Chapter Seven

SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE I’M STANDING on a precipice, and there’s nothing below to catch my fall.

When I feel like this, I reach for someone else’s words to pull me back. To remind me that the world is bigger than my home. Bigger than Auburn. It’s the best thing I inherited from Mom—her love of words. She loves classic literature and poetry, and every memory of my childhood smells like the stacks of paperbacks she’d stash all over the house. She made books our home in a way our house never was.

But now I can’t stand the classics. She always said they were romantic, but someone always ends up brokenhearted or dead. Or brokenhearted and then dead. As though tragedy is the only ending that has meaning.

These days, I’ll take journalism over literature. I’ll take truth over grief. Leave romance at the door, I’m a newspaper girl.

But I still have to take lit class, and we are learning Tess of the d’Urbervilles, so I’m not done with the tragedies quite yet. I slip into class early, flipping through the chapters we were supposed to review this weekend. When Liam enters the room, we make eye contact, and he nods at me.

I quickly look down at my book.

But when he sits at the back of the room, I can’t help glancing at him. Naturally, Liam sits with the most popular kids, but in AP English it’s a special subset. The very smart populars. They sit with their desk pushed up to their boyfriend or girlfriend, somehow always just at the periphery of following the rules. Alexis and Brody are on-again, off-again, but today their desks are pressed tight, and his arm is wrapped around her shoulders. They are both tall and blond and leggy and athletic. People always stereotype popular teens as dumb, but they’re just teens with better-than-average social skills. Why stop at homecoming court when they can have Harvard? Especially when there’s nothing that would keep them from actually going.

On the other side of Brody is Amelia. She is definitely Harvard material. She has perfect teeth and parents who are surgeons, and she can probably quote both Austen and the latest Glamour magazine. The truth is, I’ve always been a little envious of Amelia. It seems like she’s friends with everyone. She’s approachable. Even if I wanted to be warm, inviting, I wouldn’t know how to untangle myself from all the barbed wire I’ve placed around me. It’s in the set of my jaw. The way my shoulders turn away from people. “Proceed with Caution” screams my body language, and it’s the only language I know anymore.

When my gaze returns to Liam, his desk is like an island. I guess he isn’t really a lone wolf when he’s the kind of guy who perpetually has a girlfriend, but somehow he still looks alone. Set apart. Like he has a little buffer around him. I think by senior year in such a small town, our social interactions are almost on autopilot. It’s been a long time since any of us has looked up. Or at least that’s true for me. Which is why I probably wouldn’t be noticing Liam if he hadn’t mistaken me for Lyla Jacobs.

Mrs. Riley launches into our Tess lesson, and I try to stop thinking about Liam and focus on her. Mrs. Riley teaches with Ms. Frizzle–level enthusiasm. She’s eccentric and loud. She runs the newspaper, too, so I’m used to her antics, but it feels a little offbeat when we are discussing gender inequality in the nineteenth century.

“The social commentary is considered way ahead of its time, especially when it comes to women. Any thoughts on this?” Mrs. Riley asks.

“What was he, like, a feminist? Can guys even be feminists?” Brody asks. He’s reclining in his seat now, and manspreading so hard that his leg blocks the whole aisle between desks.

He says feminist like it’s a dirty word.

“How do you define feminism, Brody?” Mrs. Riley asks.

“Uh, frigid bitch—I mean—chicks in pink hats?” Brody says, and chuckles break out throughout the room. I mess with my copy of Tess, folding the corners of pages like I’ll need them for something. If Mrs. Riley asks, I’ll tell her I was marking every time some pompous, entitled ass tried to ruin Tess’s life.

“Anyone else?” Mrs. Riley opens the question up to the room. “Leighton?”

“Sure, ask the ice queen about feminism,” Brody mutters.

My cool, collected exterior precedes me. Ice queen. Last year, I turned Brody down for junior prom, and he’s been making snide comments ever since about me being too cold for any guy to thaw out. He didn’t just ask me out, he promposed, getting down on one knee in the lunchroom and giving me a box that held the dance ticket. And I said no. In front of everyone. Public rejection didn’t sit well with Brody, and he’s called me an ice queen ever since.

