Overreacting, she told herself, and her own anger frightened her, but not enough to calm down. She tried, though—really she did. She shoved a superhero movie into her Blu-ray player and went straight to the scene in which the hero made his final stand and the background music was so dramatic and soaring that it always made her cry. But today everything was cut from cardboard, and a minute later, she was ripping the movie out, breaking it in half, fourths, throwing the pieces across the room.
She grabbed her camera and hurled it at the wall. It smashed to pieces after making a dent in the plaster. She could feel all of her little cracks widening into larger ones, faults that ran all through her, tore her apart. She took the old, worn books from her bookshelf and ripped them in half, one by one; the pages fluttered around her as she reached for the rest of the movies, all the stupid heroes, and broke them all.
She struck her lamp off her desk and shredded her homework. She hurled her calculator at the floor and flung a perfume bottle at the mirror. The mirror stayed intact, but the bottle shattered, flooding her vanity with perfume and glass.
Her breath caught in her throat. She took a step back and looked around her room, and an odd feeling rose within her. It always did, when she was staring at shattered things—an urge to get to her hands and knees and gather them to her. She wanted to stack them back together and make them whole again
But she couldn’t, and so she sat down in the center of her room with all those pieces spreading around her, and made a wish instead.
I wish second chances were real.
SNAPSHOT: WISHES
Liz is leaning over the edge of the tower. I am holding her hand and her father hovers behind her, and together we keep her steady. She looks down and makes a wish on the dandelion she has gripped in her small, sweaty hand the entire way up. She wishes for the only thing she has ever wished for.
Liz Emerson wishes to fly.
After, she’ll look at me and tell me to make a wish too.
Years later, she will remember all those wishes. She will consider jumping off that very tower to see if any of them came true.
In the end, she will decide against it. She won’t know how to make jumping off a scenic tower look like an accident.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Worlds Fall Apart
Kennie doesn’t arrive at the hospital until after the commotion has mostly died down. “God, Mom, no one else’s parents are here,” she snaps as she gets out of the car, because despite everything, she’s still afraid of how her mother’s appearance will affect what people think of her. She knows it’s despicable, but she can’t help it.
And part of her is afraid because she had her abortion not far from here, and doctors all knew each other, right?
“Maybe you should stay in the car, Mom,” she says. But her mother insists on coming in, so Kennie runs ahead.
She stops at the entrance and looks up at the great blur of a building through her tears. It’s very unreal to her that Liz, Liz, is behind one of those windows, barely alive.
Her mother comes up behind her and fusses a bit over the state of Kennie’s hair and makeup. Maybe this is why she has always been so preoccupied with what people think of her—because her parents always are. Appearances matter in her household, and Kennie has grown up with the impression that she is only what people think she is.
Kennie swats at her mother and runs, toward Liz and away from the rest of it.
She bursts into the waiting room and everyone surrounds her, hugs and tissues while her mom goes to talk to Liz’s mom, and then, “Heart.”
“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.