Yeah, kind enough to let us use her office while she sits two feet away listening to our conversation. That totally makes her the best.
My palms sweat because they must have found out about Chris Fenner. And instead of going straight to the police, they’re going to make me talk about him, here in this room with the guidance counselor.
“Babygirl—” Dad clears his throat, looks swiftly at Crumbaugh and back at me. “Theodora, there’s been a new development. With Donovan.”
“He’s talking?” My voice is so shaky it takes even me by surprise.
“Well, no,” Dad says. He leans forward a little, his hands on his knees. “But the arraignment for Donovan’s abductor was this morning.”
Right. How I managed to forget that for even a second is beyond me. Maybe my conversation with Klein wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
“He pled not guilty.” Dad sounds as if it physically pains him to say so.
Not guilty.
I will have to testify.
A headache throbs immediately behind my eyes. It pulses steady and hard in the same spot as I think about what this means. Chris Fenner was many things—charming, focused, pouty when he didn’t get his way—but he wasn’t stupid. Whether Donovan went voluntarily or not, Chris must think that he won’t say anything to get him in serious trouble.
“It’s a complicated case.” Dad pushes up his glasses. “Donovan isn’t talking, and he also wouldn’t let anyone touch him when they got him back here. Of course some of that—that man’s DNA was found on his clothing—”
“DNA?” I practically whisper as I stare at the perfectly pressed sleeve of his white dress shirt. He’s wearing small, oval cuff links. Silver.
“Not—no. Hair. Skin cells.” Dad scratches at his clean-shaven chin. “Anything you’d find on someone who’d been living in the same house, but not enough to prove anything that happened was . . .”
“Of a sexual nature,” Mom finally pipes in, her eyes cast down on her lap. She crosses and uncrosses her thin legs a couple of times. Runs a hand over her short, curly hair before she brings it down to her lap. “They couldn’t prove anything like that happened.”
I think the room would collectively blush—my mother more than anyone else—if we weren’t so disgusted by the topic at hand. My eyes rest on the finger-painted picture hanging on the wall behind Crumbaugh. It’s framed.
“They couldn’t do a . . . thorough test,” Dad says. “It was Donovan’s choice and he refused . . .”
Shit.
“Maybe this Chris guy was an idiot who didn’t understand you can’t go running around with kids half your age,” Dad says. “Maybe he didn’t do anything to him.” He shakes his head. “But it’s just so rare.”
He clears his throat. “The prosecution’s testimony will be crucial to the case. Donovan’s old neighbors and classmates—anyone who can speak about him or the situation so we can make sure this guy gets the maximum sentence.”
I can’t focus. My eyes flicker back and forth so rapidly, I get just snatches of reality—my mother’s knee and my father’s teeth and that stupid fucking mug of Crumbaugh’s with the hot-pink lipstick pressed into the rim.
Dad: “And the people who saw him the day he went missing.” His voice softens. “They will have to speak, too.”
“When is it?” My voice is strangled. Mangled by fear.
“It’s set for the third week in January. A little less than three months.”
I am numb.
If I don’t say anything, Chris will probably do a few years of time, followed by parole and community service. Then he could move wherever he wanted and start a new life. If I don’t say anything, they won’t have much to go on at all. Not unless someone else has the kind of story I do.
Part Two
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I SPIN AROUND ON ONE FOOT, THE ROOM SWIRLING BY ME IN blurs of color and light. My leg extends from my hip in a straight line before it whips around to meet my body, over and over again. Spotting saves me from a serious case of dizziness; I train my eyes on a specific point across the room and never look away, not until that last possible second when I have to turn my head to keep up with my body. Air speeds by me so fast that it clicks in my ears, strong and steady like a metronome.
Fouettés.
Ruthie swears Margot Fonteyn was the greatest Odette/Odile. We’ve both watched endless productions of Swan Lake, from those put on by the senior companies before us to videos of famous performances to a night at the Joffrey that has been my best birthday present yet. Fonteyn was marvelous, the textbook example of the role, no doubt about it.
Natalia Makarova’s version is everything to me, though. I cried when I first saw her perform. Her control and precision appeared so effortless, her acting so natural that I truly believed she had turned into Odile, the seductive black swan that danced through the night.
Odile is known for her thirty-two fouettés in a row. No break, just balanced on that one pointe shoe, the movement signifying the beautiful strength of ballet. I can execute twelve nearly flawless ones without stopping and sixteen if I really push myself. You get in a zone, like a human spinning top. Ready for the next one—always ready for the next one—because if you aren’t you’ll lose the momentum. Interrupt the machine. Break up the story.
I won’t make it all the way there, but I want to get as close to thirty-two as I can. I have to dance better than ever to catch the eye of the audition tour judges for summer intensives, but I don’t just want them to notice me—I want to astound them.
My feet are cramping, the bones aching for relief. I turn once more, then stop. The finish is sloppy, but I have the room to myself, so no one else saw. And I’ve been going for a while. My leotard is soaked.
