Audrey waited for Rose to say something, or move a little, but there was nothing except the sound of her breathing. Audrey let out a tiny laugh. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to tell you in the morning.” She searched for Rose’s hand again, grabbing and squeezing her fingers as she closed her eyes. “Sleep tight.”
Audrey concentrated on clearing her head, sinking into the depths of her mattress and marshmallow pillows as she finally began to fall asleep.
And then as she was tipping over the edge into peaceful oblivion, she heard Rose speak. “I’m sorry, too.” The words were milky and far, but Audrey felt them clear in her heart. “But we’re going to be okay.”
They were going to be okay.
THIRTY-FIVE
When Audrey woke to her alarm, feeling as if she’d only gotten five minutes of sleep as opposed to five hours, she was surprised to find Rose already up and dressed. “Morning,” Rose said from where she sat at Audrey’s desk. “Sleep okay?”
Audrey yawned in response, stretching her arms above her head and ignoring the queasy feeling in her stomach. “Shit,” she said. “I didn’t do my math homework.”
“You never do your math homework.” Rose placed her folded arms on the back of the chair and rested her chin on them. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Stop apologizing.” Audrey got up, pulled her towel off its hook, and opened the door. “I’m going to get ready, and we can get breakfast on the way to school. That’ll make you feel better.”
Audrey showered and dressed as fast as possible, and then she and Rose headed downstairs. In the kitchen Marmalade looked up from his bowl long enough to ascertain that Audrey wasn’t a threat to his food and then went back to eating. “Morning, kitty.”
Rose crouched to stroke his striped head. “Hi, Marmalade.”
The coffee in the pot was warm—Adam must have gone to work already, Audrey thought—and Audrey poured some into two travel mugs. On the counter next to the pot was a brown bag on top of a note with Rose’s name on it. Audrey smiled and picked it up. “Rose—I think this is yours.”
She watched Rose open it, and her face light up. “Wait—this is for me?”
The stairs creaked and Laura appeared, dressed for a full day at the theater: black jeans, black silk button-down, a thick-knit draped cardigan so long it almost brushed the floor, several thin silver chains twisted around her neck. “You’re still here!” She swept through the room and grabbed the coffeepot, pouring the last bit into a mug Audrey had made in eighth grade. “Rose, I didn’t know if you liked oranges or pears, so you got one of each.”
Rose pulled a pink flower out of her lunch bag and twirled it between her fingers before putting it behind her ear. “I like them both,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
Laura shook her head, leaning against the counter with her hands wrapped around her mug. “I remember heartbreak. It’s hard, I know. But you remember, Rose—anyone who doesn’t make you happy doesn’t deserve to make you cry.”
Rose nodded, her eyes shining freshly. “I know,” she said. “It’s not her fault, though. Olivia’s a good person.”
“Well, in that case,” Laura said, “you’re allowed to cry.”
“Mom,” Audrey said. “I don’t think you’re helping.”
Laura bristled, and Audrey remembered that they weren’t supposed to be friends right now. “Rose, honey, is your mom going to be home tonight?” her mom asked, ignoring her.
Rose nodded as she rolled the brown bag shut. “Yeah,” she said. “Her flight gets in at noon.”
“Okay.” Laura glanced at the clock. “I need to be gone. But Rose, if you need anything, you know where we are, okay? And Audrey—”
Audrey steeled herself. What? she thought. Audrey, don’t be a spoiled witch? Audrey, why are you such a fuckup?
“—don’t forget to take the recycling out,” Laura finished.
Audrey sat in class, sketching scenes in her notebook instead of paying attention to any of her teachers. Lately, school felt so suffocating that Audrey wondered how she didn’t fall down gasping for air. She’d made her decision, but she hadn’t done anything about putting things into motion yet. It was causing her skin to feel itchy and tight, a size too small, and she kept thinking she was off-kilter—like everything she looked at seemed about an inch or two off its correct place.
When the bell rang for lunch, Audrey made her way to the cafeteria and found Rose hovering by the entrance. “I can’t go in,” Rose said when Audrey looked at her. “What am I supposed to say to her?”
