Falling into Place (14 page)

He thought about Liz Emerson, and the party on Saturday night. She had fallen asleep against his shoulder, and he had taken her home.

There was a patch of trees on his left—he called it a forest out of pity—and a large slope on the other side, so he could see for miles. He loved this stretch because it made him feel insignificant and necessary at the same time, like everything had a reason.

Today, when he looked down the hill, he saw a Mercedes at the bottom, smoking. He thought,
That looks like Liz Emerson's car
.

He wondered briefly if he ought to call the police or something, but someone must have already, right? He had almost crossed the bridge when he did a double take; his head snapped around, and somehow, through the smoke and the distance, he caught a glimpse of green through the mangled window.

He thought,
Liz Emerson was wearing a green sweater today
.

Then he thought,
Shit
.

And then he thought nothing at all.

 

 

We are rolling down an impossibly green hill. Our arms are pressed to our chests, our hair caught in our mouths, tangled with our laughter. Gravity is our playmate, momentum is our friend. We are blurs of motion. We are racing, and we are both winning, because we do not race each other
.

We race the world, and as fast as it rotates, as fast as it revolves, we are faster
.

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I
t rolled.

Sitting on the brown couch, she had imagined her death like this:

She veers off the road and down the hill. Her car slides, spins a few times. She hits her head and is gone. Her body is mostly whole when they find it. They'll take out her organs, and her dead body will be more useful than her living one ever was.

It did not happen like that.

About a mile before she veered, she had taken off her seatbelt. She had planned to close her eyes, sit back, and let it happen. If she had paid more attention in physics, she would have known that the laws of motion are stronger than any plans she had.

On the way down, she was braced against the steering wheel, her foot jammed on the brake. Maybe if she pressed hard enough, she could stop the world from spinning.

It didn't work.

Her seat went flying forward, and her leg broke in three different places. The car landed on its roof at the bottom of the hill and slid across the icy grass into the base of the tree. She screamed and tried to find something to grab, and accidentally flung her hand out the broken window, where the car briefly pinned it against the ground and shattered it. The car slammed into the tree, flattening the passenger side, and the force shoved Liz's head outside.

Then everything stilled, and she laid in the nest of glass and stared at the sky.

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L
iam was aware, for once, that there was a party going on that night. It was at Joshua Willis's house, and (since Joshua was the head senior stoner) it was going to be near the upper end of the wildness gradient.

The only reason he knew was because he lived a block away. Gossip reached Liam slowly; usually by the time he heard about parties, they were over. But on that night, in the quiet darkness of his bedroom, he was close enough to hear the screams and laughter.

Staring at the invisible ceiling, he wondered what it was like at these parties. He wondered what it was like to get drunk and not care.

That night, not for the first time, he yearned to be a part of it.

Normally, Liam was quite content to be a misfit. He did not particularly care that he sat in the outer ring of the cafeteria during lunch. He was not concerned with what people said about him. A lot of bullying was indirect and a lot of bullies didn't know they were bullies, and maybe some of them didn't even mean to be—he could see this quite clearly, and it no longer bothered him. He knew who he was.

There was a certain freedom in being on the outside. He watched instead of being watched. After Liz had shredded his reputation during freshman year, Liam surrendered to things he had earlier resisted for the sake of appearance. He read Thoreau in public, stopped spending money on uncomfortable clothes, took down his posters of bikini-clad models and covered his walls with song lyrics and quotes. He embraced his weirdness, and it was nice.

But sometimes—tonight—he wanted more.

The noise kept him awake until about two in the morning, when someone finally called the police and the party dispersed, and in the silence left behind, Liam heard someone puking.

He tried to ignore it, but—God, those were some awful retching noises. He sighed and got out of bed and pulled his curtains aside to see a figure walking unsteadily through the park, which was really more of an overgrown field with a tetanus-ridden playground, by his house. Dammit. He had to be a good person now, didn't he? He put on a jacket and went out to investigate.

He found Liz Emerson lying on the wood chips, shivering.

Liam just stared at her for a moment, wondering what the hell he had done to deserve this, a very drunk girl whom he'd had a crush on since fifth grade, half asleep and all alone beside his house.

Almost alone
, he thought, and crouched down beside her.

Liz Emerson was generally a pretty person, but with her eyes bloodshot and dribbles of vomit still hanging on her chin, she was decidedly not tonight. She was not pretty, but there was something beautiful about her all the same.

“Damn it,” he said under his breath. “Damn it all. Liz?”

“Jake?” she asked groggily, and tried to kiss him.

Liam had spent many hours devoted to fantasies of kissing Liz Emerson, but in none of them had she smelled of puke and alcohol, and in none of them had she believed that he was Jake Derrick, so he declined. He propped her upright and held her by the shoulders when it became evident that she could not sit on her own.

“Liz,” he said. “Did you drive?”

“No, silly,” she mumbled. “Julia.”

“Damn it,” Liam muttered, looking closer at her eyes. “You're not high too, are you? God. You are.”

