“Get the fuck away from me,” Ellie says in one of the scariest voices I’ve ever heard. Low. No, guttural. Crawling up from the back of her throat like every single word is a challenge.
I look down at the floor, at the bottom of my dress, where the fabric ripped. Away from the taunting eyes of Klein, from the worry sketched across Hosea’s face. When I look up again it’s only because I hear Ellie crying.
Tears stream down both sides of her face as she looks at us, back and forth like if she stares hard enough this will all undo itself before her eyes. And it’s a weird thought, but she looks pretty as she cries. Vulnerable and sort of . . . soft.
She turns her swollen eyes on Hosea and keeps them there. “Why would you do this? Do you not care about me at all?”
“Ellie—” Hosea starts, his face still white under the buzzing fluorescents.
“I don’t know how you could do this after we’ve been together so long.” Her voice breaks as a fresh batch of tears brims over her eyelids, sends ebony ribbons spilling down her cheeks. “You text me every night just to say you love me. I can’t believe you would let me look like a fucking fool instead of breaking up with me.”
Nightly texts? He still loves her? No. She’s lying.
My head spins. I close my eyes and that makes it worse, so I grab onto the edge of the table. I wish I’d stayed on the floor.
“No one else knows,” Hosea says in a hollow voice.
Ellie snorts as her eyes dart over to Klein. “Not for long.”
“Hey, I haven’t said shit to anyone,” Klein says, holding up his hands. “Like I said, I was just looking out for—”
“Shut. Up. Klein.” Ellie pushes her palms into the surface of a lab table as she says this, as if she’s trying to gather strength before she speaks again. She stares at me for a while. Long enough for everything to turn cold. Then she wipes at the mascara pooling under her eyes, takes a deep breath, and walks out the door.
No fuck you, no threats of my life being over at this school. Not even a foreboding look thrown over her shoulder. And somehow, silence is scarier than anything I expected from her.
Hosea wipes a hand over his face. Looks at me and then away with damp eyes.
I go to him. “It’s okay.” I rub his arm. Up and down. Frantically. He can’t love her. “She had to find out about us eventually, right?”
What we have isn’t going away anytime soon. He knows that. The look in his eyes before they busted in—he doesn’t look at her like that, does he? That look was special. It was for me. This place is special. It’s ours. He can’t love her.
Silence. Even Klein decided to shut the hell up for a minute.
Hosea isn’t moving. He isn’t looking at me. He isn’t talking, which makes my mouth work overtime.
“We’re going to be okay, Hosea.” I slide my hand around his biceps and squeeze. I want Klein to leave so Hosea can wrap me in his arms again. So we can pick up where we left off. We’ll both feel better once we’re together again, alone. “She’s pissed now, but it’ll blow over and maybe one day she’ll—”
“Look, Theo, I like you. A lot. You’re sweet and beautiful and—you’re perfect. Special. You are.” He swallows hard. His shoulders are rounded, his hands braced against the lab table.
He doesn’t go on, but I know. From the tilt of his head and the squint of his eyes, I know what comes next.
“She doesn’t understand you. Not like I do.” My voice works hard to claw its way up, but it still comes out so very small.
“Maybe that’s my fault,” he says, with a long, heavy sigh. I look down at his hands. They tremble as they squeeze the edge of the table.
Klein coughs. We ignore him.
“Do you love her?” It chokes out of me in a ragged burst of air. Because it feels like someone is crushing my throat, like those could be my last words.
He’s hunched over the table, but his face says it all, reflects an emotion too painful to acknowledge but too serious to ignore: regret. “I . . . We’ve been together so long and—”
“Do you love her?” I stamp my foot against the floor. Like a child.
“She’s my girlfriend, Theo.” He’s still staring down at the table, but I don’t miss the irritation behind his words. Like I’m a nagging fly he’s been trying to swat away for months. Like he never felt anything for me at all.
