Pointe (12 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I FEEL BAD ABOUT KISSING SOMEONE ELSE'S BOYFRIEND.

But not bad enough to stop.

I thought what happened with Hosea might be a one-time thing. We've been texting, but we haven't seen each other outside of ballet or random hallway sightings at school. And it would be the right thing to do—to stop seeing him before I fall too far. Yet a big part of me hopes that kissing him, that being with him,
wasn't
a one-time thing. We would be good together—I know it—so I wish guilt didn't rush through my veins every time I think about being That Girl. Because I don't know if it's a title I'd ever be comfortable owning.

Then, the Monday after Halloween, he texts me.

It comes through a few seconds after the lunch bell, so I read it as everyone is rushing out of English, toward the cafeteria. I stand at my desk and pull up his message with shaking fingers.

Meet me in the old science lab? I want to see you.

The old lab. Of course. No one ever uses it. I cover my smile with my hand, but I can't do anything about the goose bumps that prickle along my arms as I text him back:

See you there.

It was too fast. Maybe I should have waited a little bit, left him wondering. But I couldn't have stopped myself, even if I'd wanted to.

I shoot Sara-Kate a quick text that says I have to study during lunch, then duck into the nearest bathroom for a quick mirror check. I put on a fresh coat of lip gloss. Stop. Really look at myself. And it's strange. The same old me looking back as always—dark eyes, thick hair, skin a warm brown with reddish undertones. But for the first time in a long time, I look . . . happy.

I peek out into the hall to make sure it's empty, then book it to the science lab. It's more of a supply room, really. No one has class here anymore after some super-brainy kid's parents donated a ton of money to build a new lab a few years ago.

I take a deep breath when I'm standing outside the door. Smooth my hands over my fitted white button-down with the tiny yellow flowers, look down at my dark jeans to make sure they're still tucked snugly into my boots.

The knob turns easily. I step in, close the door behind me, lean my back against it as I search the room for him. Or maybe I'm here first? But I follow the rustling sound to the far left corner and there he is.

We look at each other for a long second. He smiles and I smile and we walk toward each other until we meet in the middle.

“Hi,” I say when we're so close the toes of our boots are touching.

“Hi.” He removes his hands from the front pocket of his hoodie. Traces my collarbone and lingers there only slightly before his hand slides up my neck and along the line of my jaw. His thumb strokes my earlobe and I lean into his palm, move closer, shut my eyes as I give myself to the moment.

Our first kiss is soft. Sweet. Short.

“I'm glad you came,” he murmurs, our lips inches apart.

“Me too,” I breathe back, wondering how such a small kiss can leave me so flustered. “But how'd you think of the lab? Shouldn't this room be locked up?” I look at the microscopes and Bunsen burners and boxes of rock samples perched on the tables around us. The light that manages to shine through the hazy windows reveals that everything is covered in a thick layer of dust.

His body heat melds into mine. Does he know my heart is pounding double time? Can he feel how I feel about him?

“Should be. Never is.” He shrugs. “Gas is turned off on the tables and they took out all the chemicals. Klein told me about it a while ago.”

“Does he still come here?” I look toward the door, wondering if this is too good to be true. I never would have thought to meet up here, but I've only recently become a person with so many things to hide.

“We're fine.” He takes my hand in his. Squeezes. “I promise.”

We move farther into the room and off to the side. My back against the edge of a lab table, his arms braced on either side of mine as he presses against me. My hands are cold. I look at him as I slip them between his hoodie and T-shirt so they're sitting at his waist. His mouth turns up in a slow grin as he leans in to kiss my neck.

“Hosea.” I say his name quietly, but he stops. Looks at me as I wait for the right words to come. “Do . . . do you bring her here?”

His eyebrows lift in surprise. “Ellie? No.” He pauses. “Never.”

Of course not. He doesn't have to bring her here, because she's his girlfriend. They can be together anytime they want; they don't have to sneak around.

“Hey.” He tilts his head to the side a little, his gray eyes soft. “What's wrong?”

I look down at my hands still resting on his waist. “Nothing, I . . .”

I'm being stupid.

I should just enjoy this.

I shouldn't be upset that you're with her.

“This can be our place . . . if you want,” he says, his gaze locked firmly on me. “Just you and me, okay?”

I nod. And I know it means I'm saying that what we're doing could happen again, that I'm not strong enough to resist him. But these feelings aren't going to disappear. I
like
these feelings. I was afraid I'd never have them again, after Chris. And besides, right now, all I want is to say yes to Hosea.

