Before I Fall Read online

  The first time he ran out of medication after he'd gotten out of the army, I discovered how to get him through between appointments. It involves me buying alcohol with a fake ID and him getting hammered until he can’t stand up.

  Guess chipped discs in your spine will do that to a guy.

  I hate seeing him drunk, but it’s infinitely better than seeing him in pain.

  I only had to clean up pee once, when he'd thought he was in the bathroom and instead had been in the kitchen.

  I am so tired. All I want to do is sleep for one night without worrying about whether my dad is going to be able to move in the morning. Without worrying how we are going to pay the bills. Or whether we are going to have food in the house.

  I blink hard. I have papers to grade, but I’ll do it tomorrow. I just need to sleep before my dad sees me crying. I can’t let him see me cry.

  I cover him with a blanket and kiss him on the forehead.

  "Love you, sugar bear."

  "Love you, too, Dad."

  My voice doesn’t break. Barely. It’s only when I’m down the hall and my door is closed that I let the tears come. They burn down my cheeks and relieve some of the pressure around my heart.

  But they do nothing to ease the growing frustration that no matter how much I do, it is never enough.

  Noah

  I'm renting a small house outside of town. It's not exactly country living but it damn sure isn't living crammed into the city like the neighborhood where Beth lives. It isn’t much, but it is home for the time being.

  And hell, it beats being in Iraq.

  The kitchen sink still has remnants of breakfast. Guess the dishes aren’t going to wash themselves. I can't ignore the four orange pill bottles lined up like sentries in the open cabinet near the kitchen sink. I reach for the one farthest to the left.

  Princess Ambien and I had become lovers before I left Iraq, and she's never left me alone and afraid in the dark. I sleep like a champ with her. I don't know how people do it without her. She'll give me a few minutes to take a shower and all that, but soon she'll reach up and tug me to bed. Tuck herself around me like a warm blanket and pull me down into a mostly dreamless sleep.

  It isn’t the life I dreamt of for myself, but if the worst thing that happens to me from Iraq is that I need a little help sleeping, I figure I’ve come out ahead of most.

  I shower and dry off, sliding between the cool sheets. They're scratchy tonight. My skin is tight, my hands dry.

  I stare at the moonlight that spills into my bedroom. You can actually see the moon up in the sky out here away from the city lights. And the stars. I couldn't see them in Iraq. Too much dust in the city.

  Tonight, though, I stare at the moonlight, and I think about Beth.

  Her mouth in a firm line when she's in class. All business and proper.

  Her mouth as she asked us what we wanted to drink. Softer. Smoother. Friendlier. That's what it was. She was friendlier at the country club.

  I guess it has to do with tips and all that. Can’t count on good tips if your customers don’t think you’re warm and charming.

  It’s a toss-up which Beth I’m thinking about. The two images blur as Princess Ambien slips her arms around my waist and pulls me gently toward sleep.

  The last thing I remember is her standing on the porch of her house, waiting for me to drive off.

  I wonder if she'll let me give her a ride home tomorrow.

  Chapter 6

  Beth

  "No, I'm sorry, that's not acceptable." My voice is shrill. Almost breaking. "You can't do this. He's out of medication. He's in pain."

  "Miss, I'm sorry but he's going to have to wait to see his doctor. If the pain gets too bad, bring him to the emergency room."

  My face is burning hot. I'm fighting the urge to start screaming. "What happened to his appointment?" It's the fifth time I've asked this question of three different people.

  The answers are all different. It doesn’t matter because the end result is the same.

  My dad's appointment has been canceled, and without a new appointment, they won't issue him new medication because he’s on heavy narcotics.

  "I need to speak with a supervisor."

  "Miss, she's gone to lunch. I can have her call you back."

  "Then find me someone else to talk to!" My ability to remain polite is fraying at the edges. On some rational level, I realize that none of this is the fault of the woman on the other end of the phone, but I don't really care about that at this moment.

  The line goes quiet, and for a moment, I think she's hung up on me. It wouldn't be the first time for that, either.

  I'm pretty sure I hate the VA. I'm sure the people there are lovely at Christmas and holidays, and at some point, they actually mean well. But I've been fighting this system for years, and I've lost any charitable feelings toward anyone in that agency.

  "Miss Lamont, your father's appointment has been rescheduled."

  "For when?" The words are a snarl.

  We live six miles from the VA. I can take the city bus and be there in thirty minutes. I could drive, but it takes as long to find parking as it does to take the bus. I can find a real person and maybe, just maybe, find a piece of humanity in this terrible monster of a bureaucratic nightmare.

  "Next Tuesday."

  "And what's he supposed to do in the meantime?"

  "He can come into the emergency room and we can get him a prescription to cover him until then."

  This does nothing to soothe my anger, but I don't have a choice. It's better than nothing because the last time they canceled his appointment, he was out of medication for almost a month.

  And we ran out of money well before the end of the month because vodka, even cheap vodka, cost more than I made in tips that month.

  I somehow manage to thank her and write down the appointment information.

