Liz, on her part, was aware that the boy beside her was watching, but she loved swinging too much to care what he thought. She loved the wind hitting her face and the brief moment of suspension at the top of the arc and the falling sensation that was magnified by the darkness of her eyelids. She imagined that she was a bird, an angel, a wayward star.
At the height of the arc, she let go. And she flew.
Liam watched with his mouth hanging wide open, expecting her to crumple on the asphalt and die tragically before his eyes.
She didn’t, and when she walked away, Liam’s heart followed.
The year after, they started middle school and chose electives for the first time. Liz and Julia chose choir. Kennie and Liam chose band, which was fine, but they both chose to play the flute, which was not.
Liam became the first boy in the history of Meridian to sit in the flute section, and he didn’t mind because he was damn good.
Kennie did mind, because Liam was damn good, better than she would ever be, which meant that she would be stuck in second chair for the rest of her life.
On the second day of freshman year, Kennie stomped out of band fuming about how Liam was a kiss-ass and a dick and totally full of himself, and Liz, tired of her crap, interrupted to say, “Then do something about it.”
Kennie stopped short. “What?”
Liz shrugged. “You always complain, but you never do anything about it. So let’s do something about it.”
The plan fell into place very quickly after that.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Ruining of Liam Oliver
There were three phases.
Phase one took place during lunch on the first day of their freshman homecoming week. The inner ring was empty, because they were all standing in the hallway, waiting to vote for the homecoming court. The outer ring stayed put. What was the point? Everyone knew Liz Emerson would win, and probably Jimmy Travis. Whatever. Too much trouble, making crowns and shit, they told themselves. The only way any of them would ever make it onto court would be if Liz Emerson herself made it happen.
For freshman homecoming, that was exactly what she did.
She told everyone to vote for Liam Oliver, the only boy to play the flute. The guys laughed and threw the word gay around, and the girls shrugged because they couldn’t care less which boy was voted onto court.
Liam was in band, fingering through “Fate of the Gods,” when Dylan Madlen, the senior class president, came on the intercom to announce the court, and Liam nearly dropped his flute when he heard his name follow Liz Emerson’s.
For a wild moment, he thought that this was the beginning of something—maybe the money he’d spent on new clothes hadn’t been a waste. But then he looked around and everyone was sniggering, and reality set in.
Well.
What an exquisite joke.
He stared at his flute, at his warped reflection, and he didn’t look up again until the bell rang.
They executed phase two the next day, during sixth hour. Liz had a fake pass to the guidance office, and she used it to get out of geometry. Kennie left Spanish to go to the bathroom and met her under the stairs. Julia took a little longer—it had taken some convincing to get her out of honors biology at all—but eventually she showed up, and together they headed for the band room.
“Idiot,” Liz said to Kennie as they walked through the deserted hallways. They looked ridiculous—that day’s homecoming theme was the seventies, and they were all in neon leggings and oversized windbreakers. “How the hell are you going to explain why you were in the bathroom for half an hour?”
Kennie frowned. Her face was barely visible under all her teased hair. “Digestion troubles?”
“Feminine needs,” Julia suggested. “Say you had to go find a tampon or something. Jacobsen’s afraid of women.”
“Ooooh,” said Kennie, perking up. “Can I borrow a tampon?”
“You don’t actually need one, stupid,” said Liz, stopping in front of the band-room door. “Now shut up. Let’s go.”
Liam had study hall this hour, and more often than not, he used it to practice his flute. Liz, who had never played an instrument in her life, found it difficult to believe that he was actually practicing. And since he wasn’t practicing, he was definitely doing something else—hopefully something monumentally and hilariously embarrassing. She was going to catch him at it.
“Come on,” she said unnecessarily to Julia and Kennie, and they snuck inside.
The practice rooms were along one wall of the band room, and in the far one, someone was playing.
They peeked through the narrow window.
Liam’s back was to them. He was playing his flute.
They waited five, ten, fifteen minutes.
Liam kept playing his flute.
“This is stupid,” Liz finally whispered.
Except she didn’t really mean it. She wasn’t bored. She listened to Liam play and was mesmerized, because it was so obvious that he was happy. It made her remember that there had once been a time when she was in love with the sunshine and the wind and each brief flight.
It was like watching the sky change colors, his playing.