Audrey glanced into the cafeteria and saw Olivia walking with Jen and María to their usual table. “Come on,” she said, starting in the opposite direction. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You want to cut?” The sound of Rose’s footsteps hurrying to keep up echoed in the halls. “Where are we going to go? How are we going to get out? We haven’t planned enough for this.”
True—the few times they’d ever cut school had taken detailed calculations, working out how to walk out without being stopped by the hawk-eyed monitors. But today Audrey felt reckless, and so she headed straight for the doors to the outside world with nothing but confidence. “Where are we going to go?” She stepped out into the bright winter day, throwing a hand up to shield her eyes against the sun, and she turned to watch Rose follow her out into freedom and smiled. “Wherever you want.”
They got lunch from 7-Eleven—salt-and-vinegar chips, sprinkle-topped doughnuts, huge sodas—and drove around in Rose’s car for a while, listening to the chirpy radio ads. Then Rose got an idea, and she took them across town to a modern building, glass front reflecting empty earth that Audrey was sure bloomed bright in the spring. Rose parked and led Audrey inside the dance studio, waving to the girl at the desk. “Hey, Fran,” she said. “Are there any studios free?”
This Fran wound her hair into a bun and jammed a pencil through it before clicking something into the computer. “Basement A has a Pilates class finishing right about now,” she said. “Wait. Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Maybe,” Rose said. “Maybe not. You won’t tell, right?”
Fran pursed her pink-lacquered lips. “All right,” she said. “But you have to be out by Tap Three. And don’t mess anything up.”
Rose flashed a beaming smile at Audrey over her shoulder. “We won’t,” she said. “Thanks, Franny.”
Audrey followed Rose through the maze of head shot–lined corridors, the occasional burst of music and yelling punctuating their movement. “Are we allowed to be here?” Audrey asked as they descended steep stairs.
“Senior dancers are allowed to use the space to practice whenever, really,” Rose replied, pressing herself against the wall as a group of glowing middle-aged ladies filed past them. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Trust me.
Audrey walked behind Rose into the studio. Rose took off her shoes, and Audrey quickly did the same before sitting with her back to the tall mirrors. Being in the basement, there were no windows, but it was brightly lit with soft-yellow bulbs, and the gray-white floor felt smooth under her bare feet.
Rose lay down perpendicular to Audrey’s feet and lifted one leg, her toes pointed straight at the ceiling. “It’s so peaceful here,” she said, flexing and pointing her foot again. “I could live in this place.”
Audrey reached into her bag and took out her camera and her phone: two missed calls from Julian and a text from Olivia. She put it facedown on the floor without reading the messages and cleared her throat. “Olivia texted me.”
Silence from Rose, except for the sound of her jeans brushing together as she switched legs.
Audrey leaned back on her hands and shook her head. “Rose, what happened last night? Whatever it is, you’re not going to be able to avoid her. She’s our friend.”
More silence. But then Rose sat up, fixing her gaze on Audrey. “We got into a fight—”
“Because she wants you to meet her mom, right.”
“No,”
Rose said, screwing her face up. “Because I’m a freak who doesn’t know how to have regular human relationships.”
Audrey shuffled closer, her hands slipping on the special floor. “Yes, you do,” she said. “You have one with me.”
Rose’s laugh filled the room. “What, the one where I got so mad at you for keeping one secret—one huge, completely understandable secret—that I turned it into some kind of vendetta against you?”
“Right.” Audrey gave a wry smile. “That one.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rose said, the words sudden and so full that Audrey could hear their heaviness. “I don’t know what happened. I—”
“I’m sorry,” Audrey said. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have kept all of it from you, but . . . I got so twisted up trying to figure out what to do and what I was feeling that the right time never came. And . . .” She pulled a loose curl out and twisted it tight around her finger, the skin on either side of it flushing and paling alternately. “You never seemed to want to know,” she said, the honest truth. “You didn’t want to know that I was pregnant, or that I was scared—scared of everything going on, and of what you would think of me if you knew how awful I really am. I felt like I needed you to be there for me, the way I always am for you, but . . . you weren’t.”
