Shiny Broken Pieces

by Sona Charaipotra

  I storm out of the restaurant, racing down the block. My heart is pounding as I run, the winter air whipping my hair back against my face, the chill seeping into my skin.

  An hour later, I’m standing in front of my mother’s apartment building. I can barely remember how I got here, and I’m hoping this is all a nightmare, a mistake. But I know somewhere deep inside that it’s over with Jayhe.

  I stand there for a moment that feels like hours, finding it hard to believe what I’ve done. I walk toward the building and let myself in. I climb slowly up the three flights of stairs, carrying the weight of a broken heart with me.

  It’s only nine p.m., but it feels like the dead of night. It’s cold in the apartment, the single-paned windows letting every draft in. I put on a sweater and socks. I crank up the thermostat. I even turn on the oven. But that’s not enough, and I bat away the thought that being cold is a symptom of low body weight. I go into my mom’s room, where she’s snoring slightly, that same familiar rhythm she’s always had, and crawl in right next to her, cuddling close. Like I used to when I was little.

  28.

  Gigi

  “TAKE A LOOK AT THIS patheticness.” Cassie passes me her phone. She’s sprawled out on the extra bed in my room after curfew. I’m on a mat on the floor, doing my physical therapy exercises. I zoom in on the picture. It’s June bent over their toilet, vomiting. Her face is twisted into the ugliest expression. Liquid spews from her mouth.

  “Gross. How’d you get this?” I give her the phone back. I remember catching her throwing up last year. The embarrassment, the shame of it all, floods back to me.

  “I set up a camera right above the toilet bowl. If she half paid attention, she would’ve seen it.” She clicks through a few others, flashing them at me. “She stinks up the bathroom, too. How did you deal?”

  I shrug. Back then I liked June and didn’t mind putting up with her quirks and habits, however damaging they might’ve been. But now, every time I see her, every time I hear her name, every time I think of her, I see my butterflies pinned to the wall. The gleaming needles pierced straight through the space right under their heads and their eyes, where a human heart would be if it were that small and fragile. The wings pushed forward and brushed up against the walls. I feel my cheeks flush and the pressure build up.

  “I need to ask you something.” I dredge up courage.

  “Yeah, what’s up?” She doesn’t look up from her phone.

  “Did you know that Eleanor would end up in the hospital?”

  She looks up. Her eyebrow lifts. “No.”

  She stares at me so hard, I can’t ask another question. My stomach knots. The question has been burning inside me since the incident.

  “You think I wanted to send her to hospital?”

  “I’m not saying that. Just wanted to know if—”

  “I thought she’d just look funny, okay?”

  “Okay. Forget I asked.” I jump up, take her phone, and try to change the weird mood in the room. “I have something fun we can do.”

  “Oooh, what?” She nibbles her bottom lip.

  “Let’s remind the girls not to throw up what they eat. Make sure they know how ugly it makes you look.” The mean words pour out of my mouth and erase a little of the anger inside me. I can’t stop. The cruelness fills me up.

  She breaks out in a smile, like she’s just finished a particularly difficult variation and is basking in the applause. “This will get her to clean up after herself or, better yet, get sent home.”

  I plug the phone into my computer and select those photos. I print about fifty of them. I hand her a bunch of the papers and clear tape. “We’re going to let everyone know her nasty little habit. Ballerinas love their secrets.”

  We put tape on the photos, ready for posting, then open the door. The hallway is silent. It’s just after midnight, and most girls are asleep or on their computers.

  “I’ll start on the eleventh floor—the Level 7 girls will find this hilarious.” She slips down the stairwell.

  I start putting the photos up on every door and the wall space in between. I even plaster them over the Level 8 bulletin board, June’s ugly, pained face covering up announcements about changes in dorm rules for the new year. I imagine what her face is going to look like in the morning: twisted, weepy, shocked. I imagine how loud the laughs will be. I imagine her racing through the hallway, trying to tear them all down, only to find a dozen more. I imagine how long it will take her to find all of these. I imagine how many tears will stream down her face.

