The Year They Fell by David Kreizman

Author:David Kreizman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imprint

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Papi moved through the party with purpose, chatting people up and making sure everyone was having a good time. I knew he had to be holding on by his fingernails, but he didn’t show it. Hard to believe this was the same person who just a few months ago needed me to bring him peanut butter sandwiches in bed. In fact, everything was going well. It felt like what a family feast was supposed to feel like.

Josie found me looking at the seashell on the Christmas tree. “Hey, do you have a hair band? It’s, like, an epically bad hair day and I’m tired of fighting it.”

The moment she came to my table in the lunchroom was dramatic, but this was even better. Because it wasn’t some forced reunion or grand gesture. It was just Josie asking me for a hair band. The way friends do without thinking. The way friends do.

“Sure, let me go grab one.” I walked slowly away and turned the corner before racing into my room without even turning on the light. I frantically rummaged through my drawers, looking for one measly band. I don’t usually put my hair up. It was too choppy. But I was sure I’d have at least one. Suddenly the desk light snapped on. I screamed and spun around to see Jack sitting at my desk with the lights off.

“What the fuck, Jack? Might want to give me a warning next time.”

“Sorry. Waiting for a headache to pass. Not that they ever do.” It was then that I noticed the papers spread out in front of him. Shit, I’d forgotten to clean off my desk before the party. It was stacked high with pictures I’d printed out from social media. Pictures of Jack and Josie and all of their friends. Evidence. Jack was looking at stone-cold proof that I was a weird and freaky stalker. He looked up at me and in that instant I saw it all slipping away. Noche Buena, the lunch table, the hair band, everything. He’d realize what I’d been doing all along and who I really was. He’d tell Josie and they’d both run out of this house and never look back.

I did my best to dance my way out of it. “I don’t do this shit anymore,” I swore, my voice tight. “My friends went away and I was alone, so I—I imagined.”

But Jack didn’t accuse me of being a psycho. He didn’t run and rat me out to Josie. He just stopped to look at the picture I’d printed from their party the night of the crash. Jack and Josie, arms around each other on their front porch.

“It’s weird,” he said. “I picked this up and I almost didn’t recognize us. It’s like it happened in a different lifetime.”

He gritted his teeth as he squeezed his temples. “Want to know something? I always hated those parties.”

“What? People would’ve given their left tit or ball to go to those freaking things. You just saw that I was basically stalking them.

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