I don’t know if there’s a place his influence can’t reach.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Greyson,” he greets me. Brisk and businesslike, even though it’s nine o’clock at night. “How was practice?”
“Good.” It’s a reflex to answer that way. I was distracted, so… not so good.
“Really? Because I got a call tonight, informing me that my son was almost thrown off the ice.”
Oh, that. Well, Erik should really keep his fucking trap shut when it comes to Violet. He made some passing comment about her, and I went off the deep end. I’m sure as hell not admitting that to my father, though.
“If it’s team trouble, you need to clear that up by the weekend.”
Obviously. “We got it sorted,” I lie.
Unlike Violet, I actually know how to lie. Well enough to trick my father to his face? Probably not. But the phone is a barrier that makes it easier to pull the wool over his eyes. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
“That Reece girl is leaving you alone?”
I cringe and almost drop my phone. “Um…”
“I haven’t seen the merit of hockey,” he continues. “But I have several donors who are following your game closely. We’re planning on attending the tournament finals in April—so your team better be there. Roake mentioned that some teams have been scouting you?”
I’m suffering from a case of mental whiplash. From Violet to donors to scouts.
“Yes. A few have come to speak with Coach and me after the games.”
He hums. “Good, good.”
“Why did you ask about Violet?”
He hesitates.
I stand suddenly, my stomach twisting. Violet. Donors. Scouts. “What did you do, Dad?”
“I’m not talking about this.” He harrumphs. “You focus on playing well for Crown Point University, son, because the real world will kick you in the nutsac if you’re not ready for it.”
Great imagery. “I’m ready.”
“Prove it by focusing on what’s important.” He pauses. “Hockey. Your grades. That’s it.”
He did something. I can feel it in my gut—but he’s not going to fess up to it.
“Oh, and Greyson?”
I stop myself from hanging up on him.
“You’ll be home next week. Spring break. We’re celebrating.” He sounds… pleased with himself. “I’ll send a car.”
A car to take me on a five-hour drive back to my hometown of Rose Hill. Me and a driver and nothing but awkward silence—and music, if we’re lucky. Sometimes they play shitty stuff, or my headphones get stowed in the trunk by accident.
I find myself nodding, wondering what I can do to get out of it. I don’t need to go home—it isn’t like I live in a dorm that’s closing. CPU actually doesn’t offer that much on-campus housing. I’d bet most of the students will be sticking around for the week-long break.
“Sounds great,” I agree, mainly to not suffer an argument. Another one. My gaze swings over my bookcase… and the hole in the neat row of spines. My heart stops. “I’ve got to go,” I manage. “Homework.”
“Get to it.” The line goes dead before I can hang up. If there’s one thing my father is skilled at, it’s having the last word.
But that doesn’t matter.
I stand and cross to the shelves, running my fingers over the spines. Books I personally stacked. One in the center leans across a gap, resting on its neighbor.
A missing piece.
And there’s only one thing that’s worth going missing.
Nausea snakes through me.
I smelled her. I knew she was in here. I knew and I didn’t think to inspect every inch of it. I was distracted. But now I’m not. Now I know she was here for one thing, and one thing only: to steal the last memorabilia from my mother.
Dad eradicated her from our lives when she left.
And then she died a year later, alone in a hospital room. She didn’t want to tell him about the cancer. And in turn, I never got to say goodbye.
By the time we found out—by the time her family clued us in—she had been dead a week.
We missed the tiny funeral out on Long Island. They spread her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean from a small fishing boat. Dad had already removed evidence of her from his house. He took down the pictures that hung on the wall, donated or tossed the clothes and jewelry she left behind. Without her physically being here. And then she was just… gone. Like she had never even existed at all.
So the photos in that book are the last pieces of her.
Without them, I fear I’ll forget her face. Her voice is already a distant memory. Her smile, her fake-serious expression when she caught me doing something I shouldn’t, and she was doing her best not to burst into giggles… those stick. Her laugh, too. I hope I never forget them.
I slide my feet back into my shoes and grab my keys. I blow by Knox and Miles and storm outside. I should be tired. Physically. But the photo album missing has given me a second wind, and I pull up my app to find Violet.
Last time I had her phone, I gave myself access to her location.
Good thing, too, because she’s not at home. At this hour?
Not on campus either.
I zoom in, but I’m not too familiar with where she is. I don’t really give a fuck, though. It doesn’t matter where she is—she’s going to give me that photo album back. Immediately.
It’s close enough to walk, so I do. And I find myself outside an old brick building, her little blue dot on the map showing me that she’s still here. The front door, which opens onto a long, narrow hall, is unlocked. I step inside and keep my weight evenly distributed. I move silently. The first door I come to reveals what seems to be a dance studio. It’s dark, but the light from the hallway shows the bars along the wall and one full wall of mirrors. There’s a piano in the corner, too.
I bypass it for the next.
Light and music spill out of the third and final one.
I stop just shy of it and peer into the opening. Piano music fills the room, and there she is, at the center. Only one row of fluorescent lighting is on, casting the edges of the room in shadow. She wears pointe shoes—I’m pretty sure anyway—and is balanced on one leg, pointed straight into the floor. Impossibly streamlined. Her other is bent, and she spins gracefully around.
Then she bends forward at the waist, and her bent leg comes up behind her. She’s still balancing on her toe but comes down slowly. She folds out of that pose and flows into another one. Her gaze is locked on herself in the mirror.
She wears athletic shorts and a cropped top, and it paints every muscle in sharp relief. The harsh lights and shadows help give her a dangerously fragile appearance. Like that of a bird about to take flight.
The music pauses and loops, the piece beginning again.
Violet seamlessly moves into a dance, and I don’t know if she’s making it up as she goes or if this is a piece of old choreography that she’s clinging on to… either way, I’m ensnared.
Which is the last thing I want to be.
When I blink, I see her in the car again. Broken and bleeding.
Then I blink again, and I see the arc of the crowbar coming down on Jack’s knee.