The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(81)

Lizzie went into the woods with a rope in her bag, knowing that rope would be the last thing she ever felt. Lizzie made the choice to leave her life. Was she scared? Did she hesitate? At any moment, did she wish to take the whole thing back?

I put the newspaper down on the kitchen table. I stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what came next. Everything I’d done in the past few months was about Lizzie. About finding a werewolf. But Lizzie was dead. So now what? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to think about.

I crossed the kitchen and picked up the phone. It was early, but what did it matter anymore?

Enzo answered on the second ring. He sounded alert. He wasn’t sleeping either.

“It’s me.”

“Hawthorn. Hey.”

“Sorry I didn’t call sooner.” But even as I was saying it, I realized he hadn’t called me either.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been pretty busy.”

“Look,” I said, “maybe we weren’t completely wrong.”

“About what?”

“Do you know about warging? Say Lizzie wanted to throw us off her trail, right? So she kills herself, but a second before she dies, she throws her spirit into the body of a wolf or some other animal that’s nearby. You see?”

There was a long silence, expanding the distance between us. Then Enzo sighed deeply. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“We can’t do this anymore, kid.”

“It doesn’t need to be over,” I said, hating the desperation in my voice.

“Yes, it does.”

I could have tried to convince him. I could have told him he was wrong, that life was a wheel, not a straight line. It kept going and going, and nothing was ever really over. I could have told him that Lizzie was dead, but we weren’t. But I didn’t. I knew the harder I tried to convince him, the worse the sick feeling inside of me would get. It was hurt and hate and sorrow and every other bad emotion rolled into one terrible mass that churned in my stomach.

So I didn’t say anything at all. I took the phone away from my ear and placed it gently on the receiver, all the while thinking, So this is how my and Enzo’s story ends.





Chapter 32


Another Good-bye

After a tragedy, you’re expected to go back to normal life. I found that out pretty fast after Lizzie’s funeral. Everyone went from treating me really carefully to not being so patient. It was apparently time for me to move on. To get over it. To let it go. So I pretended to.

I thought my first day back to school would be pretty bad, what with everyone talking about Lizzie. But no one was. I was surprised, and then I remembered I’d been out sick for almost a week. The other kids had already talked about it. They had already moved on.

No one was awful to me, which was somewhat surprising. No one made jokes or said anything about how there were no werewolves after all. The only comment anyone made was when Mychelle Adler turned around in first period and asked, “How’s your boyfriend taking Lizzie’s death?”

I ignored her.

“I noticed you weren’t with him at the funeral. Is he sick of you already?”

I pretended that I couldn’t hear her. I pretended she was speaking some foreign language that I couldn’t understand. I pretended that I didn’t care what she was saying.

“Maybe he decided being alone was better than being with you.”

Maybe he had.

I sat on the back steps during lunch but didn’t eat. Food wasn’t really interesting anymore, not even junk food. My mom kept telling me I was so skinny, I couldn’t afford to lose weight. But I sort of liked that idea. Maybe I would waste away a little more every day until I disappeared entirely.

When the gym door opened and Emily stepped out, I didn’t react. My senses were dulled. I felt medicated.

“Hey,” Emily said.

“Hi.”

She sat down in her old place, like we’d gone back in time.

“How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better.”

“I know it must have been a shock to you.”

“One I deserved, right? I spent months running around and talking about werewolves while Lizzie was rotting in the woods.”

“You didn’t know,” Emily said.

“But I should have taken it more seriously. I should have known that someone going missing isn’t a game. That’s how I treated it. You know, like Lizzie went missing just for my amusement.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Emily said quietly.

I shrugged.

“Look, Hawthorn. I know things have been a little off between us. But we’ve been friends our whole lives. A couple weeks of not hanging out doesn’t change that. If you want to talk, I’m here for you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Maybe we could still hang out. We could go to a movie. Or maybe watch them light the town Christmas tree in a couple weeks. Remember how we used to do that?”

“Maybe.”

“Think about it at least.”

I told her I would. But I didn’t want to think about anything.

? ? ?

My parents didn’t want me to work at the Sunshine Café anymore, but I wasn’t ready to quit. I couldn’t sever that connection with Lizzie quite yet.