“You could wear your navy-blue dress with the gold buttons,” she suggested. “What do you think?”
“Will they have the coffin open?” I asked.
My mom hesitated on her way to my closet. “She was in the woods a long time, honey.”
“Was she just a skeleton then?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“How tall was the tree that she hanged herself from? Could the animals on the ground get her?”
“I don’t think you should think about that, Hawthorn.”
“Why?” I asked, getting annoyed. It wasn’t my mom’s job to police my thoughts.
“It’s not respectful.”
“I’m pretty sure Lizzie’s past the point of being offended.”
My mom crossed the room and sat on the chair next to my bed. “I am being patient with you. I know this is a shock. I’m allowing you to stay in bed and miss a few days of school. But I won’t put up with that attitude. Understood?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Now, are you wearing the navy dress or something else?”
“I’m not going to the funeral.”
“You’re not? Don’t you think you should?”
“No.” I rolled onto my side, away from her. I stared at the wall.
“Funerals help people get closure. Going could help you move on.”
I didn’t want closure though. Moving on was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I lived in a world where Lizzie Lovett still existed.
? ? ?
Except, you know, I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in bed. I had to get up eventually. The day after the funeral, before anyone else was awake, I went to the end of the driveway and got the newspaper.
Lizzie’s funeral was on the front page. With pictures. The coffin was closed, but a huge photo of Lizzie sat on top of it. Flowers were everywhere. Enzo was pictured in a suit, the same suit he was supposed to wear to take me to the homecoming dance. He was standing next to Lizzie’s mom, part of the family. Not the killer some people had suspected.
I read the article a few times. It talked about the night Lizzie went missing. It talked about how she was found by two hikers, which was nothing more than luck. Like Rush had told me, her body wasn’t far from where the search parties had trampled through the woods. Lizzie’s mom had been interviewed. She said Lizzie was a happy girl, and there was no reason to suspect she’d been contemplating suicide. The end of the article shared a list of suicidal warning signs, even though Lizzie apparently hadn’t had any. It gave a number to call if you or anyone you knew was having suicidal thoughts.
Lizzie went into the woods with a rope in her bag, knowing that rope would be the last thing she ever felt. Lizzie made the choice to leave her life. Was she scared? Did she hesitate? At any moment, did she wish to take the whole thing back?
I put the newspaper down on the kitchen table. I stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what came next. Everything I’d done in the past few months was about Lizzie. About finding a werewolf. But Lizzie was dead. So now what? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to think about.
I crossed the kitchen and picked up the phone. It was early, but what did it matter anymore?
Enzo answered on the second ring. He sounded alert. He wasn’t sleeping either.
“It’s me.”
“Hawthorn. Hey.”
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner.” But even as I was saying it, I realized he hadn’t called me either.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been pretty busy.”
“Look,” I said, “maybe we weren’t completely wrong.”
“About what?”
“Do you know about warging? Say Lizzie wanted to throw us off her trail, right? So she kills herself, but a second before she dies, she throws her spirit into the body of a wolf or some other animal that’s nearby. You see?”
There was a long silence, expanding the distance between us. Then Enzo sighed deeply. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“We can’t do this anymore, kid.”
“It doesn’t need to be over,” I said, hating the desperation in my voice.
“Yes, it does.”
I could have tried to convince him. I could have told him he was wrong, that life was a wheel, not a straight line. It kept going and going, and nothing was ever really over. I could have told him that Lizzie was dead, but we weren’t. But I didn’t. I knew the harder I tried to convince him, the worse the sick feeling inside of me would get. It was hurt and hate and sorrow and every other bad emotion rolled into one terrible mass that churned in my stomach.
So I didn’t say anything at all. I took the phone away from my ear and placed it gently on the receiver, all the while thinking, So this is how my and Enzo’s story ends.
Chapter 32
Another Good-bye