It took twenty minutes to get to senior year’s first calamity. After parking her dad’s too-recognizable station wagon far from the building, the first nineteen minutes were everything Liv had dreamed about. This was the thirteenth first day of school of Liv’s life, and the exhilaration of knowing it to be the final one for her and her friends could only be countered by blatant coolness. When Monica fist-bumped Liv hello, Monica was impersonating the jittery theatrics of the younger classes. Liv took the cue, and, while hugging Krista, who’d been out of state all summer, she did so with a bored yawn that made Krista laugh.
“We’re so over this,” Krista said.
“We’re doing the teachers a favor,” Liv agreed. “Don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
Darla and Phil swung by, Phil’s hand already in Darla’s back pocket, placing his usual bet that no teacher wanted conflict on the first day of school, thereby setting the precedent that Phil could have his hand on Darla’s ass all year. Darla kiss-kissed at Liv, who made a facetious yuck face and tossed the kiss back.
Then Laurie, Amber, and Hank descended upon them in a sheet of excited shouts and hugs so forceful Liv could not tell who she was hugging at any given second. Except maybe Hank, whose hug was quick; the one-night sexual encounter she’d had with Hank last year still hadn’t fully shed its awkwardness. The whole gang’s coolness, so perfectly drawn a few minutes ago, broke apart, and they yielded to it. It was thrilling, being at the edge of whatever came after.
When the group began to disassemble to find their lockers and unload their stuff, Liv found Krista still clinging to her with two adamant fists.
“Just once, and then I won’t mention it again,” Krista said. “Just doing my fall check.”
Liv sighed to convey that this wasn’t necessary, but in truth felt a deep gratitude. Liv was a relative newcomer to this crowd (sports girls, mostly, and the guys who liked them) and sometimes still felt like a fraud: Hank and Phil going on about some grade school prank they’d pulled on an old friend of Liv’s, or Monica, when she was feeling bitchy, celebrating old times with the others without letting Liv in on the joke. Krista, though, had a heart and, when Monica wasn’t around to chide her for it, knew how to use it.
“Make it quick,” Liv teased.
“Your dad—nothing?”
Liv shook her head. Still smiling. Keep up the smile. None of this hurts, none of it.
“And your mom—she’s…?”
Keep smiling. “She’s fine. Same. I mean, she’s fine.”
Krista tilted her head skeptically, an angle sharp enough to dig under Liv’s ribs and hit something soft. Liv grabbed Krista by both shoulders and pretended to shake sense into her like men did to hysterical women in old movies. The pain of that little cut, however, did not go away.
“She’s okay!” Liv play shouted. “I’m okay! Everything’s okay!”
Krista pretended to zip her lips. “All right! I’ll shut up about it, forever and anon.”
“Too much British lit for you. Get a life.”
Krista nodded guiltily and slunk off for her locker. Liv heard the squeak of a sneaker stopping suddenly and turned to see Krista, who had leaned back to speak more quietly.
“I meant to tell you. I came in the back way, by the band room. And Doug Monk was there with a bunch of idiots. I know you and Doug…”
Krista trailed off—of course she did—because no one in Monica’s group knew how to finish that sentence. Liv and Doug what? Liv herself wasn’t certain. To the others, Liv supposed, Doug was a bewildering holdover from an older version of Liv Fleming, a Liv none of them were particularly interested to know. And it was for reasons just like this: first day of school, everything going great, and suddenly there’s some situation near the band room.
Liv nodded an embarrassed thanks and took off for the stairs. The bottom floor at this hour was nothing but lonely halls. Away from watchful eyes, she sped up, past the shuttered home-ec kitchen and vo-ag wing, until she’d homed in on the southeastern bottom-floor stairwell, at the weird intersection of the chorus room and wrestling room. It was the hour of neither singing nor wrestling, and yet there huddled a group of four boys, just like Krista had said, their schoolbags slung across mom-ironed shirts so as to better record video on their phones. Each screen gave Liv a mini but unobstructed view of a scene that was as preposterous as it was predictable.
Doug was lying on his back on the floor, his hair spread out beneath his head like black tentacles. The parachute pockets of his shorts sagged to the floor with payloads of gorp. From all indications, Doug had been persuaded to bench-press Jackson Stegmaier, a kid who had what teachers called a “developmental delay.” He was skinny with narrow shoulders, both of which, Liv hated to admit, did give him a barbell shape. The stunt was absurd, hence the laughter, hence the twist in Liv’s gut.
The videos would be uploaded by day’s end. By tomorrow, they’d be flickering from every gadget in sight. Jackson Stegmaier wasn’t Liv’s problem; he’d deal with it. Doug, though—Doug never made anything easy. Sweat rolled down his scarlet face as he pumped the kid up and down while a jerk named Billy shouted out reps. What Doug didn’t get, what he never got until too late, was that the boys cheered only to mock him.
Liv sighed. It wasn’t an indulging-Krista sigh. It was an extended, weary exhale, the sound of envisioning two more semesters of situations like this, every one of which forced her to keep a foot in a world she’d rather step beyond. Doug cutting power to the biology-class refrigerator to hide how bad he’d messed up his fetal pig, never thinking of the floor-wide stench that would result. Doug taking a dare to ride the bumper of a school bus, leading to stricter bus rules that pissed off everyone. And on and on.
