I tell her that the detective came to my house. That’s why.
Jadis nods like she expected that, like this is all part of the plan.
“I’m going to ask you this one more time, Jadis,” I say, pleading with her, drawing out my words. “Did you give the crown to Chloe for a certain reason?”
“A certain reason? Of course I gave it to her for a certain reason, Shade. I gave her the crown because she was the queen. At least to you. To the girls on your team. You think if I handed her the joker or the king or, let’s see, what if I handed her one with SpongeBob fucking SquarePants. You think she would have taken it?”
It’s almost as if Jadis had a sense about Chloe that I somehow missed. That while I was trying to impress her, do everything she asked of me, Jadis had studied her.
“She needed to know that I wasn’t the jealous best friend. That I was okay with all this. That I wasn’t left behind, wondering all the time what happened to my life and why I lost it to someone like Chloe Orbach.”
I notice her new tattoo on her left arm.
It’s the words Believe In Me.
Chapter
29
“We’re gonna do this for Chloe!” Keke yells in that military voice of hers.
In the locker room, getting ready for our first game since Chloe died.
Chloe and Chloe going through cheer moves in the mirror. Lining up like twins, each movement in sync.
Sasha and Pri practicing their hand placements for the full up.
I smear glitter over my cheeks like a zombie, thinking about Detective Cheerleader and her questions. Chloe Orbach, everywhere I turn. Over my shoulder watching me, I can feel her, tucking my hair back, straightening my posture, locking eyes. Those glowing eyes.
Zoey, effervescent Zoey, bounces over, and I’m startled. “You can do this, girl,” she says, bubbly. Zoey is big on pep talk. Everything is: You got this. Or Girl, we’re gonna rock it. You’re on fire. It makes me laugh, how earnest she is.
If she only knew how bad things were. How defective I am.
Chloe Schmidt strolls down the aisle toward me.
“Wonder if the Green Goblin will be here today? Cheering on her best friend from the stands.”
“Her hair is lavender now, so there’s that,” I say flatly.
“Oh, really? Maybe she’s trying to disguise herself?” she says. “Wonder why?” She struts away.
Zoey wraps her hand in mine and gives me a tug. It’s like she’s grown half an inch since the beginning of the season.
“Ignore her. She likes to torment people,” she says. “Do you know that when I see her in the hall, she sticks her tongue out at me?”
“Her tongue?”
“Yeah, like playground stuff. At first, I was really annoyed. You know, who do you think you are? But then I was like, that’s some second-grade bullshit. Next time she did it, I laughed her off and she stopped. Now she just ignores me. Which is fine.”
I don’t even know what to make of this story. I can’t imagine why Chloe Schmidt would stick out her tongue at Zoey, the most innocent freshman there ever was. I remember what Zoey said to me that day when we were working the mat. Plus, I hate that it makes her feel like she wasn’t welcome. But maybe that’s the point. Chloe Schmidt’s a bully. She likes to intimidate people.
This is the kind of antic I’d tell Jadis about. She’d want to pummel Chloe Schmidt. Drag her through gravel, or at least threaten to, for the way she talked to me earlier. She’d want to walk behind her slowly and taunt her about bullying a freshman. It takes everything I have not to text her about it.
But I can’t text her because she’s not mine anymore. And it’s empty. I feel stripped bare.
* * *
■ ■ ■
Before the game, I follow Chloe Schmidt over to the big mirror where she’s glossing her lips. It’s not my place to be Zoey’s savior, but I want Schmidt to know I see her.
“What are you looking at?” Schmidt says.
“You,” I say. “I see your little games.”
She snorts at me. “Stalker,” she says, and pushes past me.
* * *
■ ■ ■
When we take the field, there’s a standing ovation, and I hate it. I hate that they’re clapping for us as if we’ve accomplished something by just showing up. It makes me want to scream at them.
A girl is dead. There’s no reason to clap.
So many more people here now than a usual game. And for what? To watch us crash into the ground? To watch us fall apart without Chloe? To see if we’re still a team? To witness crying cheerleaders? To see if we can make it through the game without grieving for our dead friend?
I look through the stands for a glimpse of her. I see Dave Sozo slide in with Trey and a few of his friends, and my heart stops for a second, thinking Jadis is with him. But she’s not.
We line up on the field, and Keke and Gretchen take the captain’s spot. They give us a READY, SET, and we all get in a huddle and scream her name on three.
“CHLO-E! CHLO-E! CHLO-E!”
We’re so loud that it reverberates through the stadium, and I hear people clapping, and it all becomes a buzz when the music starts. Zoey and I get into position for our two back handspring fulls. She smiles at me, that sweet Zoey smile. Was I ever so wholesome?
With all my might, I run backward into it, my body on autopilot, and I’m flipping so hard in the air, propelling myself up and then into the twist and I’m flying, soaring.
Land—boom—flat on my feet. No wobble.
Clap into position, abs tight. For the full up scorpion.
Sasha behind me, Chloe Schmidt on my right, and Pri on my left. I dig into their shoulders and load in, my feet up in the air, then my right foot in Chloe Schmidt’s hand, and there’s a deep sigh of relief because she doesn’t claw me this time. Pri counts five, six, seven, eight. They push me up on one, two and I start to spin.