  The guilt doesn’t bubble up this time. Maybe it’s all gone now. Maybe I am completely different now.

  I go to the kitchen area and climb on one of the chairs. The streetlamps leave shadowy beams of light across the floor. I open the cabinets and tape them on everyone’s cereal boxes and food containers. This feels addictive. A rush goes to my head.

  “What are you doing?” The lights startle on. “You know there’s a camera in here.”

  I almost fall out of the chair. The nighttime RA has her hand on her hip. She looks around at all the pictures, then starts tearing them down. My heart monitor buzzes on my wrist. Worry floods into my stomach and I start to shake.

  “Get down, right now.”

  I ease down and put the rest of the pictures on the counter.

  “What the heck are you doing?”

  “I—I—just—”

  “This is bullying and harassment.” Her mouth is a hard line. “What’s happened to you?”

  “I was messed with, Miriam!” I shout. The anger shoots out of my mouth. I want her to feel it. I want everyone to feel it.

  She closes the gap between us and puts a hand on my shoulder. Her sleepy eyes brim over with concern.

  “June killed my butterflies. Will pushed me in front of a car.”

  She shakes her head, whispering “I know” a few times, and rubs my shoulder. She puts the rest of the photos in the trash. I can’t move. My legs are frozen in place. I can’t stop staring at the hall where I’ve put up all those pictures. I think about Cassie downstairs doing the same. I wonder how much trouble we’ll be in.

  “Help me take them down.”

  We remove each photo in silence. No one comes out into the hall. No one discovers the pictures. They end up in a pile in her arms, ready to be deposited into her trash bin. I text Cassie to do the same and warn her about the RA.

  She finally says something just as I’m about to go back to my room. “Gigi, I’m disappointed.”

  I wait for the punishment—a meeting with Mr. K or a suspension or worse, possibly being banned from performing? The weight of it crashes in on me. Sweat drips down my back. My lips start to quiver.

  “You’ve always been better than this.”

  I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying.

  “Don’t let the worst thing that ever happened to you define your life. Don’t let it eat you up. You’re back. You’re dancing better than ever. You will be successful here. You don’t need to do all”—she waves her hands around—“of that petty little kid stuff. Be better than it. Just dance. Doing all this makes you no better than Bette.”

  Her words hit me square in the chest. Bette’s name slaps me. I think about Eleanor’s face after she got sick eating the hummus, June’s beautiful hair all over the PT room floor, Sei-Jin’s pointe shoes, and mailing all those magazines to Bette. I’ve wasted so much time trying to show everyone that they shouldn’t mess with me instead of pouring that energy into dancing, making sure my body is strong again and my technique is still there. I think about what Mama would say or do or think if she knew what I’d done.

  “Fix it, and this will stay between the two of us. You do anything else, I’ll make sure you’re done at this school. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  I close my room door and slide down to the floor. I press my knees into my chest. I’m wracked with pain and tears and anger at myself now. I’ve become Bette. I’ve become the person I
hate. And that’s the thing that shifts it all, the thing that snaps it into place.

  The next morning I’m sitting in Mr. K’s office again. The scent of his tobacco, the buttons in the chair, and the noise of ballet music pushing in through the door mix together and make me sick. Or maybe it’s because Will’s sitting in the nearby chair. His eyes glare down at his lap. His mother dabs her eyes with a handkerchief. She’s got the same pale white skin and bright red hair, and wears almost as much makeup as her son.

  Dad and Mama sit to my left. Mama’s leg twitches to an angry beat, and it rubs against mine.

  I stare at the side of Will’s face. I close my eyes and think back to that night. How I laughed coming out of the club. How I felt happier than I ever had in my entire life at that moment. How I thought I’d finally found a place where I belonged, where people loved ballet as much as I do.

