I carefully climbed back down the ladder. Fay came down after me, and then Theo. As I found my footing on the tar surface of the rooftop, I saw Christopher running toward us. Following close behind him were a bunch of other people from the party. I realized, belatedly, how much attention I must have attracted by running over here.
Theo jumped off the last rung of the ladder and took a theatrical bow. Someone called out, “You’re insane.”
Theo trotted toward the others, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard across the rooftop. “It was Fay’s fault,” he called back to them. “She dared me.”
His tone was so light and jokey, so normal, I was suddenly unsure of what I’d just seen. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I’d overreacted. I looked over at Fay, wondering if she was laughing it off too.
She was shivering—she was in just a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off—and her eyes were huge. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me, or Theo, or the edge of the roof, or nothing at all. But I’d never seen her look so scared.
I noticed her army jacket near my feet, right where it had fallen. I picked it up. It was wet in some spots, but not soaked. Like my mom used to do for me when I was a kid, I held the jacket open for Fay. Limply, she slipped her arms into the sleeves. In a strangely flat voice, she asked, “Would the show be over by now? If we were still doing it?”
In that moment, I think, I loved her in a different way than I’d loved her before. I had no idea what was going on with her, but I didn’t need to know. I just needed her to be alive.
I checked my watch. “Not quite,” I said. “We’d be deep into Act Two. Maybe in the middle of ‘Some Other Time.’”
“That’s my favorite part,” she said. Her teeth were chattering. “Because we’re together.”
At first I was touched. But then, as I followed her gaze across the rooftop, I wondered what she meant by we. Just the two of us? All four of us? Her and Theo?
There was another gust of wind. A raindrop fell.