Free to Fall

by Lauren Miller

  “My father,” I said softly.

  All at once Griffin was crying. I took a step back, startled at the rawness of the emotion and how quickly it had come. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands.

  “All this time, I thought she’d betrayed me,” he said thickly. “The Doubt, it kept telling me to trust her, to go and find her. For months I couldn’t shut it off. I thought— I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t make it stop. And then one day it did.” He rubbed his eyes with his fists as if trying to blot the grief away. “All that I’ve done since then—”

  “Mr. Payne,” the man in black said.

  “I need a minute, Jason.” Griffin’s eyes hadn’t left mine. “If I was the father, why did she leave?” he asked me. “She was supposed to give the valedictory address. She’d been working on it for weeks. But when I went to her dorm room that morning, to confront her about the email, she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Do you know if my mom was seeing a psychiatrist that spring?”

  “A psychiatrist? For what? Because of the Doubt?” He shook his head. “Your mom never would’ve gone to a doctor about that. Why, did someone tell you she did?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told him. “But I think someone may have been out to get her. I just don’t know who, or why. I was hoping you’d have some of the answers.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m as in the dark as you are,” he said. “But maybe we can figure some of it out together. Can we talk after my speech? How long will you be here?” He smoothed his hair and the skin under his eyes, collecting himself.

  “I wasn’t supposed to leave campus,” I admitted. “So I need to be on the nine-fifteen train back.”

  “I’ll get you a car,” Griffin said. “If you leave by ten, you’ll be fine. And the speech won’t take long. I’d cancel it to talk to you, but they’re live-streaming it and there are a few things I need to say before this thing goes any further than it already has.” There was a tenor of resolve in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Before what goes any further? I wanted to ask, but the man in black was at Griffin’s elbow. “So you’ll stay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  My father smiled, and for a second his eyes weren’t sad at all. “I’m so glad to meet you, Rory,” he said, taking my hand in his.

  “What do the symbols mean?” I asked, nodding at the ring.

  “Timshel,” Griffin replied. “It’s Hebrew. Steinbeck used it in East of Eden. It means ‘thou mayest.’ The idea being that we all have a choice. To do good, to live well.”

  “Timshel,” I repeated. “I like that idea.”

  “Me too,” Griffin replied. He examined his ring as if seeing it for the first time. “Your mom had it made for me for my eighteenth birthday. When she left, I kept it on as a reminder of the mistake I’d made, trusting something other than myself.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for something there. “I think I missed the point.”

  “Mr. Payne, the stream goes live in five minutes.” Jason was back, and his voice was urgent now. There was static buzzing from his earpiece. “They have to mic you, sir.”

  Through the window I could see that the crowd had formed a semicircle around the fountain, facing the stage at the south end of the courtyard where Griffin would be giving his speech. There was a paper-thin screen mounted on the wall behind it, playing the latest TV ad for the Gold.

  “I’ll find you as soon as I’m done,” I heard Griffin say.

  And then he was gone, through the door and swallowed up by the boisterous crowd outside. North was at my side seconds later.

  “How’d it go?”

  “He never knew the baby was his,” I said, following North outside. “He got some email with the results of a pregnancy test dated two months before he and my mom ever slept together, so he thought my mom had cheated on him. When he went to ask my mom about it, she was gone.” I chewed on my lip. “Why would someone want him to think the baby wasn’t his?”

  “I don’t know. You think the person who sent that email is the same person who messed with your mom’s medical file?”

  “I guess so, but it seems weird, right? I mean, I understand the fake test results, but it’s not like Griffin would ever see her medical file. Why go to all that trouble?”

  “Rory?” I spun on my toes, startled by the familiar voice. Beck was standing just a few feet away, in a navy suit that fit him perfectly but looked completely ridiculous. It reminded me of something Liam might wear, which made it the polar opposite of anything I’d ever seen my best friend put on.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded, rushing over to give him a hug and nearly tripping in my heels in the process. “Another perk of being a beta tester?” I grabbed him by the elbows and gave him a once-over. He looked good. The zits he’d always battled had cleared up and his arms were bulkier, like he’d been working out.

  “Oh, it’s way cooler than that,” Beck said, glancing at North then back at me, a reminder that I hadn’t introduced him. “My photographs are on the wall in one of the exhibit rooms. It’s part of an exhibit of new artists that Gnosis is sponsoring. It goes from here to the MFA in Boston.”

  “No way! That’s amazing!”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. Gnosis flew all the artists out for it. There’s another event at the museum tomorrow night.”

  “Holy crap.” I punched him in the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It just happened. So what are you doing here? Class field trip?”

  “Something like that,” I said. The knowledge I’d accumulated over the past few weeks, about the voice, and my mom, and now, my real dad, was pressing out from the inside. How had I not told Beck any of it? I felt a twinge behind my rib cage. I’d tried. Several times.

  Beck looked over at North. “So we should probably just introduce ourselves since Rory’s clearly not going to.”

  North laughed. “Probably a good plan. I’m North.” I stepped back so they could shake hands and noticed that Beck had his Gold snapped to a brown leather wrist strap. It was like the suit. Much too preppy for Beck’s taste. Then again, it was a party and he was here on someone else’s dime, and this was probably just his attempt at dressing up.

