The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(57)

Every new piece of information I learned about Lizzie muddled my idea of her more. It was as if she was a different person every day. Like she woke up in the morning and decided which mask to put on. It sounded exhausting.

“Enough about that,” Christa said. “Tell me about this ridiculous dress of yours.”

So Christa and I talked about girlie homecoming things, and she squealed a lot. It was probably a conversation I should have been having with girls my own age, who were getting ready to attend the same dance, but I guess life would never work like that for me.

Christa launched into a story about when she went to homecoming in high school, but my mind drifted to what she’d said about Lizzie being hateful and if there was any truth in it. And I thought about the other thing she said, about there being chemistry between me and Enzo. Maybe she was right. On the other hand, maybe I was just doing that thing my mom and Emily said I did, where I made everything into a bigger deal than it actually is.

It was all too confusing to think about right then, so instead, I asked Christa if I should wear my hair up or down. But as hard as I tried to stop them, thoughts of Enzo kept creeping into my mind.

Christa said she knew Enzo liked me because of the way he looked at me. What way was that? Could it possibly be the same way he used to look at Lizzie?





Chapter 24


The Almost Moment

I’d gone an entire week without anyone in school making werewolf jokes. Mostly because there was a sophomore who was pregnant, and no one knew who the father was, and all the gossips at Griffin Mills High School were focused on her. So on the Thursday before homecoming, I was in the bathroom because I was actually using it, not because I was hiding from anyone.

I was washing my hands when there was a flush from one of the stalls, and Emily emerged.

Our eyes met in the mirror, and it was silent except for the running water. Then the automatic sink turned off, and I turned my attention to it, waving my hands under the sensor. The thing about automatic sinks is that most people seem totally fine with them, but for some reason, I can hardly get them to work, and a lot of the time, I end up just trying to wipe soap residue off my hands with a paper towel.

Emily came up next to me and flicked her hand in front of the sensor. The water turned on.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem.”

She started washing her own hands, and there was that strange silence again. We weren’t angry or anything like that—we just didn’t know what to say to each other, and in some ways, that was even worse.

“How have you been?” I asked finally.

“Pretty good. You?”

“The same.”

For a second, I thought Emily would leave the bathroom, and that would be the extent of our conversation. But then she said, “I got into that summer program. The letter came yesterday.”

“The composition program? That’s great, Em.”

She nodded, and I could see how proud she was. Emily was probably going to be a famous pianist one day, and it wouldn’t matter how unpopular she’d been in high school, because she would have finally found a place where she was appreciated. I was envious, but not in a bitter way. I wished I had something equally awesome to tell her.

“I’m going to homecoming,” I blurted out.

Emily looked surprised. “Really?”

I nodded. “Are you and Logan going?”

“For a little bit, but his band is playing one of the after-parties, so we’ll have to leave early to set up.” Emily dug through her messenger bag and pulled out a flier. “Here. The address is on there. If you want to stop by.”

The enormity of her peace offering made me dizzy with happiness and relief and a million other emotions that I couldn’t even name.

“Cool, thanks,” I told her.

Then the bell rang, and we went to class. I kept the flier folded in my pocket, and for the rest of the day, I occasionally took it out and looked at it, just to make sure the bathroom encounter and Emily’s forgiveness hadn’t been in my head.

? ? ?

“I guess I don’t get it,” Enzo said later that night.

He stood at his easel, which was facing the wall so I couldn’t see the canvas he was working on. I was lounging on his bed.

“Which part?”

Enzo shrugged his bony shoulders and kept painting. “You’ve spent, like, two weeks talking about how much Emily has changed. Now you’re psyched because she gave you a flier to some shitty party. For all you know, she was only trying to promote her boyfriend’s band.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, but I didn’t know how to explain exactly what it was like, so I let the subject drop. “When are you going to tell me what you’re painting?”

“When it’s finished.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Have your secrets.”

I wanted to ask Enzo a million questions about the dance, because it was only a couple days away, but there was this part of me that thought it would remind him of all the reasons he hated high school events and scare him off.

I also wanted him to stop painting and look at me, but I didn’t dare tell him that either. Instead, I studied the portrait of Lizzie, her beautiful face turned up to the sun.

“Did Lizzie pose for this painting?” I asked Enzo. I liked to think of him painting it. Them out in that field together, him looking at her face, tracing the outline of her jaw, the curl of her lips, onto his canvas. I imagined that she could feel it, feel how all of his concentration was on her and nothing else. Feel which part of her body he was painting as it was happening.