  I try to wake my dad. He's staring at the TV in some kind of trance. He's not asleep, but he's definitely not hearing me. This sometimes happens. It's like he goes away, and I can't reach him.

  It scared me the first time it happened.

  "Dad." I shake his shoulder hard, jarring him out of it.

  "Hey, sugar bear." His words are slurred. He's halfway in the bottle. He had to get up today and go to the bathroom. He fell trying to get off the toilet.

  I hate the war. I hate the army. I hate the VA.

  I'm going to fix this.

  Goddamn it, I'm going to fix this.

  "Dad, I've got an appointment for next week. You need to stop drinking so I can take you to the emergency room when I get home, okay?"

  He nods. I hope he actually heard me. He knows this drill all too well but only if I've managed to get through the alcohol haze. We tried to take him in once when I was sixteen and he'd been intoxicated. They'd called the state and tried to take me away from him. He'd been out of the army by then, but we were still in Columbus. I'd called his old brigade commander and thankfully he'd helped get things sorted out.

  There was no one here to call to sort things out. We weren’t at risk of me getting taken away anymore. No, it was worse. Dad needed to be sober when I took him to the ER; otherwise there would be no new medication.

  It was a goddamned catch-22. He could drink to manage the pain, but he couldn't get more pain meds. But in order to get the pain meds, he had to be in pain and stone sober.

  I move the vodka away from him. I trust him, but there is no reason to tempt Murphy and all that.

  I'm still pissed as I leave the house and head to campus. I'm not in the mood for business ethics today. I don't want to be around anyone.

  I want to sit in my room and sleep. Maybe have a good cry.

  But I can't.

  Because I've got class.

  And my father's life depends on me getting this damned degree.

  Noah

  Business ethics" is kind of like "military intelligence." An oxymoron at best. How the hell can you combine ethics with profit when m
oney undermines everything? But it's required as part of my degree program, and I figure it can't be that terrible of a class.

  Josh sits down next to me. "Good times, huh? I wonder if this will be like one of those “don't beat your wife” safety briefings. Here's how not to get in trouble running your business."

  I grin, trying to hide my discomfort. My hands are unsteady this morning. The anxiety meds haven't kicked in. Either that or I need a stronger dose. My stomach is in knots, and I slept like shit. Apparently I'm developing a tolerance to Princess Ambien and isn’t that a thought that's loaded with discomfort. Add in that I wasn't able to sit at the back of the classroom. There's an Asian girl behind me writing in her notebook. I can hear the scratch of her pen against the paper. It might as well be a nail file against sandpaper.

  But when Beth walks through the door, my whole perspective shifts. The scratching of the pen behind me fades. For a moment, I'm over the moon that she's in this class, too, but then I notice her eyes.

  They're red, along with the tip of her nose. She's been crying.

  I hate to think of her crying. It does something terrible to my heart that she's upset about something.

  I stand up and get ready to ask her if she's okay. She sees me and offers a half-assed nod of acknowledgment.

  And lucky for me, the only other empty seat in the class is next to mine.

  I couldn't have planned it better. I guess having the scratching pen behind me is worth it if Beth gets to sit next to me.

  "Rough night?" I ask when she slides into the chair.

  "You could say that." Her voice is broken, rough. Like she's spent the night in a smoky bar.

  "Anything I can do?"

  "Do you happen to have a stash of Oxycodone around that you'd let me buy?"

  I look at her hard then. That was not the response I expected. It hits me like a wet towel. I open my mouth to speak, but she beats me to it.

  "Sorry, bad joke."

  "Are you sick?"

  She shakes her head as the professor walks in. He's a skinny man that reminds me of a ferret. He's got a pinched face and quick brown eyes that scan the room. He reminds me of my old company first sergeant. Mean old bastard but damn good in a firefight. It's not fair, but I'm not feeling charitable at the moment, even with Beth sitting next to me. Then again, some of the men I served with didn't radiate competence and character either. So I’m not sure why I expect bastions of virtue and honor in academia.

  "So today's discussion is going to focus on the reading from the first assignment."

  There is a groan through the class. Apparently, I’m not the only one who failed to check the syllabus.

  "We're going to start the module on moral decision making with a thought experiment. There's a trolley speeding down a track. The brakes are out. On one track, there is a single person. On the other, a group of five construction workers. There is a switch that, if thrown, will go to either the left or the right. How do you decide who dies?"

  A hand shoots up in the front of the class. The person attached to that hand is smooth and polished. She looks like a Ralph Lauren photo advertisement. "It's a no-brainer. You flip the switch and take out the one."

  "Why?"

  The poster child looks confused. "Why what?"

  "Why do you choose one instead of five, Parker?" Apparently Professor Earl has spent some time memorizing our names. Which is actually impressive on a couple of different levels.

  Parker frowns, and I think it might be the first time she's ever had to think hard about a response. "Because losing one person is better than losing five," she says, but she's no longer confident.

  The professor continues. "The trolley experiment is meant to get us thinking about utilitarian judgments and the challenges associated with that decision-making framework. What if the one individual was Mother Teresa and the five were convicted murderers? Does that change the decision?"

