I bounced restlessly as I rode uptown on the 2, leaning on the door, my body trying to keep rhythm with the movement of the train. Liv was waiting for me on the same bench we’d sat on all those weeks before by the entrance to the 110th Street station at the top of Central Park. I didn’t need to ask why she was so far from home—I knew why she was up there.
I couldn’t believe Dante. We’d grown up like brothers, until my dad left and factions formed. But apparently none of that mattered. I still had the slingshot he’d given me on my seventh birthday, and he still had me in his pocket, without me even knowing. He’d wanted me to deal to Janus kids for years, calling me a pussy when I said no, not caring that it could ruin my life, leave me without a high school diploma, rotting in jail or even worse. With Liv, he’d found a loophole. I should have stopped it before it started, but I never really tried.
At the party, the night everything started to derail if you turn back the clock second by second—which is all I do, I’m living in rewind—Dante had swung an arm around my neck as I watched you walk away, teasing, “Yo, you gonna close the deal on that later, or what?” That really was all I had been thinking about—getting you alone, telling you how I felt, finally making my move. I was too tipsy and heartsick to care that much about what Liv did behind closed doors. She’d made a reckless choice, Dante had closed a deal, but it was my fault, really, and I was furious.
I wasn’t the only one.
“You fucking asshole!” Liv cried when I crossed the street to where she was sitting. She leapt up and ran at me, and I had to think fast, basically pick her up and spin her just to keep her from scratching my face. Her eyes were bloodshot, her nostrils red and raw. Liv was a beautiful girl, but she’d lost at least ten pounds, and her face looked winter-gray even in the blinding sun.
She looks like a junkie. I couldn’t stop the thought.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it wasn’t me,” I said, grabbing her by both arms to keep her still while she wriggled and grunted. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t tell anyone, so would you calm the fuck down, please?” A passing mother with a toddler in a stroller crossed the street to avoid us. I didn’t even want to think about what we looked like.
Liv glared up at me. “No one else knew!” she shouted.
“Someone must have,” I said, struggling to hold her as her eyes darted back and forth from my face to some unseen points behind me. She looked scared and paranoid. I loosened my grip a little. “Because I am telling you, I didn’t say a word.”
Her face went slack and I led her over to the bench, putting my hand on her back as she cried in deep, wracking sobs.
“Why is this happening to me?” she wailed, wiping her snotty nose with one arm. Her boots clicked manically on the pavement; her knees jiggled.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Because life sucks sometimes. But it can stop now.”
“Yeah, well. Everything stops now.” She looked up at the tree over our heads, a petrified tangle of dead branches, the only one on the whole block that hadn’t bloomed. “No more school,” she murmured. “No more acting. No more parties. No more life.”
“What did your parents say?” I asked.
“Well, they were ‘shocked.’ And ‘incredibly disappointed.’” She laughed bitterly. “But they didn’t make me go home.”
“Well, I’m telling you then,” I said. “Go home. Don’t do”—Liv glared at me, and I could tell I was losing ground—“whatever you were gonna do up here.”
“Fuck you,” she snapped. “I can take care of myself.”
“You sure?”
Liv looked down at the ground and shook her head, sticking her tongue in her cheek, running it over the front of her teeth. “I don’t need this,” she finally said, jumping up and swinging her bag over one shoulder. I stood up, too, trying to block her way, but she shoved past me. “Why should I even believe you?” she yelled, spinning around. “You probably did tell them. I bet Joy just loves that her goody-goody boyfriend is swooping in to save me from myself.”
“Joy doesn’t know,” I said angrily.
“Wow.” Liv sniffed, wiped her nose again. “Then she’s even more oblivious than I thought.”
“That’s not fair. She’s been trying to talk to you for months and you’ve been too”—fucked up—“busy to notice.”
“She wants to talk about you,” Liv said. “She doesn’t care about me anymore.”