Chap­ter 4 of If These Wings Could Fly fol­lows Leighton as she expe­ri­ences an uncom­fort­able and unex­pect­ed sit­u­a­tion after a mix-up with her lock­er assign­ment places her in the junior hall­way. This moment trig­gers a wave of long­ing, espe­cial­ly for the senior priv­i­leges she had eager­ly antic­i­pat­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly the access to the Senior Wall—a social space where seniors gath­er to express them­selves and con­nect with one anoth­er. For Leighton, this rep­re­sents a sym­bol of free­dom and belong­ing that she’s nev­er ful­ly expe­ri­enced. How­ev­er, as she nav­i­gates through the day, she can’t ignore the gap between her hopes and her real­i­ty. Her home life, marked by tur­bu­lence and insta­bil­i­ty, has often forced her to pri­or­i­tize keep­ing things togeth­er rather than ful­ly embrac­ing the typ­i­cal high school expe­ri­ences. As Leighton reflects on what she’s missed, her thoughts become tinged with the real­iza­tion that the nor­mal­cy oth­ers take for grant­ed has always seemed just out of reach for her.

Leighton’s day takes an unex­pect­ed turn when she runs into Liam McNa­ma­ra, a senior who’s well-known for his charm, pop­u­lar­i­ty, and lead­er­ship role as the stu­dent coun­cil vice pres­i­dent and a foot­ball play­er. In an awk­ward moment, Liam mis­tak­en­ly assumes that Leighton is some­one named Lyla, a girl he refers to as his cheer­leader part­ner. The misiden­ti­fi­ca­tion sets the stage for an uncom­fort­able inter­ac­tion that high­lights the dif­fer­ences between their social worlds. While Liam approach­es the sit­u­a­tion with his usu­al con­fi­dence, Leighton’s sharp, wit­ty response serves as a reminder of her emo­tion­al dis­tance and inter­nal strug­gles. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals much about their con­trast­ing ways of nav­i­gat­ing high school life: Liam, who is accus­tomed to being at the cen­ter of atten­tion, and Leighton, who feels dis­con­nect­ed from this world. Despite his attempt to smooth over the awk­ward moment, Leighton’s response is col­ored by the weight of her dif­fi­cult home life, which com­pli­cates her abil­i­ty to engage freely with oth­ers.

Their inter­ac­tion con­tin­ues as they begin to bond over their shared class in Advanced Place­ment Eng­lish, a sub­ject that offers them some com­mon ground despite their dif­fer­ences. Liam’s views on the class, as well as his can­did opin­ions about lit­er­a­ture, pro­vide a refresh­ing con­trast to the usu­al small talk that Leighton is used to. For a brief moment, she finds her­self con­nect­ing with him in a way she hadn’t expect­ed, drawn in by his sin­cer­i­ty. How­ev­er, as their con­ver­sa­tion deep­ens, Leighton finds her­self becom­ing more dis­tract­ed by her per­son­al thoughts. The weight of her trou­bled home life begins to intrude once again, and her ini­tial enjoy­ment of the con­ver­sa­tion starts to fade. She becomes acute­ly aware of the emo­tion­al tur­moil she car­ries, and the easy ban­ter between her and Liam takes on a heav­ier tone. As her inter­nal con­flict inten­si­fies, Leighton abrupt­ly asks for her book back, sig­nal­ing that the casu­al con­ver­sa­tion has crossed into an uncom­fort­able ter­ri­to­ry for her.

Leighton quick­ly ends the inter­ac­tion and walks away, over­come with a wave of anx­i­ety that forces her to retreat from the sit­u­a­tion. Her hasty exit high­lights her ongo­ing inter­nal strug­gle to main­tain con­trol over her emo­tions while nav­i­gat­ing social sit­u­a­tions that require a lev­el of open­ness she’s not yet ready to offer. The chapter’s end­ing under­scores Leighton’s desire for nor­mal­cy, a desire that she finds dif­fi­cult to achieve due to the emo­tion­al weight of her past. The rep­e­ti­tion of the word “nor­mal” serves as a pow­er­ful reminder of her inter­nal bat­tle to rec­on­cile the ide­al­ized ver­sion of high school life with the harsh real­i­ty she lives every day. For Leighton, this bat­tle is not just about sur­viv­ing high school but about try­ing to make sense of her iden­ti­ty in the face of a trou­bled home life and the emo­tion­al scars that still haunt her. The com­plex­i­ty of her jour­ney is mir­rored in the dif­fi­cul­ty she faces in find­ing peace with­in her­self and her rela­tion­ships with oth­ers.