Falling into Place(23)

The party had not been the catalyst. Nor her stupidity. Nor her hands all over the hot torso of the boy who had gotten Kennie pregnant. It wasn’t the anger that clawed her insides to shreds, anger at all the idiocy, anger at the world, anger that made her dig her nails into Kyle’s skin even as her lips were on his.

No, the party was simply the last straw.

She had been desperate to feel something, anything. She needed a window, because she had broken her heart throwing it at locked doors.

Liz got up off the brown couch. She looked down and saw a natural disaster. She could not exist without tearing everything around her to shreds.

Over the next two weeks, Liz Emerson drafted her plans and revised them. She did her research and made sure she would have enough money to pay for gas and set a date.

And she also gave herself a way out.

A week—that’s what she allowed herself. An entire week before the last day. She thought of Julia filling herself up and Kennie becoming empty, and she understood. Life was precious. She knew that, knew it deeply, so she would try again. She would try what she tried on the night of the party, but she would do it right this time. Seven days, seven chances. She would wake up seven more times and search again for a reason to go on. She would give the entire world a week to change her mind.

But she also knew that life was fragile, and if her week failed, she knew how to shatter.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


Seven Days Before Liz Emerson Crashed Her Car


Most of the varsity girls played in the winter soccer league, because Julia’s father had offered to pay for everyone this year as part of his annual attempt to mend his relationship with his daughter. They were all drained from the pre-calc test, and the atmosphere in the locker room was quieter than usual. The team they were playing today was made up of girls from a Division One school. They knew today’s game would be a train wreck.

As everyone else adjusted their shin guards and did last-minute stretches, Liz sat on the bench and looked around at each of them, and realized that she had spent the last seven years of her life with these girls and knew no more than the most superficial details about them. Jenna Haverick was great with headers and had a dog named Napoleon. Skyler Matthews was right-handed but played with her left foot, and only ate butter pecan ice cream. Allison Chevero was great at making fouls look accidental, and she had a tramp stamp that her parents still didn’t know about.

Other than Julia, these girls were worse than strangers. These were people she had spent years and years with and never even wondered about. She had never asked about their fears or failures, successes and embarrassments. She just didn’t care very much, and as she sat on the bench with her team around her, the absolute sadness of the fact overwhelmed her. She knew so many people, so many, but what was the point? How many of them did she really care about? How many of them really cared about her?

“Liz?”

She looked up. Julia was standing beside her, frowning slightly as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail. Right then, Liz had never been so grateful for Julia, had never felt so guilty as she stared at the dark circles beneath Julia’s eyes.

Julia saw it. She sat down and said nothing, only waited. She gave Liz a choice.

Liz, unfortunately, chose wrong.

There were just too many things she wanted to say to Julia. She wanted to apologize for a thousand things. She wanted to tell her how desperately thankful she was for her and Kennie. She wanted to say that she could never ask for better friends, but all of those things sounded stupid in her head, so instead, she got to her feet and said, “Come on. Let’s go kick some ass.”

There was some cheering and hollering from the rest of the team in response, and they left the locker room together. But then some of the girls peeled off to go grab their water bottles and other ones had to retrieve bobby pins and hair ties, and by the time Liz reached the field, only a fraction of her team remained.

Coach Gilson frowned when he saw them. “Where is everyone?”

“Coming,” said Liz, but the word caught in her throat. An odd unhappiness rose inside her when she said it, because she was once again making promises that she had no power to keep.

Eventually, though, the team did regroup. The referee flipped the coin and the girls got into their positions, and Liz tried to focus on the game.

But there was something terrifying taking over her thoughts, and it wouldn’t leave. Out of the seven billion people sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew that she was lost. Not one of them asked.