Unfortunately, no one in school cared what I had to say, no matter how logical it was. That’s why, on Friday, I didn’t hear anyone debating where Lizzie ran away to or what had made her run in the first place. Instead, I heard the Hundred Deaths of Lizzie Lovett.
She was mauled by a wild animal.
She was killed by her boyfriend.
She fell into a ravine and wasn’t able to climb out.
She was butchered by a serial killer.
She was butchered by her boyfriend.
She ate some wild berries and was poisoned (or possibly bitten by a poisonous insect).
She got lost and died of starvation, thirst, or exposure.
She was stabbed, shot, strangled, bludgeoned, drowned, hanged, burned. By her boyfriend.
At school that day, everyone had a theory of their own. And most of the theories involved Lorenzo Calvetti.
Some people thought he accidentally killed her and panicked. Others thought he must have been planning it from the moment they met. I even heard a story about how he proposed to Lizzie that night, and when she turned him down, he murdered her in a fit of rage.
I kept thinking of the picture in the newspaper and how boyish Lorenzo Calvetti looked. Young and in love. Not like a killer. The police chief had even made a statement about how he wasn’t a suspect. The cops thought Lorenzo Calvetti was innocent, and my gut told me they were right. But most of Griffin Mills High School disagreed.
First period came and went, then other equally boring hours passed, and everyone talked about the girl they were sure was dead and the boy they were sure had killed her. I wanted to tell everyone Lorenzo didn’t do it. He was the real victim, ditched in the woods by the girl he loved. But I knew what people would say and how they would look at me, so I kept my suspicions to myself. I figured Lizzie would turn up soon, and everyone would forget the whole thing anyway.
• • •
I ended up eating lunch in the library instead of on the back steps. How that happened was, before I’d taken a single bite of my sandwich, Emily said, “How’d your paper turn out?”
I almost asked Emily what she was talking about. Then I remembered.
“You didn’t do it? Seriously?” Emily asked when she saw the look on my face.
“I meant to,” I said. The paper was probably a great example of what my teachers meant when they said I was bright but didn’t apply myself.
“You had plenty of time,” Emily said. “What have you been doing?” I didn’t like how she sounded like my mom.
I gathered my stuff without answering. I hadn’t been doing anything important. I never did much of anything, which is probably why I was always bored.
“I’m going to the library. I can skip fourth period and get something written.”
“Good luck, I guess.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
I could feel Emily’s disapproval the whole time I walked away.
• • •
They were calling it a vigil, but it felt more like a funeral. Everyone was crying, and the whole event was totally awkward, and I wished I’d stayed home. It was even worse than it should have been, because I went with my mom. I’d been planning on asking Emily to go with me, but after the blowup about my paper, I decided it was maybe, probably, a bad idea. So there I was, at a vigil for a girl I hated with my hippie mom and surrounded by pretty much every single person I went to school with except for the one person who was actually my friend.
Lizzie had been living in Layton, a town about fifteen minutes away. But her mom still lived in Griffin Mills, which I guess is why they chose to do the vigil here. It was at the biggest park in town, the one with a man-made lake and old-fashioned bandstand. Lizzie’s mom was on the bandstand with Mayor Thompson and some other people I didn’t know, though one was clearly a priest and another a police officer.
A crowd of people surrounded the bandstand. My mom and I were in the middle of the mess. People crushed against us like we were at a concert, making the September evening seem warmer than it actually was. I saw kids from school, neighbors, and people who graduated the same year as Rush. There were a bunch of people I didn’t recognize though. Lizzie had lots of friends. Or, at least, a lot of people who wanted to be her friend.
Volunteers from the middle school were weaving through the crowd, handing out white daisies and telling people they were Lizzie’s favorite flower.
“Daisies? Aren’t we supposed to have candles?” I asked my mom.
“I think the flowers are nice.”
You could tell who the reporters were, even the ones who didn’t have camera crews with them or little notepads in their hands. They were dressed too professionally, watching everything too closely. I wished I were one of them, that I didn’t have anything to do with Griffin Mills and had only shown up because it was my job.
“There’s your brother,” my mom said. She waved her hand above the crowd, trying to get his attention.
Either Rush didn’t see her or he pretended not to. That’s what I would have done. He was with his best friend, Connor, and the two of them had the attention of some giggling middle school girls. That’s how it is for people who used to play football in the Mills, especially the guys who are still young and attractive. They’re minor celebrities young girls dare each other to talk to.
“He doesn’t see us. Let’s go say hi.”
“Mom, no. Just no.”
“I’m not going to embarrass him, Hawthorn.”
“You’re going to embarrass me.”