Ariela Anhalt - Freefall

HARCOURT
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
BOSTON NEW YORK 2009

Copyright 2009 by Ariela Anhalt

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York,
New York, 10003.

Harcourt is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

Text set in Garamond No. 3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freefall / Ariela Anhalt.

p. cm.

Summary: Briar Academy senior Luke prefers avoiding conflict and letting
others make his decisions, but he is compelled to choose whether
or not to stand by the best friend whose reckless behavior has endangered
Luke and may have caused another student's death.

ISBN 978-0-15-206567-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) [1. Best friends
Fiction. 2. FriendshipFiction. 3. Peer pressureFiction. 4. Boarding
schoolsFiction. 5. SchoolsFiction. 6. Family
problemsFiction. 7. DeathFiction. 8. Youth' writings.] I. Title.
PZ7.A5862Fre 2010
[Fic]dc22
2009018936

Manufactured in the United States of America
MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my mother, Emily Anhalt,
and for my grandmother Marilyn Katz

LUKE PRESCOTT stood at the top of the cliff, his toes curled over the edge and pointing downward. Back straight and shoulders relaxed, he let his eyes close peacefully. And he jumped.

A rush of power surged over him. Luke never felt so much in control as when there was none, when all that existed was Luke and the air and the inevitable stop at the end. It was all up to him in those moments. He had decided that he was going to jump and that he was going to land in the water below, and there was absolutely nothing and absolutely nobody that could stop him. He had all the power.

He hit the water with a splash that, months before, had knocked the breath out of him. Now he merely succumbed to the water, letting it close over his head, a stream of bubbles pouring from his mouth and nose as his feet hit the sandy bottom and pushed him to the top. His head broke through the surface of the water, and the solid pounding in his eardrums subsided. He floated on his back, eyes still closed.

His peace was broken just as quickly as it had come over him. "If you keep doing this, you're gonna kill yourself."

Luke turned sharply and choked as he accidentally inhaled what seemed to him like the entire contents of Briar Lake. He coughed, twisted himself around, and began to tread water. He looked up to meet the intruder's eyes and smiled. "Hayden. What are you doing here?"

Hayden stood a few yards away on the bank. He was dressed in his pajamas and a sweatshirt, and his feet were bare. At eighteen, Hayden had the broad-shouldered body of a much older man and the clever, round face of a boy. "I heard you leave," Hayden said, giving Luke a lopsided grin, his ice-blue eyes dancing beneath a mess of dark hair. He reached out a hand to Luke, who paddled over to the edge of the lake.

"I'm fine," Luke said, though the question hadn't been asked. He let Hayden help him out of the water and then collapsed onto the bank. Stretching out on his back, his wet shorts clinging to his skin, Luke shut his eyes again. It wasn't the same. He opened them.

"You should probably stop doing that," Hayden said, nodding toward the cliff. He shuffled his feet awkwardly in the dirt.

Luke grunted noncommittally. I'm not hurting anyone, he thought.

"I mean, it's just kinda weird, Luke."

"Yeah, well, I'm kinda weird," Luke said, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Trust me, dude, you're more than kinda weird," said Hayden, squatting down next to Luke.

"Oh, thanks."

Hayden grinned. "You know, I almost broke my nose trying to get here. Tripped over a log, fell flat on my face. Naturally, I blame you for this."

"Naturally," Luke agreed.

"Yep. Totally your fault."

"Of course."

"Couldn't have just been me, you know," Hayden said, leaning conspiratorially toward Luke. "Because everyone knows I'm as graceful as a fucking ballerina."

"Obviously."

"So don't let it happen again."

"Sorry, Hayden. I'll try to do better next time."

"Great. So no more jumping off cliffs in the middle of the night?" Hayden's tone was suddenly serious.

"Come on," Luke said with a short laugh, giving his friend's shoulder a shove. Drop it, Hayden.

"Come on, what?" said Hayden. "It's pointless. Why do you keep doing it?"

Luke shrugged. "You wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

I don't want to. "Just let it go," said Luke, annoyance creeping into his voice.

"Is this about"

"No. "

"Because if"

"I don't want to talk about that," Luke interrupted, louder than he'd intended.

"Okay. I'm sorry." Hayden looked embarrassed.

Luke sighed. "That has nothing to do with this. I just do this to unwind, to relax."

Hayden stared at him. "You know, I've done it, remember? I've jumped. And I wouldn't exactly call it relaxing."

Luke remembered that night. It had been about a year ago. It was the week before the first fencing meet of the season. He and Hayden and about four other guys had just made varsity on the Briar Academy fencing team. Briar Academy, one of the more elite private schools in California, had many sports teams, but the fencers were the only ones that ever really won anything. Making the team was a pretty big deal.

That night the new varsity members and one of the team captains had gone up to the cliff to jump off. It was a sort of initiation process for the team, and the experience of the jump was treated almost with reverence by the fencers. It wasn't hazing; it was ceremony.

Luke dug his knuckles into the dirt. "I know you have." He exhaled loudly. "Look, I'm tired. Let's head back."

"All right, whatever." Hayden raised his hands defensively. "Have it your way." They both rose up off the bank. "Keep doing it. Break your fucking skull for all I care," Hayden mumbled as Luke padded off to retrieve his clothes from the end of the bank.

They had to sneak back into the dorm quietly so as not to wake any of the resident teachers at the school, who did not particularly like the idea of students wandering off in the middle of the night, especially not off toward the lake. The wooded area around the lake was not visible from the academy, so the students mainly snuck off into the trees to smoke pot or hook up. The school itself was built in a circle formation, with a large green and a commons area at the center. Surrounding that were the dormitory buildings, and encircling them were the academic buildings. The lake hugged the east side of campus, and the woods stretched out from the north side. Through the woods, a five-minute hike and a sharp right turn away, was the cliff.

Luke and Hayden managed to get back into their room unnoticed. Each of the four dormitories had a resident teacher, but luckily the one in Luke's dorm was a particularly sound sleeper. Not that it really would have mattered if they'd been caught; Hayden could talk his way out of anything. He'd smile, crack a joke, make the teacher laugh, and soon he'd be off on his way with simply a warning. If you got caught doing something you shouldn't be doing, Luke figured, Hayden was the guy you wanted with you.

LUKE HAD BREAKFAST every morning with the same group of people. There was Hayden, of course, and Freddy Polk and Drew Devonshire, who were also on the fencing team. Then there was Nicole Johnston, Hayden's girlfriend, and her friend Courtney Chase, who had been hooking up with Drew on and off all year. The group wasn't really exclusive, Luke rationalized. The six of them just got along really well, and other people could sometimes be annoying.