Pointe

by Brandy Colbert

  I close the fridge and open the pantry. My eyes skim over bags of potato chips and boxes of fancy crackers and the package of British cookies my father loves. (“They’re biscuits,” he says in a bad accent every time he pulls out the package, just to annoy me and Mom.) Things I haven’t touched in months, can barely remember the taste of. My stomach growls but I can’t eat. I haven’t eaten anything since the granola bar yesterday morning and most of that sits in the silver trash can across the room.

  Maybe I’ll never eat again. Maybe I’ll just waste away in front of everyone because that seems like the easiest choice now. My ballet career—or the promise of one—is over. My friends must be furious at me for keeping such a huge secret from them. And Hosea . . . Well, he didn’t choose me anyway, but now he must be glad he didn’t end up with a girl who’d been sleeping with a pedophile.

  I slip back upstairs, where I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower. It’s likely to wake my parents but the hot water shooting down on me is just the right kind of pain and I stay in until the skin on my fingers prunes.

  When I come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, a triangular beam of light peeks out from the door of Mom and Dad’s room. It’s cracked, just slightly. I pause in the space between our rooms, wonder if they’ll call out to me. A couple of seconds later, Dad’s muffled voice says, “You okay, babygirl?”

  “Do you need anything, honey?” Mom asks.

  I hear a pair of feet drop to the floor.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m going back to bed now.”

  A long pause, then, “Okay, sweetheart. We’ll be right here if you need us.”

  “We love you,” Dad calls out before I shut my door.

  I change into a fresh pair of pajamas, dressing in the dark, and get back into bed, feeling worse than I did forty-five minutes ago.

  Two minutes later I get back out and walk into their room without knocking. They won’t care. They’ve wanted me to talk to them for hours now. Mom is sitting up in bed, her back propped against their nest of pillows. Dad is pacing the room in flannel pants and a T-shirt. They were murmuring before I walked in, but they stop. Smile at me, gesture me in from the doorway. I stand in place.

  “Sweetie?”

  Mom’s voice is soft. Tentative. Comfort. Love. All of the reasons I can’t respond.

  Dad walks toward me, says: “Can’t shut off your brain, babygirl?” His voice is decidedly upbeat—even if it’s forced—but I suspect from the bags under his eyes that he hasn’t slept much tonight, if at all.

  I shake my head. I know the routine. Yet I don’t walk over to their bed and slip under the sheets between them, lying there as my mother strokes my hair and tells me everything will be all right. I yearn for their soothing voices, would like nothing more than to fall asleep to their placating words.

  I lean against the doorframe for support, close my eyes for a moment to trigger the memories of that summer. Things could be different this time. It could be a totally different experience, knowing what I do now and I have to at least try because I’m not sure being here is an option.

  I pinch my thumb and forefinger around the skin on my waist. Skin suctioned like glue to muscle and bone.

  “I think I need to go back to Juniper Hill.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE HOUSE LOOKS COZIER WHEN WE PULL UP THIS TIME, BUT maybe it’s because of the snow blanketing the peaks of the Victorian architecture like a real-life gingerbread house.

  It’s strange to walk up the steps in snow boots, to stamp the soles on the rough fibers of the welcome mat as we wait for someone to come to the door. Last time the air was thick and hot, the landscape buzzing with insects and fat bees that swooped in front of our faces. This time I can see my breath.

  The check-in process is the same. Dr. Bender is there to greet us in her grass-green tunic with a purple shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Then she whisks Mom and Dad away while a counselor I don’t know shows me to my room and checks my bag to make sure I haven’t smuggled in something from their forbidden list.

  My parents look sad to leave me a half hour later, but they have to be relieved. Even more so than the last time. I feel guilty thinking about what they’ll go back to, because I know the reporters and paparazzi won’t give up that easily.

  I’ll finish out the school year through a tutor who comes to the house three days a week.

  Just like last time, I get letters from Phil. Every week without fail a flat, business-sized envelope is waiting for me in the mail slot with Phil’s boxy handwriting on the outside. I can tell he’s trying not to talk too much about all the fun he and Sara-Kate are having without me, but the happiness practically leaps off the pages of his handwritten letters, and I smile when I finish reading them. He deserves to be happy.

  Sara-Kate’s emails mention Phil, too, but most of the time she writes me poems. Long ones, short ones. Sad and silly and serious. They’re beautiful. All of them, and she writes them just for me. I don’t always understand what they mean, but I appreciate them. They’re about us and they’re not about us. I know they’re the best way for her to deal with me keeping so much from her. She’s been nothing but kind, yet I know how much I’ve altered the trust in our friendship and I hope she can forgive me.

