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 is 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.