  I try to remember how the hands on my back felt. I wonder if I should’ve recognized their size and shape and feel from all the times I’d danced with Will, letting him turn me and lift me and parade me around. All the emotions I’d buried rise to the surface.

  How did I not know?

  A voice inside says: You didn’t want to know.

  “Please don’t press charges. He’s sorry. Right, Will?” Mrs. O’Reilly slaps his arm. The sound echoes.

  Mama presses back in her chair.

  “Say you’re sorry.” I can see Mrs. O’Reilly’s nails digging into Will’s pale flesh, leaving red half-moons behind. He doesn’t move a muscle. Her southern accent makes the words sound even harsher. “My idiot son’s disgraced the family in more ways than one.”

  “He deserves to be punished by the law.” Mama doesn’t look at her. Only straight ahead, like she’s spotting for a pirouette. “He almost killed my child.”

  “And he’ll be forever punished by the good Lord himself.” Will’s mother reaches out to touch my arm. I flinch and pull back.

  “I don’t know what else there is to discuss, Mr. K.” Mama rises from her seat and picks up her bag, ready to go.

  Will breaks down in full sobs.

  “Now wait.” My dad grabs Mama’s hand and gets her to sit back down. “We should leave it to Gigi. All this happened to her.”

  “Gigi doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t feel comfortable with,” Mama says, but Mrs. O’Reilly interrupts.

  “The good Christian thing is forgiveness. Will knows he faces judgment from the above. He doesn’t need your—”

  I finally look at Will. His skin is the color of his hair. He doesn’t look up from his lap. I’m a terrible judge of character. I’m too trusting. I’m too naïve. “Enough,” I whisper at first, then yell it over and over again until it’s the only word in the room. After last night, I want all this to go away. I want to start the year over. I want all the wounds to close and stop bleeding. I just want to dance and not have to deal with all this. I want to go back to being the old me.

  “Why did you do it?” I say, turning in my seat to face Will head-on. My heart knocks against my rib cage, its erratic beats making me light-headed. “Why?”

  Will looks up finally. Tears stream down his face, but he’s not wearing mascara today. “You have to listen to me. Please. Let me tell you what happened. I was trying to get Bette in trouble. I didn’t know you’d actually get hurt. Henri promised me you’d just trip, twist your ankle. Not be able to dance Giselle. I didn’t see the taxi. He made me believe that he liked me.” His words give me goose bumps. The boy he liked and had a strange relationship with was Henri. “I swear I didn’t want to hurt you like that.” His cries turn to hiccups. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  The last phrase reverberates between us.

  “I don’t care why you did it, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore, or even hear about it.” I turn to Mama. “I don’t want to press charges. I want to move on. I just want to dance.” I turn back to Will. The relief on his face is so sudden, so desperate. “And, Will, I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”

  I walk out, leaving Will to his own little version of hell.

  29.

  Bette

  I SKIP BREAKFAST, HEADING STRAIGHT downstairs and out back to meet my dealer to buy more pills. My prescription stash is long gone, and I definitely need a pick-me-up. I’ve been waiting for him under the dim streetlamp by the Dumpsters for half an hour—and so far no-show. I tuck myself farther in the little alcove behind the back door, stomping my feet a bit to warm myself up. The February air freezes into a poufy cloud as I breathe out.

  I check my phone every three seconds. The screen is empty, which has been a trend these days. I smash my furry boot into a mound of snow. Eleanor is still avoiding me, Alec hasn’t wanted to do more than grab food in the café, Henri makes my skin crawl when he so much as glances my way, and even June doesn’t have any time. Cassie just stares at me.

  I shove my phone in my back pocket as Jarred walks up. “Finally!”

  He shushes me, but then pulls me into a greasy hug. He’s tall and skinny, sickly pale, with a full beard growing in, making him look far older than a junior at Columbia. I’ve been buying from him since he first moved to New York three years ago, and I know a lot of the company members do, too, because he dated a dancer back in the day. I met him at Adele’s apartment.

  I scoff. “You got my stuff?”

