The Year They Fell

by David Kreizman

  I hadn’t seen Josie since my parents’ service. I went by her house a couple of times, but it was always full of people who looked like they’d just left the country club. So I never got past the sidewalk. As I walked behind them, Josie seemed to sense someone was following her. She turned around. I held my breath and raised my hand in a tentative wave. But she didn’t wave back. She let Jack hold the door for her as they walked inside. And as the heavy door clanged shut, I wanted to turn around and go home. I didn’t belong here with all these regular kids, showing off new haircuts, laughing, singing, and asking about each other’s summers.

  “You should’ve asked before you started blabbing to reporters, Arch.” Dayana leaned against the wall of the school, covertly exhaling a puff of vapor. “Just sayin’.”

  It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. Then I realized: Aunt Sarah. Her stupid blog. Of course. That’s why Josie looked at me like that.

  “I needed to talk to someone,” I said.

  Dayana shrugged. “Guess you talked to the wrong fucking someone.” She took another inhale. “You don’t look so good.”

  Before I could answer I suddenly found myself wrapped in the long arms of Jack’s girlfriend, Siobhan. “I am so so so sorry, Archie!” She knew my name? In heels, she was at least two inches taller than me, so my face sank into her neck. She smelled like cinnamon gum and body spray. I had no idea how to react. Should I hug her back? Or would Jack beat me senseless?

  Siobhan didn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable I was. “What you guys are going through … I can’t even? I mean my mom? Doesn’t get me at all? And my dad, his drinking’s getting OOC. Totally shameful? But I love them so much? Like if they ever were in a crash … total devastation, you know?”

  “Um. Yeah.”

  “You’re all so brave to be here, you know that? Why don’t you sit with us at lunch today? We’ll save you a seat. Nothing stinky or gross, though? I have a sensitive gag reflex. Okay?”

  She was waiting for me to answer. My jaw started jabbering. “I mean, I usually sit with this other group by the front. The art kids. Do you know them? Probably not. They’re not like my good friends or anything. We just sit there and draw and critique each other’s work and stuff. They’re pretty cool. I guess. I’m sure they’re expecting me, but it’s not a serious commitment or anything, so…”

  “Okay?” Siobhan repeated.

  “Okay…”

  Siobhan squeezed me again. “You’re the best. What you said on that blog—”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Totally touched me. Tears. Like seriously emoche. Josie and Jack are lucky to have you in their lives.”

  * * *

  Believe me, if I’d known it would become a big deal, I wouldn’t have said anything to Aunt Sarah. I wasn’t trying to get all famous. I mean, it would take a serious evil genius to come up with a plan like that, using his parents’ death to become popular. I was just talking. I told her stuff because she asked. I kept talking because she listened.

  When I’d stumbled home from Josie’s the night of the party, Lucas was already asleep. I went to his door and I could hear him breathing. I stood out there, heaving, choking back sobs, trying not to wake him. I couldn’t go in. Instead I wandered into Mom and Dad’s room. They’d left without cleaning it, so the bed was unmade and there were clothes on the floor. Without even taking off my shoes, I climbed into the bed and burrowed under the blankets like I used to do when I was little, before Lucas was born. But the bed felt too big. So I grabbed all the pillows and put them around me. Then I reached for all the clothes from the floor and put those on top. But the sight of those empty clothes only made things worse. It was like reaching out for Mom and Dad and only feeling their shadows. When the crying really started, it felt like it would never stop.

  I was still huddled in their bed the next morning when I heard Lucas pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He didn’t even look up when I came into the kitchen.

  “You’re up early. I have a game in an hour. Jaden’s dad is picking me up. Then I’m going to Sam’s, so feel free to go wild.”

  “I don’t think you should go.”

  “To Sam’s? Why?”

  I paused, wondering whether I could actually say this out loud. “I was at the party last night and—”

  “How was it? Still can’t believe you actually went. Did you talk to Josie?”

