by Daisy Allen
“Malynda!” I hear him come running after me. I can’t wait for the elevator so I race for the stairs, running down them, my face drenched with tears. Tears for him. For my Xavier. For the sweet boy I kissed by the lake, who gave me his heart. And for the man who still holds mine. Who I hurt. Who I almost killed.
“Don’t follow me!” I yell over my shoulder, as I turn to see him almost catch up to me.
“Where are you going? What’s wrong?” he gasps.
I reach the bottom of the stairs and he jumps the last few steps and grabs me around the waist, spinning me around to face him.
“Malynda! What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry! Oh my god, Xavier! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” I sob, barely able to recognize his features through the blur of the downpour of saltwater from my eyes.
“What are you talking about? Tell me!” he says, shaking me, panicked.
“I’m so sorry I left. I should never have left Maine. I should’ve stayed… forever!”
“What are you saying?”
“I ruined everything when I left! I shouldn’t have gone. I was stupid, I was so stupid!”
“No, no, honey! You had to leave, we BOTH had to leave! Our lives weren’t meant to be confined to that small town! You were destined for bigger things. My beautiful dancer girl,” he says, desperately, pushing back my hair, holding my face in his hands.
“But it ruined everything! Everything! I should’ve stayed and waited for you to come with me,” I scream, almost hysterical.
He doesn’t say anything and pulls me against him. The sobs wrack through my body so strong I feel like my bones are rattling.
“Shhhh, baby girl, shhhh,” he whispers, trying to calm me.
But I can’t be calmed.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I sob against his chest. Over and over and over.
“It’s okay, we’re here together now. It took a little longer than expected. But I found you.”
I pull away and look at him and I see it. I see what his mother was talking about.
The fear.
The fear that I put there.
That I can’t do anything to take away.
I sniff and wipe my eyes on the back of my hand, trying to control my breath.
“I… I need to go home.” I say, my body suddenly so tired I can barely stand.
“Come on, I’ll take you.” I can’t even argue, I just let him lead me out the front entrance, leaning against him as he gestures to the doorman for a cab.
Closing my eyes, I lean my head on his shoulder, listening to his breath and matching it with my own. At some point, I feel him guide me into a car and slide in next to me. He mumbles something to the driver and we slide into traffic, the momentum rocking me against him, my head against his chest, his hand on my back, soothing me.
“What happened? What triggered this?” he asks and I can barely answer.
“Your mother… said…” I struggle to say.
He sighs, deep. “Ah. I shouldn’t have brought you there. I thought… I thought she’d be happy to meet you. To know I found you.”
“She said… you…”
“Shhh… don’t listen to her. She is just very protective of me. She thinks she understands what happened, but she doesn’t.”
I shuffle back so I can look up at him.
“Xavier… did you… were you really trying to die?” His breath is sharp, surprised; then lips tighten for a moment while he contemplates his response. “Tell me the truth.”
"Malynda, trying to die and not having a reason to live, are two different things." Now it's my turn to gasp. "Wait, listen to me. Yes, I went through a time when I was just going through the motions. And I… didn't want to be here. It hurt, Malynda. It hurt with every breath, to not know where you were, what you were doing, what happened to you. But there finally came a time I just got used to the idea, that I wasn't going to have the same kind of life other men do. I wasn't going to fall in love with another woman, have a family. That part of me was dead. So, I live a life most people don't understand. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning. Because it does. It just doesn't look like what other people expect when they examine their own lives. And hey, Kaine's life was just the same. And look at what he eventually found."
“Do you… do you think fate brought them together?” I ask though I’m not sure I want to know what the answer is. I’m not sure I believe in fate. Mine has done me no favors.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe sometimes, people defy the fate that was meant for them.” He looks down at me, and brushes a hair from my cheek.
“I love you, Xavier. I never stopped loving you.”
“I know.”
“How do you know? After everything I did. After all that time apart.”
“Some things transcend time and space, Malynda.”
I sigh and melt into him. His fate for having me in his life is even worse than mine.
Twenty-four
Him
She feels like a rag-doll in my arms as I lead her down the hallway to her apartment. I know this building, I pass it almost every day on the way to work. And here she’s been all this time. I guess I wasn’t as alert as I thought I’d been. I thought I’d committed to memory every face that I’d seen in Manhattan these last twelve years, and in ways I have. I see people in restaurants I remember passing in a Barnes and Noble three years ago. I see women with new husbands, children turn into adults, widows with old flames all the time. I see them all. But I never saw her.
Maybe it was fate.
We come to a stop outside her apartment, and she hands me the key, her face almost white from bloodlessness. I don’t know what my mother said exactly, but it shocked the very life out of her.
I slide the key into the lock, but there’s no need. It’s not locked.
“Malynda, did you lock the door last time you left?”
She lifts her head off my shoulder. “Yes, of course. I always do. Why?” The hackles on the back of my neck spring to life. Something’s not right.
