so tight it’d be hard to breathe. And then he would tell me that I’m the only one who gets him. And I’d love it.

  Because I love him, and in his own twisted way, he loves me back. Then. And now. Maybe always.

  “Take care of yourself,” I tell him.

  Something in me rips in half when I turn away. I do it anyway, because it’s the only choice that isn’t wrong.

  Theo

  I’m on hold with Dr. Adams? Atwell? I check the smudged business card freshly pulled from my wallet. No, Atwood. Atwood was right. She’s the fifth psychiatrist I’ve worked with in as many years, and frankly, they all ask the same questions.

  How are things going? Have you been taking your medicines as prescribed? What kind of changes do you feel an hour after taking (and here’s where you fill in the blank with whatever Focalin-Ritalin-Vyvanse-Adderall cocktail I’m presently on).

  The hold music pauses, and an ultra-soothing voice reads a laundry list of doctors and counselors and mental health whoevers who are all uniquely qualified to handle any psychological horror a patient can deliver. She uses nicer words, but I feel like I’m listening to a recording asking me to stay calm and walk in an organized fashion when everything around me is on fire.

  I switch ears and adjust myself on Denny’s couch. Air conditioner is shot so I’m not only sticking to it; I’m leaving pools of sweat in every pleathery fold. Denny’s outside with the worthless box now. Says he’s wrenching on it, but I’m pretty sure he’s chain-smoking, sucking down beers, and hoping to get a call on some big job in town he put a bid on. It’s all he’s talked about since the Fourth.

  The line cuts in. “DoctorsFurthWilliamsAtwoodandSebatter.” All of the names run together in a way that’s not super soothing.

  “Yes, Dr. Seb…Atwood. Dr. Atwood, please?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Atwood is in session. May I take a message or direct you to her voicemail or is this an issue of an urgent nature?”

  “Voicemail’s fine,” I say, though she and I both know Dr. Atwood is not in a session. She doesn’t schedule Friday sessions, but saying she’s in session is more of that soothing talk. Translation? Psychiatrists don’t take incoming calls. They only return them personally in certain situations. Unless you have a razor poised over a vein, most doctors are confident it can wait until your next appointment.

  At the beep, I leave my message. “Hey, it’s Theo Quinn. I think I’m having a problem with one of my new meds. I’m experiencing some weird…” What is the doctorly way of saying this? I’m hearing shit? Smelling things? “…uh, some weird symptoms and side effects.”

  I’m halfway through leaving my date of birth and callback numbers when Denny’s head pops through the window, sweaty, red, and grinning. He thrusts his phone into the air.

  “We got it! We got the job!”

  I finish my message and hang up. “Got what job? You ready to give me details?”

  “Get off that couch,” he says, laughing. “Get your ass out here.”

  He ducks back outside, hitting his head on the window frame. I hear a trail of curse words, and then he’s chuckling again. I pull myself off the nasty couch, my clothes clinging. Outside, a breeze is kicking up, flipping the leaves backward on the big hickory near the front porch. The temperature, however, seems determined to hold steady at a miserable ninety-six degrees.

  Denny is already shuffling down the steps, adjusting his hat. “I want to get you down there right quick. You’ve got an eye for this kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Well, it’s sure the hell not pulling wire in July.”

  I pulled wire through conduit for three straight days at the strip mall—and spent the next four days so sore I could barely move.

  “All right, I’m game. Fill me in.”

  “No, no, you’ve got to see it. I want to see your face.”

  He walks me through town, three blocks past antique shops and little patches of grass with historical plaques. We turn on Pearl, and I tense. He can’t be taking me to the bridge. Why the hell would he take me there? But he is.

  He stops at the lip of the ramp, and the hair on the back of my neck prickles. It’s a bridge. Not a g
host or a moral compass or whatever else.

  But as soon as I turn away, I hear something whispering, and there aren’t any leaves handy to blame.

  My hands roll automatically into fists. “Are we sightseeing?”

  “Got any guesses?”

  “Not a one, so can you spit it out already?”

  “We’re lighting the bridge for the bicentennial in August.”

  I hate this thing, a voice whispers.

  My shoulders hitch as I look for whoever that voice belongs to. Trees, river, Denny, bridge. There’s no one here.

  I try to step back again, but Denny stops me. Now there aren’t words, but the voices surround me, a hive of bees buzzing everywhere. Up from the water and down from the arches of black metal overhead.

  I don’t want to go out too far.

  I spin in a slow circle, heart slamming at my ribs. My throat.

  “Did you hear me?” Denny asks. He grabs my shoulders hard. “Five thousand dollars. To dangle some Christmas lights and put down some fresh boards!”

  I force out a laugh and choke on it.

  All I can think about is falling.

  I stumble back, throat tight. It’s Paige—her voice again. That’s what I’ve been hearing, things she said that night. But it’s over, so I can’t be hearing this.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Denny asks, sounding pissed.

  My grin is late, so I slap his arm, hoping that will cover my missed timing. “No, that’s great. Five thousand dollars. So, who’s on the job?” Because it can’t be me. “Me and Phil, we could finish up the strip mall no problem. Then you and—”

  “You’ll be here. You’re the one who could shimmy up a greased light pole, right?”

  I shake my head before I can help it. I can’t work out here, no chance.

  “You’re family, Theo,” Denny says, his meaty hand clamping on my shoulder. “Expenses won’t run more than six or seven hundred. I want you to keep two thousand. This is an opportunity for you. For your future.”