Falling into Place (15 page)

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.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

T
here 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.

And then it made her jealous, because Liz Emerson was never at peace like that. Not really. Not anymore.

Very suddenly, Liam stopped. They dropped to their stomachs with their breaths sucked in—but Liam hadn't seen them. He was just fixing the music stand, or he was trying to.

“Damn it,” Liz heard Liam mutter. “Just . . . pull . . . out . . .”

Kennie stifled a snort against Liz's shoulder. “That's what she said,” she giggled.

And there it was.

The brilliantly, monumentally, hilariously embarrassing moment.

Liz pulled her phone out of her pocket so quickly that she nearly elbowed Kennie in the face. She pulled up her camera app, angled the lens at the crack beneath the door, and pressed the record button.

“And here,” she whispered, “we see Liam Oliver in his natural habitat, enjoying the primary pastime of his species:
playing
with his flute.”

Liam walked past, the bottom of his jeans worn, his Converses on the brink of falling apart. That was all they could see, really, but that was all they needed. There was some banging, and Kennie giggled again.

“Come on,” came his muffled voice. “A little higher, damn it.”

And then he actually grunted, and not even Julia could keep from laughing. The camera shook as they pressed their faces in each other's shoulders, trying to keep quiet.

There was a dull crash—Liam had lost his balance and fallen against the wall, but it didn't look that way on camera. Kennie gave a half giggle, half hiccup, and on the other side of the door, Liam froze.

But by the time he looked out the window, they were gone.

Liz sent the video to her entire list of contacts. By the end of the day, it seemed like everyone had seen it. Someone had put it on Facebook, and someone else had uploaded it to YouTube. At her locker after the final bell, she saw people laugh when Liam walked by in the hallway, and Liz turned away, because it made her feel weird, somewhere deep, when she saw his bewildered face.

Still, she went home and prepared for phase three.

Liam Oliver is a pervert.

Liam Oliver is gay.

Liam Oliver is in a threesome.

Liam Oliver gets turned on by inanimate objects.

Liam Oliver chewed on the lead paint of his crib as a child and is therefore permanently fucked up.

Liam Oliver will screw anything.

Those were the more appropriate rumors.

Phase three should have been an easy victory. Of course, everyone said that the football game would be too, and by the end of the first quarter, they were down 14-0. All of Meridian was packed onto the bleachers, soaking wet and screaming. The air smelled like rain and fish—the booster club always held a fish fry before the homecoming game, and tonight the sky was made of scales and oil and losing.

Liz stood on the rickety bleachers, stomping and jumping and screaming, dressed in nothing but a sports bra and shorts and paint. To her right, Julia was the only one in the student section who was sitting, her arms crossed tightly over her chest because the rain was making her bra half-transparent. To her left, Kennie was gripping Liz's arm with all her strength, because Jenna Erikson had fallen off the bleachers earlier and broken her leg. Kennie pressed herself into Liz's side and whined that the rain would wash Riley Striver's name off her stomach before he could see it. Liz didn't care. The
JAKE DERRICK
on her stomach had long since turned to watercolor.

But it was worse when the rain finally stopped. The fog was thick and it trapped the lights, and at halftime, after the band show ended, Liz shook Kennie off and made her way down the bleachers with the rest of the homecoming court, shoebox in hand. She held it carefully—Liam's crown was inside.

The freshman girls cheered for her as she crossed the track to the field. Liz could hear Kennie's scream above them all.

The boys were yelling too, but not for her, and they weren't cheering.

Liam was behind her. His falling-apart Converses squished in the mud, steps mirroring hers. And suddenly that was all that mattered—her feet and his feet and the distance between them. It was like a dance, and the music was made of the screams of their classmates: step,
gay
, step,
pervert
, step,
faggot
. It hurt her ears.

She wanted to turn around. She wanted to take his hand and pull him . . . where? Where would she have led him?

She glanced over her shoulder, and he looked away.