“Guys can be feminists,” I say, and thirty sets of eyes turn in my direction. I’m feeling sharp around my edges today. “But probably only the more evolved ones.”

“Like me,” Liam says. “I’m a feminist.”

“Great,” Mrs. Riley says. “Define it.”

He falters. “Uhh. Wage gap. Wonder Woman. Bra burning?”

“Oh God, please stop,” I say.

“Thank you,” Liam says. “That was all I had.”

“You probably are a feminist, though. It just means you think women deserve equal rights. It’s not that complicated or scary. The hats aren’t mandatory,” I say.

“Sounds stupid,” Brody says.

“What’s stupid is thinking a girl is obligated to go out with you just because you asked her.”

“Retract your claws, kitty cat, this isn’t a protest,” Brody says, puckering his lips and blowing me a kiss.

“Go to hell, Brody,” I snap.

“All right, that’s enough,” Mrs. Riley says. “Let’s get back to Tess.”

The conversation veers back into the nineteenth century, but there’s still some commotion in the back of the room. “Leave her alone,” Liam says, kicking at Brody’s outstretched leg so that he pulls it back under the desk.

Liam.

I steal one more glance.

Something about him keeps drawing me in, curiosity outweighing my typical caution. Liam is self-assured, but it doesn’t come off as an ego trip like it does with most guys our age. He’s cute, but not a jerk about it. His brown skin is smooth, his complexion perfect. But it’s the less obvious things about him I’m starting to appreciate. Like how his jawline is so sharp, but when he smiles his whole face softens. Like how he smiles a lot. Like how his eyebrows are full and he uses them to his advantage, quirking them up, furrowing them down. His expressions are funny and warm, and I feel like they would make anyone want to be his friend. And I like his eyes, too. They’re kind.

I like that he calls himself a feminist and cares about representation in books. Liam’s dad is white, and his mom is Black. His dad grew up in Auburn, which means he knows everyone, and his mom is the assistant principal at the middle school, which means everyone knows her. Liam is far from a stranger to me, even if we’ve never really talked before. There are no strangers in a town this small.

I even landed in Mrs. McNamara’s office a few times when I was in eighth grade. My grades were slipping, almost in direct correlation to the first few failures of Dad’s business—and the resulting anger we saw at home. But Liam’s mom didn’t lecture me or make me feel bad because of my grades, she just encouraged me to focus on school because it was the path to any future I desired. Her words stuck with me. An illuminated path was what I needed. The next semester I got a 4.0. I couldn’t control what was going on at home, but if I worked hard enough, I could control my grades. My future.

The McNamara family moved to Auburn from Philadelphia when the elder Mr. McNamara retired from his law practice, and Liam’s dad took over. I remember thinking that Liam and I had that in common—being stuck here because of our grandfathers’ businesses. But it was more complicated than that for Liam, coming to a town with so few people of color. On Liam’s first day at Auburn Elementary, we were all sitting at a long lunch table. I was at the far end, book open in front of me, but Liam, the new kid, was right in the middle, the center of attention. He was outgoing and funny, and everyone liked him and wanted to sit near him. He’d just told a joke that even made me crack a smile and put down my book and wonder about this new boy who had everyone laughing so hard.

Then another kid in our class said that he had a joke, too. But when he said it, it wasn’t funny. It was racist.

When I looked at Liam, I saw this moment of hesitation. I think he was waiting to see if anyone else was going to speak up.

“Dumb joke,” nine-year-old Liam said. “I’ve got a better one.” Within moments he had the entire table laughing again. But I’ve always felt ashamed of that moment. Of everyone’s silence. Of mine.

And looking at Liam now, I wonder how many things like that have happened since. The comments made, and the quiet that follows. I wonder if he ever hates Auburn, too. It’s hard to reconcile because he’s one of the most popular kids in school, but that doesn’t change what this town is like. Here they label ignorance as tradition and carry on as though they’ve earned the right to be cruel.