“Okay?” he says again. He's still looking at me and we share a private smile that sends ribbons of warmth dancing through me.

“Okay.” Maybe it's not so bad being That Girl.

I tip my head back and close my eyes and his mouth comes down on mine, soft and warm and familiar.

At least That Girl gets what she wants.

• • •

My lips are swollen when I leave the science lab.

We kept all our clothes on, but our hands were busy. My shirt is rumpled. Bunched in weird places. I tug it down at the bottom and decide to stop off in the bathroom for another mirror check. I left first and Hosea will follow in a little bit, just to be safe.

There are still a few minutes before lunch ends, so I figure the bathroom will be empty—but I figure wrong. Lark Pearson is standing at the far end of the room in front of the sinks, reapplying her eyeliner. She leans forward in a way that makes her ass stick out, emphasizing the fit of her painted-on jeans.

She gives me a long look in the mirror as the door closes behind me. I wait for her to speak, but she never turns around, and then finally, she looks away. I keep an eye on her as I move toward the farthest stall, and still she doesn't say a word. Just stares straight ahead at her reflection as she rims the lids of her blue eyes with layers and layers of black liner.

I step into the stall with every intention of staying in here until she leaves. Even if it makes me late to my next class. I've closed the door, am just getting ready to slide the lock into place when her voice echoes out across the room.

“Got any more smokes?”

I freeze. There's no pretending I didn't hear her. We're the only ones in here. I crack the stall door to look at her. “What?”

Lark drops the tube of eyeliner in her purse, then turns around and flutters a hand in the general direction of my chest. “Cloves. Got any more?”

Shit.

How could I forget? Hosea gave me one before we left the lab. “To remember me by,” he'd said, pecking my lips as he tucked it into the triangular pocket of my button-down.

And now it's just sitting there, poking out of my shirt like I'm marking my territory.

I ignore the bad feeling that blooms in my chest as I shrug. “Sorry, it's my last one.”

I start to close myself into the stall again as Lark makes her way to the door, but she pauses in front of me. Puts her hand on the edge of the stall door before I can fully shut it.
Shit.

“Since when do you smoke cloves?” Her raccoon eyes are scary up close as they assess me.

“I've always smoked cloves,” I say, forcing myself to not look away from her. “When they're around.”

“Well, the only person I know who smokes cloves around
here
is Hosea.” Lark squints at me and her breath smells faintly of old coffee and I wish more than anything that someone would walk in and save me.

“Maybe you should know more people,” I respond with another shrug. Calm and cool. Totally relaxed, like my palms aren't sweating.

Her mouth falls open, but she recovers quickly. “Bitch,” she says in a loud, clear voice before she slinks out of the bathroom.

I snap the clove in half, watch the two ends swirl down the toilet bowl as I flush away the evidence.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE RAINBOW DIET IS WHAT DID ME IN.

I'd been gradually cutting back on everything. It started with processed foods, then baked goods, then pasta and rice and bread. I never went to the trouble of pretending to be a vegetarian—even my parents couldn't argue that cutting out red meat and pork was a bad thing.

But the rainbow diet was another beast. I found it on a pro-ana site. It was easy enough to follow, in theory. Mom already bought most of the fruits and vegetables on the list, and neither she nor Dad would be suspicious if they saw me eating more produce.

It was hard when I had to eat dinner with them every night, so I started staying at the studio late, or saying I'd eaten at Phil's or Sara-Kate's, or that I didn't feel well and it would be better if I went to bed without supper.

I managed to keep it up for almost two straight weeks. The days were separated into colors: red produce on one day, white on another, and green and orange and yellow and purple. No more than 300 calories a day if I planned it just right. Wednesdays were the hardest. That's when I fasted completely, when I could have nothing more than water. I danced on those nights, too, and I was so proud of myself when I finished, when no one had figured out that I hadn't eaten since the evening before.

The second Wednesday was the one that gave me away. It was late June but already the days were so hot and humid that you wanted to take a shower as soon as you stepped out the front door. Phil and I had begged his mother to drop us off at the mall instead of the pool with her and his younger brother, Glenn. She protested at first; all of us were getting used to Donovan's absence and parents were still nervous about leaving their kids unsupervised. He'd only been gone for a couple of months. Almost as long as it had been since I'd last seen Chris.

But we begged until Mrs. Muñoz called Mom to make sure it was okay with her. It was. She was just as nervous as Phil's mother but I'd heard her and Dad talking once when they thought I was upstairs. She'd said they couldn't let the fear control us, that we had to keep living our lives and not give anyone that power. So as much as it pained her, she let me go to the mall that day with Phil.

