Lauren Oliver - The Lauren Oliver Collection: Before I Fall, Panic, Vanishing Girls

They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but thats not how it happened for me.

To be honest, Id always thought the whole final-moment, mental life-scan thing sounded pretty awful. Some things are better left buried and forgotten, as my mom would say. Id be happy to forget all of fifth grade, for example (the glasses-and-pink-braces period), and does anybody want to relive the first day of middle school? Add in all of the boring family vacations, pointless algebra classes, period cramps, and bad kisses I barely lived through the first time around

The truth is, though, I wouldnt have minded reliving my greatest hits: when Rob Cokran and I first hooked up in the middle of the dance floor at homecoming, so everyone saw and knew we were together; when Lindsay, Elody, Ally, and I got drunk and tried to make snow angels in May, leaving person-sized imprints in Allys lawn; my sweet-sixteen party, when we set out a hundred tea lights and danced on the table in the backyard; the time Lindsay and I pranked Clara Seuse on Halloween, got chased by the cops, and laughed so hard we almost threw upthe things I wanted to remember; the things I wanted to be remembered for.

But before I died I didnt think of Rob, or any other guy. I didnt think of all the outrageous things Id done with my friends. I didnt even think of my family, or the way the morning light turns the walls in my bedroom the color of cream, or the way the azaleas outside my window smell in July, a mixture of honey and cinnamon.

Instead, I thought of Vicky Hallinan.

Specifically, I thought of the time in fourth grade when Lindsay announced in front of the whole gym class that she wouldnt have Vicky on her dodgeball team. Shes too fat, Lindsay blurted out. You could hit her with your eyes closed. I wasnt friends with Lindsay yet, but even then she had this way of saying things that made them hilarious, and I laughed along with everyone else while Vickys face turned as purple as the underside of a storm cloud.

Thats what I remembered in that before-death instant, when I was supposed to be having some big revelation about my past: the smell of varnish and the squeak of our sneakers on the polished floor; the tightness of my polyester shorts; the laughter echoing around the big, empty space like there were way more than twenty-five people in the gym.

And Vickys face.

The weird thing is that I hadnt thought about that in forever. It was one of those memories I didnt even know I remembered, if you know what I mean. Its not like Vicky was traumatized or anything. Thats just the kind of thing that kids do to each other. Its no big deal. Theres always going to be a person laughing and somebody getting laughed at. It happens every day, in every school, in every town in Americaprobably in the world, for all I know. The whole point of growing up is learning to stay on the laughing side.

Vicky wasnt very fat to begin withshe just had some baby weight on her face and stomachand before high school shed lost that and grown three inches. She even became friends with Lindsay. They played field hockey together and said hi in the halls. One time, our freshman year, Vicky brought it up at a partywe were all pretty tipsyand we laughed and laughed, Vicky most of all, until her face turned almost as purple as it had all those years ago in the gym.

That was weird thing number one.

Even weirder than that was the fact that wed all just been talking about ithow it would be just before you died, I mean. I dont remember exactly how it came up, except that Elody was complaining that I always got shotgun and refusing to wear her seat belt. She kept leaning forward into the front seat to scroll through Lindsays iPod, even though I was supposed to have deejay privileges. I was trying to explain my greatest hits theory of death, and we were all picking out what those would be. Lindsay picked finding out that she got into Duke, obviously, and Allywho was bitching about the cold, as usual, and threatening to drop dead right there of pneumoniaparticipated long enough to say she wished she could relive her first hookup with Matt Wilde forever, which surprised no one. Lindsay and Elody were smoking, and freezing rain was coming in through the cracked-open windows. The road was narrow and winding, and on either side of us the dark, stripped branches of trees lashed back and forth, like the wind had set them dancing.

Elody put on Splinter by Fallacy to piss Ally off, maybe because she was sick of her whining. It was Allys song with Matt, who had dumped her in September. Ally called her a bitch and unbuckled her seat belt, leaning forward and trying to grab the iPod. Lindsay complained that someone was elbowing her in the neck. The cigarette dropped from her mouth and landed between her thighs. She started cursing and trying to brush the embers off the seat cushion and Elody and Ally were still fighting and I was trying to talk over them, reminding them all of the time wed made snow angels in May. The tires skidded a little on the wet road, and the car was full of cigarette smoke, little wisps rising like phantoms in the air.

Then all of a sudden there was a flash of white in front of the car. Lindsay yelled somethingwords I couldnt make out, something like sit or shit or sight and suddenly the car was flipping off the road and into the black mouth of the woods. I heard a horrible, screeching soundmetal on metal, glass shattering, a car folding in twoand smelled fire. I had time to wonder whether Lindsay had put her cigarette out.

Then Vicky Hallinans face came rising out of the past. I heard laughter echoing and rolling all around me, swelling into a scream.

Then nothing.

The thing is, you dont get to know. Its not like you wake up with a bad feeling in your stomach. You dont see shadows where there shouldnt be any. You dont remember to tell your parents that you love them orin my caseremember to say good-bye to them at all.

If youre like me, you wake up seven minutes and forty-seven seconds before your best friend is supposed to be picking you up. Youre too busy worrying about how many roses youre going to get on Cupid Day to do anything more than throw on your clothes, brush your teeth, and pray to God you left your makeup in the bottom of your messenger bag so you can do it in the car.

If youre like me, your last day starts like this:

Beep, beep, Lindsay calls out. A few weeks ago my mom yelled at her for blasting her horn at six fifty-five every morning, and this is Lindsays solution.

Im coming! I shout back, even though she can see me pushing out the front door, trying to put on my coat and wrestle my binder into my bag at the same time.

At the last second, my eight-year-old sister, Izzy, tugs at me.

What? I whirl around. She has little-sister radar for when Im busy, late, or on the phone with my boyfriend. Those are always the times she chooses to bother me.

You forgot your gloves, she says, except it comes out: You forgot your gloveths . She refuses to go to speech therapy for her lisp, even though all the kids in her grade make fun of her. She says she likes the way she talks.

I take them from her. Theyre cashmere and shes probably gotten peanut butter on them. Shes always scooping around in jars of the stuff.

What did I tell you, Izzy? I say, poking her in the middle of the forehead. Dont touch my stuff. She giggles like an idiot and I have to hustle her inside while I shut the door. If it were up to her, she would follow me around all day like a dog.