Falling into Place(51)

She found her upstairs, in bed with Zack Hayes, and he was trying to get Liz’s shirt off.

Liz was trying to say no, but she was too drunk to get the word out.

Zack leaped off the bed when Julia entered, and Julia, after getting over her initial shock, decided that the best thing to do was to get Liz out of there. She dragged Liz down the stairs to find Kennie pushed against the wall, wrapped around some senior whose hands were already at her shirt buttons. Julia grabbed her too, and she pulled them out into the night.


Something changed that night. Liz was different after that.

That night, Liz’s self-respect began to chip away, and then she had let it fall, piece by piece.

I think Julia is beginning to realize this. She remembers what the doctor told Monica yesterday, what Monica told her, what she told Kennie, and what Kennie told everyone else: that Liz will only pull through this if she’s determined to.

The nurse escorts her back to the waiting room. She had run into Liz’s room after hearing a crash, and she found Julia beside an overturned chair, shaking.

Julia doesn’t struggle. She’s held silent by the overwhelming fear that Liz Emerson, her best friend and the most obstinate person she knows, no longer wants to fight.



CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE


The Maternity Ward


Kennie wanders around the hospital until she finds Jake seeking comfort with a young, pretty, overly sympathetic nurse. She hears a bit of what he’s saying as she walks closer, “something real” and “in love” and “lost without her.” She thinks about hitting him again, or maybe kicking him this time, but in the end, she doesn’t. She takes a picture of his brilliantly purpling eye, flips him off, and starts back to the waiting room.

Unfortunately, Kennie’s sense of direction is virtually nonexistent, and within a minute, she is hopelessly lost.

She sees an elevator and heads for it. She begins hitting buttons, figuring one of them will take her back to the emergency room. None of them do. She passes the pediatric ward, the cancer ward.

And then she finds herself at the maternity ward.

She steps out of the elevator. She hears the faint, thin wails of babies, and her hands go automatically to her stomach. The flatness makes her throat close, and all she wants is to sit and curl around herself, around the baby who is no longer inside her.


On the day of their junior homecoming, the humidity was at 100 percent.

Liz didn’t bother trying to curl her hair. Julia helped her stack it all atop her head while Kennie struggled with the iron and the hair spray, and when they were finally dressed and ready, they went to the beach to take pictures.

Jake was drunk when he showed up, and their pictures showed it. Liz told him not to drive and he told her to relax and then to f*ck off, and by then she was pissed enough to let him go.

He arrived in one piece, though, and they grinded for maybe two songs before Jake disappeared, and Liz grabbed another boy and wondered why she was surprised. A scavenger hunt, a yes—did she really expect that to mean that Jake would change? People never changed.

She went to get a drink and hovered by the door to the gym for a moment, watching. There was a wall of heat there, and it smelled like the boys’ locker room. The floor was damp with sweat, and when she finally went back in and grabbed Thomas Bane’s hand, his shirt was so wet that it stuck to his torso.

She didn’t care. She danced and danced and closed her eyes, and when the DJ announced the end and the lights came on again, she grabbed Julia and Kennie so they could go party.

They didn’t, however, end up going anywhere.

Instead, they sat in the school parking lot inside Liz’s Mercedes and listed off the things they knew.

First, that Kyle Jensen would break up with Kennie if he found out. Kyle had colleges considering him for tennis scholarships and he would never jeopardize that, and he was an * besides. They wouldn’t tell him, because he would have dumped Kennie for much less.

Second, that they would keep it a secret. No one but Kennie, Liz, and Julia would ever know. Liz would get Kennie whatever she needed. Kennie must never, ever tell her parents. They would kill her. They would literally throw her out on the streets.

Third, that Kennie had to get rid of the baby.

“Wait,” Kennie said into the silence. “What?”

“Kennie,” said Liz, staring ahead into the dark parking lot, “you can’t keep the baby. You know that.”

Kennie curled over, her arms wrapped around her middle, her head on her knees.