Where the Staircase Ends

by Stacy A. Stokes

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said when my mom had driven me the five blocks to school. I was able to score a ride by feigning weakness from the previous days’ fevers, but next week I’d have to suffer the walk alone. I wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

  I hid behind a car in the teacher’s parking lot until the final bell rang, squatting next to a bumper sticker that read “Pets are people too!” until my thighs quivered. Then I slunk my way inside the school and into one of the lesser-used bathrooms where I wouldn’t have to worry about bumping in to Sunny. I wouldn’t be able to hide long without the school calling my mother to alert her of my truancy, but I at least wanted to miss first period so I could delay my encounter with Justin.

  I was coming out of the bathroom just before the second period bell when he found me. It was like he knew I would be there, and my heart squeezed at the sight of his long body leaning against a row of lockers. For a moment he just watched me, his blue eyes wide and his grin-less mouth drawn like it was on the night of the party.

  He believes her. The look on his face was so weathered it didn’t seem possible for him to have dismissed Sunny’s propaganda. I waited for him to yell the words that must be coming, for him to echo the awful things my classmates had emailed me and texted me since the news broke a few days before.

  Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and pressed his cheek against my hair, rocking me back and forth in a tight hug.

  “I’m so sorry, Taylor. I know it’s not true, okay? I’ll tell everyone I know that it’s not true.”

  “You do? You will?” The words squeaked their way out of my throat.

  “Yes,” he said into my hair. “Brandon told me he was behind the house at The Fields. He told me what you and Logan were really fighting about.”

  It felt so good to be in his arms again; it was almost too good to be true.

  “When you didn’t text me back, I thought—”

  “I know. I’m so sorry. I was processing. I should never have even considered that it was true. I’m so, so sorry.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut as a fresh tear slid down my cheek. I was so sure Brandon would never tell. I thought I was stranded on an island. It didn’t even matter that the only person he confessed to was Justin—one person changed everything. Brandon Blakes saved me.

  I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said as the tears I’d held back for the past two days leaked down my cheeks. “It’s too late. People already believe it. Sunny wins, as usual.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” he said, pulling me away from him so that I had to look at his face. “She ruined her friendship with you. That’s not winning. You can’t let her get to you, okay?” He pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and used the corner to wipe the tears from my cheeks, exposing a stripe of tanned, taut skin. Normally the sight of his exposed stomach would send a shiver up my spine, but I was too numb to feel anything at all.

  “Come on,” he said, giving my hand an encouraging tug. “I want you to hold your head high and smile, and when I say now, you let out the longest, loudest laugh you can manage, okay?”

  I nodded meekly, too defeated to argue or ask what he was up to. He closed his hand around mine and pulled me along the hallway, leaning close to my ear as we walked, whispering, “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon,” over and over again. It was the same thing Sunny used to do in junior high choir to make it look like she was singing the words to the songs even though she wasn’t. To everyone watching, it looked like Justin was telling me a hilarious story even though he was only repeating the nonsensical name of a fruit over and over again.

  He pulled me to the right, weaving in and out of the bodies packing the main corridor on their way between classes.

  “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon, now,” he whispered. I tipped my head back and laughed as loud as I could manage, which wasn’t hard because the whole thing felt so ridiculous it was funny. In that moment we passed by Sunny, Jenny, Amber, and the rest of my former crew, who watched with envious eyes as Justin and I held hands and laughed like we could give a rat’s ass what Sunny and the rest of the school said about me. And by that time I really was laughing, because the look on Sunny’s face was priceless. She hadn’t seen me with Justin yet. It was the perfect victory, and it must have pissed Sunny off royally to watch me walk down the hallway hand in hand with the guy she thought she won only a few nights before.

  When history class came around, I slid into my seat wearing a triumphant grin and made it a point to look Sunny right in the eye. I tried not to think about how much it hurt to see the top of my desk empty of the normal notes and hangman puzzles. I tried not to think about the fact that there would never be another origami flower or paper crane waiting for me in class. Instead, I thought about the envious look she gave me and Justin when she saw us laughing together, hand in hand.

  “What’s wrong, Sunny?” I whispered when I caught her glaring at me just before the bell rang. “Oh, that’s right. Justin doesn’t like you. He likes me. Apparently the only way you can get a guy to like you is to sleep with him.” I leaned in closer toward her desk so I could be sure she heard me. I wanted the words to swim out of my mouth and follow her around like a wake trailing a boat. I wanted them to hurt. “Maybe you can go to the spring formal with your dad.” I gave her the bitchiest smirk I could manage. Then I put my hand over my mouth, pretending the words had slipped out by accident before adding, “Oh, wait. He doesn’t like you either. Sorry.”

  Her chair scraped against the floor when she stood up, grabbed her bag and stormed out of the classroom.

  * * *

  That Saturday it broke ninety degrees as an unusual spring heat wave swept across our suburb, a sure sign that we were in for a brutally hot summer. The sun beat down on the pavement so hard I could feel the heat boiling through the soles of my flip-flops. It was the kind of day I’d spend at Sunny’s house, splashing around her pool and sneaking beers from her father’s downstairs fridge. Jenny was probably there in my place, finally getting her chance to be Sunny’s best friend, the way she’d always wanted.