Three, I’m all the way around, 360.
Four, I keep spinning to the front, but I’m off balance. I feel Sasha’s hands grasping on to my ankles, but I’m falling through. There’s no bottom. No one has my right foot.
The main base can’t let go.
I fall right into Pri, slide through her, and I can see her fear, Sasha’s hands grasping at my thighs, as I land face-first into the turf.
A minute later, trying to stand up, and I wobble, that salty taste, those fake soil particles in my mouth, as I spit them out into my hand and it’s red. It’s blood.
Fuzzy voices.
Pri crying telling me she’s so sorry, so sorry, she doesn’t know what went wrong.
Zoey repeating that it’s going to be okay, that I’m fine, I’m fine.
Keke says she’s going to pinch my nose to stop the blood. Her hand is shaking as she reaches in.
Sasha is on the other side, keeping me still. “You slipped right through my hands, Shade,” she says, full of upset. And I see Coach running toward me.
All the noise just one big echo chamber, like when you’re at the dentist and they’re about to fill a cavity and they give you that laughing gas. All you hear is nothing and everything. Nothing and everything.
“Shade, can you see?” Coach says, kneeling in front of me.
“I fell on my face, Coach. There was nothing under me. No ground.”
I look up and there’s two EMTs next to her, I’m not sure where they came from, and then I remember they’re at every football game, and every school event. Just like how they were at the homecoming dance.
I flash back to that night at the dance. Chloe Orbach and Jadis and me holding hands, dancing. And I start to cry, all of the blood and all of the tears, all of it running down my face.
“They were holding hands at the dance,” I’m saying to Coach. “We were having so much fun. So much fun, Coach.”<
br />
She pulls me close into her chest, shushing me like a baby.
* * *
■ ■ ■
They walk me off the field, the blood finally stops, but the EMTs tell me it might be a slight concussion. They want to do a test off the field. Can I walk? I can walk. The football players clapping for me. The spectators who came to watch a cheerleader fall got exactly what they wanted. Everyone in the stands clapping.
I turn to look for Chloe Clarke, and she’s far back, trailing us. She and Chloe Schmidt, separate.
I pull away from Keke, who’s got her arm under me, and march toward Chloe Schmidt. My hands shaking.
“You purposely dropped me,” I say to her.
“What are you talking about?” Chloe Schmidt says. “You weren’t rock-solid. That’s why you fell.”
Chloe Clarke places her hand around my waist. “Shade, it’s okay.”
“She let go of my foot,” I say to Chloe Clarke, gasping, wiping the snot and blood from my nose. “She wasn’t supposed to let go. That’s the whole stunt. That’s the whole thing.”
And I realize, it rushes to me, that I’ve been looking at everything sideways.
I close my eyes, and those white splatters are everywhere. When I open them Chloe Schmidt, that gloss smeared over her puckered lips, the way she contours those cheeks. Like a monster, all of it is so clear.
“My hand was firm around the base of your foot,” she says to me, in her calmest voice, her low gaze locked on me. “I would never do that. You need a concussion check.”
Coach is calling my name, walking toward me. And I think about the way Chloe Orbach used to look at me, all of that hope in her face. All of that trust.
I moan out in pain, the throbbing in my head starts up, the field, the players, the stands blurry. The adrenaline did its thing and now it’s leaving me high and dry.
“I don’t feel good,” I say to Chloe Clarke, who’s still got me. She holds on tighter, until Coach is next to me again, her arm under me. EMTs rushing in, asking me if I remember what happened. Making me track their finger.
I trusted Chloe Schmidt. Rambling thoughts. Surges of Chloe Schmidt’s Instagram. I mistook her for someone else. I mistook her for a good girl. I mistook her for Chloe Orbach.
I trusted her not to let go of that foot. She was my floor. And she dropped me.
* * *
■ ■ ■
My mother is home with me, sitting by my bed. I’ve got a concussion. The doctor told my mother he’d seen too many cheerleading injuries in the emergency room these days. The way I described the fall, I could have broken my neck. He saw a cheerleader just last week fall fifteen feet, he said. A chipped neck vertebra.
I’m going to look beat-up like I’ve been in a fight. And haven’t I been? My mother has one of those ice masks, and the doctor said that’s the best thing. I can’t go back to cheer for at least a week, but I’m shaken now in a way that I haven’t felt since I don’t know when. Thinking that I never should have done this to begin with. That I should never have joined this team. All my doubts, taking over.
* * *
■ ■ ■
On get-well-soon duty, the squad files in on Sunday. Except Chloe Schmidt.
Chloe Clarke tells me it’s because she thinks I’m mad at her. That I blame her for falling.
“Flyers fall, Shade,” Chloe says after everyone else leaves. She lingers in my room. Sitting at the edge of my bed and painting my nails gold and blue.
I replay it over and over.
My fall wasn’t a fall. It was a drop.
That’s not what Chloe Schmidt says, of course. But why would my mind play tricks on me like that? She let go of my foot. And that’s one thing a base doesn’t do. Let go.