  “Beck’s my best friend,” I told North. “From back home.” I turned back to Beck. “So where are they? I want to see them!”

  “They’re inside,” Beck replied. “Let me just make sure we have enough time.” He raised his wrist toward his mouth. “Lux, do we have time to visit the exhibit before the keynote speech?”

  I felt as if I were watching a stranger. Beck had told me he was using Lux now, but to ask it something as ridiculous as that? Beck didn’t need an app to tell him that we had plenty of time. Yet he was earnestly waiting for Lux’s reply, a bizarre half smile on his lips as he stared at his tiny screen.

  “The presentation is delayed,” Lux said, in a voice that sounded so much like Beck’s that I thought for a second that he’d been the one to say it. The Lux voice on the older model Gemini was tinny, audibly distinct from its owner’s. This version was indistinguishable. “You have adequate time to view the exhibit,” Lux continued. “I will notify you when it is time to return to the courtyard.”

  “Thanks,” Beck said to his handheld. He readjusted his sleeve and smiled at us. “Let’s do it.”

  I started to follow him then stopped to scan the courtyard first. Tarsus was easy to spot this time, a flash of iridescent white silk in a blur of dark colors. Thankfully, she was on the other side of the fountain and her back was to me. I could tell from the way her head was bobbing that she was in a heated conversation with whoever was in front of her.

  “You coming?” Beck asked.

  “Yep,” I said, glancing over at Tarsus one last time. She’d moved slightly, so the person she was talking to was now in view. I watched as she put her hand on his forearm and he shook it off, his face twisted in anger.

  It was Griffin.

  “N
o,” I breathed. “North, he’s talking to Dr. Tarsus.” An avalanche of dread cascaded from my chest to my stomach. “If he tells her I’m here . . .”

  “Don’t panic,” North whispered, steering me toward the room where Beck was headed. “They could be talking about anything.”

  As we stepped inside the building, I looked over my shoulder to where Tarsus and Griffin had been standing. He was striding away from her, toward the podium. She was on her handheld, a Gold, strapped to her wrist like Beck’s. It glinted in the dim light. It felt like a good sign that she wasn’t searching the room for me. Maybe they had been talking about something else. Maybe Griffin hadn’t mentioned me after all.

  Or maybe she was calling the dean right now to report me.

  “Mine are on the left wall,” I heard Beck say. We were in a room adjacent to the courtyard, which Gnosis had converted into a chic-looking art space, with temporary white fiberglass walls. There were paintings in nearly every media, from watercolor to digital ink prints, but I saw only three photographs. All of sailboats.

  “Wait, where are yours?” I asked, revolving to take in the rest of the room.

  “They’re right there,” Beck said. “You were just looking at them.” He took my shoulders and turned me back toward the boats.

  “But they’re sailboats,” I said. I looked at North because I couldn’t look at Beck. It’s not that they were terrible pictures; it was just that they were the type of photographs you’d expect to see in a doctor’s office or the lobby of a chain hotel. Commercial. Pretty. Forgettable.

  “That’s my thing now,” Beck replied with no trace of defensiveness. “Boats and bridges. I realized that my previous work was too depressing to sell.”

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. Beck’s work was evocative and powerful and raw. Hard to look at sometimes, but that was the point. “Too depressing?”

  “Unfortunately, Rory, even artists have to eat,” Beck said pleasantly. Beside me, North cleared his throat.

  “I think they’re beautiful,” he told Beck, stepping up for a closer look. “The glossy finish really makes them pop.” This was true, but it wasn’t a compliment. The images looked fake, like stock screensavers. “Were they all shot in Seattle?”

  “Yep,” Beck replied. “On three consecutive days. The Gold comes with a photo app that links to Lux. You just type in the kind of photo you want, and Lux’ll show you where in the city to shoot, and what time of day. Takes all the effort out of it.”

  “What happened to ‘Lux thinks like a computer, not an artist,’” I asked, barely able to look at him now.

  “Every artist needs tools for his craft,” Beck said. “Lux is one of mine.”

  “And the Doubt?” I asked softly. In my peripheral vision, I saw North’s head turn.

  “Quiet at last,” Beck said, as though this was something to celebrate.

  My stomach churned. “You’re taking Evoxa.”

  “Nope. Still think that stuff fries your brain. I just took Lux’s advice and told the voice I didn’t need it anymore. Not long after that, it stopped.”

  My brain couldn’t process a response. It was as if I were interacting with some alternate version of my best friend. I stared at his photographs, hating them even more now, wishing I could tear them from the wall and throw them into the fountain.

  “Please proceed to the courtyard,” I heard Beck say. But, of course, it wasn’t actually Beck, but his electronic sidekick. It took restraint for me not to rip the Gold off his wrist and hurl it against the wall.

  “We should get going,” the real Beck said. North slipped his hand in mine.

  Just then there was a tinkling sound, like a glass being tapped with a knife, but louder, and coming through the overhead speakers. Our signal that the speech was about to start. We followed Beck back outside.

