Free to Fall

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IT CAME IN A PLAIN WHITE ENVELOPE, which made both more and less of its significance. More, because their decision was printed in ink, on thick cotton paper, which felt a little like they’d carved it in stone. Less, because there was nothing about that nondescript rectangle to imply that there was life-changing information inside. The envelope arrived a month after my sixteenth birthday, on an otherwise unmemorable Wednesday afternoon in April. Nineteen and a half hours later it bore an impressive coffee stain and was still unopened.

“Just read it,” Beck said from behind his camera. I heard the rapid fire of his shutter as he held down the release button, his lens angled up at the slanted glass roof. It was lunchtime on Thursday, and we were spending our free period where we always did, in the living room at the Seattle public library, which looked nothing at all like a living room or a library and more like a cross between a greenhouse and a steel cage. It was quarter after one already, which meant we’d probably be late for fifth period again, but neither of us was in a rush to get back. Beck wanted more pictures, and I was too distracted to think about AP Psych.

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