Maybe she’s right. Maybe it would be the kind of thing that gets everyone on the same page. No fighting. No bickering. No insults or jabs or snarks. Just all five of us on Molly. Equal footing, seeped in ecstasy. A big ol’ love bomb.
We cluster in a tight circle. Tighter, I tell them. I don’t want anyone hearing or seeing what we’re doing.
Jadis opens up the little Quaaludes box.
Chloe Orbach squeals, hopping up and down.
“Is that Molly?” Chloe Clarke says.
“It is. You want to do it?” Jadis says, big smile. Her face has trouble written all over it.
“Is there one for all of us?” Chloe Schmidt smirks.
“Yes, little cheerleader, I bought this for all of us. There’s only five. We can’t share with the rest of your sorority. This is our little stash. Our little secret. Is that understood?”
“One for each of us?” Chloe Orbach says sweetly. “My gosh.” And all that hardness melts.
I look over at Gretchen and Keke, their high morals, their steady hands. They’d be so disappointed.
Sweet freshman Zoey who just smoked pot for the first time last weekend, she told me. God, what about Pri and Olivia with their we-eat-dinner-every-night-together parents? They’d lock those girls up in their bedrooms for the rest of their lives if they witnessed this.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Chloe,” Jadis says, and it seems sincere. Mature, actually. “Or with you, Chloe, or with you, Chloe. Whether you believe that or not, it’s true. I want what Shade wants. I want to be the supportive friend. I don’t want any animosity.”
I want to believe her, I really do.
“Oh my god, group hug,” Chloe Orbach says, hopping up and down again. “We have to do a group hug.” And the five of us smush into each other, our necks and faces with nowhere to go, arms and limbs and angles and sequins and hot breath, holding it for a minute that feels like forever until Chloe Schmidt says, “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s hit the bathroom and get our roll on. This dance is boring as fuck.”
And then it’s the five of us sauntering to the bathroom because it’s so easy to fall in line behind Chloe Orbach.
The snap of her fingers. And just like that there’s a plan to do Molly at the homecoming dance, which should feel outrageous and like a huge mistake, yet it relaxes me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because everything leading up to this night has been so planned and so stressful, and there’s been so much hard work for the past five weeks, that I’m happy to have something spontaneous. For a brief moment, I don’t care anymore about being a cheerleader, or that we’re at a dance or that the gym is teeming with teachers, or that Jadis and Chloe Orbach were locking horns yesterday. Because it’s just one big mash of kids leaping up and down to shitty music.
The five of us, connected, slide past the freshman girls in their black body-con dresses and white sneakers, their skinny bodies like bats all waiting for something to happen.
We crowd into the accessible bathroom stall. The white-hot fluorescent lights of the bathroom make our faces look green.
“They all have different stamps,” Jadis says. Chloe Clarke gets the star. Me, a heart. Chloe Schmidt, a bunny. Jadis takes the smiley face.
“And for you,” Jadis says to Chloe Orbach. “The crown.”
Chloe’s whole face lights up. Her hands to her chest. “You seriously got this just for me? A crown?”
Jadis nods. “To new friends?” And she slips the Molly on her tongue.
“To new friends,” Chloe says, closes her eyes and sticks her tongue out so that Jadis has to place it right there on her pink tip.
We step out of the stall, and the rest of the girls in the bathroom watch us like they want to be us. I would want that too.
Outside of the bathroom, Chloe Schmidt and Chloe Clarke fetch Vitaminwater because that’s what Chloe Orbach wants.
“Whatever Chloe wants, Chloe gets,” Chloe Schmidt sings.
I take Jadis’s hand. “Tell me everything is going to be fine.”
“Shade. You anxious unicorn,” she says, stroking my hair. “Everything’s fine. We’re gonna have fun. We’re gonna roll. We’re gonna set this boring hellhole of a place on fire. We’re gonna dance with those girls and we’re gonna bond. It’s going to be great.”
“You don’t hate me?” I say.
She smiles in that awkward way, shaking her head. Love in her eyes. “I could never hate you.”