I stare at myself in the mirror. I used to do this, just stand here and stare, until my body appeared so contorted, I could have been looking at it through a fun-house mirror. Until I was just a misshapen blob of a person with a neck made of putty and noodles for legs. I used to stare until I was satisfied, until I looked nothing like the actual girl who stared back at me. I hated the distorted twist of my limbs and torso, but I hated my real reflection even more. It was never thin enough.
I turn to the side now and assess my profile. Run my hands down the length of my body and wonder what Chris would think about me. Back when we were together, some of the girls at school had already transitioned to real bras, but I barely needed the training kind. I liked that I was thinner, more disciplined than my peers, but I hated that you could mistake me for a child if I turned the wrong way.
Chris didn’t mind. He told me I was perfect the way I was, that he wished all the girls he’d dated had looked like me. I had no reason to doubt him. My chest may have been the flattest in the seventh grade, but that didn’t stop him from treating me like someone older, like one of the girls he’d known whose body didn’t look like mine.
One day, he got mad at me. We were at the abandoned park, already in the backseat of his car. His shirt was off. I’d gotten into the habit of removing it as soon as I could because Chris’s shirts always smelled like mildew, as if they’d been left in the washer too long.
I usually wore a cotton triangle bra. Simple and unlined and enough to save me from complete embarrassment in the locker room during gym class. But that day I wore my new bra. The one I bought with my own money and on my own time, so my mother wouldn’t ask any questions. The one I hid in the back of my closet so she couldn’t find it when searching for stray laundry.
I wanted to show Chris how grown up I was. He looked especially cute that day; he’d just gotten a haircut and it showed off more of his chiseled face, of his smooth cheekbones and strong brow. And I liked the way he looked with his shirt off. He worked out—a lot, from what I could tell. His chest was smooth and broad, his arms ropy and strong with lean muscle.
But he didn’t seem happy about my bra. His face darkened as his fingers tangled around the clasps in back and after a few moments he gave up, threw his hands in the air, and said, “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s new.” I squished down into myself. My back suctioned to the sticky vinyl seat, my arms folded over the black lace cups of the bra that was causing all the trouble. “I thought you’d like it.” I paused, and after several seconds had passed and he still hadn’t said anything, I added, “I guess not.”
“Don’t start pouting on me now, Pretty Theo,” he’d said, in a gentler voice. He lightly ran a finger along the bridge of my nose. “I just like the other ones better.”
“They aren’t . . . babyish?”
They had to be. They were made for girls who don’t have real breasts yet. For little girls. He must have thought of me as a little girl when I wore those, not the thirteen-year-old mature enough to date someone five years older.
“Hey, hey. You’re not a baby,” Chris said, his voice steady and firm as he blinked at me with those eyes that I loved. “You’re not like other girls your age.”
He gave me a long, wet kiss on the mouth as if that signaled the end of the conversation, then glanced at the dashboard clock before his hand moved down to his belt buckle. I knew what that meant. As if I’d needed confirmation, he said, “Come on. I have to be back at the store in twenty.”
Still, if Chris liked me as I was, small chest and little-girl body, how could I complain? I would have done anything to continue being the object of his desire. I never put on the black lace bra again after that day. It’s at the bottom of the box with Phil’s letters and Chris’s daisy because I don’t know where else to put it. And I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it because good memory or bad, sometimes I’d needed proof that our relationship had existed.
I look at the mirrored wall of the studio and wonder what Chris would think of me now. What will he think when he looks at me across the courtroom with those amber eyes that used to be able to persuade me to do anything? And what will I say when they ask me if I knew him? It’s been four years.
Four years that remain almost a complete mystery.
I have to talk to Donovan. I have to keep calling until he answers the phone. I’ll go over to his house if it comes to that, but I have to know:
Did you want to go?
If he can answer that one question, I’ll know what I have to do. Keep quiet about my relationship with Chris and go on with my life, or confess everything to send him to prison.
Everyone thinks he abused Donovan, but I have to hear it with my own ears.
My eyes focus on the mirror again. My hips are more rounded now—too round for my liking. My thighs are a bit larger than when I was with Chris, but most of it is muscle. They were the first place I gained weight after Juniper Hill, and sometimes I’d sit on the edge of the tub before my shower and squeeze my hands around them. Evaluating every millimeter of my skin, looking for signs of cellulite.
I don’t do that now. Not every day. But I’ve gotten lazy over the last year or so. Forgetting that a slice of pizza here or a cup of frozen yogurt there adds up. Everyone tells you “a spoonful of this” or “a little bite of that” won’t hurt, but those spoonfuls and bites could be the difference between sixteen fouettés and thirty-two. Between dancing at Marisa’s studio for another year before I graduate or going to year-round ballet school.
Or it could all mean nothing. The trial is a little over two months away, and auditions start a week after that. If I find out Chris abducted Donovan, if I have to tell my story to a courtroom, I’ll be judged for much more than my dancing. Or worse, they might not give me a chance. They might recognize my name, my face, and politely but firmly suggest it’d be better if I focused my energy elsewhere. Ruthie said it was about the dancing, but I can’t imagine anyone would want me affiliated with their program if my ex-boyfriend turns out to be the worst kind of criminal.
