You in Five Acts(75)

She looks like a junkie. I couldn’t stop the thought.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it wasn’t me,” I said, grabbing her by both arms to keep her still while she wriggled and grunted. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t tell anyone, so would you calm the f*ck down, please?” A passing mother with a toddler in a stroller crossed the street to avoid us. I didn’t even want to think about what we looked like.

Liv glared up at me. “No one else knew!” she shouted.

“Someone must have,” I said, struggling to hold her as her eyes darted back and forth from my face to some unseen points behind me. She looked scared and paranoid. I loosened my grip a little. “Because I am telling you, I didn’t say a word.”

Her face went slack and I led her over to the bench, putting my hand on her back as she cried in deep, wracking sobs.

“Why is this happening to me?” she wailed, wiping her snotty nose with one arm. Her boots clicked manically on the pavement; her knees jiggled.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Because life sucks sometimes. But it can stop now.”

“Yeah, well. Everything stops now.” She looked up at the tree over our heads, a petrified tangle of dead branches, the only one on the whole block that hadn’t bloomed. “No more school,” she murmured. “No more acting. No more parties. No more life.”

“What did your parents say?” I asked.

“Well, they were ‘shocked.’ And ‘incredibly disappointed.’” She laughed bitterly. “But they didn’t make me go home.”

“Well, I’m telling you then,” I said. “Go home. Don’t do”—Liv glared at me, and I could tell I was losing ground—“whatever you were gonna do up here.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped. “I can take care of myself.”

“You sure?”

Liv looked down at the ground and shook her head, sticking her tongue in her cheek, running it over the front of her teeth. “I don’t need this,” she finally said, jumping up and swinging her bag over one shoulder. I stood up, too, trying to block her way, but she shoved past me. “Why should I even believe you?” she yelled, spinning around. “You probably did tell them. I bet Joy just loves that her goody-goody boyfriend is swooping in to save me from myself.”

“Joy doesn’t know,” I said angrily.

“Wow.” Liv sniffed, wiped her nose again. “Then she’s even more oblivious than I thought.”

“That’s not fair. She’s been trying to talk to you for months and you’ve been too”—f*cked up—“busy to notice.”

“She wants to talk about you,” Liv said. “She doesn’t care about me anymore.”

“That’s not true,” I said, trying to soften my voice. “We can’t be here for you if you don’t let us. Look, maybe you could take some time off, focus on auditions, being with Dave—that’s what you want, right?” I took a step forward, with my palms out. Hands up, don’t shoot. “I know he wants you. He’s crazy about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Liv’s face crumpled, and her eyes filled with tears. “Well, he hasn’t texted me once today, so . . .” She shrugged as the first tear spilled its way down her cheek. “I guess I have nothing left to lose.” She spun around and stormed off, east, along Central Park North, but when I started after her she screamed, “DON’T FOLLOW ME!” which caught the attention of a burly cop leaving a deli across the street. He stared at me, one hand on his coffee, one hand on his belt, and I stopped cold, raising my hands for the second time in sixty seconds.

Luckily, after a beat he just waved me away, and I all but ran back to the subway, every step pounding in my chest like a drumroll leading up to some ominous climax waiting in the wings.

? ? ?


You found out about Liv at school, along with everyone else. You wept on my shoulder in the corner of the auditorium that afternoon, called yourself a bad friend, blamed yourself for not seeing it. I just held you and swallowed my guilt while you texted and called her, poring over her photos, searching for clues.

That’s kind of what this feels like, you know? Like putting together a puzzle, examining every piece, and trying to find another way—any other way—it could all fit together.

? ? ?


Dante came over for dinner, unannounced, which was the only way he ever showed up—it must have run on that side of the family. Even with hurricanes you usually got a warning.

From the minute he walked in, I could tell he had an agenda. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye the whole time we ate. I wondered if he could tell how angry I was; I barely said a word, and every time he flashed his trademark smile—sly and snakelike, as if he was in on some joke the rest of us couldn’t hear—I had to look down at my plate to keep from blowing up. Once the dishes were cleared, when he asked me to walk him out, I knew something was going down. One of us was going to strike. I just didn’t who would be first.

“So I heard about what happened at your school,” he said once we were out in the hallway, laying a hand on my shoulder, watching my face for a reaction.

“Yup,” I said stoically to the linoleum floor.

We weaved around the corner and into the stairwell, which was when he pushed me up against the wall, hooking his elbow under my chin. Without thinking I shoved him back—he might have been older, but he was smaller than me, and years of lifting hundred-plus-pound bodies over my head had given me powerhouse shoulders—and he stumbled back, laughing in a way that made it clear he didn’t find anything about the situation funny.