Rose’s face crumpled for the briefest moment, but she pulled it back together and inhaled. “I hate it,” she said. “I hate that I made you feel that way. I hate that I wasn’t there for you. God, I—I don’t know what to say, Audrey. I wish I was better. Better to you. I’m going to try. Okay? I want to be the best friend that you deserve.” She looked at Audrey intently. “But I promise, you didn’t have to be scared. What did you think I was going to say? Maybe I would have been shocked, sure, but that’s not important. I would have been there for you, whatever you decided to do. I will be there for you,” she corrected herself. “No matter what. I mean, what else am I going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Audrey said. “I didn’t want you to think I was stupid or naive. And I guess I was worried you would be, like, disappointed in me.”
“I’m not your mom.” Rose laughed. “Disappointed? I mean, how self-righteous would I have to be? I’m hardly the poster child for good decision making.”
She reached across and flicked Audrey’s knee. “You got pregnant. This shit happens. Statistically it was bound to happen to one of us! You just got lucky.”
“Ha! Sure,” Audrey said. “Lucky’s exactly what I’d call it.”
“And hey”—Rose sounded suddenly annoyed—“you are not awful. Why would you even think that?”
Audrey shrugged, her cheeks warm. “I don’t know. I have done a lot of awful things these past few weeks. You should have heard the things I said to my mom. . . .” She shook her head. “She hates me right now.”
“Your mom does not hate you,” Rose said. “Don’t be ridiculous. And did you forget last night? You called me even though we weren’t talking. If you were really awful, you would have straight up ignored me, right?”
“Maybe,” Audrey said. “I guess.” She had gone to Rose immediately, she supposed. And all she had wanted in that moment on the stoop, holding Rose while she cried, had been to make whatever was hurting her go away.
Maybe I’m not completely awful, Audrey thought, a little glimmer of hope. I can be good. I can.
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do yet?”
Audrey threaded her wrist through the camera strap and pointed it at Rose. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m getting an abortion.”
The little Rose in the viewfinder nodded. “You know Katie Legrand? She’s a senior; she dances here, too—she had an abortion a couple years ago. She said it wasn’t as bad as she thought.” Miniature-Rose tipped her head back. “Maybe you could talk to her, so you know what it’ll be like.”
“Maybe,” Audrey said. “I think it’ll be fine, though. I’ve thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and this is what I want to do.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “Julian?”
“It’s what he wants, too,” Audrey said. “We both have so much we want to do. His music, my art. This way we get to do it.”
Rose pulled her knees up and placed her palms on them. “Right,” she said. “Good plan.”
Audrey lowered the camera. “It’s scary, though. Not the abortion and everything, I just . . . I’ve spent so much time thinking about the future lately. Now I feel more unsure about it than before. It’s like I kept thinking that being pregnant meant no art school, maybe no more photography at all. But I realized that maybe I won’t get into any art schools at all, baby or no. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be good enough to be an actual artist.”
Rose tipped her head to the side. “You know you can just be an artist, right? You make art. Therefore, you are an artist. You don’t need anyone to give you permission.”
“I know, but—”
“And maybe you won’t get into RISD or any of the other places, but who gives a shit? Maybe I’ll never be a principal dancer anywhere. I can still dance, though. It’s not the end of the world.”
Audrey let out a breathy laugh. “That’s what my mom said. When I told her I was pregnant. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Then you know it’s true,” Rose said.
It’s not the end of the world. She’d never thought she’d be pregnant, but she was, and she was still breathing. If she didn’t get acceptance letters next year—well, it would suck, but Rose was right. She didn’t need permission to take pictures. Who was going to stop her? Nobody.
“Right,” Audrey said, hooking a curl behind her ear. “So now we’ve covered me, can we get back to you?”
Footsteps thundered above them and Audrey looked up, half expecting the ceiling to begin collapsing. “Preschool ballet,” Rose said, and when Audrey looked confused, she laughed. “I know. Who would think such tiny kids could make so much noise?”
“Huh,” Audrey said. “Not me.” And then she said, “About you and Coop. I shouldn’t have used it to hurt you. I was only jealous, I think. That you didn’t tell me. I didn’t mean to judge you or anything.”