He stands up straight, instantly shoves his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. Then he hesitates before delivering one last crippling blow. “Yes . . . I love her. I have to try to work things out. I can’t—we can’t be together. This is done.”
He blinks at me a couple of times before he starts walking toward the door. Chasing Ellie. Leaving me again. Forever, this time.
“Hosea, please—” I follow him. I grip his elbow before he can walk away from me. I failed with Chris, but I can make this work with Hosea. “I need you. Please stay and we can figure this out. We can, I know it.”
He shakes his head as he looks back at me one last time. “Theo.”
That’s it. My name used to sound like a promise from his mouth and now all it means is no. He doesn’t want me. He won’t love me. We are done.
He bumps into Klein as he passes. Hard. Shoulder to shoulder. A challenge. But even Klein isn’t stupid enough to screw with him now.
My body is leaden. So weighted down with disappointment and longing that I don’t think I’ll be able to walk back to the cafeteria, to find Sara-Kate and Phil and tell them to take me home.
My knees buckle and I crumple to the floor of the dirty science lab in my pretty purple dress. I could be sick right here, think I might actually vomit. But nothing would come up.
I’m empty.
I press my cheek to the cool linoleum as I wait for Klein to leave, for my breathing to return to normal, for my stomach to stop churning with shame. I have nothing left now. Ellie is right—everyone will know about this by Monday, if not by the end of the dance. I was Hosea’s secret because he didn’t want me as much as I wanted him. I was a diversion and he walked away from me as easily as Chris did.
I lie in a heap between the abandoned lab tables until Klein’s footsteps shuffle off down the hallway. I lie there alone and I think of all that I’ve lost and I wait for the tears to come but they never do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE MORNING I TESTIFY IS BITTERLY COLD.
An unforgiving Wednesday, with a wind that chills your bones as soon as you step outside, no matter how many layers of scarves and hats and gloves are wrapped around your body.
I watch the sun rise. Tucked behind the clouds, but it’s there. Lightening the sky’s inky canvas as the stars burn out like teeny-tiny lightbulbs, one by one. I’m standing in front of the window because I was tired of lying down. I didn’t sleep, not for more than a half hour or so at a time. The last couple of nights were like this, but last night was different because today I’ll be called to the stand.
Dad gets up to start the coffee. Once his footsteps have faded down the stairs, I pad across the hall to their bedroom. It smells like stale air and sweat. Sleep. My mother’s eyes open when I say her name. Slow and fluttery and a little confused.
Then she sits up and motions me toward the bed and I crawl in on Dad’s empty side. Mom pulls up the duvet to cover my shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
I curl into a ball, try to become as small as I feel inside. “Tired,” I say in a little voice. “Scared.”
Her hand smooths down the back of my hair as I close my eyes. “I know. But it’ll all be over soon and then things can go back to normal.”
Normal. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m no closer to a decision about what to say than I was four days ago. I even called Donovan’s house one last time, on Saturday night, and they ignored the call one last time.
“You’re going to do just fine,” Mom says, her voice soft
and smooth as satin. “Do you remember your first recital?”
I remember it. Vaguely, but I do. I was three years old and I completely choked. Somehow, even though we’d practiced on the stage in the high school’s auditorium, it looked bigger that night. Enormous. And the seats were full of adults I didn’t know. And the lights were too hot and too bright. I’d clung to the heavy stage curtain like it was my salvation.
“I wanted to pull you offstage, bring you down to sit in my lap, but your father wouldn’t let me,” she says. “He told me to let you stay up there, that if you didn’t want to go back to class after that night, we’d know ballet wasn’t for you. But if you still talked about it, you probably just had a little case of stage fright that would work itself out.”
“He said that?”
“He did. And he was right. Because the next year you were up there without a care in the world, front and center.” She bends her head to kiss my temple. “You were brave back then and you’ll be brave today. I know it. I love you, sweet girl.”
I take in a breath, exhale beneath the covers as I wonder if she’ll feel the same way when I’m done with my testimony. “Love you, too.”