  I only thought about it for a second as I left my house with my bathing suit peeking out from under my yellow sundress. No matter how much I missed her, I would not let thoughts of Sunny drag me down.

  “Call if you’re going to be there any later than six,” my mom said as I left the house.

  I showed her my phone as proof that I would call and waved goodbye. Popping my headphones into my ears, I scrolled through my iPod until I found a song with a beat that matched the rhythm of my steps.

  On Friday, Justin had walked me home from school and stopped on my front porch to press his lips against mine. I wondered if I’d ever get used to the way it felt when he kissed me, or if I’d always get a nervous thrill when our lips touched.

  “I was thinking,” he said as he pulled away from me. “Maybe we could hit up the dance next week?”

  I wanted to hide my smile so I wouldn’t give away how happy I was, but it was impossible to do when I was around him. “Really? I thought you hated school dances.”

  “Yeah, but you like them.” He reached his hand toward my face, the tips of his fingers tracing the edge of my jaw line. “And I like to see you happy. So do you wanna go with me?”

  I nodded eagerly and threw my arms around his neck, fighting the urge to jump up and down and shriek with glee.

  He laughed and kissed me one more time before he backed off the porch and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow at my place, right?”

  I nodded and watched him walk backward down the front walkway, his eyes holding mine until he finally had to turn around and break our gaze.

  Saturday morning I woke up early, trying on all of my swimsuits at least ten times before finally settling on the green-and-blue one that Sunny had picked out for me the summer before. I bounded down the street on my way to Justin’s house, my ponytail swinging to the beat of
the music swelling from my headphones.

  Across the street, a woman in a steely blue Beemer shifted her gaze back and forth from her phone to the road. With one hand on the wheel, she tapped out a text message and smiled at the wittiness of her response. When she finally looked up, I was halfway across the street.

  There was no pain when her Beemer thwacked in to me. There was no tunnel of white light to follow or decision to make. No music, no screams, no crushing sound of metal on skin. Just the simple quiet of the afternoon air surrounding the stairs as the sky stretched up into a sea of unending blue before me.

  Death was surprisingly quiet.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IN THE END

  I’ve had dreams where I’m falling. My stomach dropped out from underneath me, and right before I woke up I swore I could feel the wind against my skin and the swooping sensation that only comes from freefalling.

  My final run up the staircase felt like that.

  I ran up the stairs faster than I had ever run in my life, and all I could feel were the steps against my bare feet and the wind in my hair. My lungs didn’t burn, my legs didn’t ache. Even the cut on my knee didn’t bother me. I felt like I had wings, soaring over the steps with so much speed that my feet barely made contact with the worn stone surface. I was in a constant freefall, only I was traveling up into the sky.

  The stairs became more and more worn as I climbed. I didn’t need to look down to know that the hollowed-out sections of each step had become more pronounced; I could feel them against my feet. This is what gave me hope. If I was right and the stairs were worn down from other people walking on them, then it meant I had hit the part of the stairs that everyone eventually walks. It meant I had reached the end.

  I imagined I was heading toward a golden wall, or pearly gates gleaming with heavenly light. I pictured a row of angels, their downy wings billowing behind them like fluffy white curtains as they strummed harps and opened their white-robed arms to me in welcome. Or maybe angels were a little more with it nowadays, and they would be strumming electric guitars and pounding on drums while someone belted out the lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven.” I didn’t really give a rat’s ass what they were doing, as long as there was something good waiting for me at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t have climbed all this way for nothing.

  My ponytail started to whip around me, slapping the sides of my cheeks. At first I thought it was because of my speed, but then a gust of wind nearly knocked me over, and I realized it had nothing to do with me at all. The air was suddenly cooler against my cheeks, and my hair swirled and tangled as another gust of wind pushed me sideways. I stumbled, fighting to keep my balance. It was like someone shoved me from side to side, knocking me around the steps so I had to stop moving.

  What the hell?

  I searched the sky like I expected to find the source of the wind. It pissed me off because I was making such good time. I was sure that if I could just keep climbing I’d get to the top. I needed to get to the top. I had to believe there was something waiting for me up there.

  I caught sight of something off in the distance—a gray speck? A bird? Another ghost? No, it was a cloud. It looked like a small fleck against the cerulean sky, but then it began to grow in size and shape, swirling into a large gray mass until suddenly the once-blue sky was a sea of swelling, angry storm clouds. I watched as the gray masses turned an even deeper shade of green-gray, darkening so quickly it was like someone had drawn a curtain across the world. Then all at once everything was black and bright at the same time, reminding me of summertime storms that warned of tornadoes.

  The clouds rolled and tumbled lower and lower until it seemed they might swallow me up. They were circling so close to my head it felt like I could reach right up and grab a handful of the angry sky. And that’s exactly how it looked—angry. I was running right into the scowling mouth of hell.