Chapter
18
Fifteen minutes later and we’re rolling on Molly. I’ve only done it once before with Jadis and we spent the whole night picking colorful trash from the street. This, with the music, the sweaty dance floor, the sea of kids—it sucks us in. The Three Chloes gulp down their Vitaminwaters but Jadis and I just go for regular water. That sugar taste is not what I want in my mouth. The first time Jadis and I did Molly, her brother told us to stay hydrated. Something about your brain frying.
Chloe Orbach takes both my hands in hers. Yells over the music. Grinds her hips into me. Jadis is on my left, and I take her hand in mine. What a good idea, I think, and maybe it’s the drugs, or maybe it’s just Jadis. She’s always thinking ahead, and I never give her enough credit. Pinks and purples flash across the gym floor, Jadis’s emerald hair shining in the white dotted light from the disco ball.
“Isn’t it so beautiful?” Chloe says to me. And it is beautiful.
“The two of you, hold hands. It’s gotta be this way,” I say. “You can’t have me without each other.” Jadis and Chloe smile and swish to the music, and then something happens that I never expected. The two of them are dancing together like they’ve known each other forever. Like they can finish each other’s sentences or walk the same way or text each other at the same moment the way you do when you’re thinking about someone all the time. Their fingers touching and their eyes sparkling, and I wish it could be like this, always, the three of us.
The other two Chloes push their way into the circle, and we hold hands, our arms up in the air, bodies and hips touching and pulsing like we’re in a celebratory ritual, our arms folding in and out, each of us rotating around the other. A witch’s dance, the five of us in a trance, magic dazzling between us.
The music pumping harder and harder. Chloe Orbach wraps her hand around mine, then grasps Jadis’s hand, dragging us in toward her until the three of us are shoulder to shoulder.
“I want tattoos. I want tattoos all over,” she says, breathless, to Jadis. “I want flowers and hearts up my arms. Lilies and magnolias.”
“What would your parents say?” Jadis says, laughing.
“My mother would be furious because she’d say I look like some anarchist cheerleader. Isn’t that funny? An anarchist cheerleader like that Nirvana video with the girls and their tattoos cheering into the sky.”
Chloe punches her arms in the air, dancing, then spins around and takes both Chloe Schmidt’s and Chloe Clarke’s hands.
“Dance with me,” she screams over the music.
Chloe Clarke floats closer while Chloe Schmidt resists.
“Oh, Chloe, don’t be so sad,” Orbach says to Schmidt, her fingers reaching out to her. “What would we do without you, my love?” She squeezes Chloe Schmidt’s cheeks.
Chloe Schmidt pushes her away lightly, really, just a little push, except Chloe Orbach wrenches back, wobbling. We all reach for her and right her back up to standing. But there’s something wrong. She’s blank, staring ahead. Her skin too pale, drained even under the disco lights.
“Let’s get you some more water,” I say. “Water will help everything.” But then this look of dread comes over her, and she stumbles forward. Chloe Clarke and I catch her.
“You guys,” Chloe Orbach says. “Something’s not right, you guys.” The room darker and smaller, and all of the music pumping too loud and too fast. She’s falling in our arms, her fe
et loose underneath her.
“What’s happening to me? I can’t breathe,” she’s saying.
“Get her to the bathroom,” Jadis says, panicking, and I put my bottle of water to her mouth, telling her to drink it, that tightness in my throat, that thud of reality that we’re at the homecoming dance on Molly and the freshman girls in the black body-con dresses are starting to stare.
“I can’t breathe,” Chloe Orbach’s saying again, and she swats the bottle away. Her body slips out of our hands, the weight of all of her dropping onto the gym floor, her body convulsing, jerking in ways I’ve never seen a body jerk. Her mouth sputtering, spitting, white bubbles of saliva coming out the sides.
Chloe Clarke is down beside her so fast, her eyes planted on Chloe Schmidt, screaming, “Chloe, what’s happening? What’s happening?” I drop down next to Chloe, our hands on her shoulders, holding her, calling to her, yelling her name. My whole body in a vibrating terror, I turn around and scream for help.
