Pointe (15 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IT'S HARD NOT TO THINK OF DONOVAN'S FAMILY AS
Before and After.

Before, Mrs. Pratt managed the gift shop of a busy museum in the city and she was almost as married to that job as she was to Mr. Pratt. But she still made it to every baseball game, every parent-teacher conference. Each time Donovan's father was too busy, his mother was around to pick up the slack.

I remember when the local news interviewed her, shortly after the abduction. She was pleading, staring into the camera with so much hurt and hope that it was hard to look at her. “Whatever you can do to help my son—to help Donovan . . . I would be eternally grateful.”

After, Mrs. Pratt was the kind of person who called psychics to her home and only went out to buy more gin.

Mr. Pratt's Before isn't very different from his After, except he's no longer married to Mrs. Pratt. He still works all the time because he's a successful real estate broker for lakefront properties. But now he lives in the city and has full custody of Julia. As soon as I saw the moving van in the driveway that day, I knew it meant he was leaving her—that Mrs. Pratt's things weren't packed into any of the boxes being carried down the driveway.

I know Donovan's Before, too. It was filled with a mother who would do anything for him and a little sister who adored him and plenty of time for comics and baseball and friends. It was filled with the kind of trust that lets you lose track of time and ride bikes home after dark without worrying someone will snatch you up from the side of the road.

Donovan hasn't left the house since he's been back. It's been almost two months. How do they expect him to start talking if he never sees anyone?

I watch. Each time I'm heading out or coming home, I watch their curtains for movement, and if it's dark outside, I look for shapes behind them. Sometimes I take the long way around our street so I can look at the house from a different angle.

A couple of people come to Donovan's house regularly; one is the man who delivers their groceries, but he's only allowed to bring them to the front porch. If you look closely and at just the right minute, you can see the terry cloth sleeve of Mrs. Pratt's bathrobe reaching through the doorway as she picks up the bags of food.

The other person shows up twice a week. A woman. Tall and big-boned with gorgeous red hair that cascades down the back of her sensible suits and trench coats. Mom said it's probably his therapist. I didn't know therapists made house calls but I guess most people would make an exception in this case.

But that's it. No one else in and certainly no one out.

I
have
to talk to Donovan before the trial. If I can see him, talk to him face-to-face, I'll know what I have to do up on the stand. I'll know for sure whether Donovan was a runaway or a victim. I'll know if he and Chris betrayed me together or if Chris Fenner deceived us both.

But every time I think about the witness stand and telling my story to a courtroom of strangers, my skin goes clammy and my mind goes blank. I don't know where I would start, how I would tell them that I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I first kissed the person I thought was named Trent.

I don't know how I would tell them that I never suspected anything between him and Donovan back then—and not for the four years they were gone, either.

CHAPTER TWENTY

WHEN I'M AROUND HOSEA, I TRY TO PRETEND I'M A BLOCK OF ICE.

In the school corridors, at the dance studio.

Cool, impenetrable, incapable of interaction.

But as soon as he gets me alone—I melt.

I haven't been in the smoking spot behind the athletic field for five minutes before he's heading out the same way I came, taking long, even strides with his black boots leading the way. I'm sitting across from the bleachers, my back against the fence; my breath catches in my throat as I see him.

I'm supposed to be in study hall so it almost doesn't seem like I got away with anything. Gellar didn't even look up when I grabbed the bathroom pass off the edge of his desk. He won't notice if I don't return.

I haven't lit my first cigarette. The veggie sandwich from lunch is sitting in my stomach like an anvil. Even after I discarded the bread (too soggy), the tomato (too mealy), and the cheese (too waxy). I ate mayo-covered sprouts and cucumber slices and even that felt like too much.

It's like my stomach has already decided what to do before my brain can make a choice. I think the worst part is that it's inconsistent, which means I can't plan. One day a small, plain garden salad might be fine but the next day that very same salad could wreck me.

But in this moment, I can't tell if it's the food or Hosea walking toward me that makes my stomach roil like someone's tossing rocks around inside.

I don't know where to look as he approaches. The ice block stays intact only when there are other people near us. My insides are warming, and the closer he gets, the more my fingers tremble around my unlit cigarette. Hardly impenetrable.