  A bolt of lightning streaked across the now-black sky followed immediately by a crack of thunder so loud it shook the stairs. There was no time to sing one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand to see how far away I was from the storm; it sat right over the top of me. The scent of ozone filled the air, and I wondered if I was a fuse the angry sky was trying to light.

  The rain came shortly after. Large, fat drops fell like fists from the ferocious sky, soaking me straight through to my swimsuit. Earlier, when it snowed, the air never felt cold. But the rain and wind were so cold that my teeth started chattering. I had to stop moving so I could wrap my arms around myself and keep my balance against the wind, which seemed hell-bent on knocking me to the ground.

  Thunder boomed and the sky lit up again. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being scolded, that there was something I was supposed to do that I hadn’t done and the storm was my punishment. Or maybe this was what I had been climbing into all along? Maybe this was all there ever was.

  I closed my eyes and crouched into a ball, rocking back and forth against the pummeling rain because I couldn’t stand any more. The drops came at me from all sides and stung as they hit my body, like fire ants crawling up and down my arms. It hurt so much that I hugged myself tighter.

  “Is this what you want, God? Is this how it’s all supposed to end?” I yelled into the folds of my arms, but my voice got carried away by another forceful blast of wind that knocked me sideways onto one of the steps. It seemed pointless to say anything at all.

  Somewhere far below me, my parents were probably telling themselves I’d gone on to a better place. Isn’t that what people always say to comfort themselves after someone dies? They probably thought I was with Mamaw and Gramps, or playing Yahtzee with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis on a fluffy white cloud somewhere in heaven. What would they think if they knew the truth? How would they feel if they knew their teenage daughter was getting pummeled by a freak rainstorm in the middle of bumblebutt nowhere? Maybe they’d think it served me right. We hadn’t exactly been on the best terms the last few years. All I wanted was for them to leave me alone, which was ironic because in that moment I would’ve given anything to be back home with them.

  I closed my eyes, and suddenly images were hitting me fast and strong like the wind and the rain against my back. A series of pictures flashed against the backs of my eyelids, blinking off and on again and again as though someone was flipping a switch inside my brain. I couldn’t blink the pictures away. They stared me down with such clarity that it was like I was there—I was watching pieces of my life flash before my own eyes.

  I saw my mom in the hospital the day I was born. She held me in her arms and looked down at me with so much love that my heart swelled. My father was at her side, his arm around her shoulders as he gazed down at me, smiling bigger than I’d ever seen him smile. They both looked up as the nurse snapped a picture, the same picture that sat on the mantel in our living room.

  Blink.

  I was in bed, leaning against my mother as she read to me, the words soft and soothing as they echoed inside her chest. I pressed my ear more firmly against her, wanting to hear the words again and again. I fought against sleep so she would read the book to me one more time, so I could listen to the sound of her voice once more before I fell asleep. I wanted to bottle the sound up and listen to it forever.

  Blink.

  I was in a softball game, so far out in right field there was no chance of a ball ever making it to me. The coach put me out there because I was the worst player on the team. My mom knew this, but she didn’t care. She was in the stands on her feet, cheering for me. She went to every single game for two years until I finally realized how horribly un-athletic I was. She never cared that I struck out almost every time I went up to bat. She loved me. That was the only reason she needed.

  Blink.

  I sat at the dinner table, silently shoveling mashed potatoes into my mouth. My mother and I had just finished arguing, and even though she was mad at me and we weren’t speaking, love still radiated off of her. I saw myself through her eyes, felt what she felt and saw wh
at she saw when she looked at me—a beautiful young girl bursting with potential. Her want for me to be happy was overwhelming, and the pressure to do better, early curfews, rules, and boundaries—they were her way of protecting me and trying to help me to grow into the person she knew I could become. She wanted me to understand. If only I would listen. If only I would hear her, just this once. Why was I always so stubborn?

  Blink.

  My mother dropped me off at Sunny’s for a slumber party. My mom woke me up on a Saturday morning with waffles and eggs. My mom hummed to me when I was sick in bed with a fever. My mom dropped me off three houses down from Jenny’s so people wouldn’t see her and I wouldn’t be embarrassed. She cooked dinner, waved goodbye as I left for school, smiled with pride when I found out I’d been bumped into the honors classes. Clapped at ballet recitals. Cheered when I learned to ride a bike.

  I saw my mother over and over again, in flashes as clear as the pictures on a television screen, and in all of them I could see how much she loved me. I could feel it. Her love was thick and warm and ever present, quilted together into a blanket that hovered around me in every image. How had I not seen it before?

  Then I saw my father, wrapping me in a gigantic hug and lifting me off of my feet. Smiling proudly after he caulked the sole of my tennis shoe. Pecking my head with a kiss before he left for work. Looking at Logan suspiciously the first time he came by to take me on a date. Twirling me in tiny circles at the father-daughter Girl Scout dance. Just like my mom, I could see his pride when he looked at me. I could feel the wonder and joy he felt every time he looked at his daughter. At me.