• • •
I run into Hosea in the lobby of the studio. He’s coming from the direction of Marisa’s office and looks surprised to see me. This is the first time we’ve been alone since the science lab.
“Hey,” he says, rearranging his backpack on his shoulder as he smiles at me.
They’re becoming easy now, his smiles. It shouldn’t be so hard for me to ignore someone who has a girlfriend. Especially after what Klein said. What Ellie suspects. And how bad I feel when I think about what we’ve been doing.
We still text. I’m happy to know he’s thinking about me, that he wants to be with me, but sometimes I think it’s better that we can’t be alone very often. Because he may never break up with Ellie. Or worse, what if he broke up with her for me, only to end things if I tell people the truth about Chris and me at the trial?
“Hi.” I smile back at him. Cautious, but grateful that for the most part, the studio is a safe place.
“How often do you stay late?” he says before I get a chance to ask what he was doing in Marisa’s office. He holds the door open for me and I look at him before I cross through, simultaneously appreciating and hating the gentlemanly gesture. It makes it that much harder to stop liking him.
“A few times a week now. Just getting in some extra practice.”
“Like you need it.” He closes the door firmly behind him, then digs around for his keys in the front pocket of his backpack. “You want a ride?”
“I can take the train.” It’s automatic, something I’ve become accustomed to saying when people offer. And I’m glad, because otherwise I would have hesitated. Possibly said yes as soon as he asked, because sometimes it takes a while for my heart to catch up to my brain. And of course I would rather ride in his car.
“Do your parents pick you up at the station?” He looks at me curiously, and I wonder if he knows how hard I’ve been trying to avoid him.
“No, they trust me enough to drive there.” I slip on my wool gloves before sticking my hands into the pockets of my peacoat. “Just not into the city.”
“Well, it’s on my way, so I’ll give you a ride,” he says, already starting to walk.
I stand in place on the concrete. “I shouldn’t. I . . . We shouldn’t.”
He stops, turns to look at me. Eyebrows wrinkled, gray eyes blinking in confusion. “I know we haven’t met up lately, but . . . did I do something to piss you off?”
I stare at the brick on the building’s exterior. Red. Weathered. It matches the corridors inside. “No, I just . . . Things happen when we’re alone and maybe we should try to be good.”
“Oh.” He shifts his weight, shifts his backpack. Doesn’t quite meet my eye. He looks out at the street, packed with honking cabs and hissing buses and commuters road-raging their way back to the suburbs. Then he nods. “We’ll both be good, okay? It’s not just about that. I like talking to you, Theo.”
Oh. Maybe I’m weak, but knowing it’s not just physical, that he doesn’t expect anything . . . it makes me feel better about accepting his offer. So I do.
He’s parked a couple of blocks over from the studio, and as soon as we’re out of sight I feel him move closer. A moment later, his arm is around me. I’m stunned at first. No one has ever been affectionate with me in public. Well, Klein, I guess, but he doesn’t count.
“Is this okay?” Hosea asks when I remain silent. “I swear, I’m not trying anything. You looked cold.”
I take in a breath. Let it out. This isn’t being good, but I say, “It’s fine.”
And a few seconds later, I relax into him. Because being under Hosea’s arm feels good and I need to feel good right now. Friends can put their arms around each other. I do it all the time with Sara-Kate and Phil.
We fall into step together as we make our way across the cold pavement. It’s supposed to snow this weekend; if we get as much as the weathermen are saying, we might have a white Thanksgiving in a couple of w
eeks. I don’t mind the snow, but it makes my parents flip out even more about my driving. They start dumping sandbags in the trunk of my car and yelling out safety instructions every time I leave the house and I think they’d put snow chains on my tires if I let them.
I hate when we reach Hosea’s car because it means he has to move his arm. I felt so cozy under there. Comfortable, like I belonged.
And then I squash that. We’re friends.
He opens the door for me again and I say thank you as I slide into the passenger seat of his little orange hatchback. Fasten my seat belt and sit with my gloved hands in my lap as I wait for him to get in.
The engine starts up after a few tries and he twists the knob on the heater but the car has been sitting too long. The vents send out a rush of cold air, so he turns it off again. “I hate this thing. Nothing works.”
“It’s not so bad,” I say, squeezing my fingers together so he won’t see them shake from the cold. “At least it still runs, right?”
“I guess.” He kind of laughs as he rubs his hands together and blows on them. “Klein won’t ride in here. He thinks any car without seat warmers should be taken off the road.”
“Classic Klein.” I shake my head, then: “I’m not exactly his biggest fan right now.”
I look at the people sitting in the tiny café across the street from our metered parking spot. Two girls in dark sweaters, laughing over giant mugs of coffee. It reminds me of Sara-Kate, how it’s so strange for me to be keeping another secret from her. But there’s no need to tell her, because nothing’s going to happen between Hosea and me. We’re both being good. And there’s nothing to tell if we’re just friends, right?
“What did Klein do?” Hosea looks at me. Waiting. Ready. Maybe a little nervous.
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