Chapter 19
CALEB
I’m the biggest idiot on the planet.
I’ve been calling and texting Liv pretty much constantly since she ran, and there’s no response. I keep thinking the next time I tap her number I’ll find out I’m blocked.
But somehow, not being blocked is even worse.
She’s not looking at her phone at all. She could be spiraling…
My parents took Daisy home with them for a sleepover after Mom pulled me aside to tell me she hoped I could make things right with Liv.
And that was the first thing I tried to do. But when I came back here and knocked on her door, she didn’t answer. No one did, and I know she’s got two roommates.
I’ve been pacing the hallway for a while now, not sure what my next move is. I know it’s a long shot, but I decide to head around back and see if there are lights on in her apartment.
It’s cold out here, and the moon is full. Maybe some fresh air will jumpstart my brain, and help me figure out what I could ever do to make things right, even if I do find her.
I have an image of myself climbing up to her balcony like Romeo, and spouting poetry to her to convince her to hear me out.
I think I could make the climb, but I’ve never been good with words.
And I don’t deserve to be heard anyway.
Turns out it doesn’t matter. When I make it around to the west wing of Hall House, I can see immediately that there are no lights on in Liv’s apartment.
Running a hand through my hair, I take another deep breath and wonder again what I’m supposed to do next.
I try calling one more time, and it goes straight to voicemail. I briefly debate leaving another message, but I decide to send another text instead. She probably doesn’t want to hear my voice, but maybe she’ll look at her phone at some point.
im so sorry
i understand that you don’t want to talk
please just let me know you are someplace safe
Unsurprisingly, the text goes unanswered, like all the ones above it.
My feet carry me to one of the stone benches along the edge of the yard and I sit, looking up at the dark windows of Liv’s apartment and trying to get my mind around all that’s happened tonight.
Can she really be that same girl from high school?
I find myself thinking back to my social life in those days, something I don’t really like to do very often.
I wasn’t popular in elementary school or middle school. I’m naturally pretty quiet, and all my free time was dedicated to hockey. Even while I was in school, I spent a lot of my time just trying not to fall asleep after late practices, and the rest of it trying to keep on top of my schoolwork.
But in high school, I guess the social parameters changed. All of a sudden, the big quiet guy who scored goals on the hockey team was somebody everyone wanted to know, especially when it started getting around that I had a real shot to go pro.
I didn’t need to try to have friends—they just came to me. And when Angel Covington decided I was boyfriend material and took it upon herself to personally address my wardrobe, I went from a quiet athlete to a sort of unofficial king of high school.
I’ll be honest, it felt good at first. Everyone knew my name. No one thought I was too quiet, or that I was a weirdo who fell asleep in class from time to time. I was CALEB STONE, all-caps.
It was fun to feel important. And Angel was like no one I’d ever met before—quick with a quip and snarky behind absolutely everyone’s backs. Even her crew of besties got trash-talked whenever they weren’t around. She made me feel special, like we were above it all.
But then there were the people she teased. There was the guy with thick glasses and a long wiry body, Arnie Finkler, who she called Rat Fink. When he walked by, she would accuse him of looking for some cheese to steal.
Tonya Miller was a beautiful girl in our year, who Angel decided was “easy.” She would tell the craziest stories about the stuff Tonya had done with boys at parties. Looking back now, I doubt any of those stories were even true.
There were others too, of course. But no one got Angel’s full wrath like Twiggy the Piggy.
She was a couple of years behind me, but I remember she was a big girl with pretty brown hair. I never really saw her eyes, because she kept them down on the floor whenever she had to pass anywhere close to our group.
If she had looked up, I like to think I would have recognized those beautiful eyes even all these years later. I know I can’t stop thinking about them now.
“What a pizza face,” Angel would whisper loudly enough it was clear she wanted to be heard. “Wow. Somebody got hit with the ugly stick.”
Plenty of kids had skin problems in school, and Angel delighted in pointing it out. But this girl made the mistake of turning beet-red the first time Angel said it. And that was her downfall.
Angel tried out various names on her over the next couple of weeks, like she was deciding on an outfit. But when she landed on Twiggy the Piggy, the other kids started laughing too. And that was it.
I didn’t join in when Angel made fun of people, but I stood there silently, like a big dumb statue every single time she made someone miserable.
I witnessed it all, and I remember how Twiggy would hunch her shoulders, put her head down, and look like she wanted to disappear every time she had to get past us in the halls.
But no matter how hard she tried, she never managed it without being tormented, shoved, and oinked at.
Thinking about it now, I don’t know how she did it. I wanted to cry whenever my dad yelled at me for being lazy on the ice, or not trying hard enough. And there was no one there to witness that.
I don’t think I could have held it together as bravely as Liv did getting tormented in public like that, not even once. And I’m sick when I think about how many times I just watched her be humiliated.
I always justified it by telling myself that I never made fun of those kids. That was Angel. It was just something she did or something that happened.
But I know now that I have to take full responsibility—and if I’m being honest, I knew it back then, too. Whether I said a word or not, I absolutely had a real role in her cruelty.
If I’d told her to, Angel might have stopped.
But I was too wrapped up in my own insecurities to feel empathy for anyone else.
I’m up off the bench again, refreshing my phone, though I don’t know what I think I’m going to say to Liv even if I can get a hold of her.
I’m sorry I stood by and let someone ruin your life?
I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to lift one little finger to make it stop?
I pick my way down the hillside toward the pavilion and my heart gives a tug. I had pictured proposing to Liv here one day, maybe in the spring when the flowers would be in bloom all around us.
When I close my eyes, I can see her hazel eyes lighting up as I slide the ring onto her finger and know we’ll belong to each other forever.
But I know that will never happen now.
I don’t deserve her.
In the moonlight, with the huge shape of Hall House looming on the hillside above, I feel like a lonely ghost, haunting the places where I used to live.
But that’s just another excuse to do nothing.
I’m a real man, with real responsibilities.
I might not have Liv in my life anymore, but I have my team to answer to, and most importantly, I have Daisy to love and be my best self for.
A whole lot of people would be grateful for what I have left in my life.
And that gets me thinking all over again.
I can’t undo the past. And I can’t make things right with Liv.
But if I really want to be the man I know I can be, I can do something.
I head back up to Hall House, ready to get on the computer and do some digging.