We lie there in a cocoon of warmth and silence until the aroma of coffee wafts up the stairs, until Dad calls out that we need to start getting ready. We don’t want to be late.
• • •
Mom makes thermoses of coffee for her and Dad, one with green tea for me. Even my father looks like he has trouble eating this morning. He chews each bite of toast for a ridiculously long time. I manage two bites of a cereal bar and am genuinely surprised when it doesn’t come right back up.
We drive into the city with the soothing voices of NPR as our soundtrack. The cold, gray expressway matches the cold, gray skyline, as if all of Chicago is observing Donovan’s trial.
I look down at my phone, at the text from Phil telling me to kick some judicial ass, at the email Sara-Kate sent last night that says she loves me and knows I’ll do awesome. There’s even a text from Ruthie, sent late last night, telling me to call her if I needed to talk.
Nothing from Hosea, of course. I haven’t talked to him or seen him since the dance. I haven’t talked to anyone since winter formal. Opening statements were Monday, and my parents let me stay home because we knew I’d be called either the second or third day and it’s not like I could concentrate much on schoolwork anyway.
When I told Phil about Hosea, I think he was more annoyed than anything else—that he didn’t know we were hooking up, that it seemed like I didn’t trust him enough to keep my secret. Sara-Kate could have easily gone the “I told you so” route, but that’s not her style. She said she was sorry things ended so badly, and I knew she meant it.
If I close my eyes and think very hard, I can still feel his arms around me in the science lab. I can feel his warm lips pressing against mine, remember the way his heart beat steady and strong against my chest.
The reporters and photographers are stationed outside the courthouse because nobody can stand to miss a moment of this. We get a few looks as we walk up the steps; a few of the reporters shuffle over after they see photographers snapping pictures of us, figure we must be at least marginally important.
My parents shield me from them, and Donovan’s lawyer meets us on the front steps of the courthouse. Graham McMillan. He’s supposedly one of the best prosecuting attorneys in the Midwest. Some reports say he’s the best in the nation. Before I saw him on the news, talking about the case in a press conference, I expected him to be tall and imposing, gruff-voiced and fierce. But he’s short and has a baby face with chubby cheeks, and when I met him a few weeks before the trial, his eyes disappeared into half-moons when he smiled, when he shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me.
We didn’t talk much yesterday; there was a chance I could be called but I wasn’t, so I spent the day sitting in the hallway outside the courtroom, doing homework and listening to music and almost wishing I was inside so I could get it over with.
But this morning he’s clearly waiting for me, stops pacing as soon as he sees us. He greets my parents, then says he needs to steal me away before the trial starts. They hug and kiss me, say they’ll see me inside.
McMillan and I walk through the halls of the courthouse. Sterile and stately and old.
We ride the elevator up to another floor. It’s quiet. I think we might be the only people up here this early. McMillan walks to a machine that dispenses hot drinks and buys me a tea. I’m not thirsty but I hold on to the steaming paper cup and watch him pay for his coffee.
We blow on the tops of our drinks as we walk. I follow him until we reach one of the hard wooden benches at the end of the corridor, perch on its cool, worn edge.
McMillan takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. He looks at me. “Are you ready for this?”
I look down into my tea but I don’t drink from it. “Not really.”
“Just remember to take your time. Remember what we went over before—all you have to do is talk about that morning.” He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’m going to ask you some questions about the last time you saw Donovan, and then about how well you knew the defendant.”
The defendant.
I haven’t seen him in person yet, but you can’t turn on the TV or open the newspaper without seeing his face. He’s cleaned up for the trial. Shaved the bushy beard he had when they found him with Donovan so he looks more like he did when I used to know him. Younger. Friendly. He was wearing a suit the last two days, with a tie and all. I’d never even seen him in a button-down shirt.
The first day we drove out to the park, he asked if I’d ever had a boyfriend. I looked at him shyly as I said no, as I wondered if he’d think I was a baby for being so inexperienced and turn the car around. But he just looked over and smiled. Rested his hand on my knee as he said he was glad, because I was special and he wanted to be my first.
