“Will you be joining any social clubs this year?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Will you be going back for cheerleading?” she asks with enthusiasm.
“No.”
“Uh, all right then,” she mumbles. “Your ballet teacher has been calling almost every day…”
“I’m not a dancer!” I snap. A heavier silence falls between us this time. “Not anymore.”
She regards me with a hopeless look, like a mother who doesn’t know how to salve the hurt and pain her child is going through. Honestly, I don’t need her to do anything either.
“Maybe you just need time…”
“I burned them all,” I announce, opening the part of my closet I dedicated to my ballet shit. There’s nothing but a large, gaping sad space now. Nicky silently gasps.
“What do you mean you burned it all?”
“Last night, the fire I lit in the study,” I mutter.
“You said you were feeling cold, I just assumed you wanted to…”
“To burn it all.”
Julian had the right idea when he burned Nancy’s prima ballerina dress all those months ago. God, I hated him so much back then, but he was right. Nothing matters anymore. I was rejected in Paris. Nancy is dead and well, I don’t give a damn anyway.
“Oh Mia,” she whispers behind me, concern dripping in each word. Suddenly, I’m uncomfortable again, wanting the earth to open up and swallow me. I can’t take her emotional rollercoaster right now. Especially when mine is so fucked up “Talk to me, baby girl.”
I can feel her tumultuous stare on me, the concern in her eyes intensifying the longer I stay silent.
Then she glanced down at my wrists. A sharp pang sears through my heart, making me uncomfortable as flashbacks come to mind. God…
“There’s really nothing to talk about,” I snap, quickly doing up my wrists, not giving her another glance.
“Maybe but are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?” Nicky says softly, stepping closer to her.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Mia, it’s okay to admit that you can’t take on everything that’s hurled at you. You’re allowed to take time out and regroup.”
“I said I’m fine,” I growl. “Please accept that and let it go.”
She doesn’t let it go.
“I know the past couple of weeks have been a nightmare. What with the shitty media coverage you’ve been getting, and I know you wanted to see Jul—”
I hiss.
The sound is so abrupt, so vicious and so out of place, we both freeze.
Almost immediately, mortification colors my cheeks. I feel like I’m dying painfully, shocked by the sound I just made. Tears sting my eyes and I turn away, hiding my face with my hair.
What I just did was wrong, but I’m even more horrified by the reason why I hissed to begin with, and it has nothing to do with her.
Hearing his name spoken out loud feels like a major personal and emotional violation that I can’t handle, and yet, I whisper his name like a litany in the dead of night when I’m crying my eyes out at his betrayal.
His name is constantly on my mind and yet still, I can’t handle hearing it spoken by somebody else.
It’s almost like he’s everywhere except where I want him to be. With me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to…” I trail off, looking down at the floor. Silence falls between us. Tense and pulsing. Hot and freaking uncertain. “I’m sorry. Please just… please don’t mention his name in my presence. It’s just too much for me right now.”
“I understand,” she whispers after a moment. “Well, are you looking forward to your senior year?”
I cringe internally, hating the awkwardness that has formed between us.
I don’t know what to think or how to feel about Nicky right now and she obviously doesn’t know what to do with my silence bordering on depression.
The truth is, she doesn’t know what to do with me at all. I have no idea what to do with myself either so in that, we at least agree.
“Yeah.”
Silence.
From the corner of my eye, I see her opening her mouth to say something but closes it and the motion goes on three more times, making her look like a fish out of water.
“That’s good my love,” she says softly after a while and that almost breaks me.
I want to turn around and let lose all the damn of sobs I’m holding back, but I don’t.
No feelings.
I tuck in my shirt in my senior skirt. Seniors at Clintwood Academy have a different, more sparkly, attractive uniform. Just another way to show we’re the best and I was at the topic of a blazing scandal. I’ll be standing out like a fucking bleeding unicorn in the middle of the Sahara Desert. What could possibly go wrong?
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It’s good.” Just fucking good.
Nicky sighs, tired of my one-worded responses.
“Come on, Mia sweetheart,” she says sadly. “You really don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“I’m going,” I grit out harshly. “We’ve already been over this already.”
And we have. In great detail. Over and fucking over again.
“I know we did, but Mia, with everything that’s going on, with the…” she trails off awkwardly and I shoot her a look through the mirror.
“You can say it, you know,” I murmur. It’s not like it will change anything. It happened. I was thrust in a circle of hell and the one person I thought would hold my hand through it, trust me enough to believe the truth, failed me and broke my heart after we confessed out love for each other. “Go on, Nicky, you can say it. I’m a big girl now.” Old enough to be considered a moneymaking machine that can be sold off to the highest bidder, unfortunately.
“I don’t want to tell you…”
“You don’t want to tell me that maybe I shouldn’t go to school today because everyone in town will be looking at me with dirty glances, cursing my name to hell and back over how I’m a slutty whore who lied and put all the blame on Palos Verdes’, hell, California’s, sexy god and football star, putting him in jail and now going through the trial of the fucking century?” I blink at her, a fake sad and jagged smile on my face. “Is that what you wanted to say, Nicky?”
She flinches, looking away.
I think it hurts her when I say her name, but I don’t think I’m ready to call her mom or even mother. Especially after Nancy died in front of me, and Jesus, let’s not forget how I caused that.
Nicky clears her throat, tugging down her peach cashmere sweater. I’m not sure about her current relationship or fucked up engagement status between her and John, Julian’s father, but she seems to still be living her best life.
“Well, I only want to make sure that you’re, uh, as comfortable as possible and ready to face the storm,” Nicky says, looking anywhere but at me.
I’m not. Not even close but I can’t tell her that.
I can’t tell her how after two weeks of trying to get in touch with Julian, calling him, texting him, trying see him at every chance—when he was in jail and then released on bail—but the static silence and cold brush off was so obvious, a blind man could see I was not wanted anymore. And God knows I can’t tell her how I basically broke down because of that.