  One day, about six weeks after I’ve been at Juniper Hill, Diana pokes her head into a group session. They aren’t supposed to be interrupted for any reason, so I’m pretty worried when she looks around the circle until she finds me.

  She assures me that everything is fine as we walk down the hall and up the maple staircase toward Dr. Bender’s office. It’s remarkably similar to being escorted to the principal. I try not to worry as I watch her curly black ponytail swing in front of me. I have to say, I was kind of excited to see Diana that first day. She looked happy to see me, too. She’s my primary counselor again. It only makes sense; she knows the first part of my story better than anyone, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

  Dr. Bender’s office is empty. I expect Diana to follow me in, but she hovers in the doorway as she points to the phone on the desk, tells me to push the button next to the blinking red light. Says she’ll be right outside as she gently closes the door.

  I wonder if anyone has ever been allowed to sit alone in Dr. Bender’s office. I make sure not to knock over anything on the desk as I reach for the phone, put the receiver up to my ear and push the red light winking at me.

  I say hello softly, almost too softly.

  The voice on the other end is deep as it says hello back to me. Unrecognizable, and a little cautious, as if I was the one who called. I curl the phone under my chin as I look out the window of Dr. Bender’s office. It overlooks the backyard: the art shed, the garden, the river birch trees that dry clothes on a line in the summer.

  It’s snowing again. The country air whirls fat flakes against the window, pressing complicated patterns into the glass. I watch as I wait for the other person to speak, as I wonder if we’ll just sit here and breathe at each other for the next few minutes.

  The voice is stronger this time as it says hello again. As the person says he is Donovan.

  My whole body goes cold.

  “Donovan?”

  He doesn’t say anything, but he clears his throat, and I wonder how long it will take me to process that he has a deep voice now.

  I squeeze my fingers tight around the receiver. Shut my eyes as I open my mouth. “I . . . Donovan, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  I can tell someone is in the background. Not speaking, but there for support. His mother, I’m sure.

  Then I hear a long, loud breath. A sigh. It sounds like relief. It makes my eyes fill.

  “I, um.” He pauses. Clears his throat again. I imagine his mother touching his shoulder, encouraging him to go on. “I wanted to say thank you, for . . . Thank you, Theo.”

  The whole room i
s a blur as I stop trying to fight the tears.

  But I feel light inside, like a three-ton weight has dislodged itself from my body.

  I can finally breathe.

  • • •

  Christopher Ryan Fenner was found guilty.

  After my testimony, Donovan cracked. Just a little. He gave a written statement, but our stories combined were enough to put Chris away for multiple life sentences with no chance of parole. He was charged with corruption of minors, dozens of counts of rape against a child, and transporting a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity. He’ll never see the outside of a prison again.

  My name shows up in the news less frequently but it’s still there more often than I’d like. Along with this year’s school picture, stacked up against one taken of Donovan in court and Chris’s mug shot. I know some people think I ran away until things die down, but there’s no escaping this. Even with the limited Internet access and the absence of a daily paper, I can’t forget that the whole world knows who I am now.

  Chris broke up with me and disappeared, but all the while he was hiding out in a shabby hotel at the edge of town, waiting to make his move on Donovan. The city had thawed out by then and he’d called Donovan, invited him to come along on a fishing trip with him and his friends. He asked him not to tell me; he said he hadn’t been sure how to break up with me and that I’d be upset if I knew they were hanging out.

  There was no fishing trip. There was just Chris and his car and Donovan with the comic book and pile of snacks he’d picked up along the way.

  • • •

  A few days after Donovan’s call, I swing by the mail room on my way to the house library. There’s a package in my mailbox. A small, padded white envelope with no return address. It’s been slit open because they check all the packages here before we get them. I shake it. Something plastic clacks inside but I wait to open it.

  The library is a room on the second floor filled with books we can borrow and computers we can use for a limited amount of time each day. Pete is hanging out behind the desk near the door, pecking away at the keyboard in front of him and stopping every few seconds to stroke at his patchy blond beard. He looks up but doesn’t even make me sign in before I head to the computer farthest away from him.

  I set the package next to the keyboard, but decide to check my email first.

  There’s one bolded message at the top. It’s from Marisa.

  It’s long, and it sounds so much like how she talks that I can picture her sitting down to type it out after a long day of teaching. She says everyone misses me, and not to worry, that summer programs will still be around next year and I’ll still have her full support.

  But the part I read over and over is the paragraph where she says it took courage to do what I did, and she admires me for being so strong. That a professional company would be lucky to have me one day.