“Wait here,” I say, and she nods, confused.
I push the door open.
To complete and utter destruction.
“Oh my god!” she gasps behind me, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, scared.
The apartment is completely trashed. A bookcase in the foyer as you walk into her home is lying on the ground, its contents scattered all over the floor. Furniture is turned over, drawers pulled out and emptied. Broken glass and ornaments shattered and strewn everywhere.
Whatever they were looking for, they were very thorough. My hand is on my phone ready to call the police, but I need to make sure she’s okay first.
“Oh my god,” she gasps again. “What happened..?” She steps in behind me, her hand clutching at my arm, looking around at the wreckage of her home. “I’ve been robbed?”
“I… think so. Is anything missing?” I say, spotting the TV knocked onto the ground, its screen smashed. TVs aren’t the commodity they used to be, and it might be hard to carry one out of here without being noticed.
“I… I can’t even tell.”
She stumbles deeper into the apartment and I follow her. It's a large apartment for Manhattan. Not as large as mine, but decent. We pass something that looks like a guest room and then into a master suite. Her bedroom. This room hasn't fared well either. It looks like the entire contents of her closet have been dragged onto the bed and floor of her bedroom. The curtains pulled from their rods and left piled on the floor. She points to the nightstand and her jewelry box is open and empty.
“I… I had a lot of jewelry in there,” she says, and then sobs. “They took my grandmother’s ring.”
I feel something crack in my heart. I know how much she loved that ring. She’s been wearing it since I met her. “I so sorry, sweetheart. So your jewelry is gone, anything else?”
She just shakes her head, her mouth gaping open, trying to take everything in.
“I… I do
n’t know. I can’t tell,” her voice catches on her throat.
“It’s okay, just sit down. I’m going to call the police. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this, okay?”
She just nods and I clear a spot for her to sit on the side of her bed, trying to breathe through the fury. Who the fuck would do this? Mess with her? They must have been watching for some time, knowing that she wasn't spending the night here last night. I'm almost relieved. Relieved that she had been with me and not here. Who knows what might have happened to her if she had been here.
The dial tone barely loops once before I hear her choke on a scream. I turn and see her throw something clear across the room, her face blazing red, her eyes wide, terrified. I hang up the phone and reach out to her,
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
She just shakes her head, her eyes growing wilder and wilder.
“Malynda!” I yell, shaking her.
It only momentarily shocks her out of her trance and she points to the object laying on the floor.
Running over, I pick it up off the ground.
It's a ballet shoe. Worn. I turn it over and recognize the handwriting on the sole. It says, "Malynda …" Her name. And attached to the ribbon is a note.
“I’m back. Did you miss me?” And it’s signed “DR.”
What does this mean?
“Malynda.” I read off the slipper again. And something clicks in my brain.
I sit down next to her, pulling her into my arms, squeezing her hand and giving her a moment to breathe. When her breath is steady, I tell her once and for all.
“I think it’s time you told me what happened twelve years ago.”
Twenty-five
Her
“It started the moment I got to New York. The moment I stepped into my freshman contemporary dance class. The moment he saw me. I thought at first it was just the way he looked at everyone, all the students, girls and boys, sizing them up from the start, picking his favorites, his prodigies. I was so stupid. I thought he liked me for my dancing.”
Her voice is quiet but steady. She stares out the window as she speaks, her hands clasped in her lap, eyes lost in the memory. I tell myself I won’t interrupt until she’s done. I don’t want to spook her, stop her. I need to know it all.
“He never really said anything that I thought was out of the ordinary. It was just the looking, the staring. But that’s what dance teachers do, I told myself, they watch your every movement. I was used to it. I should’ve listened to my instincts. It didn’t feel the same. But I’d worked my whole life to be there, I wasn’t going to ruin my chance. No, I wanted to make the most of it, no matter what.” She nods, as if her past was reminding her of her reasons.
“About a month in, the looking moved onto touching. Again, it wasn’t anything I could pinpoint, instructors touch us all the time, helping our angles, our turn out, making sure our positions are correct. Even a ten-degree difference in the turn of your hips sets the good dancers from the best. I wanted to learn it all. I almost welcomed the touches, because I knew I was improving with each one. Then he started singling me out, picking me for demonstrations in front of the class, praising me in front of everybody. The other girls both loved me and hated me in equal turn. I didn’t really have any friends. I would spend my mornings in dance class, my afternoons studying and my night time writing letters to you. I missed you so much, Xavier, so much. It was almost unbearable.”
Her rhythm breaks for a moment and she turns to me, her eyes sad. I give her a gentle nod, encouraging her to continue. She gives me a tight smile and then turns back to the film running through her brain.
