Falling into Place(32)

“Failing.”

“Almost died.”

“Where were you?”

“No,” says Kennie when her mother, who has left Monica, tries to comfort her. Their mothers don’t like each other, which is fine—Kennie doesn’t like her mother right now either. “No, just stop. Stop.”

But someone else tries to take her place. “No!” she screams blindly, her eyes shut to all of them. “Go away, just leave me alone—leave me alone!”

She slides to the ground, and the tears come.

When Julia finally takes off the scrubs and makes her way back to the waiting room, Kennie is the first person she sees.

She sits in a corner sobbing great, heaving sobs, curled into herself as though she could disappear, her hair fanning and frizzing over her shoulders. Strangest of all, she is alone. Julia watches a moment, and then it hits her that she has been a terrible friend. She walks over slowly, the sounds of her approach drowned out by Kennie’s great gasps, and crouches down beside her.

“Kennie . . .”

Kennie raises her face a fraction of an inch, and Julia gets a glimpse of the mess of mascara and red eyes.

“Y-you didn’t tell me,” Kennie blubbers. “Y-y-you didn’t even c-call me.”

Julia bites her lip and swallows hard. “I’m sorry. Kennie, I just—I’m so sorry. I just . . . I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“And you left me at school,” Kennie says with a muffled wail.

Julia can only nod, because she doesn’t think she has ever felt this guilty.

Then Kennie is bawling all over Julia’s sweatshirt. Julia puts her arms around Kennie’s thin shoulders and leans her cheek against Kennie’s arm. They sit there for a small eternity. This is their pain, their tragedy, because Liz is theirs.

“Have you s-seen her?” Kennie finally whispers into Julia’s shoulder.

Julia nods again.

“Is she . . . how is she?”

Broken. Dying. Unfixable. Gone.

Julia says, “Sleeping.”

Kennie buries her face deeper in Julia’s sweatshirt, and Julia holds her tighter.



CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


Forty-Four Minutes before Liz Emerson Crashed Her Car


Liz thought about Kennie.

Kennie always acted so shallow that sometimes it was difficult to remember that she wasn’t.

At the end of seventh grade, Kennie had bought the three of them matching rings with BFF engraved inside the band. They were cheesy, cheap things that later turned their fingers green, and on those rings, they swore proportionally cheesy, cheap promises: that they would always be there for each other. They would remember each other’s shortcomings and they would fill them. They would do the “all for one and one for all” thing, forever.

Kennie’s greatest shortcoming was her inability to say no, and Liz knew that. Everyone knew that.

And so, forty-four minutes before she crashed her car, Liz thought about how Kennie had done everything Liz had ever told her to—or tried, at least—and how Liz had never once told Kennie to do the right thing. She thought about all the parties at which she had seen Kennie giggling and drunk in the arms of almost-strangers, all the parties at which Liz had watched different boys lead Kennie into different bedrooms. She could clearly remember too many instances when Kennie had glanced back with a sort of helpless look in her eyes, and Liz had only laughed and called Kennie a slut in a loving way, and turned away because she wanted to keep drinking and dancing and forgetting.



CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


Five Days Before Liz Emerson Crashed Her Car


She promised herself, once, that she would never puke again.

It started during the summer before seventh grade, when she and Kennie looked in the mirror while trying on swimsuits and called themselves fat. Liz had decided to eat less, less still, and then not at all. She told Kennie to do it with her, and Kennie had tried, but she wasn’t very good at it. Kennie loved food more than she loved being skinny. She went on and off, sneaking food when she said she wasn’t eating, stashing it in her room. Liz thought that their little diet might have made Kennie eat even more than she used to, but it didn’t matter—Kennie didn’t gain a pound. Lucky Kennie.

Liz, of course, didn’t last much longer. She liked eating too. Bulimia was her compromise, and what a deal it was. Eat all you want, gain nothing. It was perfect, until she started playing soccer again in the spring of seventh grade, and she could barely run the length of the field. It was perfect, until she was dizzy all the time, and so cold she felt on the brink of freezing solid. And then all of the stuff they’d learned in health class came back in a rush, an avalanche, and Liz stopped, mostly.