Mrs. Muñoz stared both of us down as she dropped us off in front of the movie theater/food court wing. “You keep your cell phones
on
and pick up if you see me calling, no exceptions. And do
not
talk to anyone you don't know. Also no exceptions.”

“Ma, we'll be right here at four o'clock,” Phil said before he kissed her on the cheek. “Three fifty-nine, even.”

I was pretty sure she had tears in her eyes as she drove away.

I knew for a fact that Phil had only gotten out of bed at eleven, a half hour before they picked me up, but his first stop was still the food court. I had mixed feelings about the food court. One part of me wanted to stand in the middle and revel in the decadent smells—fried chicken strips and enormous slices of greasy pepperoni pizza and creamy frozen yogurt and thick-cut waffle fries. It wasn't what I needed to smell on a Wednesday, my fasting day.

But the other part of me was frozen with fear, because everything about the food court reminded me of Chris: the fast-food wrappers balled up in the corners of his car, the fountain sodas that took up residence in the sticky cup holders of the console. Even the stacks of thin paper napkins on the tables made me think of him. He always kept a bunch in his glove compartment; he used them to wipe himself off after we'd finished having sex.

“I'm getting a gyro to start out.” Phil took a step toward the Greek place, but his eyes were all over the food court. “Maybe a corn dog before my mom picks us up. Or tacos. And fries. A shitload of fries. What are you having?”

I didn't answer. My stomach was growling so loudly, I could barely hear myself think. I pinched. Directly under my ribs on my right side. For one, two, three, then four beats. It was a little after noon, so I only had a few more hours until I could eat again. Seventeen more hours, to be precise. But I'd be sleeping for seven of those, so really just ten more hours.

“Theo?”

Phil's voice sounded tinny. I wasn't looking at him, anyway. I was staring at the meat behind the counter of the gyro restaurant. A vertical cylinder of meat turning on a spit. How could anything that looked and sounded so questionable smell so wonderful? I couldn't remember the last time I'd touched beef or even chicken. Or lamb. Was it lamb? I'd always thought lamb was disgusting but if that's what they were shaving off and stuffing into the grilled pita bread, it wasn't disgusting that day.

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd had anything besides fruits and vegetables. Maybe I could switch out that day for the next one on the diet. Thursday could be my fasting day and maybe a gyro wouldn't count because Chris and I never ate at a food court. Only in his car or on the swings of the abandoned park or at the picnic table behind the convenience store.

“Theo?”

I pinched myself again when Phil said my name. Harder, to make sure I wasn't cheating myself. But everything started to get fuzzy. The sounds from the food court grew louder, like they were living inside me, and Phil's voice got smaller. I was dizzy and warm. My whole body, then the warmth rushed to the tips of my ears. My ears were on
fire.
I think Phil touched my arm then, kind of shook me to make sure I was okay, but I was too far gone.

I kept staring at the rotating meat and I had to think of something to keep my mind off of how delicious it would taste, so I pictured a lamb impaled on the spit instead. White and fluffy and adorable with big, long-lashed eyes, but still my stomach moaned, so I imagined the man behind the counter slaughtering the lamb with a sharp, shiny butcher knife and I hit the floor when I saw blood.

• • •

Phil ratted me out.

Not that night. Not right away. After I'd finished convincing the mall employees that I was simply exhausted from the heat, that all I'd needed was water and a few minutes to sit down, I had to work on Phil. I pleaded with him to not tell his mother. I talked him into a matinee of the new Wes Anderson, told him that the air-conditioning would make me feel better.

I don't think either of us knew anything about the movie by the time it ended. Phil spent as much time looking at me as he did the screen, and I was sucking hard on ice chips, pretending I hadn't just scared the shit out of everyone—myself, most of all. I'd been really weak on the new diet, but it was working. I'd already lost two pounds, so I'd powered through it. But fainting? I'd never fainted in my life.

Luckily no one I knew had been around. A miracle in itself, possible only because Ashland Hills doesn't have a proper mall and we had to go to the next town over. But what if it happened again? That's not something I could explain away. If anyone else found out I'd fainted, they'd surely connect the two and take me to a doctor and everything I'd worked so hard for would be ruined.

As soon as the credits began rolling and the lights came on, I'd turned to Phil and clutched his arm in a death grip.

“You can't tell.”

“Jesus, Theo. That hurts.” He'd yanked his arm out of my hand. Then, “What are you talking about?”

“You know . . . What happened today.” I dug my fingers into the plush armrest instead.

