The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(29)

“Why are we even having a homecoming dance?” I asked Emily at lunch. “We just had the Welcome Back dance, like, a month ago. It’s the exact same thing.”

“Homecoming is formal. The Welcome Back dance is more of a social.”

“It’s the same thing, Emily. It literally means the same thing.”

“One has a football game and a queen and king. That’s different.”

“People just make up excuses to have dances and parties. Like the President’s Day dance last year. Totally weird and pointless.”

“That was sort of bizarre,” Emily admitted.

“These dances exist just to torture me.”

Emily looked down at her salad as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. “People go to dances to have fun, Hawthorn. Not to torture people.”

“Obviously you haven’t read Carrie.”

“You think someone’s going to invite you to the dance to play a prank on you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to get invited at all. I’ll be the only loser in the school sitting at home alone that night.”

I waited for Emily to chime in and say she wouldn’t be at the dance. Instead, she speared a piece of lettuce with her fork but didn’t eat it. “I went out with Logan on Saturday.”

“What?” I didn’t bother hiding my surprise. “Metal-bluegrass fusion?”

Emily nodded, looking guilty.

“Like, on a date?”

“I guess so,” Emily said, still looking at her salad instead of at me.

Since when did we go on dates without telling each other first?

“What did you do?” I asked, trying to sound casual, since that was apparently how Emily wanted to play it. I refrained from asking her if she was going to start wearing fishnet tights and get her face pierced and ditch me for people who knew what metal-bluegrass fusion was.

“We saw this concert in Pittsburgh. Jazz. It was really good.”

“Oh. Do you like him?” I braced myself for the answer, even though I already knew what it would be.

Emily thought for a second. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I’m pretty sure he wears eyeliner.”

“Hawthorn.”

“I’m just saying.”

I tried to imagine them together at a jazz concert. Emily wearing pastels and Logan with his dyed-black fauxhawk. I knew the saying about opposites attracting, but really?

I was deeply bothered, and I wasn’t sure why, but I suspected it had something to do with jealousy. Not jealousy because I wanted Logan for myself. That would be absurd. And not jealousy because Emily having a boyfriend would mean she spent less time with me like when she was dating Marc, otherwise known as the most boring person on the planet. But because I had been alive for seventeen years and no one had ever liked me enough to go on more than a few awkward dates and share more-awkward first kisses. I was pretty sure there was a sign on me that said I was one hundred percent undateable.

“Did you kiss him?” I asked.

Emily’s face turned bright red, and it was charming enough to make me feel less jealous. Slightly.

“Did that stupid lip ring feel weird?” I asked.

“It was…interesting. His tongue is pierced too.”

“Your mom is going to have a fit.”

“I know. I wish she was more like your mom.”

I laughed. “Emily, right now, Sparrow has a band of hippies set up in a shantytown in our backyard. Believe me, your conservative mother isn’t so bad.”

Emily laughed too, and for a second, we were having fun together, and everything felt like it used to.

? ? ?

It was dark when my shift at the Sunshine Café ended, which is why I was uncomfortable that someone was hovering around my car. Maybe I was wrong, and Lizzie Lovett really had been taken into the woods and killed, and I was going to be next.

Then the potential serial killer spoke. “Hey.”

It was Enzo. My fear turned to surprise, then excitement, then nervousness.

“Hi. What’s going on?”

He leaned against the passenger-side door, smoking a cigarette. He hesitated before answering me. “I keep thinking about what you said. The werewolf thing.”

“What about it?” I asked cautiously.

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re both crazy.”

Sometimes, people say I have a tendency to jump to conclusions, so I paused, even though I was pretty sure I knew what Enzo was getting at. “Do you believe it then?”

“How can I say I believe something like that?”

“You’re here.”

Enzo took a long drag on his cigarette. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“And you’ve been thinking about it.”

“Yeah.”

I waited.

“And I guess your theory is better than any of the alternatives,” Enzo finally said.

It wasn’t the perfect response, but it was enough to make me want to jump up and down and do cartwheels and shout to the entire world that someone was finally on my side. But I was afraid of scaring Enzo, so I bit my lip and tried to restrain myself.

“The thing is,” Enzo continues, “even if Lizzie did turn into a werewolf, what are we supposed to do about it?”