Chapter
30
By Wednesday, my face is still puffy, but the black and blue under my eyes has morphed into a golden beet color. The headaches, coming and going.
Jadis texts me a few times while I’m home, but they’re so vague.
Heard you took a bad fall. Hope you’re feeling better.
As if she’s talking to a stranger. I want to text her that Chloe Schmidt dropped me. That she did it on purpose, that I know she did. And I type it out, but then I delete it. What would Jadis say anyway? She’d skip down the street, giddy, singing, I told ya so.
In my bed staring at the wall since I’m supposed to be limited on my phone, I can’t pinpoint what the feeling is until it hits me. I’m lonely for Jadis.
My mother trolls the hallway, passing my bedroom door like a caged animal, waiting for me to recover.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to go to school?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
Zoey texts me like a little baby chick telling me that she misses me. That she can’t wait for me to come back. Even though the doctor said I could look at a computer screen, it seems to make my headaches worse.
She says the freshman conspiracy theories are more fired up since my fall.
They say the team is cursed, she texts.
She says that someone talked about how I walked off the field with blood running down my face like a vampire.
They say the cheerleaders are terrifying.
I don’t disagree.
* * *
■ ■ ■
I get into school late. My doctor’s note is broad and will get me out of anything. I wait for Chloe Clarke by her locker, my head down, AirPods jammed in my ears, stares from people passing by me. Music drowns out meaningless hallway gossip, and I lift my eyes when I see her in front of me.
“Shade?” Chloe says. She stares at me like I have two heads. “You look horrible. Are you sure you should be back? Do you need to go to the nurse?”
But I cut her off. I don’t need the nurse. I need her to be truthful with me.
The images of me sliding through Pri’s arms and onto the turf are all tangled up with flashes of the homecoming dance, of Chloe Orbach, Jadis, and me pulsing under the disco ball.
I need answers about Chloe Schmidt.
“I have one question for you,” I say, a deep worry in the pit of my stomach. “Did Chloe tell you what happened during the game?”
“We’ve been over this, Shade,” she says. “Something went wrong with your foot, your placement. You didn’t squeeze your legs together enough. Cheerleaders fall all the time.”
“According to her.”
“You have to stop thinking that Chloe is against you. She’s got an issue with your friend Jadis—not you. And I don’t have to explain to you why.”
I pretend not to feel that shiver. I pretend her answer is enough. That I’m satisfied with her explanation. But so many excuses for one person, I wonder if Chloe Clarke even believes it herself.
* * *
■ ■ ■
My heart beating so hard, I go to Coach’s office. It’s not anything special. Just a small room right off the gym. She shares it with the volleyball coach. The field hockey coach and the girls’ lacrosse coach share another office next door.
Boys’ soccer has its own coach’s office.
Football has its own coach’s office.
You can say girls run the world all you want, but until I see a female coach with her own office, I don’t believe it.
I lurk by the door. She’s watching something on her computer, her hands clenched like she’s practicing a routine. They stay in your head, routines. Those moves, stifling all your thoughts.
I knock lightly on the door and she smiles when she sees me, then that concerned look I’m familiar with. My swollen face. She waves me in.
“I thought you were coming back to school tomorrow?” she says, and tells me to take a seat.
“I got antsy at home. My mother’s hovering over me. I’m not used to it.” As long as I’m taking it slow, Coach says, motherly
.
“I’m watching regionals from another squad down in Florida,” she says. “As a team, we’ve come so far. I think we can really do some of these stunts. Once you’ve recovered, of course. Come see.”
I scoot next to her and she pulls her dark hair behind her ears, straight as a pin. That perfect hair. Not one strand out of place. Her shoulders firm and dense. I’m so slight compared to her. I’ve worked my body so hard these past few months, but I don’t know that I’ll ever look as strong as her.
“I’m so excited for you to get back to your stunts, Shade. I have this great idea where you and Chloe can do a full up, then a scorpion double down. Maybe we get one of the boys from the gymnastics team to be a base. Get our pyramid solid, really show off what we have.”
“Coach, I have to talk to you about something.”
“You don’t think you’re ready? Because of that fall?” she says, her face sinking.
“No, I want to get back up there again,” I say, and then a deep exhale. “Did you take video of the cheer that day? You know, our first game back? I want to see what I did wrong.” I don’t say the truth, that I want to see what Chloe Schmidt didn’t do.
“Oh?” she says, surprised. “No, I haven’t seen a video of it, but think it was just a matter of your legs being a little too far apart. Your ankles have to be sealed shut.”
“Are you sure, Coach? Like, are you one hundred percent sure?” I say, my hands sweating. I rub them across my jeans.
“Well, that’s what Chloe Schmidt told me. She was right under you. So she would know.”
“Because you asked her to walk you through it? You asked her exactly what happened?”
Coach lingers on that question. Then her hand to her chin, thinking.
“I’m not sure how it came up, now that you mention it. We were talking about what happened, we were going over the stunt, and Chloe mentioned it. That your legs weren’t tight enough, that your ankles weren’t locked, that you didn’t feel secure,” she says.
The Falling Girls Page 18