It was an old fight. Or at least it had brewed for long enough—three days ago it had simply exploded, burst from both of them, and now it stretches across the hours and hours to hang over them like a storm.
Julia wants to go back to the hospital. She wants to apologize. No, she wants to say that she will do as Liz asked, she will get help, she will move the world to keep Liz Emerson alive.
But she can’t. Get help, or move the world.
Instead she thinks about how it all began, and the regret grows and grows until it’s almost a tangible thing that she can rip out and bury and undo.
Almost.
It started after their freshman homecoming game. They were sitting behind the bleachers with an innocuous bag of white powder, which Liz had seen peeking out of a stranger’s pocket. Naturally, she had stolen it so they could try it. Just a little bit each. Kennie was excited, because she was Kennie and new things, no matter how stupid, made her bounce. Liz was rather indifferent to it all. She was only doing it because she was Liz Emerson.
But Julia—Julia was skeptical on the outside and so, so scared on the inside. Her hands were shaking as she watched Liz inhale, as Kennie tried and choked and got it in her eyes. Her hands shook as she took the bag and opened it, and they shook when she hesitated.
Liz laughed.
Julia did it because of the way Liz stared at her, daring her to take the risk for once. So she did. She took the risk while Liz and Kennie forgot everything their middle-school health teacher had ever taught them—assuming that they had actually listened in the first place. That drugs worked differently on everyone. That you really could get addicted on the first try.
Julia remembered. It didn’t matter.
Soon Kennie couldn’t sit still, Liz was laughing, and Julia was still shaking. Pleasantly, at first, but as the other two began to quiet down, she shook harder because her fingers kept reaching for more, until there was none left.
Two days before Liz crashed her car, Julia decided that she’d had enough. Her grades were slipping, and sometimes she couldn’t breathe. Her father had just lost some money on the stock market and was still paying ridiculous amounts of alimony, and her “borrowed” drug allowance wouldn’t go unnoticed for much longer.
And Liz—well, Liz was fine, wasn’t she? She wasn’t throwing money at the RadioShack guy. She didn’t know about Julia’s Sundays, when the world was so bright it hurt her eyes, but she was in the dark, alone, trapped in a body that would never again obey her mind.
I didn’t ruin my life, Liz. You did.
But now Liz is almost gone and Julia sits choking on regret, and that’s the ironic thing—why didn’t she feel guilty earlier? Why only now, now that Liz is dying in a white room beneath fluorescent lights? Why is it that she’s remembering the way Liz’s face looked after Julia had thrown the blame at her?
She’d had strangest expression. Like something was breaking inside of her too.
Julia stares at the clock. She imagines climbing on the desk and pulling it down, rewinding the hands and praying the rest of the world would follow. She sees the bodies blurring and walking backward, until she is in the hallway again with Liz right there, begging her to stop, stop, get help.
She wonders what might have been different if she’d agreed.
The bell rings, and Julia walks out of the classroom and out the door. The one by the band room, the one no one ever watched, the one in a nook away from the cameras. She, Liz, and Kennie had done it a hundred times before.
She heads back to the hospital.
Funny things, aren’t they? People. They’re so limited.
Seeing is believing and all that. As though watching Liz will keep her alive. As though by remembering, they know her, intimately. As though they guard all of her secrets, and if by staying close, they can keep her safe.
I think it must be because they can only see so much of the world. All those boundaries—pupils to focus, lids to close, distances to cross, time to navigate.
Don’t they realize?
Thought exists everywhere.
What Julia doesn’t know is this: Liz knew. Liz had always known that the drug was tearing Julia’s life apart. She knew that it was her fault. She knew that the ziplock bags made Julia lonely, but she didn’t know how to help.
Some nights, Liz looked back and counted the bodies, all those lives she had ruined simply by existing. So she chose to stop existing.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Brown Couch, New Year’s Day
After Liz puked, she went down to the basement with a marker and sat on the couch.
The couch—an old brown thing, stained with memories and orange juice instead of hangovers and wine. Monica had stored it down here after she bought the white couch, and when Liz put her face in the fabric, it smelled of dust. No one came down here much. This couch was one of the last pieces of furniture from their old house, from that other life, when Liz had a father who would never leave and a mother who didn’t have any grief to bury in her work.