  “Ladies and gentlemen” came a familiar voice. Tarsus was behind the gold-plated podium. She was introducing him? I quickly ducked behind North. Beck gave me a quizzical look. “On behalf of my fellow Gnosis board members, it is my great honor to introduce a man who needs no introduction. The visionary behind Lux and the architect of the game-changing device we’re here tonight to celebrate. The CEO and face of Gnosis, Griffin Payne.” The crowd erupted in applause as Griffin joined her on the stage.

  “Thank you, Esperanza.” Griffin’s smile looked more like a grimace as he stepped up to the mic. “And thank you all for coming, and for helping to make Gnosis what it is today.” He looked up at the ceiling for a second then continued. “When I started as an intern at the company the summer after high school, I thought I’d hit the career jackpot. Here was a company committed to remaining at the forefront of technological innovation that wanted to do good in the world. I was a kid with a broken heart who was given the opportunity to help design an app that would make sure it would never happen again.” There was twittering in the audience, scattered whispers. This was not something Griffin had ever shared publicly. But the man at the podium seemed unaware of his audience’s reaction. He kept talking. “It was a lofty notion, the idea that we could improve society with a handheld app.” Griffin seemed to falter a little. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “A lofty notion,” he continued. “And a misguided one.” He paused and gripped the podium, his face suddenly ashen. He wiped his brow again and blinked his eyes a few times as if he were having trouble focusing. “The truth is that—” He was still talking, but all of a sudden his words were garbled. Unintelligible. A woman beside me whispered, “He’s not making any sense.”

  Tarsus mounted the stage in a single step, just in time to catch Griffin as he fell.

  23

  “RORY, WE HAVE TO GO,” North said urgently. EMTs were hurriedly strapping Griffin to a stretcher, barking at one another in rapid fire. I hadn’t moved since Griffin collapsed nineteen minutes ago. Nor had I spoken. I felt as if the floor beneath me had given way and I was floating through the air, weightless. This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t even know what “this” was yet. Was Griffin dead?

  “Rory,” North said again.

  I forced myself to meet his gaze. “Okay,” I said.

  Beck was on his Gold, watching the Forum chatter about what had happened. Since Griffin had collapsed during a live broadcast, it was all anyone on Forum was talking about. New posts were popping up so fast, Beck’s screen was a whirl of vertical motion.

  “Come with us,” I said to Beck suddenly. “Take the train with us back to Theden. You can stay at North’s.” I looked at North for confirmation. “Right?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

  Beck was already shaking his head. “I can’t. I have the MFA event tomorrow.”

  “You’ll be back by then. There are trains nearly every hour.”

  I could see Beck considering it. He seemed uncertain. “Let me ask Lux,” he said finally.

  “You can’t ask Lux,” I said sharply. “I’m not supposed to be here, so you can’t ask it if you can leave with me.”

  Beck’s eyes were instantly suspicious. “What do you mean, you’re not supposed to be here?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, squeezing my fists in frustration to keep from shaking him. “God, Beck, just come with us. You’ll be back in plenty of time.”

  “Rory, we really need to go,” North said gently. “It’s gonna be hard to get a cab, and we can’t miss our train.”

  I looked at Beck. “You coming?”

  He took a step back, away from me.

  “Forget it,” I barked, spinning on my heels as angry tears sprung to my eyes. “North, let’s go.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I heard North say behind me. “Good luck with the exhibit.”

  “Rory!” Beck called. I didn’t look back.

  By the time we made it to our train, the mainstream news media had picked up the story. We watched coverage the whole way back. A little after eleven, Gnosis released a statement. Griffin Payne had suffered a stroke. />
  “A stroke?” My voice faltered. “He’s thirty-five. He was on the cover of Men’s Health last month. How could he have a stroke?”

  North just shook his head. “He’ll be okay. He’s got the best doctors in the world.”

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead in frustration. “Ugh! I feel like we took one step forward and, like, eleven steps back.” And then, out of nowhere and out of everywhere, I was crying. This time I didn’t even try to hold it in. North pulled me toward him, wrapping both arms around me. I wept noisily into his jacket, which smelled like woodsy cologne and not like North at all.

  “None of it makes any sense,” I said, my voice muffled by herringbone. “Griffin said my mom was their class valedictorian. Why would she leave just hours before graduation?”

  “Maybe she was scared,” North said. “Maybe she knew someone was out to get her. Someone who was capable of more than just some doctored medical files.”

  “But who? And why didn’t she just go to the police? Or at least to Griffin. She could’ve proven to him that those test results were fake.” Unless she sent them to him. But why would she do that?

  Just then something out the window caught my eye. A flash of light in the dark. It was a meteor, zipping through the night sky. For a moment I thought there were two of them, one below and one above, but then I realized the second one was a mirror image of the first, reflecting off the water below it. We were passing the reservoir. We were almost back.

  “Theden” came the train’s automated voice. “Theden Central Station is next.”

  I wiped my eyes and sat up as the train pulled into the station.

  “Well, as far as dates go, this one was pretty uneventful,” North deadpanned.

  “Totally dull,” I agreed.

  “I’m glad you got a chance to talk to Griffin,” he said, softer and sincere.