Read Online The Edge of Falling by Rebecca Serle - Free Book Online Page A

like there’s a locked dragon who is growing restless in his dungeon.
    The bouncer eyes us and we flash our driver’s licenses. They’re fake, but we’ve had them for two years and they work pretty well. We rarely get turned away, which I think has moreto do with Claire’s connections—and legs—than the quality of our IDs. I bought them in Rhode Island when we went with Peter to look at Brown years ago. All I remember from that trip is that the three of us went to Start, this crazy dance party, and that we came home with these.
    Whether it’s Claire’s legs or the IDs’ appearance of validity I don’t know, but they work again tonight. The bouncer nods us through.
    When we get inside, it’s dark and loud, but not loud enough that you have to scream to talk. It’s still early. Max is onstage already, but Claire wants to get a drink. We slide our way to the bar. It’s funny, I’ve had a fake ID since I was fifteen, but I’ve never used it for anything besides getting into places. Drinking really isn’t my thing. I got drunk with Claire once, last summer at the beach house. Everyone was away and it was just the two of us. Trevor was supposed to come up, but he got stuck babysitting his little brother. My sister was in the city with my mom, Peter was on some postgrad safari, and my dad was probably away on business, I don’t remember.
    Anyway, we got bombed. We drank champagne straight from the bottle. We had like one each, I think. At a certain point it got a little fuzzy. I woke up on the sofa in the morning and my head felt like it had been hammered with an iron rod. I could barely even see.
    “Why did we do that?” I remember asking Claire.
    She just shrugged. “Because we did.”
    Claire doesn’t spend too much time considering consequences, but this quality isn’t incongruent with the rest of her. She’s all angles—sharp elbows, cheekbones, and the point where adventure meets danger—like two walls of the same room. Nothing is cloudy with her. Nothing is round. Nothing needs too much time to decide. She’s like a dart shot right through the bull’s eye—if she’s playing, it’s all or nothing.
    “Orange juice.” Claire hands me a cup and takes a sip of hers—cranberry vodka, her usual drink.
    She starts bobbing to the music. “They’re pretty good, right?” she says to me.
    I smile to say yes, but the truth is I don’t know. I have no idea what makes good music. My iTunes collection is embarrassingly dated—some classics and Top 40 stuff. Whatever I end up stumbling into on Spotify and whatever Trevor introduced me to. The indie music scene is totally above my head. I just don’t have the sensitivity for it. Or the ear. Most of it sounds the same to me. Claire and Trevor are always saying things like music is poetry—you’re not supposed to dissect its meaning; you’re just supposed to feel it—but that’s my problem: I can’t feel it. Or if I do, I’m never sure I’m having the right reaction.
    “You’re oblivious,” Claire says to me.
    I roll my eyes.
    She repeats it, so close I can feel the words traveling down my ear canal, bouncing around on the walls.
    I mock glare at her. “Just because I don’t appreciate these hipsters the same way you do . . .”
    She shakes her head and grabs my shoulders, turning me fifteen degrees to the left.
    “What?” I ask.
    She rolls her eyes and points to a guy at the end of the bar. He’s leaning against the counter, like he’s having a conversation with the bartender, but it’s obvious he’s looking at us. He raises his glass and eyebrows at the same time when we look over.
    “Gross,” I say. “He’s old.”
    It’s not true; he’s probably no older than twenty. In fact, he might even be our age, but he’s got that air. I know it. A lot of guys at Kensington have it. It’s what happens when you spend your childhood being raised by a nanny, taking a car service by yourself at eight. It’s what happens when your