Falling into Place(12)

Half of these people have no reason to be here. Most of these people, really. Liam wonders what Liz Emerson would do if she knew that Jessie Klayn, who flips her off once a day when her back is turned, had already gone through an entire box of tissues. And Lena Farr too—Lena Farr, who had spent all of lunch today ranting about what a selfish bitch Liz Emerson is. Liam had heard it all from the next table over.

Laugh, probably. Liz Emerson would laugh, and he is glad she wasn’t here to see it, because Liz Emerson did not have a nice laugh anymore. She had a laugh like a knife on skin.

“All right,” says the police officer. “Well, that’s it for now. We might track you down later, though, kid.”

“I’ll be here.”

He doesn’t know he means it until he says it aloud.


Liz is not a selfish bitch.

If she were, she wouldn’t have planned anything, everything.

But she did.



CHAPTER TWELVE


Three Weeks Before Liz Emerson Crashed Her Car


It was January 1, and Liz had just come home to an empty house after a New Year’s Eve party.

She was drunker than she had ever been in her life, and it was not a particularly enjoyable experience. She stumbled into the foyer and leaned against the door to keep herself upright, and swallowed a few times to delay the puke. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the pulsing lights impressed upon her personal darkness, and it made her dizzy. She gave up, and slid to the floor, her head pounding, everything spinning. She needed someone, anyone, to touch her and remind her that she wasn’t the last person in the world.

She opened her eyes and found the chandelier instead. The light was blinding, like angels, like angels falling and flying and coming for her, and she tried to think of a reason to go on.

She couldn’t.

But she could think of a thousand reasons to give up. She thought of her father dying. She thought of how her mother wouldn’t be home for another week. She thought of Kyle Jordan’s lips on hers and his hands on her body, just an hour ago. And she closed her eyes, and thought about how he was Kennie’s boyfriend, but she had kissed him back anyway, because she had never felt so alone as she had then, drunk and stupid and trying not to cry at a stranger’s party.

But, god, how could she explain that to Kennie?

She couldn’t, ever. She opened her eyes again. The light still stabbed and the angels still fell, and she began to plan her suicide.

She thought of stuffing herself with pills. She thought of filling her bathtub with water and making those long cuts across her arms. She thought of scarves and pantyhose, and hanging from the loft like an ornament. She thought of a quick shot, a bright explosion. But did they didn’t have a gun. Did they?

Liz couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything.

She was curled in a ball in the middle of the foyer when the numbness faded and the tears came, and she sobbed with her face pressed against the hardwood. She washed the floor with her tears and polished it with her snot, and finally she had three rules.

First, it would be an accident. Or it would look like one. It would look like anything but suicide, and no one would ever wonder what they did wrong, what made her give up. She would die, and maybe everyone would forget that she had ever lived.

Second, she would do it in a month. Well, three weeks. She would do it on the tenth anniversary of the day her dad fell off the roof and broke his neck. She would give her mother just this one day of sadness every year, instead of two.

And three, she would do it somewhere far away. She wanted a stranger to find her body, so no one she loved would see her broken.


They didn’t work, her rules.

Liam found her. Liam, who had loved her since the first day of fifth grade, was driving down the interstate when he turned and saw her, the bright green of her sweater visible through what remained of the window.

Her mother is crying silent tears in the hallway outside the ICU, whispering her daughter’s name and her husband’s name, over and over again like a prayer, the tears pooling on the backs of her shaking hands and falling, falling, falling.

And I won’t forget. I promise her what no one else can. I promise her, always.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Midnight


It’s very quiet. Distant buzzing, background beeping. The waiting room is mostly empty. Liam has fallen asleep. The zipper of his hoodie is caught between his face and the window, imprinting the pattern of teeth across his cheek and lips. In his pocket, his dying phone vibrates with yet another call from his frantic mother, but it isn’t enough to wake him up.