I didn’t know what to say to him, so I’d said nothing. Sex had always been so far away and suddenly it was in the car with us. Or the concept, anyway.
“Would that be okay, Pretty Theo?” he said, trailing his fingers lightly up and down my knee. “If your first time was with me?”
I knew I had to say something then, so I whispered yes. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted, but I was equally excited and frightened as I thought of the illustrations in the book Donovan and I had looked at so long ago.
You’d have to keep it a secret, though. Some people would say we shouldn’t be together, but they don’t know how mature you are for your age. They don’t know you like I do. Can you keep a secret, Theo?
His fingers moved up my leg, traveled to the inside of my thigh. His touch sent a tingling sensation through my entire body, even through the fabric of my jeans.
Yes.
My stomach twists when I think about seeing him. In probably less than an hour. I wonder if I’ll feel different when we’re finally in the same place again. I wonder if I’ll be able to talk at all just knowing those amber eyes are across the room.
“Pretend you’re talking to me instead of the jury,” McMillan says, looking at me with his kind but serious eyes. “That it’s just you and me, like right now.”
I nod, take a couple of sips of tea. It’s bland, almost bitter, but I keep drinking. Drinking means I’m not talking, not tempted to tell him there’s a little part I may have left out when we met a few weeks ago.
McMillan is still looking at me. I swallow, and then I open my mouth, think the words might dribble out like tea running down my chin, but nothing. Just silence and nothing. So I close my mouth and nod again for good measure. Yes, I know what to do once I get in there. No, you don’t have to worry about me, Mr. McMillan.
“I’d better go check in with the Pratts, but is there anything you want to go over before we head back down?”
He stands, holding on to
his phone with one hand and the bad coffee with the other. He looks down at me with those half-moon eyes and this is my chance.
I look at his hand wrapped around the coffee cup. He’s wearing a wedding band: plain, smooth gold. I wonder if he has children. If so, how many? Does he have a girl? What would he think if his daughter got up on the witness stand and told everyone that her ex-boyfriend was the guy on trial?
My mouth sticks. The words are there, the sentences formed, but I can’t say them.
So I shake my head at McMillan. “Okay, then,” he says. “Let’s go back down. Judge Richey will have my ass if we’re late.” He glances down at his phone before he looks at me sheepishly. “Sorry.”
My mouth works again, but only to give him a small smile. Only to say in a weak voice, “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”
• • •
I learn of Donovan’s arrival long before I see him. I’m sitting on a bench in the hallway, waiting for the trial to start so they can call me in. The energy in the building changes, even around the corner and all the way down the hall from the front doors. The rustling turns to murmurs, which turn to a clear declaration of his presence in the courthouse. Donovan is here, and I will finally see him in person.
My parents sit on either side of me. Mom holds my hand and Dad sits closer than usual. Like he’s protecting me. Normally it would annoy me that they were being so clingy, but right now, it’s all I want. I look over at them every few minutes, try to memorize their faces because I don’t know what they’ll look like after I get up from the stand.
The prosecution team heads down the corridor, a cloud of business suits and stony faces surrounding Donovan. They slow down as they pass us and then they stop. Mrs. Pratt edges her way out of the middle. She wears a cheap red blouse and tan slacks that hang loosely at her hips. Makeup doesn’t cover the bags under her eyes, but she looks better than the shadow I talked to behind the screen door. Her hair has been done and she’s smiling. She steps aside to let Donovan through and I stop breathing.
I stand, slowly. Dad puts his hand on the small of my back, pushes me toward this ghost. I close my eyes to match him up with the photograph I’ve committed to memory. I open them and he’s still there. My arms and legs are cast iron. I’m afraid that if I move, he’ll disappear again. I saw pictures of him, video from the first couple days of the trial, but it’s nothing compared with him standing here in front of me. He’s truly here, truly alive.
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