Falling into Place

She couldn’t.

But she could think of a thousand reasons to give up. She thought of her father dying. She thought of how her mother wouldn’t be home for another week. She thought of Kyle Jordan’s lips on hers and his hands on her body, just an hour ago. And she closed her eyes, and thought about how he was Kennie’s boyfriend, but she had kissed him back anyway, because she had never felt so alone as she had then, drunk and stupid and trying not to cry at a stranger’s party.

But, god, how could she explain that to Kennie?

She couldn’t, ever. She opened her eyes again. The light still stabbed and the angels still fell, and she began to plan her suicide.

She thought of stuffing herself with pills. She thought of filling her bathtub with water and making those long cuts across her arms. She thought of scarves and pantyhose, and hanging from the loft like an ornament. She thought of a quick shot, a bright explosion. But did they didn’t have a gun. Did they?

Liz couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything.

She was curled in a ball in the middle of the foyer when the numbness faded and the tears came, and she sobbed with her face pressed against the hardwood. She washed the floor with her tears and polished it with her snot, and finally she had three rules.

First, it would be an accident. Or it would look like one. It would look like anything but suicide, and no one would ever wonder what they did wrong, what made her give up. She would die, and maybe everyone would forget that she had ever lived.

Second, she would do it in a month. Well, three weeks. She would do it on the tenth anniversary of the day her dad fell off the roof and broke his neck. She would give her mother just this one day of sadness every year, instead of two.

And three, she would do it somewhere far away. She wanted a stranger to find her body, so no one she loved would see her broken.


They didn’t work, her rules.

Liam found her. Liam, who had loved her since the first day of fifth grade, was driving down the interstate when he turned and saw her, the bright green of her sweater visible through what remained of the window.

Her mother is crying silent tears in the hallway outside the ICU, whispering her daughter’s name and her husband’s name, over and over again like a prayer, the tears pooling on the backs of her shaking hands and falling, falling, falling.

And I won’t forget. I promise her what no one else can. I promise her, always.











CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Midnight


It’s very quiet. Distant buzzing, background beeping. The waiting room is mostly empty. Liam has fallen asleep. The zipper of his hoodie is caught between his face and the window, imprinting the pattern of teeth across his cheek and lips. In his pocket, his dying phone vibrates with yet another call from his frantic mother, but it isn’t enough to wake him up.


Down the hall, Monica Emerson is asleep too, her head against the wall. The nurse with the pink dinosaurs on her scrubs walks by and sees her, and goes for a blanket. As she tucks it around Monica’s shoulders, Monica stirs and whispers her daughter’s name.


Upstairs, Julia sits in the cafeteria with her fingers wrapped around her third Red Bull. Tonight is the first time she’s ever tried one. She doesn’t like the taste, not at all, and she hates the tremors, but at least she’s awake. She must stay awake, and she repeats it to herself as though it’ll keep her eyelids from fluttering shut. She can’t sleep tonight. She won’t. She must be awake when—if, if—bad news comes, because she cannot bear the idea of waking to it.


Kennie is just getting home. The competition results got delayed due to some scoring mix-up, and they were there for hours longer than they should have been. It doesn’t matter. They won.

Cheeks sore, stomach cramped.

She slips through the garage door into a dark house. Her parents are both awake in their separate bedrooms, her father working and her mother reading, but she doesn’t want to see either of them. She needs to charge her phone—it is dead in her pocket, and their coach has a strict “no phones at competitions” rule, anyway. They’re supposed to focus or bond or some other crap, though no one would have agreed to it had there been any service at all. She plugs it in and goes to the bathroom.

Shower. Sparkles and spandex for a worn pair of pajamas.

She comes back and checks her phone in the dark—her mother has just yelled for her to go to bed, she has school tomorrow—and opens her Facebook app.

Wet hair atop her head, a story through statuses.

Oh my god I can’t believe it Liz Emerson crashed her car she’s in the hospital she doesn’t look good she’s dying she’s dead she’s not she is be safe Liz we’re praying for you we’re praying praying praying.