They reached the center of the field and took their places in line with the other court members. At the front of the court lineup, Kate Dulmes laughed when she saw Liam and nudged Brandon Jason, and Brandon made an obscene hand gesture while the principal dug through his pockets for the list of their names.

“Hey, Liam,” Brianna Vern, one of the sophomore representatives, said, leaning out of the lineup to smile at him. “Nice of you guys to join us. We were just talking about how much easier it is to be a boy than a girl. Like, you guys don't have periods or anything. And, I mean, you
love
your body parts.”

“Dude, she's right,” said Matthew Derringer. He was the other sophomore representative, and one of Jake's best friends. Liz wasn't sure why, but she always had to fight down the urge to hug him when he was near. Lean in and wrap her arms around him and knee him in his unsuspecting balls. Hard. “I do love my body parts. I reward 'em. What about you, Liam? When was the last time you rewarded that flute of yours? Just now, on the bleachers? Thought I could feel them shaking.”

The fog. How it magnified.

The laughter. The screaming—
gay pervert faggot gaypervertfaggot
. The digging, Liz's fingernails against palms, teeth, and lips. And the silence. Heavy heavy heavy silence.

Somewhere in the fog, the principal announced Kate and Mike as king and queen.

The crown Kate had made for Mike was heavy and elaborate and beautiful, and his for her was from Burger King. There was a pause and furious clicking as the parents took pictures. Someone complained that they should move the crowning back to the dance, when everyone was dressed up, though no one listened. The names continued. Junior representatives, sophomore.

Liz's eyes flickered to Liam.

She wondered if he had watched the video—watched it all the way through.

“Your freshman representatives: Liz Emerson and Liam Oliver!”

Liz drew her crown from the shoebox. She had gone online and bought the cheapest, crappiest flute she could find. Jake had cut it to pieces in his metals class, and she had hot-glued it back together in a rough circle, and now she pulled it from its nest of tissue paper and offered it to Liam.

His face.

Why did you come?
She wanted to scream it.
Why the hell did you come? Idiot, you goddamn idiot. You knew this would happen. You knew what we would do. What I would do
.

You deserve this
, she tried to think, but couldn't.
You brought this upon yourself
.

There was a lump in her throat, and she wasn't sure why.

He stared at the crown for a long time. He stared while fuzzy cheerleader shapes unfurled a big paper sign:
MERIDIAN HOMECOMING, GO FIGHT WIN
! He stared while Nick Braden tripped while running back onto the field and the rest of the team went down on top of him. He stared while the crowd booed. He stared while the football coach finally lost his temper and began to scream at the court to “Get your asses off the field!” and the team to “Get your asses together!”

It was killing her, his silence. She took a breath to break it wide open, and then he finally looked up.

Here Liz was supposed to say something, something horrible, and smile to show all of her teeth, but the only word she could remember was his name. She tried to say it. She couldn't.

After a moment, he took the crown from her hands, dropped his own shoebox at her feet, and walked off the field.

Liz stared after him, her throat closed and her eyes strangely full, and then she looked down. The lid had fallen aside when the box hit the ground, and she could see the tip of a crown.

It was beautiful, and suddenly, she knew. That's why he came. To give her the crown.

The mud splattered her knees as she dropped down beside the shoebox—it was cold, and the coldness spread. She reached for the crown, pushed the tissue paper aside. Wire and gold leaf and metallic spray paint, twisted and braided and looped. It looked impossible, and she touched the edges to make sure it wasn't.

She spun around. “Liam!”

There was no answer.

“You,” the football coach roared, marching toward her. “You have three seconds to get your ass off the field, or I will
carry it off
.”

Later, Meridian would lose the game 49-2, and Liz Emerson would slip away from Kennie and Julia to run all around the football field in search of Liam to say . . . something. She didn't know. Anything. Everything.

But while she was pushing people away and peeling them apart, she saw a ziplock bag sticking out of a stranger's pocket, and she took it because she was too tired to keep looking.