Take the Fall(93)

I cup my hands together, trying to hold on to whatever nerve I hit. “I used to wonder what it was like to have a sister. I don’t think it’s supposed to be like that.”

Her lips pull back into a sneer. “She was my sister.”

“She was my best friend. She was crazy, she was scary, and I still miss her.” I gasp. Kirsten finishes dialing, her thumb hovering over Call. “Please, there must be another way.”

She lowers the phone, her eyes uncertain. She studies me for what feels like an age, and as she does I see the face of a little girl sitting outside a closed door listening to tea parties she wasn’t invited to; a preteen who would take insult and injury from her big sister just because it meant a moment of her attention; a young woman so lost in the shadow of someone else, she hardly knows herself.

“Maybe you should just jump.” Her voice is dull.

I blink at her, unsure I truly heard what she said. Marcus stands next to her, openmouthed, and all I can do is stare, but then I think of the sheriff listening to that recording and a heavy sickness twists in my gut.

“If—if I did, would you still tell everyone the truth?”

Marcus’s gaze snaps to me, but I keep my focus on Kirsten.

Her eyes widen, like she can’t quite process what’s happening either, but she answers, slowly. “I wouldn’t have to. . . .”

I nearly choke thinking of my mother waking up to that—my frozen body pulled from the water after all; just when I’d fooled her into thinking I’d be safe. But wouldn’t it be worse if she woke to find out I’m a murderer?

“How can I be sure?”

“I guess you’d just have to trust me,” she says, but there’s something Gretchen-like in her eye that convinces me. She’ll keep it secret if I do this.

“What the—are you both out of your minds?” Marcus asks.

A lump rises in my throat, but I don’t look at him. I can’t. “What about Marcus? If I don’t turn myself in, what happens to him?”

Kirsten puts her arm through his and rests her head on his shoulder. “Marcus and I have an arrangement. He does what I ask and he gets what he needs.”

He yanks out of her grasp. “No way. I want no part of this.”

She regards him coolly. “You’re already in. It’s too late.”

I look at the creek, running briskly downstream, and my eyes burn. I take a few slow steps toward the falls, then a few more. Each time I pick up a foot it seems heavier than the last, my big black boots weighing down my steps rather than making me feel secure. Kirsten doesn’t say anything, she just matches my pace.

Marcus shuffles behind us. “Just call the sheriff, Kirsten. This is f*cked up.”

“It’s her choice,” Kirsten growls.

The air is warm as we move along the creek, filled with the scents of springtime and promise I’ll never taste again. I have to bite back tears when I think of all the nevers. Never college, never dreams . . . never again my mother’s face. I feel Marcus at my back, bearing witness to all of it. But he’s just one more piece I’ve already lost. And then Kirsten’s word echoes in my mind, and I know she’s right. I have chosen. I chose this fate the day I applied for a scholarship. I chose it every time I fought with Gretchen. I chose it again when I dared to challenge her the night of the party. Gretchen didn’t succeed in pushing me into the falls then, but she might as well have. I was stupid to think it could end any other way.

We reach the rocks above Hidden Falls before I’m ready. People have laid new flowers and trinkets in place of the old memorial, but even in the dark I can make out where the graffiti used to be.

The second bitch is going down.

Kirsten hardly glances at it, but I guess I knew it wasn’t hers. Aisha was right, there were a lot of people Gretchen pissed off.

I turn in a circle and everything else is so much like it was three weeks ago, I stumble, my mind flashing visions of Gretchen in the shadows. I guess this is fitting, to never escape her. She’s probably watching from wherever she is and laughing, waiting to pull me under the icy water.

“Last chance to back out,” Kirsten says over the gush of the falls. It’s loud, but not like it was the last night I was here. My heart pounds. If I scream, someone might hear.

I look at her, then at the phone. She’s holding it up again, nine-one-one punched in on the screen. I try to imagine my mother’s eyes when she finds out what I’ve done.

What I did.

I step a shaking foot onto the ledge where I last saw my best friend alive. The place where the good things we had got all mixed up and destroyed with everything else. I get lost for a moment, trying to remember some of them. The time she spent teaching me how to drive. How the two of us could go days quoting lines from our favorite movies. How she really did listen, whatever her motive, anytime I was sad or hurting.

With nothing but air and water at my back, I raise my head and try to think carefully what to say. “I am sorry. If I could bring her back—”

“You can’t,” Kirsten says.

I open my mouth again, but the look on her face tells me not to waste my last breath. No amount of words can make up for what I did. I turn to Marcus. His face is a black cloud, his hands opening and closing. Our eyes meet and I see a glimmer of something—maybe just something that could’ve been. My heart comes to pieces thinking of everything we never had because of Gretchen. And because of me.