The Falling Girls by Hayley Krischer

Author:Hayley Krischer [Krischer, Hayley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

21

Football players sit on benches in front of the funeral home crying.

Inside, rows and rows of chairs. All of them filled. The room hot and crowded. A line snakes through the hallway with people waiting to pay respects to Chloe’s family. Chloe’s little brothers. Their sister will be a martyr now. The girl with the shrine of beautiful Chloés all over her bedroom. All the stages of Chloe in a slide show. A wonderful friend, big sister, dedicated daughter. Baby Chloe. Innocent Chloe.

And then, the biggest picture of them all. The golden-haired cheerleader. A towering image of her there with her blonde hair blowing in the wind, her perfectly white teeth sparkling. Just like the cardboard cutout that Chloe Schmidt talked about.

God, Chloe Orbach would have loved this funeral. She would have relished it.

I can see Chloe’s mother’s blonde hair bobbing in front of her casket, Chloe’s embalmed body just a few feet away. Jews don’t do it this way, and I’ve never seen a dead body before. I’m scared to see Chloe like that. I don’t know if I want to see what they’ve done to her.

Chloe Schmidt struts in like she owns the place in a black baby-doll dress with a white Peter Pan collar with cat whiskers embroidered onto it. Her thighs glistening like she just shaved and oiled them. Lips in a peach hue I’ve never seen. All of her hair down, unbrushed and wild. Not at all like the girl I saw babbling about losing her best friend in the gym that night.

I hold on to the laminated card of Chloe’s face, smiling, a poem on the back. Something about rainbows and sunshine and when I see you again. A child isn’t supposed to go before their parent.

Keke gets in line behind me and I smile, the two of us stuck in this long hallway together. I’m glad to see her among these faces of sad strangers.

Chloe Schmidt holds court way up ahead, kissing strangers young and old like she’s part of a wedding receiving line. Like she’s part of Chloe Orbach’s family. I guess when you’ve known each other for so long, that’s what happens. You meet the cousins and aunts and the uncles, and they all feel like they know you because they watched you grow up.

“I have a weird question to ask you,” I say to Keke. “What were the Three Chloes like before I got on the team? Like, last year?”

“Trios are a problem,” she says. “There’s always someone left out. Two against one.”

“I knew they were fighting recently,” I say.

“It wasn’t just recently. It had been going on since last year,” Keke says. “Did you know they were attacking each other in their Instagram stories?”

“I knew,” I told her.

“They were always posting cryptic messages like I told you so. Or You’re pathetic. But everyone knew they were talking about each other.”

Once, in the beginning of the year, Keke saw Chloe Schmidt crying after school in the locker room, and Chloe broke down to her, saying she felt so betrayed.

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