Before We Fall

Prologue

Then

The slap can be heard all the way down the beach.

The sound of flesh meeting flesh, sharp and loud, is unmistakable, and my head snaps up to find a skinny girl in a red swimsuit standing in front of the biggest bully of the beach, a sixth grader named Heather.

The summer sun is blistering hot, but my cheeks flush even hotter when I see the ugly expression on Heather’s face as she towers over the smaller girl. A girl who can’t be more than nine or ten and who is even now cradling her cheek with her hand.

I look around, but there are no adults in the vicinity, and Heather knows it. Her leer gets even wider as she leans down into the younger girl’s face, intent on doing even more damage than a handprint on a cheek.

That’s all it takes to send me rocketing up from my towel and down the beach toward them, my heels flipping sand in the air as I run. I reach them just in time to see Heather snatch some money from the girl’s small hand.

A tear slips down the girl’s cheek, which causes Heather to grin. “Go cry to your mommy, little girl,” she sneers, in the ugly way only a middle-school bully can.

The sheer sight of it makes me see red and I forget all logic as I rush toward the pair. I forget that Heather has tormented me every day of every summer and I forget that I can’t be any older than the skinny girl in the red swimsuit.

In this moment, it doesn’t matter.

“What the hell, Heather?” I demand as I skid to a stop in front of them. The other girl, the skinny one, sucks in her breath at my bad language. It’s a groundable offense, but my Gran is all the way down the beach, sitting in the shade. “Give her the money back.”

Heather stares down at me and sweat glistens on her plump chin. “Or what, shrimp? What will you do if I don’t?”

I lift my chin and look her in the eye.

“I’ll tell everyone, including your friends, what you were doing with Jamie Rawlins under the pier a while back. I saw you. I saw what you did. And if you don’t give her the money back, I’ll tell everyone.”

Heather’s eyes widen, then narrow. “You wouldn’t.”

I nod, calmer now than I probably should be. “I would.”

Heather looks out over the lake and thinks about it for a minute before she tosses the crumpled up bills at my feet.

“I hope it was worth it,” she tells me hotly. “Because I’m going to make your life hell.”

“Whatever.” I sniff, trying to appear unconcerned. “It’s not like you don’t try already.”

Heather glares at me and walks off, and I bend to pick up the money, handing it to the skinny girl. I smile at her.

“Here you go. I’m sorry she’s so mean. I think someone pees in her cornflakes every day.”

The girl seems speechless and she stares at me for a minute with wide blue eyes before shyly handing me a white shell.

“Thank you for getting my ice cream money back,” she says so softly that I have to strain to hear her. “I collect these. The big nice ones are hard to find in the lake.”

I smile again. “You’re right, it’s hard to find them. Thank you! I’m going to swim out to the buoy line. Wanna come?”

The girl stares out at the battered line of buoys that bob up and down in the current a hundred yards out. She looks a little uncertain, a little scared.

“I can’t,” she finally answers. “My mom would kill me. The current’s too bad.”

I nod as if I understand what it’s like to have a mother that cares. My own doesn’t even know that I can swim.

“Okay,” I tell the girl. “I’ll see you around.”

She watches me as I jog back and drop the shell on my towel before I dive into the current, swimming over and under the frigid waves like a seal. When I finally reach the buoys, I grab onto one, clinging tightly as it bobs, while I push my hair out of my face with cold fingers.

Glancing back toward the beach, I hunt for the girl in the red swimsuit, but I don’t see her anywhere. She’s gone, and I realize something.

I didn’t even ask her name.