He leans against the fence and says, “How's it going?” from above me, and I wish my heart didn't beat a little faster.

I don't say anything because I don't know what to say, and a couple of seconds later, there's the crinkle of plastic and the click of a lighter and he's sitting next to me with a clove between his lips. He offers the pack, but I shake my head, hold up the cigarette in my hand. One of the two I bummed from Sara-Kate this morning. I light the end with the cheap plastic lighter I've been clutching.

He looks down at a small, smooth rock sitting between us, his dark brown eyebrows creased in thought. His angular face is clean-shaven as usual. “I know you hate me right now, but you have to let me say a few things.”

His voice is quiet and I knew one of us would have to speak eventually, but he startles me all the same. I don't dare look at him again but I don't get up and walk away, either, so I guess that's enough for him to go on.

“First of all, I want to be with you. I do.” He pauses, then continues in the same low, even voice. “But you could be going away soon.”

I force myself to look down at the soft caramel leather of my boots as I say, “Who told you that?”

I see him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Phil.”

Matter-of-fact, like I should have known. And I should have. But he asked me to keep his secret from Phil; why is it okay that they get to talk about me?

“Why didn't you tell me?” He blinks up at the colorless winter sky, the clouds that cover Ashland Hills like the world's most depressing blanket. Then he flicks ash from his clove on the other side of him, away from me. “Phil made it sound like a pretty big deal.”

“I guess I didn't think you were interested.” And I'm not sure summer programs will even
be
an option for me. I'm not halfway done with my cigarette, but I blow out one last puff, stub it out, and toss it into the Coffee & Jam paper cup a few feet away. It's a fresh ashtray. Half full of someone's coffee from this morning and a couple of butts from people who sat here before us.

“You listen to me talk about music.” He pulls on the end of his hair.

“That's different. Music helps us keep rhythm . . . It gives us structure and helps tell the story. You don't need ballet to perform.”

“So? I still like seeing you dance to what I'm playing. You make my music better.”

Neither of us utters a word after that, not until he says, “Theo.” He sighs out my name with his sweet-smelling smoke and all I want to do is put my head on his shoulder. Listen to him say my name for the rest of the afternoon. “And second—”

“Second?” I manage to croak out, even though his hand is on my arm now and I don't even know what we were talking about in the first place.

“Yes.” He leans his head close to mine and his breath is warm on my ear. “The second thing is that I think about you all the time.”

I shiver from the way his words tickle my skin, from the familiar scent of him, but I don't respond.

He clears his throat, leans back so we're no longer close enough to kiss, so his back is flat against the fence. “Phil also told me about the trial . . . that you have to testify. And I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I'll be fine,” I say, so nonchalant I doubt it would be convincing to anyone, let alone Hosea. I wish I hadn't been so quick to toss out my cigarette. I need something to do with my hands so they won't look so nervous, so Hosea won't know that I'm not fine at all.

He stretches his legs in front of him, lazily crossing them at the ankles. “I had to testify once.”

I'm not sure I heard him correctly, and when I try to read his face it's completely devoid of expression. He passes his clove to me and I look at it for a long moment before I put my lips where his lips have been, like a secondhand kiss. Our fingers touch as I hand it back to him, linger for several seconds too long.

“My grandma . . . she took my mom to court because they said she wasn't competent enough to take care of me.”

“Why?” I make a point to sound gentle.

“She has an anxiety disorder.” He pauses to drag one last time, the end of the clove burning red but muted under the ash. “Agoraphobia . . . She can't leave the house or deal with crowds. Not without having an attack.”

I stare at his boots for a while. “When did you figure it out?”

He puts out the clove and bends his fingers back and forth. Looks down at the ground as he says, “A long time before I told anyone. I thought . . . that I could handle things for us. But I was a kid. I couldn't drive or make money. She had boyfriends sometimes but they never stuck around.”

“They made you testify against her.” It's a statement, not a question, and it sits between us like a boulder. Hosea moved here in the middle of his freshman year, so he was even younger than me when he had to tell a judge that his mother wasn't capable of taking care of him.

