The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(63)

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “Before, anyway. We were just trying to find his girlfriend. But then we were spending all this time together, and I started wondering if it meant something, you know?”

“Maybe you just feel like you’re supposed to like him,” Connor said nonchalantly. “Or you like him because he’s around. It happens.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe you like him just because he belonged to Lizzie.”

I scowled. “You think I’m that shallow? Like, I’ve spent all this time wanting to be Lizzie or something, so I end up taking her boyfriend?”

“Stranger things have happened. I’d think a girl who believes in werewolves would be open to any possibility.”

He had a point.

“I just kind of wanted to go to homecoming.”

“Why? Since when do you care?”

“I guess I just wanted to feel normal for once.”

Connor laughed. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. There’re all these things happening, all this life happening around me. And I’m always on the outside, watching. For once, I wanted to experience it.”

“I went to all the high school dances,” Connor said after a moment.

“You don’t need to rub it in.”

“I’m not, believe me. I always felt out of place at them. Like it was some ritual we all needed to go through but no one really enjoyed, and I never knew how to pretend as well as everyone else.”

Connor finished a slice of pizza and wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans. We’d forgotten to ask for napkins, which was fine, because the thought of getting sauce on my dress and ruining it forever appealed to me.

“I went to senior prom with this girl Alyssa,” Connor said. “Do you remember her? Tall, dark hair, had a different designer purse for every season?”

I shook my head, and he went on.

“Anyway, the whole night was a mess. I didn’t even want to go with her, but neither of us had dates, and some of my friends were going with some of her friends, so it seemed like the right thing to do. A bunch of us went to this nice Italian place for dinner. I spent an entire paycheck on that meal, and she got pissed at me because I ordered pizza. Said you didn’t order pizza at a place like that. It was on the menu though. Why put it on the menu if you aren’t supposed to actually eat it? She spent the entire night bitching. I ended up ditching her at the dance and hanging out with a different group of people. And she bitched about that too. That’s what high school dances were like for me.”

“Not for everyone though,” I protested. “There are people who have normal high school experiences. I bet Rush had a good time at that dance. I’m sure Lizzie did.”

“There’s no such thing as a normal high school experience, Thorny. You assume everyone else is happy all the time and living an ideal life. You don’t get that other people are pretending too.”

I finished my pizza and leaned back on the hood of the car to look at the stars. “Maybe. But it’s still easier for some people than it is for others.”

“Only for a while,” he said. “Look at Lizzie. She might have been a star in high school, but what then? Living in some shitty apartment, working as a waitress, and then one day disappearing. Her life peaked when everyone else’s was just getting started.”

“Unless she meant to disappear,” I said.

“What if she didn’t? What if she was killed? I know you don’t think she was, but she’s been missing for a long time without a trace.” Connor’s tone had turned serious. “You know how these things usually work out, Thorny.”

“I guess so.”

Connor lay down next to me. I thought he would keep trying to lecture me about Lizzie and then we’d argue, and then the night would be an even worse disaster. Instead, he looked up at the sky and said, “Do you know much about astronomy?”

“Not really.”

“Me either.”

“For a minute there, I thought we were going to have some cliché moment where you told me all about the stars,” I said, but I was happy he’d changed the conversation.

Connor laughed. “Not quite.”

“You could make up some stories about constellations, and I’ll pretend to believe them.”

“I’m an engineer, not a novelist.”

“Tell me something as an engineer then.”

He thought for a moment. “Want to hear a joke?”

I nodded.

“A woman asks her husband, an engineer, ‘Could you please go buy me a gallon of milk at the supermarket, and while you’re there, get some eggs?’ He never came home.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“I don’t get it.”

“Ah, well, while you’re there is an infinite loop. There’s no exit statement. So he’s forever at the supermarket getting… You know what? Never mind.”

I looked over at Connor. “You’re kind of a nerd, aren’t you?”

“Me? Look at what you’re wearing.”

I tried to keep a straight face, but that only lasted for about two seconds. I started laughing, and Connor did too.

And for a little while, that was enough to make me forget getting stood up.