“Breathe, Eleanor. Please. Tell me what happened. I can’t help you if—”
The rain soaks us both as I struggle with my umbrella and helping her. She lifts her phone then, and I see the pictures I took of Mr. K and Eleanor at the hospital. The photos that were on my missing phone.
“They’re calling me a slut, Bette.”
“You’re not—”
“Why am I the slut? He’s done this a dozen times! Why am I the one to blame?” She’s zipping through all the photos and the comments. They’re on a bunch of different students’ pages. “I’m not the first. I just wanted to—I thought, if I could just get his attention, I’d show him how good I was.”
“Let’s go to my house,” I say. “We can hide out and figure out what to do.”
She’s shaking her head in a manic, determined way. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now. This happened because of you. Because of the pictures you took.”
I try to grab her hands, to lead her inside and out of the rain, but she takes off in the other direction. “Someone stole my phone!” I shout.
I chase after her, but lose track of her. The rain pours down in sheets. I can’t even see the streetlamps in front of me. The plaza is so slick and the wind is so strong, I try not to fall, my umbrella nearly lifting me off the ground. I turn back to the school doors. I trip into the lobby, dripping with rain and guilt.
A male voice booms through the lobby, coming from one of the studios.
“What’s going on?” I ask the front desk guard.
“Someone’s in trouble, I guess.”
One of the RAs spots me. She runs up to me and grabs me by the shoulder. “You’re late.” She’s all pissy, as if it’s going to reflect on her. “School-wide meeting. Studio D. Now.”
I have a sick feeling that it’s about those pictures from my phone. She pulls me into the studio.
“Someone is turning Mr. K’s concern for a student into something reprehensible.” Alec’s dad stands in front of the crowd, as angry as I’ve ever seen him. “Something disgusting and inappropriate. They are posting the innuendos and lies all over social media. For something like this to come up at this turn—when we’re finally about to set things right with the gala performance—well, it’s simply unconscionable. There was nothing illicit about this picture.” His face expressionless, as his eyes comb over every student in the room, looking for the dead giveaways. The clamminess, the smirks, the flushing or fear. But everyone is silent.
A bearded black man I’ve never seen before steps forward. “I’m Kevin McCafferty, the deputy VP of the conservatory board. Most of you do not recognize me because my role is largely behind-the-scenes—and that distance allows me to remain objective in these matters. As you know, the board of the American Ballet Company and Conservatory takes these charges very seriously. We cannot let this go without looking into the authenticity of these pictures and the veracity of the claims made online. Your parents have been notified of this situation.” He looks around.
Whispers shoot through the room—the sound flinging itself up the studio’s bare walls, bouncing off mirrors and from one student to the other, spreading like a brush fire raging out of control. I slip out and go looking for Eleanor.
I go back outside in the rain. No sign of her. I race to the coffee shop down the block. The barista says there haven’t been any students here all day. I head back to the building.
“Any dancers come in late?” I ask the front desk man.
“Aside from you, there was one other.” He barely looks up from his paper. I want to slam it down on the desk and make him pay attention to me.
“Was it Eleanor?”
“I don’t know any of your names, miss. She was brown haired, sopping wet, and crying.”
I race from the front desk to the elevators. I don’t say thank you, even after he yells out “You’re welcome” behind me. I fixate on the elevator numbers as it climbs from the first floor to the twelfth floor. I dart to my room and turn the doorknob. It’s locked.
“Eleanor?” I knock again and say her name louder. I bang now and the door vibrates, but there’s no answer. I dig my keys out of my bag, then push my way into the room.
The TV blasts a recording of one of Adele’s old ballets. “Eleanor?”
Light pours out from under the bathroom door. I knock, but hear nothing. I turn the knob and it opens, just barely. There’s a chair jammed against it. I slam into the door. The chair falls over. I push my way into the bathroom. My heart pounds.
Eleanor is passed out in the bathtub, arms dangling over the side, gashes across her wrists. Blood stains the water red, and my pills are scattered all over the fuzzy bath mat.
I scream for help and grab for Eleanor in the water. Her body feels too light, and sinks farther into the tub the more I pull. “Wake up, Eleanor. Open your eyes. C’mon.” I manage to get her halfway out of the bathtub and cover her naked body with towels and a robe. I scream until I can’t hear myself anymore.
After what feels like a lifetime, an RA rushes into the bathroom. She yanks me away from Eleanor. My hands are slick with her blood and my tights are soaked with bloodstained water. I fall back onto the plush blue bath mat my mother ordered. I feel the RA trying to lift me, but I am a thousand pounds and can’t get my limbs to work or my legs to stop giving out from under me as I try to stand.
Another RA rushes in and behind her are paramedics. I’m taken from the room and into the hall where a crowd has gathered. People ask me questions. I see lips moving. I feel hands on my arms and shoulders. But I can’t hear anything other than my heartbeat and the memory of my screams. My head fills with images of Eleanor.
The oozing gashes on her wrists.
The paleness of her skin.
The blood in the water.
They tell everyone to go back to their rooms, but I can’t move. As soon as Eleanor is on a gurney and headed down in the elevator, I shoot for the stairs. I leap down them two at a time. I burst through the stairwell door and into the lobby. Mr. K is there with all the teachers. They hover near the school entrance. Mr. McCafferty is outside, shooing away cameras with the help of police officers.
Eleanor’s gurney clicks loudly against the marble floors of the lobby. It’s the only thing I can hear. Thump. Thump. Thump.
She’s strapped down, and an oxygen mask covers half her face. An EMT holds a bag of fluids over her and shouts something to his partner. Mr. K seems frozen as Eleanor passes, his eyes wet, his hand over his mouth, his pale skin white as paper. The night guard puts a hand on his shoulder, but he doesn’t move.
Camera flashes pulse through the school windows and the red and blue lights of the ambulance mix with them until I can’t see anything anymore.
All I can hear is a voice inside that says: I just killed my best friend.
39.
June
AS THEY WHEEL ELEANOR OUT the front doors of the American Ballet Conservatory on a gurney, the lobby is quieter than it’s been in the six years I’ve lived in this building. So quiet, it almost feels like a funeral. It’s not, I tell myself. I press my face to the glass, watching them load Eleanor’s gurney into the ambulance. Others swarm around doing the same. A sheet covers most of her body, except for one leg that keeps slipping off the side, bare and bloody.