“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.”