Liz laughed muddily and tried to get to her feet. “Julia went home 'cause she's too goody and stuff, an' I told her Kennie'd take me home . . . but Kennie and Kyle are swallowing each other . . . so I'll walk . . . s'all right . . .”

“Right,” said Liam, and pulled her up. “Okay. I'm going to drive you home.”

She made no reply, only leaned into his shoulder and passed out.

“Damn it,” Liam said again.

He walked a few steps like that, dragging Liz behind him, and then he gave in and picked her up.
I am holding Liz Emerson
, Liam thought, and then he thought it again because he couldn't quite believe it.
Liz Emerson is in my arms
.

She was warm, and smaller than he'd thought she'd be.

He put her in the front seat of his beat-up LeBaron and briefly considered going inside to tell his mom about his late-night trip across town, but decided against it. She wouldn't wake up, and he didn't know how to explain, anyway.

“You . . . kidnapping me?” Liz mumbled as Liam backed out of his driveway.

“Depends,” he replied. “Are you going to puke in my car?”

She did.

“Damn it.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Liam knew where Liz lived—everyone knew where Liz lived. This, however, was the first time he had ever seen her house up close, and he didn't know why the idea of going inside made him so uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat and said, “Liz, do you have your keys?”

She didn't answer. Liam turned off the car and asked again in the silence, and then twice more before she finally slurred, “Doooormat.”

Liam got out of the car, and then went to the passenger side and dragged her out behind him. He climbed the steps with Liz limp in his arms and crouched awkwardly with her propped against his shoulder, and rummaged around until he found the key taped to the underside of the welcome mat.

“That,” he said, “is depressingly stupid.”

He heaved both of them up and unlocked the door, and fumbled for a light switch. Inside, the house was just as big as it had looked on the outside; beautiful, he supposed, all clean lines and sharp edges, but lonely, somehow. As he walked through the foyer, it struck him that perhaps the idiotic placement of the spare key was not the most depressing thing about this house, after all.

He tried to lower Liz onto a white couch in the living room but ended up kind of dropping her—he was tired, and Liam was not exactly well off in terms of upper body strength. Then he stood there and looked around, and when he looked back, Liz was untouchable again. This was where she belonged, and he did not.

So he left.

He was only halfway through the foyer when he heard her.

“Liam,” she sighed. “Thanks.”

He hesitated. He almost turned around, stayed with her.

Instead, he kept walking, through the high-ceilinged foyer and out the door. He turned off the lights before he stepped into the cold and left her to sleep in darkness.

Liam told himself that Liz would be too drunk to remember. On Monday, when she gave no more acknowledgment of his existence than she ever had, he figured that he was right.

He wasn't.

When Liz woke up, she ran to the bathroom and puked. After, she leaned against the toilet and put her head against the wall, and she thought of him. She wondered. Why.

She was tired. Gravity pulled at her more aggressively than usual. When she closed her eyes, she could feel it, dragging her deeper, deeper.

I would have pulled her back. I would have saved her from falling, but she didn't see my hand.

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G
ravity.

That was the ultimate force, wasn't it? The last acceleration. And then the crash.

Maybe
, she thought,
he sees something that no one else can see
.

In me
.

And then she laughed.

She didn't really understand gravity, but then she didn't really understand Liam either. She drove and remembered his eyes in the light of the ridiculous chandelier, the odd grace of his fingers, the way he called her stupid without scorn.

They were very hazy, the memories, and she supposed that was her own fault. Alcohol and pot—she didn't remember much of that night, but she remembered Liam.

It was ironic because she had other, much clearer memories of Liam that she would much, much rather forget, and never would.

But she supposed that was her fault too.

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J
ulia and Kennie sit with Liz's mom. Both of them watch Liam, and both of them are trying to keep the other from noticing.

“I hope my mom doesn't come back,” Kennie says quickly to Julia, when Julia catches her glancing around the waiting room again.

“She won't,” says Julia. “Doesn't she have a church meeting or something? I'll take you home. I don't know where my keys are, though.” She looks across the room, though her keys are in her pocket.

And so it goes.

Julia is tempted to go over and finally apologize for what they did, but why should Liam listen to her? Kennie, on the other hand, remembers all the horrible things she's said about him and starts crying again, because she doesn't remember exactly when she turned into such an awful human being.

Liam stares out the window.

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T
hey had acceleration, she, Kennie, and Julia. They had mass. They goaded and mocked and multiplied each other, and so they had force. They were the catalysts, the fingers that tipped the first domino. They started things that grew into other things that were much greater than themselves.

A touch, a nudge in the wrong direction, and everyone fell down.

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O
n the first day of fifth grade, Liz was sitting on the swing beside Liam's at recess, falling and flying. Her hair fanned out behind her and her eyes were closed, and that was what had caught his attention, her closed eyes. She looked a little bit silly and very much alive, and Liam couldn't stop watching.

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.