The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(39)

“I feel awkward.”

Enzo laughed. “Telling someone you feel awkward just makes the situation more awkward.”

“Talk about something that’s not awkward then. Tell me about Lizzie.”

“What about her?”

“Anything. How did you meet her?”

Enzo sat on the opposite side of the bed from me. “There isn’t much of a story. We knew some of the same people and ended up at a concert in Pittsburgh. Neither of us was into the music. I went outside to smoke, and she followed me, and that was that. She was wearing this beaded headband with a feather stuck in it. That’s what I remember most.”

It was so normal. I’d expected something cinematic, like Enzo pushing Lizzie out of the way two seconds before she got flattened by a runaway train. Not that Enzo gave off movie-hero vibes.

“And you’ve been dating for a year?” I asked.

“A little less.”

“Do you ever wonder why she chose you?”

“Chose me? Thanks, kid.”

“But do you?”

“We chose each other. That’s how it works.”

I suspected that Enzo was wrong. Lizzie always got to choose. But I decided to let it drop.

My eyes wandered back to the painting of Lizzie. It was so lifelike, she could have been in the room with us. How would she feel about me sitting on her boyfriend’s bed, quizzing him on their relationship?

“What’s your favorite thing about her?”

“Her laugh,” Enzo said without hesitation. “She laughs all the time. She makes life seem so easy.”

“What else?” I pried.

“She always sees the best in everyone, even when they don’t deserve it. And she’s just…nice. Not that many people are nice, I guess.”

“I don’t think she was like that in high school,” I said.

“People change. Thank God. I can’t imagine a world where everyone’s the same as they were in high school.”

I wanted to know more about Lizzie. I wanted to know everything about her. But the truth was, Enzo could only tell me so much. I wanted to crawl into Lizzie’s head and know her thoughts and feelings and what made her tick. I wanted to slip into her life. I wanted to be the kind of person who made life seem easy.

“What were you like in high school?” I asked Enzo.

If I couldn’t learn everything there was to know about Lizzie, at least I could find out more about him. Besides, Lizzie loved Enzo. Don’t the things we love say a lot about us?

“High school was miserable,” he said.

Now that was something I could relate to. I turned my back on the painting of Lizzie and tried to push her out of my mind, focus on Enzo instead.

In the woods, he’d told me he liked Lizzie’s outlook on life, that he was happy she didn’t overanalyze everything. But from the way he started spilling out information, I wondered if that was entirely true. He seemed like someone who had plenty to say.

Maybe he’d just been waiting for someone to ask.





Chapter 17


In Lizzie’s World

A few days later, a body was pulled out of the Ohio River just north of Wheeling, and everyone was like, Oh my God, they found Lizzie. It was less than a day before the police announced the body wasn’t hers. It wasn’t even a female.

“That should teach people not to jump to conclusions,” I told my family at dinner.

Rush gave me an incredulous look. “Seriously?”

After dinner, I went outside to talk to Sundog, partly because I wanted to talk to Sundog but mostly because my mom would make me do the dishes if I stuck around the kitchen.

“Join us,” Sundog said.

I took a spot next to him near the fire. A few of the other hippies were sitting around, talking or meditating or doing whatever it was they did. One of the older women was making jewelry out of twine and beads.

“You know, marshmallows would really make this campfire better,” I said.

Sundog laughed, even though I was pretty sure he was morally opposed to marshmallows since they were made with gelatin, which was made from animal bones and skin, which my mom told me all about when I was little. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a s’more.

“Do you think everyone changes after high school?” I asked Sundog.

“Young Hawthorn, everyone changes always. The universe is in a constant state of flux.”

“But let’s talk about high school specifically.”

Sundog thought for a moment. “You could say high school is a time to figure out who you want to be, so you can go out into the world and work toward becoming that person.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Timothy Leary wandered over to us and plopped down in front of me. I used my fingers to comb through her tangled fur.

“Where’d you live before you became the commune pet?” I asked her.

She tilted her head at me.

“Timothy Leary is a companion, not a pet,” Sundog explained.

“Right. Of course.”

“On the subject of animals, how fares your werewolf hunt?”

I thought for a moment. “It’s progressing, I guess. You know the guy I told you about? Lizzie’s boyfriend? I went to his apartment the other day. He had this painting of Lizzie. It was so…I don’t know, so real. Like I could see her whole self captured in it.”