Free The Edge of Falling by Rebecca Serle Page A

these boxes people keep ticking. High school. College. Work. Marriage. Kids. How can you be so sure you’ll make it to the next one?”
    “I know what you mean.”
    He eyes me, like he’s trying to determine whether that’s true or not. “Yeah?”
    “Trust me,” I say. “Yes.”
    “Okay, then, Mcalister Caulfield. Let’s toast.” He raises his glass, and I surprise myself by doing the same. Then he looks me square in the eye. There’s a lot in that look. It’s enticing, nerve-racking. Like a roller coaster that you know is going to make your heart plummet down into your stomach, but it must be what you want, because you get on anyway. “To now,” he says.
    We clink; ice cubes rattle. Then I take a sip. The alcohol burns a trail down my throat. It feels good. Hot. Like a brushfire. Like it’s clearing something out.

CHAPTER FIVE
    “Why do you hate me so much?” my mother asks. We’re at Bergdorf’s, browsing around the hat department. It’s on the ground floor, close to the doors. I like to stay near exits when I’m shopping with my mom. I’m also very inconsistently listening to Claire’s lunch date. Her dad made her go out with some aspiring photographer, one of his assistants, and she made me promise to come along—cellularly.
    “I don’t hate you ,” I say. “I hate that hat.”
    My mom gives me a look that seems to say, Same difference. She has a tendency to overidentify.
    This is usually what shopping is like with her. She wants me to dress like Abigail or Constance or one of the other girls in my grade who take off ten thousand dollars’ worthof accessories and store them in their lockers when we have gym. It’s ridiculous. There are children starving in Africa, and my mother is concerned about a Chloé dress. You’d think that after my sister died, she would have gotten some perspective, that this stuff would have become far less important to her, but that’s not at all what happened. It was the opposite. She redecorated our house after eighteen months, same as always. She bought a whole new wardrobe. Sometimes I think she feels like the real world abandoned her, so she might as well stay here: in cotton and Lycra and linen.
    “I like this,” I offer. I pull up a summer scarf. It’s cream colored with big stitching.
    My mother ignores the gesture. “I spoke to your brother,” she says.
    “Peter?”
    “Any other siblings I should know about?”
    We both get a little quiet. She clears her throat. “He said he’s thinking of coming home next weekend.”
    I set the scarf back and in the process knock a bag off a mannequin. I reach down and fumble with picking it back up. “Already? He just got there.”
    “Felicia,” my mother says.
    “Right.”
    “I don’t think she’s any good for him,” she says, sashaying over to the jewelry case.
    I trot behind. “No? I dunno. He loves her and all.”
    My mother looks at me sharply, like I’ve just sworn. “She’s a distraction,” she says.
    “From what? Other girls?”
    I put the phone up to my ear and hear Claire laugh. It’s genuine, so I know things are going fine. Plus I don’t think this is getting romantic. She’s still with Max, and it’s lunch.
    “Don’t be smart,” my mother says. She motions for the saleslady to let her see a ring. It’s blue. Sapphire. She barely even looks at it before she nods to wrap it up.
    “So look, Mom, I’m probably late to meet Claire.” That’s a lie—Claire is obviously busy at the moment—but we’re getting increasingly farther away from the exit, which means I’m starting to sweat in here. And that’s a feat. It’s always freezing in Bergdorf’s.
    “We’re having lunch,” she says. “Claire can come if she’d like.” She taps her finger on the glass counter.
    I pick up the phone again. “Demarchelier is my godfather, actually,” I hear Claire say.
    “You know Trevor came by again yesterday,” my mother says.
    Instantly my heart starts racing. I glance