Someone takes hold of my arms and tugs me back. I think it’s a teacher. Chloe’s body so still on that gym floor and the disco balls lights spinning. Then Mrs. King, the nurse, her eyes wide and afraid, her face in Chloe Orbach’s face, calling her name. “Chloe? Can you hear me?” Checking her pulse, yelling for the ambulance, her mouth on Chloe’s mouth.
CPR. She’s giving Chloe CPR.
Chloe Clarke screams over and over again, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Chloe Orbach’s wild blonde hair spread all over the floor like a beautiful Instagram post with the lights dancing over her dress, Gretchen and Keke holding each other, the freshmen, all of them, shaking in each other’s arms.
I turn to see Chloe Schmidt, who’s standing there, frozen, no reaction, just flat, utter shock.
Teachers are screaming, Put your phones away! Phones away! Everyone circles around us with their phones in our faces like it’s a fucking concert and my head is so heavy, like maybe I’ll collapse. The room is spinning, flashes of light in front of me as the paramedics, two men and one woman, storm through while Mrs. King gives Chloe chest compressions.
Chloe Schmidt is next to me now, babbling, sobbing about Chloe Orbach being her best friend since kindergarten. My best friend, I hear her moaning. My best friend. Chloe Clarke wraps her arms around Schmidt. The music stops.
They lift Chloe into the stretcher. An EMT screams at us. “Girls! What did she take? What did she take?”
Jadis pinches my arm, so hard that it makes me squeal and tears run from my eyes.
“Girls, this is not a joke,” the EMT yells again. “Did she take something? Did you see her take something?”
But no one says a thing. Just gasps, the words stuck in my throat. My mouth filled with fear.
* * *
■ ■ ■
The lights flip on, the searing light, my dilated pupils burning, so I shield my face with my arm, hiding from what’s in front of me.
In the darkness behind my eyes, I’m in a place between now and then, and all I can see is Chloe’s blonde hair, in waves across the gym. The lights blinking over her crystal-adorned dress.
Chapter
19
Jadis clutches my arm, whispers in my ear. “We have to go.”
“Go? Where are we going?” I say, watching the EMTs roll Chloe out in a stretcher. Her limp body as they try to resuscitate her.
Chloe Clarke stares at me, tears washed down her face. I want to reach out to her, but I feel my whole life changing, a dark void, and she sinks into it. Her face so clear for that moment, and then she’s gone.
Jadis is face-to-face with me now, her nose practically touching mine. Her voice calm and low. “We are walking out of here. Do you understand me, Shade?”
“We can’t go anywhere. We have to stay to talk to the police. To tell them what happened.”
“What’s wrong with you? We’re not telling the police anything. We’re not waiting around for them.”
“We have to,” I say, breathless.
“Do you think her friends, those two Chloes, stuck around?” Her voice, hot and worried, full of rage. “You think they’re waiting for the police? They just ran out the door.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “I just saw Chloe Clarke, she was right there.” But she’s not there. I cover my eyes as the orange lights from outside crash through the doors.
“Do you see them here, Shade? Look around. They’re gone.”
I scan the gym. Neither Chloe is in sight.
Wasn’t Chloe Schmidt crying just five minutes ago, or was it twenty minutes ago, or half an hour ago? Wasn’t she crying, saying, My best friend, my best friend? Didn’t I hear her saying that?
“Maybe they went to the hospital,” I say. “Of course, that’s where they went.”
“Listen to me, Shade. I brought the Molly here. I gave it to them. And we all took it. And now Chloe Orbach is in an ambulance.” She looks at me more sternly, more insistent. “So if we tell the police anything at all, they’re going to bring us in. And those friends of hers, those two Chloes, they’ll blame us for it. They’ll say that it’s our fault.”
Our fault, Jadis says. Our fault?
It’s always going to be Jadis and me fused together. Even if she was the one who brought the Molly to the dance. Even if I knew nothing about it.