“I did it,” he says in this small voice that makes me want to cry. “My Grams made it seem like there was no other choice. And I guess I knew . . . things were getting pretty bad. My mom would spend all day in bed and I'd go to sleep without dinner because I felt like shit begging her to go to the store. Or asking for money we didn't have.” He taps his fingers against the cold, hard ground. “But my mom is a good person. Maybe other people couldn't see it, but she did her best. And I knew she really thought she would get better someday . . . that things would be normal.”

I study his profile. The slope of his nose from the side, the edges of his turned-down mouth. “Can't you go visit her?”

“She's living with a friend and she's getting better, but the visits make me feel like shit, you know?” He shoves his hands into his pockets as he looks at the school building in the distance. “She cries and
begs
me not to leave her, and I can't—I don't want to make her feel any worse than she already does, so it's better to just stay away. Call every once in a while. I send her recordings of my music sometimes.”

“I'm sorry.” I crumble a dried leaf in my palm, scatter the bits over the ground like ashes.

“Grams did what she thought was the right thing, but I don't know if I'll ever forgive her.” He rubs his nose with the back of his hand. The tip of it is pink from the cool air, and it makes me think of him as a little boy.

“It's not fair, what she made you do,” I say.

I hate thinking about him up on the stand, confessing all the ways his mother had failed him. But even more, I hate to think of him hungry and trapped in a house with someone so helpless. And it's selfish to think this, but I never would have met Hosea if his grandmother hadn't insisted on a better life for him.

I want to comfort him. Hold his hand or put my arm around him or something. But I don't.

He shrugs. “It is what it is. I'm not a kid anymore. I can go back someday if I want to. It's fine.”

“But it's not.” I brace my fingers against the ground, stop them from touching his arm. “I'm really sorry, Hosea.”

He takes in a breath and he lets it out and he doesn't look at me, but he says, “Thanks.” Then, “I didn't mean to turn this into a pity party. I just wanted to say that I know what the trial stuff is like and testifying is shitty. And I know you're not cool with me right now, but if you need to talk to someone who's been through it, well—I'm here.”

He doesn't know how complicated it really is, so of course he thinks it'll be okay.

“Hosea?” I turn my body toward him.

I want him. Despite the fact that he'll hate me if he finds out who I really am. Despite the fact that everyone I know will hate me.

Maybe that's all the more reason to be with him. Maybe I should seize the moment while I can. Everything could change in two months. I could lose ballet, my friends, everyone's respect. I could be stuck here in this town for another year, with people who only think about one thing when they see me. Being with Hosea is one of the few things that make me happy. I know the risks and I'm still not deterred, so that must be a sign.

He looks at me. Cautious but expectant.

“I don't want to stop seeing you.” I hold his gaze.

His slate-colored eyes spark and then darken. “I can't break up with Ellie right now. I'm sorry, but—”

“I want to be with you either way.” My voice wobbles but I go on. I have to. “Because I don't know . . . Maybe I
will
go away next year.”

Or maybe you'll never want to see me again if the truth comes out.

I think about Sara-Kate's words at the diner. “Time is moving so fast and—”

“Life's too short not to be happy,” he says simply, with a smile.

“Exactly,” I say, so grateful that he understands, that he didn't make me keep talking.

His smile lingers but his eyes are serious again. “You sure you'll be cool with this?”

No, I'm not sure. But I know that the alternative—not being with him at all—would leave me feeling much worse than being his secret.

So I nod. I say, “Totally cool,” and I give him a smile so wide he can't question it.

“Good,” he says, nodding a little bit himself. “That's really good.”

He drops his hand down to the ground. Slides it through the leaves until it's close to mine. I almost jump when I feel it on my own, when I feel his skin against mine for the first time in much too long. I think it's a mistake at first, that he's searching for something he dropped in the leaves when I wasn't paying attention. We're a little bit hidden but we're still in public.

It's not a mistake. He covers my hand with his own and I'm struck by how warm it is, by how very much our hands feel like they belong together. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye to see if he's looking at me, but he's staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the bottom of the bleachers in front of us.

So I say nothing as I spread my fingers apart and his dip down into the gaps between them, as we squeeze our hands together and the pads of his fingers brush against my palm.

We sit like that for a long time, for the rest of the period.

I sit in the smoking spot, holding hands with Hosea, and I can't remember the last time I felt so alive.