Falling into Place(31)

But she always felt like she was chasing something when she ran, something invisible that she never caught. It felt like she was playing tag with herself, and Liz hated tag.

She ran the mile loop around her house and ran it again, and as she started the third mile, she could barely breathe and her entire body was cramping. She was tired of seeing all of the same things over and over again; she was tired of running in circles. She didn’t want to chase anymore.

This is stupid.

I should stop.

So she did.

Fuck running, she thought. Fuck tag.

She went inside and slammed the door behind her. Then she opened it and slammed it again, slammed it and slammed it harder. She put all of her weight into it and the force was so great that one of the vases fell off the mantle and shattered, spitting crystal across the wood and chipping the polish. She ignored it and went upstairs and slammed her own door.

Overreacting, she told herself, and her own anger frightened her, but not enough to calm down. She tried, though—really she did. She shoved a superhero movie into her Blu-ray player and went straight to the scene in which the hero made his final stand and the background music was so dramatic and soaring that it always made her cry. But today everything was cut from cardboard, and a minute later, she was ripping the movie out, breaking it in half, fourths, throwing the pieces across the room.

She grabbed her camera and hurled it at the wall. It smashed to pieces after making a dent in the plaster. She could feel all of her little cracks widening into larger ones, faults that ran all through her, tore her apart. She took the old, worn books from her bookshelf and ripped them in half, one by one; the pages fluttered around her as she reached for the rest of the movies, all the stupid heroes, and broke them all.

She struck her lamp off her desk and shredded her homework. She hurled her calculator at the floor and flung a perfume bottle at the mirror. The mirror stayed intact, but the bottle shattered, flooding her vanity with perfume and glass.

Her breath caught in her throat. She took a step back and looked around her room, and an odd feeling rose within her. It always did, when she was staring at shattered things—an urge to get to her hands and knees and gather them to her. She wanted to stack them back together and make them whole again

But she couldn’t, and so she sat down in the center of her room with all those pieces spreading around her, and made a wish instead.

I wish second chances were real.





SNAPSHOT: WISHES


Liz is leaning over the edge of the tower. I am holding her hand and her father hovers behind her, and together we keep her steady. She looks down and makes a wish on the dandelion she has gripped in her small, sweaty hand the entire way up. She wishes for the only thing she has ever wished for.

Liz Emerson wishes to fly.

After, she’ll look at me and tell me to make a wish too.

Years later, she will remember all those wishes. She will consider jumping off that very tower to see if any of them came true.

In the end, she will decide against it. She won’t know how to make jumping off a scenic tower look like an accident.



CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


Worlds Fall Apart


Kennie doesn’t arrive at the hospital until after the commotion has mostly died down. “God, Mom, no one else’s parents are here,” she snaps as she gets out of the car, because despite everything, she’s still afraid of how her mother’s appearance will affect what people think of her. She knows it’s despicable, but she can’t help it.

And part of her is afraid because she had her abortion not far from here, and doctors all knew each other, right?

“Maybe you should stay in the car, Mom,” she says. But her mother insists on coming in, so Kennie runs ahead.

She stops at the entrance and looks up at the great blur of a building through her tears. It’s very unreal to her that Liz, Liz, is behind one of those windows, barely alive.

Her mother comes up behind her and fusses a bit over the state of Kennie’s hair and makeup. Maybe this is why she has always been so preoccupied with what people think of her—because her parents always are. Appearances matter in her household, and Kennie has grown up with the impression that she is only what people think she is.

Kennie swats at her mother and runs, toward Liz and away from the rest of it.


She bursts into the waiting room and everyone surrounds her, hugs and tissues while her mom goes to talk to Liz’s mom, and then, “Heart.”