  “No, I—”

  “Why not?”

  “She wasn’t talking,” I said.

  “What do you mean she wasn’t talking? You just have to do it, Arch. Less Clark Kent, more you know who. You like her, right?”

  I couldn’t figure out how to say it, so I just said it. “There was a plane crash, Luke. A terrible plane crash. Nobody knows how or why, but there were no survivors and Dayana showed up last night to tell us.”

  Lucas took a spoonful of cereal and shoveled it into his mouth. “Okay.”

  “Mom and Dad. It was their plane. They died,” I added, and immediately started crying again.

  “That’s not funny.”

  I was crying too hard to argue.

  “Why are you saying this? What’s wrong with you?”

  I grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped my face while I brought Lucas to the computer to show him the article about the crash. Lucas didn’t cry. He didn’t say anything. He just turned his back on me, went up to his room, and shut his door. I walked upstairs and placed my hand on his doorknob. I wanted to sit with him and talk about how we’d get through this, but I knew if I walked in there I’d just start bawling and jabbering and that would make things worse.

  Besides, I knew Lucas was not alone in his room. He had a massive following of friends online, a whole army of support. At fourteen, Lucas was kind of a rock star in his corner of the social media universe. He was this good-looking, all-state soccer player. He was open and honest and comfortable with himself. And he liked guys. When he wasn’t on the soccer field, he tweeted, blogged, posted all kinds of pictures and positive messages. I guess over time he’d become sort of a symbol to gay kids all over who were having a rough time, who maybe had closed-minded parents or lived in places that weren’t as accepting. Mom said Lucas helped a lot of young people and teenagers just by being himself. So I was sure that when he needed it, Lucas would have lots of love coming back in return. My little brother would be fine. He always was. All those friends would be better at helping him than I could ever be.

  I was sitting by myself in the kitchen, shoveling down spoonfuls of Lucas’s soggy, leftover cereal, when Mom’s sister, Aunt Sarah, showed up. She was dressed in black yoga pants and a black tank top and she was a hysterical mess.

  She took my face in her hands and pressed hard against my cheeks. “We will face this as a family. Your mother was a loving, caring woman and she will always be in our hearts. And I will embrace you and your heritage just as she would have wanted.” Heritage, seriously. And those are the only nice words I’d ever heard Sarah say about Mom. The last time I’d seen her was Thanksgiving when she and my mother got into a huge fight. Sarah had called her an uptight bitch, who was just as bad as Mom.

  Sarah brought Lucas out to join us. He looked annoyed that we’d pulled him away from his phone.

  “You two will come stay with us,” she said. “You’ll sleep in Gregor’s room and I’ll treat you like my own children.”

  “Um, okay, that’s a really nice offer,” I said. “For now I think I need to stay here so I can ride my scooter to school.” I didn’t want to live with Sarah. “But Lucas, this could be great for you. She can drive you to practice and you can come back whenever you want—”

  Lucas got up from the table and walked to his room.

  Aunt Sarah took my hand. “I’ll talk to him. But I hope you know your mom was a hero. The way she saved people at the hospital. Not to mention adopting you … I want people to know about it and to know about you. I’m sure you’ve read my blog. People say it’s a game changer
. I don’t know. I just like to share. And to listen.”

  I didn’t know Aunt Sarah had a blog and if I did I would’ve never read it. She was one of the fakest people I knew and I hated how she spoke to Mom. But that morning she was the first person to really ask me questions. The first person to listen. So yeah, I talked. I talked about how Mom and Dad adopted me and gave me a great life. How they worked so hard to make me feel okay about being a black kid in a white family. How they were both so understanding when Lucas came out to them on his twelfth birthday. I told her how Mom and Dad loved those vacations with their friends and how it had been thirteen years since we were all together at Sunny Horizons.