  “Nope.” He decides to have a cigarette.

  “Need a drink, too?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Stop playing with me.”

  “Lighten up.” He pulls out a couple of tiny paper packets, and it’s a rainbow of pills—baby blue, pale yellow, even a pretty lavender.

  “What are those?” I pull the purple packet right out of his hands.

  “Bonus!” His grin is slimy, hopeful. “These are stronger than the Adderall.”

  “Just want the regulars.” I pull two hundred bucks out of my left boot and hand him the cash. “Thanks. Later.” I wave him away, and slip the pills into my pocket.

  “That’s all I get for coming this early?” He has his arms open like I’m supposed to fold myself inside them.

  “I gave you a tip. Now go.” I wait until he walks away, then turn back around and freeze. Cassie stands right behind me.

  A large grin creeps across her face. “How’s Jarred?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” I try to brush past her. She doesn’t let me pass.

  “Which ones did you buy this month? Are they blue, maybe? Or white?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure, Bette. Two minutes back on campus, and the games have begun again, right? You going to drug Gigi this time? Or maybe you’ll try to get me again?”

  “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She gets right up in my face now, and I can feel her hot breath—strawberries and cinnamon—hit my cheek.

  I back up.

  “You don’t remember? When you made Will drop me and send me to the hospital and rehabilitation for a year and a half. Or the way you messed with my diet pills. Made me faint in class.”

  I’m caught off guard, so I back away a bit more, realizing too late that she’s trapped me against the Dumpster. My head brushes against the cold metal. I don’t know if it’s just the lack of light, but there’s a gleam in her eye that’s making me nervous, something I’ve never seen before. “Maybe you need to go back to rehab.” My fists ball. “Because you’re clearly having a breakdown.”

  “I don’t know how you did it, Bette. You’ve got them all wrapped around your finger. But you’ll get what you deserve soon. Eleanor’s already abandoned you, and Alec will hate you permanently if I have anything to do with it. You just wait.”

  My heart hiccups in my chest. I can’t get it to relax.

  She flashes a mean grin again, and then, just like that, she’s gone.

  People always ask me if I love having a sister. Usually, I do. But on a Sunday morning, as we rehearse Odile’s
variation together for the eightieth time, I hate her. My mother has decided that I need to rehearse with Adele to make sure I use this second chance to its fullest. Because Adele’s heralded as the next great principal of the American Ballet Company, and my mother donates a ton of money, they’ve reserved a stage at Lincoln Center at six a.m. two weekday mornings and on Sundays, so that we can practice together.

  I stamp my pointe shoes in the resin box. It’s eerily quiet in here—aside from the stage we’re on, the building is draped in darkness. The Swan Lake score plays on a loop on Adele’s phone. It’s the only sound in the huge space, apart from the soft soprano of Adele barking orders.

  “Let’s go.” She waves me forward and clicks the music back to Odile’s variation in Act Three. The quick strum of harp strings announces my presence. I parade around in three circles, as if a group of onlookers ring the stage perimeter. I flap my arms, gracious and full, like a dark swan.

  “Focus, focus, focus, Bette.” She circles around me, watching my every move before I’ve even started dancing. But I can’t focus. Not today. The two blue pills I took with my coffee this morning have my heart racing, my mind frantic. Maybe they don’t work anymore.

  I lift my arms over my head in big sweeping circles and cross them in front of me. The music starts. I tiptoe forward and swing my leg, then leap into a split jump.

  “Bigger legs. Stretch them. Point the toes. You only get one chance to show what your body can do in those jumps.”

  I want to tell her that I don’t have her extension.

  “Quick circles and back to center. Leg up.”

  She claps to push me to jump higher.

  “It should be all one motion, flawless, fluid. But I can see every thought about every movement on your face.”

  I can see every thought on her face: that I’ll never quite get this.

  I want to show her that I’m not a reflection of her. I don’t have the things that make her great. I kind of want to mess it all up, just to show her that I’m not as good as she is.