It was around midnight, and the neighborhood was dark. I got off the swing and walked to the edge of the porch to see a shape emerging from the darkness. It was looming, too big to be a person, and moving in an inhuman way. It figured that just when something fascinating was finally happening in my life, a monster would come along and kill me, ruining everything. The monster drew closer and split in two, and I saw that it wasn’t a monster after all. Rather, two people, one leaning on the other for support.
My brother was clearly very drunk, and Connor struggled to keep him upright. When they neared the house, Connor noticed me.
“Thorny. What are you doing out here?”
“I live here. Is he going to throw up?”
“I don’t think so. He already lost most of his dinner in my car.”
“Gross.”
Connor half dragged Rush up the porch steps.
“Where’d you park?” I asked.
“Down the street. I didn’t want to wake up your parents.”
I helped Connor dump Rush on the swing, where he instantly passed out. He reeked of beer and vomit, which was not a combination I enjoyed. Since my seat had been stolen, I sat at the top of the porch steps. Connor sat down next to me.
“The Werewolf of Paris,” he said, pointing to the cover of my book. “Any good?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty dark. There’s a lot of rape and incest and stuff.”
“Sounds charming.” He paused. “I hear you’ve taken an interest in werewolves lately.”
I winced. How many people had my brother been babbling to?
“Rush told you about the Lizzie thing, huh?”
“He did.”
“And you think I’m crazy.”
“Nope,” Connor said.
I looked over at him, surprised.
Connor grinned. “I’d only think you were crazy if you really believed it.”
“I do believe it,” I protested.
“Sure you do, Thorny.”
I rolled my eyes and opened my book. A minute later, when Connor hadn’t left, I closed it again.
“What do you think of Lizzie?” I asked.
“I think she probably got lost.”
“No, not about her vanishing. About Lizzie as a person.”
“I don’t think anything about her,” Connor said.
“You must think something. You were part of that group when you were in high school.”
“Not like Lizzie and Rush were. I played football because I grew up thinking I had to. I didn’t like it much. And I wasn’t very good.”
“You don’t miss it?”
Connor laughed. “Not even a little bit.”
“Rush does.”
“Rush thought football was going to be his life.”
That was true. My brother had thought he’d get into Ohio State on a full football scholarship. They didn’t even want him on the team. Maybe, probably, he could have gone somewhere else and played, but his stupid jock pride wouldn’t let him. Now, he wasn’t playing football anywhere and taking classes at the community college.
“What’s going to be your life?” I asked Connor.
“I’m majoring in electrical engineering. So I guess at the moment, it’s that.”
“Sounds sort of boring.”
“I’m having way more fun than I ever did on the field.”
The whole conversation was weird. Connor had been hanging around my house since I was twelve, but I’d never talked to him so much at once. Rush had always kept his friends separate from me.
“I don’t believe you weren’t in love with Lizzie,” I said after a while. “Everyone was.”
Connor looked at me and seemed genuinely curious. “Why are you so sure of that?”
“She was perfect.”
“She was just a girl. And not really my type. Honestly, she was kind of dull.”
“Then you’re, like, the only person on the planet who thinks so.”
“Don’t confuse being popular with being interesting,” Connor said.
That made me pause for a second, even though I was positive Connor was lying. A girl like Lizzie was everyone’s type, and anyone who said otherwise was making an excuse for why she never chose him.
“I met her boyfriend tonight,” I said. “Enzo. He seemed sad.”
“I’d hope so. His girlfriend disappeared.”
I suddenly desperately wanted to be alone. I wanted to keep reading my book. I wanted to think about everything Enzo had said to me. I stood up.
“I’ll check on Rush in the morning, OK? Thanks for bringing him home.”
“No problem,” Connor said.
I watched him walk down the street to his car and wondered if it was possible he actually meant the part about Lizzie not being his type. Were there people who were immune to her charms? It seemed more unlikely than the existence of werewolves.
Chapter 10
Day Seventeen
The search parties started to lose their enthusiasm. At school, people talked about Lizzie’s disappearance as if it had happened in the distant past. Every once in a while, Lizzie’s mom went on TV, begging anyone who had any information about her daughter to come forward. That was the saddest part. Other people could forget about Lizzie, but not Ms. Lovett. She’d always feel the pain of her daughter’s disappearance and the pain of watching everyone around her slowly stop caring.
I thought about calling Ms. Lovett. I knew how stupid it was, which is why I only thought about it. But I wanted her to know someone still had Lizzie on their mind. And I wanted her to know Lizzie was in a better place, which didn’t mean dead but out in the woods where she belonged. But I couldn’t say that, because people didn’t agree with the notion of werewolves, which had become increasingly awkward for me.
Like when Mychelle Adler came up to my locker and said, “So I hear you think Lizzie Lovett turned into a werewolf.”