  Aunt Sarah asked me about Harrison, Josie, and Jack, and even about Dayana. I brought out our class picture, along with some of the drawings I made when we were kids. I told her a hundred stories about our group, the Sunnies, and what amazing friends they were to me. Like when we were in first grade, and Mom and Aunt Sarah’s mother, Granny Lois, died. While Granny was alive, she wasn’t very nice to Mom and especially not to me. She wore her hair pulled back really tight, and I remember she used to yell at me if I spilled a drink or if I even went near her bag. She made Mom cry all the time. One time after Granny left, Mom told me it wasn’t my fault that Granny treated me like that. She was set in her ways and had old ideas about what a family should look like.

  Dad said, “Your mother is trying to say Granny is racist.”

  You’d think Mom wouldn’t have been that upset when mean, racist Granny Lois died, but Dad said it was hard because they were fighting and they never made up. Sometimes grown-up feelings are complicated, he said. So I was sad for her, too. When I got to school that day, Harrison came over and handed me a piece of paper. It was the answers to the math homework I’d missed the prep for. At lunch, Jack slid his chips and his favorite cookies over to me. And when I saw Dayana at recess, she just ran up and hugged me.

  None of them said anything about Granny. They didn’t have to. At the end of the day I opened my backpack and found a drawing in it. From Josie. She wasn’t a great artist, but I could tell what she was going for. The picture was of me and Josie sitting together on the branch of the tree. Our tree. I realized when I talked to Aunt Sarah, I left out the part where none of us were friends anymore. It just never came up, I guess.

  I didn’t even notice when Sarah’s blog post, The Orphans of Sunny Horizons, dropped a couple of days later. But now, as I made my way inside RBHS, I quickly learned that the story had gone viral and was shared like thousands and thousands of times. It seemed like everybody in the school had read it.

  I was ten minutes late getting into the cafetorium for lunch. I’d taken a detour to ditch my stinky tuna sandwich in the dumpster behind the gym. I thought it would look creepy to show up at the lunch table empty-handed, so I stopped at the vending machines. I couldn’t decide if granola bars and Smartfood were stinky and/or gross, so I settled on some plain crackers and a bottle of water. By the time I made it to Siobhan’s table near the window, Harrison was already planted in the middle seat. I should’ve guessed that he’d be invited, too, but still … His hair was sticking up in the back and his beard was growing in uneven patches. He seemed completely unaware that he’d broken the space-time continuum by sitting at this table. Like he’d always spent lunchtime with the most popular kids in school.

  Siobhan had saved me a seat right between her and Harrison. She checked out my crackers and water and nodded approvingly. Harrison had either not gotten the same warning, or not understood. In front of him were a full-size box of Honey Nut Cheerios and a whole packet of turkey lunch meat. He scooped handfuls of dry cereal into folded cold cuts, before stuffing it all into his mouth. He seemed not to notice that all the guys at the table were staring at him. Or that Siobhan was stifling a gag.

  I opened my sketchbook and stared at the blank page. Drawing always made me feel better. Sometimes that sketchbook was kinda my best friend. It had a leather cover and rings that opened so I could take out and add pages. After Mom and Dad’s memorial, when the events were over and I was just … alone, I started filling the book with my old drawings. Drawings going all the way back to Sunny Horizons. I found sketches I’d made of us as kids: Jack and Harrison playing on the swings; Dayana twirling around in her princess dress. And Josie. All those sketches of Josie. I may have stopped slipping them into her bag, but I never stopped creating them. Josie lived on nearly every page of that book, first as a fearless little girl in a tree and then from afar as I watched her grow up. Somehow carrying those sketches with me made me feel a little less alone.

  I closed the book and looked up to see Jack and Josie heading toward the table, our table. I tried to act natural and take a sip of water, but I swallowed too fast and started to choke. When I finally stopped coughing and sputtering, the others were staring at me like I was a carrier for the zombie virus. Josie and Jack had stopped about halfway across the room. Josie was arguing with Siobhan. I could hear them from where I sat, although I pretended not to.

  “So what are they, your little pets? A charity project?”