Billy had taken a seat atop Jackson Stegmaier, pretending to ride a mechanical bull. Three cameras pressed inward. Some of these degenerates were whizzes at editing, and if they pooled their footage, the video could be split screen or multiple point of view, alternating between Doug’s face and Jackson’s face before cutting to the crowd-pleasing wide shot. It would be a smash hit, setting the bar for the whole semester, unless Liv did something.
She grabbed the closest boy’s shoulder.
“Hi, Liv!”
That’s what the boy said. It made her feel lousy about her risen social status over the past couple of years that anyone would think she had come here to enjoy the fun. She shoved the boy. He was too big to forcibly move, but the contact surprised him enough to withdraw. She swiped at the second boy’s phone, intending to knock it free, but although she struck it perfectly, the boy managed to keep hold of it. The third boy, witness to Liv’s onslaught, wisely evaded, tucking his phone into his pocket.
Three seconds had passed, and Liv now turned to deal with Billy, still astride Jackson. Infuriatingly, Billy laughed, seeming to enjoy making Liv use her full body weight to pull him off. Jackson, as seemed his lot in life, took the brunt of it, hitting the floor with one of his fragile shoulders and shrieking, then staggering away while clutching the shoulder. Billy fell straight onto Doug’s stomach, still laughing. When Liv snatched for his phone, he easily dodged.
“C’mon, Liv.” He fake pouted. “Don’t be a bitch about it.”
She kicked him in the shin. He chuckled through his pain, which drove her crazy. The other boys were retreating with their videos safely archived, less ashamed than they were aware that classes were about to begin. This event meant nothing to them; they’d already half forgotten it, as evidenced by their amiable farewells.
“Nice kick,” said the first of them.
“You’re on your period—we get it,” said the second.
“See you at lunch, Liv!” said the third.
Billy got up and danced away from Liv’s closing kicks, still laughing, and then it was just her and Doug, alone again at the scene of a crime. Billy’s fall had knocked the wind out of Doug, and he was gasping for air, but calmly. He’d been squashed plenty of times before. This wasn’t Liv’s first time, either; she crossed her arms and glared at him.
“What,” he panted, “is your”—gasp—“problem?”
“My problem?”
“We were just having fun.”
“No, they were having fun.”
“Whatever.”
“Did it look like Jackson was having fun?”
“Until you showed up.”
Doug winced and sat up. Sunflower seeds and pine nuts were everywhere.
“Oh no,” he said. “My gorp.”
He began sweeping food into his hand and funneling it back into the violated bag. He flushed a bit, perhaps realizing that if eating off the floor wasn’t humiliating, what was?
“Floor’s clean” was his excuse. “First day of school, everything’s clean.”
“It is the first day of school. That’s right. And already look at you.”
“I don’t need your advice. Go find your stupid friends.”
“You do need my advice. And my advice is to stop letting people do this to you! You do it willingly!”
“Oh, now you want to help. Yesterday, though, you barely wanted to check the traps. Probably thought it might mess up your nails.”
That one burned. Because the thought had, in fact, crossed her mind. In the past, the branches above Hangman’s Noose had scratched up her face, the gears of Neckbreaker had ripped out a lock of her hair, and, yes, the door of Hard Passage had broken one of her fingernails. Was it so horrible that she wanted to go to school not looking like a savage? She looked down. The knuckles of her right hand were scuffed, bleeding a little. The excited newness she’d felt upon entering the school had burned down to exhausted anguish.
“I know you think I ignore you here,” she said.
“You do.”
“It’s just…” She shrugged miserably. “I’m trying to make everyone happy, all right? Including myself. Including myself.”
He said nothing, keeping his eyes on his gorp, pouring from hand to bag.
She turned on a heel. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Hey,” Doug said.
She stopped. Sighed. Didn’t turn back. But she did lower the defensive set of her shoulders.
“I’ll track down Jackson at lunch,” Doug said. “Tell him sorry.”
Liv listened and waited.
“Little weirdo only did it because we asked,” he added.
Liv nodded at the stairs in front of her. “Let’s just try to get through this year with minimum catastrophes. It’s our last year, you know?”
“I wish it weren’t,” Doug said softly.
“Come on,” she said. “You hate school.”
“I know you want everything to change, Liv, but what comes after this? For me? I just wish … things could stay the same.”
Liv closed her eyes for a second, absorbing another small slash of pain. She’d been able to prod Doug on Sunday morning precisely because she’d been looking at his back, not his face, and the same thing held true here. With her back turned, a speck of truth could be set free.
“Things can’t.”
Silence from Doug. The rustle of gorp had stopped. She couldn’t even hear him breathe.
“Better get to class,” he said, and his lack of acknowledgment that no one would care if Doug Monk made it to class on time was the last jab of pain Liv could bear. She nodded, grateful for being granted release, and rushed up the stairs while wondering what would happen if she turned around. What would it look like to stare truth in the face after two years of avoiding it? Maybe it would feel like freedom, like destroying old traps instead of setting them, over and over, despite knowing there was nothing new to catch.