  I get permission from Pete to print off Marisa’s email so that even on the lowest days, I can remember she still believes in me.

  Then I pick up the padded white envelope. Turn it over so whatever is inside will drop out. It’s a CD with FOR THEO printed on the front in black marker.

  I pull a slip of paper from the clear plastic CD case, no bigger than an index card. In the same neat handwriting as that on the disc, it says:

  THIS WAS ALWAYS FOR YOU.

  —H.

  My shaking hands slide the disc into the slot on the side. When I hit play, I’m rewarded with what I wished for so many weeks ago. As the familiar chords float their way into my ears, brazen and bashful, ethereal and timeless, I see Hosea on the piano bench, sharing something so heartfelt and personal, communicating how he felt about me the best way he knew how.

  A few months ago—even a few weeks ago—I would have thought it was a sign. Even after winter formal, I still sometimes thought we were meant to be. I thought about him all the time when I first came here. But now . . . well. Things look a little different when you spend your days with a houseful of troubled girls and a cadre of helpful hippies.

  He cared about me, but not enough.

  Hosea said I was special, but words don’t mean anything without actions to back them up.

  And maybe I am special, but it’s not because he said so.

  I log out of my email and stand up, gathering the CD and packaging, and Marisa’s printed email. I nod at Pete on the way out, but I stop in the doorway. The email in one hand, Hosea’s CD in the other. I pause for a moment, then release my grip on the disc and listen as it drops into the trash with a resounding thump.

  I keep walking and I don’t look back.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m lucky to know so many excellent people who helped make this book a book:

  Tina Wexler, you are an absolute gem. I’ll never forget the day you pulled my query from the slush pile, and I’m so proud to call you my agent. Thank you for the unwavering enthusiasm, wisdom, humor, and professionalism. I appreciate all that you do.

  To my editor extraordinaire, Ari Lewin: Working on this book has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. From the beginning, you understood the story I was trying to tell, and I’m so grateful for your fierce commitment to get it right. Thanks for always being an exceptional person and editor; you’ve helped make this lifelong dream truly special.

  Thank you to Katherine Perkins for a keen editorial eye, and the rest of the Penguin team for creating a beautiful, tangible thing from a document that once lived on my computer.

  Lisa Barley, I value your friendship, patience, and honesty. Eternal thanks for reading the earliest drafts of this story, indulging me in endless conversations about the plot and characters, and never letting me give up. Much love to Lena Anderson for your loyalty, excitement, and nonstop support. I’m indebted to Stephanie D. Brown, Carrie Burns, and Erika Enk Rueter for reading early versions and providing helpful feedback and encouragement. Leila Howland and Vanessa Napolitano, your quick reads and brilliant notes during revisions were essential to the development of this story. Thanks also to Lesley Arimah and Kelly Kamenetzky for listening and rooting for me, always.

  Amy Spalding, thank you for a stupendous amount of support and making me laugh when I need it most. Corey Haydu, Kristen Kittscher, and April G. Tucholke, I am so grateful for your emails and friendship; I’ll never understand how you always know the right thing to say, but I do appreciate it. Alison Cherry, thank you for being so kind and faithfully cheering me on to the finish line.

  Los Angeles and Chicago friends, thanks for putting up with my incessant babbling and disappearing acts while I was working on this book—and for being my family away from home. I’m incredibly grateful to Debbie Farr and Sonshine Performing Arts Academy for teaching me how to tap, and fostering a love and respect for all disciplines of dance.

  To my big brother, Al: I constantly wanted to do what you were doing when we were kids, so I’m really glad voracious reading has always been your thing.

  And to my parents, Jerri and Albert, I can’t thank you enough for raising me in a house filled with good books, buying me all those notebooks and pens, and never forcing me outside when I’d rather be in a quiet room, writing. Some of my favorite memories are Saturday mornings spent at the library and bookstore—and also that time you gave me, at my request, nothing but a giant box of books for Christmas. I was seven years old when I told you I wanted to be an author, and you always said I could do it someday if I tried really hard. Thank you for believing in me.

  RESOURCES

  IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS DEALING WITH ANY OF THE

  topics in this book, please know that you’re not going through this alone. Try talking to a trusted friend or family member about it, and if that isn’t an option, there are many professionals with the resources to help, including the following organizations:

  RAINN | Rape, Abuse & Incest National Net
work

  www.rainn.org

  1-800-656-HOPE (1-800-656-4673)

  National Center for PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder)

  www.ptsd.va.gov

  1-802-296-6300

  NEDA | National Eating Disorders Association

  www.nationaleatingdisorders.org

  1-800-931-2237

  National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

  www.missingkids.com

  1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)