  “It’s not like that, JoJo.”

  “I get it. You wanted nothing to do with them when their parents were alive. But the Orphans of Sunny Horizons are internet stars, right? We’re this big famous group, so you want them all to be our friends.”

  I wiped up my spewed water, swept my cracker crumbs into my hand, and stood up from the table. “Hang in there, Harrison.”

  “Have you been wondering how it happened?” he suddenly asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The crash that took our parents’ lives. Have you come up with anything? Because as I write out the contributing factors and possible explanations, I’m stuck on what might qualify as a reason.”

  He blinked at me. I didn’t know what to say, and Josie was still standing there. I didn’t blame her for hating me. She was trying to mourn her parents. I’d turned us into a meme. I gave up and walked out.

  * * *

  After seventh period when I passed Josie in the hall near the teachers’ lounge, there was no nod. No smile. Whatever we’d shared at her parents’ memorial service was gone. Once I’d gotten her through the crowd and outside to the parking lot, we sat down on the curb and talked for the first time in over three years. I didn’t even jabber much.

  “They wouldn’t have even been home by now,” I said. “How can I miss them so much already?”

  “I don’t know,” said Josie. “Maybe it’s that we miss the stuff that hasn’t happened yet? First day of school. Senior Prom. Graduation. Getting married. Having kids.”

  I looked back inside. “It must feel good to know that this many people loved your parents.”

  Josie didn’t turn. “It doesn’t feel like anything.” She squeezed my hand. “Are you scared?”

  I didn’t want to give her the real answer. “You’re going to be fine. I know that sounds weird right now. I just mean that of all of us—Jack, Harrison, me—you’re the one I’m not worried about. That sounds terrible, too. Of course I’m worried about you. I always—What I’m saying is you’re the strongest, toughest, most amazing person I know. What I’ve seen you overcome … You’ll do it again. I know you will.”

  Josie smiled at me as she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. “How is it on the worst day of all the worst days, you still manage to find something good to say?”

  We sat there holding on to each other’s hands until Jack and Cody came outside looking for her. I watched her walk back inside and she turned around one last time to look at me. But that moment on the curb wasn’t life changing. It wasn’t a course correction or the start of a new chapter. It was a blip. Another momentary anomaly in our awkward and confusing history. It wasn’t the first time we’d shared something like that.

  Before ninth grade when everything happened with that asshole coach, when Josie and I were together on the playground, I thought … Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Point is,
first day of freshman year, she acted like she didn’t know me. And first day of senior year, she acted like she wished she didn’t. I should’ve been used to it by now. She needed me and then she didn’t.

  But this time was even worse. Because I screwed it up. And because this time I needed her, too.

  7

  DAYANA

  “This must be so hard for you?” Siobhan said. Or asked? So freaking hard to tell the difference when her voice goes up at the end of every sentence. It’s hard enough speaking two languages. Now I have to learn bitch-speak.

  “What must be so hard?” I asked.

  “Like … the crash?” She extended her hand, but she hesitated like she was unsure of whether or not to pet me.

  “You know my parents weren’t on the plane, right?” Even with a couple of percs dulling my senses, I could feel the eyes on us in the hallway near my locker. Why was this person talking to that person?

  She tilted her head like a dog hearing a strange noise. “That’s what I mean? Like how everybody’s rallying around Josie and Jack and Arch and whatshisname?”

  “Harrison.” Siobhan was dangerous. She ruined lives for sport. Last year I watched her unleash hell—and even worse, Insta Stories—on some girl who supposedly flirted with Jack. The poor girl never came back to school.

  I guess I understood why Jack would date someone like her. She was tall and had good skin and he got to be naked with her. It’s that simple for some guys, right? But how could Josie let this vicious monster be her best friend? The Josie I knew was … Well, the Josie I knew was gone. Replaced by the kind of person who could pal around with Siobhan fucking Hughes. I knew I should be walking away from this conversation while I still could. But I couldn’t.