“I know you didn’t,” Rose said with a small smile. “You never do. And, y’know, it was Halloween. You weren’t there, my parents were gone. Nothing was happening with Olivia yet. I was lonely, and Coop listened to me, and he made me laugh.” She laughed. “He’s a good friend, really. Who knew?” Then she looked at Audrey. “Does everyone know? Am I, like, the bi girl who’ll sleep with anybody now?”
“No,” Audrey said, narrowing her eyes. “And I’ll kick anyone’s ass who says shit about you.”
Rose stood then and walked to the ballet barre, placing one hand on it with a delicacy that Audrey rarely saw Rose exhibit. “I really like Olivia, you know.” She stared away from Audrey. “Yeah, she’s hot, and that was the beginning of it all. But she’s so . . . nice. To me. For no reason.”
Audrey rested her chin in her hand as she watched Rose position her feet just so. “Rose, people don’t need a reason to be nice.”
“No, but usually they have one anyway. They want something, you know? Not you, obviously, or the others. Cooper or Julian. But everybody else, everyone who thinks I’m their friend because they shot the shit with me outside chem class once—those people. For some reason I can’t work out, I’ve become this girl people think they know.” She bent and rolled up the bottoms of her jeans, her words quieted in her folded-over position. “But Olivia isn’t one of those people. They want something from me. Olivia doesn’t want anything but me. She looks at me and it’s like she’s only seeing what I hide from everybody else.”
“That’s good,” Audrey said. “Or no?”
A moment’s pause, and then Rose spoke. “Yeah, it’s good,” Rose said. “But then comes my inability to act like a human again. Because she said she wanted me to have dinner with her mom, and you know me—I don’t do parents.”
“What’s so wrong
with parents?” Audrey asked. “Okay, I know yours aren’t the best example, but—you love my mom. And you’ve even met Olivia’s mom before, at the mall that time.”
“Right.” Rose set her feet again and put her hand in front of her hip, and she looked so tall and strong standing like that, Audrey couldn’t help but smile. “But I didn’t know, then.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“About Olivia,” Rose said, sweeping her arm high above her head. “That I could, like . . . love her, maybe. I don’t know. Be more than a hookup. I’m not saying that I do love her, but . . . maybe I could.”
Audrey marveled at these words coming from Rose, but she didn’t want to make a big, scary deal of it, and she kept her voice level. “Okay.” Audrey took her camera and snapped one shot of Rose like that, reaching, reaching. “That’s amazing, Rose. Doesn’t that feel amazing to you? Here you have this girl who you might be falling in love with. Doesn’t that feel incredible?”
“Not at all,” Rose said, and she turned away from the barre, deflating. “Because, think about it, Audrey. Think about me. The one person I might have loved before dumped me without a second thought. I don’t know the last time I had a real conversation with my parents. I don’t know how to do anything like this. So—”
She rushed over to Audrey and sank to her knees, almost alarmingly close—close enough for Audrey to see the flecks of green in her hazel eyes, to smell the perfume borrowed from Audrey’s vanity. “So Olivia’s all excited about this whole thing, us being a couple, and—I’m in her room, okay? Her mom’s going to be home any minute. I’m in her room, on her bed, and we’ve been . . . fooling around, doing things. Having sex? I don’t know, maybe.” Her cheeks flushed pink, and she shook her head. “But we don’t have much time, her mom’s going to be home soon and we’re getting ourselves together now and all I can think is ‘Doesn’t she want me to leave?’ Aisha always made me feel like she had somewhere better to be whenever we were together. I guess Cooper might have been different, but I didn’t give him the chance to show me. I’ve never done this before—I’ve never had anyone want me to stay. To eat dinner with their mom. But Olivia wanted that. She wanted to talk to me about nothing and everything, she wanted me to stay, she wanted to hold my hand—” Rose broke off suddenly, and the pain was palpable, sharp in the air. “I know I’m such a cliché, but it really did scare me. It scared the shit out of me. I’m looking at her and thinking that I’m going to do something to ruin this sooner or later, and I can’t stand the thought of hurting her. I always ruin things.”
You Don’t Know Me but I Know You Page 19