  Parker the poster girl doesn't raise her hand. Beside me, Josh shifts uncomfortably. I'm not too thrilled with this question either. These aren’t sterile thought experiments. This is dancing uncomfortably close to some ugly truths I’d rather forget.

  I raise my hand. "It's one thing to play mental games in class. It's another to have to live with the consequences of your decision."

  "Very good, Mr. Warren. What kinds of decisions do business leaders have to make and how do you adjudicate between them?"

  Beth raises her hand. "The focus on profit makes it difficult to consider other factors in a business context. The medical insurance industry, for example, focuses on how to minimize patient access to care in order to maintain maximum profits. The entire bureaucracy is designed to prevent people from seeking out care. It's easier to look at the numbers on a spreadsheet than to think about how those five murderers’ families will feel if they're sacrificed to save the life of a saint."

  There is an edge in her words, a barely restrained fury lacing each word. Is this what had her upset before class? But she should have medical insurance through the school - most students do.

  "So then how do you propose businesses make decisions?" This from Poster Girl Parker, who's twists in her chair to look back at Beth. "The consequentialist moral framework costs too much money."

  "So we're putting prices on human life," Beth says. The edge is still there. Violence simmering just below the surface. "If that's what we're willing to do when we make business decisions, that's fine; but we need to acknowledge that's what we're actually doing."

  I'm fascinated by the passion in her words. Like she's standing at the front of a column of advancing warriors, ready to defend the realm.

  Her cheeks flush as she speaks and there’s a light in her eyes. She’s transformed from Beth the college student to Beth the Valkyrie. Both are equally stunning. I’m enthralled by her vehemence.

  I am beyond screwed. Because I can no longer see her as merely my tutor.

  She is a craving, sliding through my veins and making me want more.

  Chapter 7

  Beth

  I leave the classroom as soon as possible. I have to get away. The air is crushing me. The ethics class has fired me up and not in a good way. I was already wound up from the phone calls this morning, and arguing ethical dilemmas struck a nerve that I wasn't prepared for.

  Sitting next to Noah threw me off balance and my comment to him about Oxy snuck out before I even knew what I was saying. It is universally stupid to even joke about stuff like that. I don’t know him well enough, and it isn’t something I joke about with anyone. Because the reality is about as unfunny as it comes.

  "Beth!"

  I try to pretend I haven't heard him, but he catches up too quickly with those long legs of his. "Hey, wait up a sec."

  I stop and close my eyes, searching for some semblance of professionalism. I need my mask back in place, and I need it now. I'm feeling far too exposed today. Raw from dealing with the VA and, if I am honest with myself, a little afraid.

  My dad is getting worse. The last time he threw his back out, he was flat out for a month. This time, it's been close to three, and the VA docs are no closer to getting him fixed than they were when this process started.

  I stiffen when Noah’s hand closes over my shoulder. His touch is strong and solid and offers a comfort that is far too tempting. He stands a little too close, his hand warm where he touches me. There is strength there. Real. It is a comfort that I badly need and for a moment, I allow myself to be selfish and don’t pull away.

  "Are you okay?"

  Genuine concern in his words. Noah is nothing like I expected a former soldier to be – nothing like my dad’s friends before he got hurt. They used to come to the house and drink and play cards and talk endless amounts of trash. If not for that stupid bravado, my dad might not have gone on his last Airborne jump. He might not have destroyed his back trying to prove he was still high speed and low drag.

  Noah is nothing like the men my father used to call friends. There is no arrogant b
ravado, no need to cross the line between hoah and stupid. He is...he is just a good guy.

  "Some girl is going to be really lucky to land you." My words slip out before I can stop them.

  "I think that's a compliment?" He flushes and drags his hand through his hair. It makes me like him a little more. "But you avoided the question."

  I look away then, because the concern in his eyes is blinding. "Just a rough morning," I say. Because I cannot find the words to tell him how tired I really am.

  Because he is not mine to lean on. Not like that anyway. I'm his stats tutor, and there can be nothing else. No one wants to compete with a girl's father for her attention.

  Every one of my relationships in the past ended because of my dad. And I'm better off without them, but I'm also tired of the heartbreak. I don't have the energy to deal with it anymore.

  "Rough enough that you were crying before class."

  Damn, he saw that. "What are you?" I ask, cracking a half smile. "Most guys don't notice anything beyond the size of a girl's tits, and you're actually telling me you noticed I'd been crying?"

  He returns the half-assed grin. "Well, I mean, I did notice your, ahem, curves, but seeing how I've developed a thing for your eyes, I noticed those, too."

  "My eyes, huh? That's not a euphemism?"

  His thumb brushes my shoulder. I can feel the gesture beneath my sweater. I resist the urge to lean into the caress. "It depends," he says. "Do you want it to be?"

  I smile and shake my head. "Thanks for that. I needed a laugh."

  "You didn't really laugh. You just kind of smiled sadly."

  He steps closer until I can feel the heat radiating from his body. He's wearing a light blue striped button-down shirt and black pants. He looks every bit the business school student. It's his hands, though, that give him away. They're rough. Not manicured like many of the business school upperclassmen.