She doesn’t think about why she expects them, because her family belongs to the first group. Kennie is always surrounded by friends—her mother is a teacher at the elementary school and the high school track coach, her father is a church deacon and works at the bank and sits on the school board, and her great-great-great-great-grandfather’s face is framed in the municipal building alongside the other nine original residents of Meridian.
Liz, a relative newcomer, should have fallen into the last group. For that matter, Julia should have too—and she had, until Liz pulled her out. Kennie doesn’t pay attention to popularity much, because she’s always had it, but she’s suddenly very glad that Liz and Julia fell into the right group, hers, even if she doesn’t quite know why.
She can’t afford to think about it too hard, because the position she holds is an extraordinarily uncomfortable one and the music is about to start, but thinking doesn’t take too much effort. Liz is Liz. Popularity, Kennie decides, has a lot to do with confidence. And to Kennie, Liz has more confidence than the rest of Meridian put together.
Despite the fact that Kennie is one of the few people in the world who has seen Liz cry and lash out in frustration, who has seen the part of Liz Emerson that the rest of her tries so hard to hide, Liz is still invincible to her. Whatever Kennie’s life looks like from the outside, there is little stability where she stands. Liz is her constant. Liz keeps her steady when her parents fight and her grades dip and her world wobbles.
Kennie counts down the last beats, and bursts into the rehearsed spins and leaps and toe touches, and she doesn’t think anymore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Junior Class
“And where did you say you were headed, son?”
“Costco,” says Liam. He faces the cop but watches the door out of the corner of his eye. It opens again, and this time the night carries in Lily Maxime and Andrea Carsten, who are undoubtedly here to confirm the rumors. They hate Liz Emerson because she ignored them. Their eyes are red, and they start sobbing when they reach the group of Meridian students huddled around a low table.
There are a hundred and forty-three students in Liam’s graduating class, and a good third of them are here tonight. He can’t figure out why. Liz Emerson slipped on the goddamn road—clearly tonight is not a night to be driving around in the dark.
“I was running errands for my mom,” he adds.
“And you saw Elizabeth’s car as you drove past?”
Liz Emerson, he corrects automatically in his head. She is always Liz Emerson to him. He doesn’t think he knows her well enough to call her exclusively by her first name. But then again, he doesn’t know her well enough to think of her as often as he does, either.
“Yeah.”
“How did you know it was her car?”
“I’d know her car anywhere.”
This he says without thinking, and regrets it when the police officer asks, “Were you good friends?”
“No,” says Liam. “Not really.”
Not at all.
The police officer gives him a strange look. Liam doesn’t care. He is watching his classmates again, huddled around each other and whispering, crying into each other’s shoulders. Not just crying—sobbing these awful sobs that made everything shake, and Liam wants to scream that she isn’t dead. She is alive right now, down the hall somewhere—not whole, but alive, and everyone is sobbing like she’s already gone.
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.