“Theo—”

“You can't tell, Phil. It was an honest mistake. I forgot to eat breakfast and it's a thousand degrees outside and it was a mistake, okay?”

“You already said that.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at me and toyed with the sleeve of his vintage Jethro Tull T-shirt. His love for old British rock bands was unrivaled at the time.

“Because you have to believe me.”

“How do you forget to eat?” Phil frowned so deeply at me then that if his mother had been there she would have warned him that his face might stay that way.

“Phil, please. If you tell my parents they'll get pissed and we'll have to have another meeting with Marisa.” I squeezed the armrest to hide how badly my fingers were shaking.

“
Another
meeting?”

Shit shit shit.

• • •

If I'd been paying better attention the next evening, I would have realized Phil had every intention of telling. He came over for dinner and he was overly polite, even with me. Like always, he helped my father with the dishes while Mom and I wiped down the dining room table. And I was stupid not to suspect anything while they were alone together. Or when Phil looked into my eyes a bit too long before he stepped out the front door. He was trying to tell me right then and there that he was sorry for what he had done.

I was too tired to notice. I was too fucking tired of everything. Of pretending to eat, and pretending to be okay with the fact that my friend was still missing and my boyfriend had left me. Of pinching myself till I left plum-colored bruises. I was tired of pretending that I was as strong as the girls on the pro-ana boards: StikPrincess and Dyin2BThinnn and PaperGurl. None of them ever talked about fainting. None of them were sitting there in the second week of their rainbow diet nibbling on a chicken kebab because they were too tired and too dumb to figure a way out of the meal. Thursday was my red day. My dinner was supposed to be half a red pepper, not half a red pepper with fattening meat attached to either side. Or was Thursday orange? I was too tired to get up and check my computer.

It didn't matter. The damage was already done.

My parents didn't know what else to do with me. I hadn't ever been in any real trouble up until then. I was a solid B student, fully dedicated to ballet, and more than capable of taking care of myself in the hours they couldn't be with me. When they realized how little they'd actually seen me eat in the past couple of months and how worried Marisa and Phil were, they freaked out and sent me away while they tried to figure out where they went wrong.

Because they'd talked to me about Donovan. A lot. They made sure I knew that the case wasn't closed just because he hadn't turned up yet. They asked how I was feeling. Constantly. And if they thought I was spending too much time alone, Phil would magically show up at the door, asking if I wanted to go to the pool or see a movie or come over for lunch.

Maybe if I were a better person I would have told them about Chris. But every time I wanted to pick up a pen to confess it all in a letter or tell them in one of the two phone calls I was allowed each week at Juniper Hill, I stopped. I backtracked. I remembered what Chris said, that no one would understand what we had. That we hadn't known each other very long but our love was irreplaceable and true. He said what we had was special and if anyone else found out they'd try to ruin it for us.

I had seen the look on Donovan's face when he found us behind the store. I believed Chris. Even after he left me without saying goodbye, I believed him.

Phil wrote me letters. One for each week I was in Wisconsin. The old-fashioned kind, with paper and an envelope. I never wrote him back.

But I read every single note. They didn't say anything important. He spent the first three apologizing and explaining how worried he'd been, how he didn't think he had any other choice. The next few were about his summer and those letters are evidence that Phil is a hell of a lot more boring when I'm not around.

I kept them all. In a box at the back of my closet with the articles about Donovan. My parents were especially sneaky back then, and the newspapers would go missing in our house almost as soon as they landed on the front doorstep. But I could still use a computer, so I printed them out and paper-clipped them together under the only thing I have from Chris: a dried daisy.

He'd get them from the store. They were two-day-old flowers, discounted to almost nothing. I didn't care. We'd be driving out to the park, and when I turned my head to look out the window, a single daisy would appear on my lap. I looked past the curling petals and drying stems because two-day-old flowers were still beautiful in their own way. They were extra-beautiful to me, because no one had ever given me flowers besides my father.

Sometimes I wonder what Phil would do if he knew his letters were sitting next to something Chris gave me. I think about what his face would look like as I told him about my ex-boyfriend, how quickly he would relay the story to my parents.

I don't know what I would tell him anyway. Phil's never been in love, so I don't think he'd understand a boyfriend I had to keep secret. Especially not then. He knew love—just not the kind I did. He would have done anything for his mother, for Glenn. But he didn't know that the love of someone who isn't related to you is even better, even more special, because they don't
have
to love you. They love you because they want to be with you, because they chose you.

Or at least that's what I used to believe about Chris.