"He asked to see me once, after class. It sounded like just an opportunity to talk about my future. I was the last one to leave one day and he came up and asked me if I had thought about what kind of dance company I wanted to work with. I told him I would work with any that would take me. I just wanted to be given a chance to perform. He told me not to be small-minded and that if I worked hard, I could pick and choose who I could work for. And then he told me to come by the studio later that night and we would talk about some of my options. I didn't really think anything of it. I showed up that night and we didn't talk for very long. There were a few stragglers training with one of the other instructors, so he just handed me a few brochures for local dance companies and told me we'd talk another time. But after that, the uneasiness I felt at the start was growing. So I put it off for a while. He didn't seem too bothered by it, so I thought maybe I was just imagining it."
She shrugs and then takes a deep breath. I can sense that whatever’s coming next is hard for her. Hard to say, hard to remember. I look down and notice her hands that were laying still on her lap are now wringing themselves. Her fingers nervously tugging on each other as she struggles with her story.
“Go on, sweetheart,” I urge her gently and she just nods.
“About six weeks into the semester, we were getting ready for a performance exam. I was having trouble with it, my pas de deux partner wasn’t very good and I felt like he wasn’t doing the lift right, which affected my own performance. He came up to me at the end of class and said, 'This first exam is very important, it's going to set the tone for the rest of your time here. The way you're going, you might not even pass. If you want help, I only have tonight to help you. All the other girls have booked up my other one-on-one sessions.' I panicked. As I said, I'd worked hard to be there. If the person who was going to be grading me didn't think I was going to do well then I was going to get all the help I could."
She takes one long, deep breath.
“I showed up that night, and he was alone. He was… strangely quiet. He kind of just murmured a hello and then we warmed up together, but he didn’t talk much. Once we were done, he pointed to the barre and he followed behind me as I walked over. Then, I caught him in the mirror, one second too late. He ran up and grabbed me pushing me up against the barre, hard. I can still feel it digging hard against my ribs, bruising me. He pushed his mouth against mine and started kissing me really roughly. I was so surprised, I didn’t even know how to react. I tried to push him away, but I couldn’t. He was too strong. I screamed. But nobody heard me. He didn’t say anything, he just kept running his hands all over me, trying to pull down my tights. I just kept kicking my legs, and struggling, trying to break free.”
Her voice grows louder, shaking. Her hands tearing at each other, her skin rubbed raw. But I know I can’t stop her. I close my eyes and try to swallow the bile rising up my throat. I don’t want to hear this, but I know I have to. This is why. This is why our lives turned out the way it did.
“I kept trying to scream, I remember he slapped me. It was so hard. I saw stars. His mouth was all over my face, my neck, even while he tried to… tried to pull my tights down. I did everything I could to just keep moving, struggling, kicking my feet out, freeing my arms. I think I even tried to bite him. One of my kicks finally connected with his shin or something and he let go, just for a moment and I manage to break free.”
My heart leaps in my chest, as if I'm there watching it.
“I ran as fast as I could but he chased me. I didn’t think I could make it to the door before he’d reach me so I picked up one of my slippers I saw laying on the floor and flung it at him. It hit him on the side of his head but it didn’t really slow him down. He grabbed me from behind and threw me down onto the ground.”
I almost throw up in my mouth. I want her to stop. Tell me it’s all just a bad dream. This never happened. She’s making it up. The thoughts swirl in my head so fast I can barely process them. No, I can, I can see them, they’re just buried under the one clear thought that is flashing clearer than anything else; I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find him and I’m going to fucking kill him.
“He… started to kneel down, to straddle over me, I can still see his face, he was sweating, not even looking at me, like he was in some sort of haze and… I’m not sure how but I lifted up my knee and it�
�� it hit him in the groin. He doubled over and I… got up and ran to the door. I could hear him yelling after me that he was going to kill me if I ever told anyone about what just happened. That he knew everything about me. And to never come back to his class. I… I never did.”
She stops.
But she doesn’t move.
I want to feel relief, that that’s all that happened. But I know there’s more. I know how it ended. With us apart. There had to be more.
“Malynda,” I say, after she’s quiet for almost a minute. The sound of her name triggers something, and she turns to me, shaking her head. “You can tell me. Nothing you will say will change the way I feel about you.”
She sighs, her shoulders dropping after the tension from the story.
“If only that were true, Xavier.” She says and leans over and presses a kiss against my lips. “One last kiss,” she whispers.
Then she sits up and tells me the rest of the story.
Twenty-six
Her
“I never went back to class. I went to my dorm, packed up my things and left that night. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was so scared. I didn’t think anyone was going to believe me if I said anything, and I… I believed his threats. I believed he would hurt me. I’d seen that emptiness in his eyes that told me he would kill me if he had the chance. So I just left. I packed up everything I had into a bag and left. I didn’t have a lot of money. I couldn’t tell my parents what had happened so I couldn’t ask them for money. I stayed in a cheap motel for about a week and spent almost all my savings.”
“Why… why didn’t you tell me?” Xavier asks.
“What could you have done?” I ask him. “You were just an eighteen-year-old boy as well. What would you have done?”