To new friends, Chloe said.
“Chloe’s going to be okay. It was an accident, Jadis. They know that.”
“Oh, do they? Then where are they?” Jadis’s eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them. That deep anger.
“What are you saying, that it wasn’t an accident?”
“I’m saying they’re not here and that they knew to cut out quick and so should we.” She pulls me even closer, a hard snap, my body into hers. Her mouth to my ear. “Time to go. Now.”
Jadis’s hand slides down into mine, and she walks me through the gym, between the kids and the teachers crying and the police walking in and the detectives and the principal.
We stroll out, like Chloe Orbach wasn’t just on the floor convulsing. Like she wasn’t getting CPR from the school nurse. Like the EMT didn’t wheel her out. As we walk, I replay what she said to us right before she fell.
You guys. Something’s not right.
Her face, that fear.
Jadis walks me through the metal door, and I snap into reality. The red, stinging glow of the cop cars, the fire trucks, the ambulance. When a seventeen-year-old collapses at the homecoming dance, when it’s the captain of the cheer team, they all come.
The cold air bites into my shoulders. “How did this happen, Jadis?” Breath clouds flow out of my mouth, and I start to cry. “What if she’s dead?” But Jadis doesn’t answer me, she just keeps trudging. One hand in her pocket, the other gripping tight on to mine.
Last night, we were on that field. Everything planned so carefully. Our cheer routine with such precision. The homecoming dance, I thought, would be some boring event. A headache at best. Shitty music and gawking boys. And now here I am, my mouth chattering in the cold. Chloe Orbach convulsing on the gym floor. EMTs knocking against her chest.
When we get around the corner past the cops, I throw up on someone’s front lawn. Hot and violent, it spews out of me. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and Jadis says nothing. We keep walking. We’re two high school girls leaving a dance, like nothing happened.
Nothing is ever the way you think it’ll be.
* * *
■ ■ ■
Around two in the morning I get a text from Zoey. Her mother’s friend is an emergency room nurse at St. Joseph’s.
My mom’s friend doesn’t think Chloe made it.
I don’t answer her.
My mom’s friend said a cheerleader died in the ER tonight. It has to be her right?
I don’t answer.
I text Chloe Clarke the question I don’t want an answer
to.
Is she?
I cover my phone, shield the light from my face. The texts that come straggling in from Jadis from Zoey from the rest of the squad from whoever. I scroll and scroll until I see what I’m looking for. The text from Chloe Clarke.
Y
And my stomach cramps up, I bend over and gasp for air. It can’t be. She must be lying. She must be saying this to me because of the Molly. Because she wants revenge.
Don’t lie to me Chloe you’re lying to me
Not lying
In this moment, when I want to tear my guts out, when everything in my room is a blur, I swipe through my phone to find her. She’s in so many of my photos, smiling back at me, so alive, so vibrant. I don’t know how I’ll ever escape her.
Part
II
Chapter
20
Memorials start early on Sunday morning all over Instagram and Facebook, mostly from Chloe Schmidt, who makes collages of Chloe Orbach, documenting every moment they’ve spent together since second grade. Cheer camp. At the beach. Sharing virgin piña coladas in Miami. In sleeping bags. In Chloe Schmidt’s Jeep with a big red bow around it. The pictures go on forever.
Chloe Clarke writes one thing. I miss my friend. And that’s all.
A long thread of comments follows, and I don’t feel like it’s right to post anything.
Chloe Orbach is dead. I saw her convulse on the gym floor. I watched Jadis give her a tab of Molly with a crown stamped on it, and then twenty minutes later she was dead.
And for you, Jadis said, the crown.
She placed the tablet on Chloe Orbach’s tongue. Like witchcraft.
Jadis frantically texts me, telling me we have to talk.
But I don’t answer her. Every time my phone buzzes, I think about how it’s my fault this happened. If I hadn’t brought Jadis to the homecoming dance, there wouldn’t have been any Molly. And Chloe Orbach wouldn’t be dead.
The Falling Girls Page 11