The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World Read online

  “That’s better,” Ruth says. “Now people can see you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s better.”

  “You have nice eyes.”

  I hide my face in my hands. I don’t want anyone looking at my eyes, even if they think they’re nice. The good news is Ruth doesn’t seem alarmed by my behavior. She’s been so sheltered she doesn’t even know I’m abnormal.

  “Do you know the story of Noah’s Ark?” Ruth says.

  “Sort of.”

  “I think this must have been the kind of rain that led to the great flood.”

  “Should we be worried?”

  “Maybe we should start building a boat.”

  I look at her, not knowing how to react. For all I know, the only history she’s ever been taught is stories from the Bible. She might think the Earth’s still flat.

  “I’m kidding,” she finally says.

  “Oh.”

  “My mom has taken me to the library twice a week for years. In case you don’t know, they have a lot of books there. And Internet. And very kind and subversive librarians who take curious homeschooled kids under their wings and teach them stuff they’re not supposed to know.”

  “How was that book?” I say. “The one you hid behind my house.”

  “Good,” she says thoughtfully. “Very realistic. Do you think that town’s close to here?”

  “What town?”

  “The town in that book.”

  “I don’t know. I never read it.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re a lot different than I thought you’d be,” I say.

  “Thank you.” Ruth smiles. “That’s just about the nicest compliment you could give me.”

  We sit there for a long time, watching the downpour and the parade of garbage floating by. Maybe this is the great flood. Maybe the earth or God or whatever has finally had enough. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the mess we’ve made and start over from scratch.

  “My mom’ll be home from the store soon,” Ruth says. “I should go.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was good talking to you.”

  “You too.”

  I watch as Ruth splashes across the street back to her house. I wonder what it’s like inside. I think it probably smells a little like my house before the Hoarder Heaven people came—a mix of mildew, disintegrating wallpaper, and despair. But maybe like my house, Ruth’s has transformed in the last week. Someone chopped those trees down. They’re airing it out. Her world is turned upside down too.

  I walk into the house and upstairs to my bathroom, careful not to step near the edge of the remaining floor. My foot went straight through the rotten floorboards last night, and I nearly fell into the kitchen.

  I push my hair out of my eyes—the same yellow-wheat color and shoulder length as Caleb’s. Maybe Ruth is right. Maybe I do have nice eyes. They’re bright blue like my uncle’s. They’re shaped like his, and so are my nose and mouth. We share the same sharp cheekbones, the same angular chin.

  I feel my chin. Is that hair? Am I growing a beard?

  When was the last time I even looked at myself in the mirror? What else has happened to me while I wasn’t looking?

  Maybe it’s time for a change. Maybe it’s time for all sorts of things.

  Maybe I should cut my hair. But would that mean I’m copying Lydia? What if everything I do will only ever be a pale imitation of something somebody else has already done better?

  Maybe I could wear a ponytail. Or pull it up like Natalie and all those ballet girls. But Lydia would probably kick my ass for wearing a man-bun. If we’re still friends, that is. Are we still friends?

  I have to put my hand on the counter to keep myself from falling over. I need to eat something.

  I miss her so much.

  What have I done?

  LYDIA

  WHEN I CHECKED ON CALEB last night, he was sitting cross-legged on a pile of pillows with his eyes closed and was so blissed out, he didn’t even notice I was there. I left a microwaved burrito and an apple for him on the floor and walked right back out the door.

  I called Billy all day yesterday, but I think the phone was off the hook. His grandma finally answered and said he lost his phone privileges, then hung up on me. I’m not counting on her telling him I called.

  God, that family drives me crazy.

  Technically, I don’t think we’re supposed to have class on holidays, but Mary scheduled rehearsals for all the advanced and preprofessional classes today, even though it’s the King’s birthday. “Mastery doesn’t come to people on vacation,” she scolded a ballerina who started crying because her family would have to cancel their ski trip.

  The little girl stares at me from the mirrored wall of the studio, standing where my reflection should be. She’s wearing her pink tights and leotard and ballet skirt, mimicking my movements during barre warm-up. When I accidentally meet her eyes, she sticks her tongue out. I stick my tongue out right back.

  I feel a nudge in my back and shift my eyes to meet Natalie’s in the mirror. Natalie mouths, “Are you okay?” with a playful glint in her eye, and I cringe in embarrassment and melt at the same time.

  “Lydia!” Mary snaps from her stool in the corner. “Do you have somewhere you’d rather be?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then how about you stay here with us?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The little girl spins around and wags her butt at me.

  This is supposed to be Luz’s advanced contemporary rehearsal, but Mary’s oppressive presence has taken over. Luz stands at the front of the room leading the warm-up, but her attention and everyone else’s are on Mary on her throne in the corner.

  I can’t focus. The big show is in five days, and I can’t remember the choreography. It keeps slipping out of my brain, bullied out by more aggressive thoughts. This show is supposed to be the highlight of my short pathetic life, and yet I can’t bring myself to be excited.

  It’s all Billy’s fault. I never wanted a friend, but he weaseled his way into my life and made me care about him. And now he’s not holding up his end of the bargain. Because isn’t that what friendship is in the end? A kind of bargain? An agreement? Friends agree to talk to each other. Friends agree to not shut each other out.

  “Lydia!” Mary shouts from her stool. “Wake up.”

  Everyone is in position to start rehearsal, but I’m still standing by the barre, having a staring contest with a little girl only I can see.

  “You okay, kid?” Luz says softly. I flinch when she puts her hand on my shoulder. Her warm brown eyes almost make me lose it. I remember this feeling from right after my mom died, when I was so fragile, so raw, that even the most tender act of kindness hurt.

  “I’m fine,” I say with a clenched jaw, and get into position. Luz is talking at the front of the room, but I can’t hear her. My gaze shifts between Mary’s weighty presence in the corner and the little girl thrashing around in the mirror. The girl is angry now, no longer playful. She is lonely and she is sick of being ignored. She wants Billy back too.

  I dance, but my attention is on the figure turning the mirror into a tornado. The girl spins and throws her body as if it’s a weapon. She smashes into walls, shoves the stereo system to the ground, pushes Mary’s stool over, kicks and flails her arms like someone on fire, and the dancers in the mirror scatter until the only person standing is the little girl in the middle of the room, alone, furious, a storm unto herself.

  “Goddammit, Lydia!” Mary bellows when the music stops. She glides off her stool and stands in front of me. I can’t quite meet her stare, but I focus on the faint lines around her eyes that show even through her thick makeup. I am out of breath, but it is not from dancing.

  “Sorry,” I pant. My body aches, as if I’ve been beaten, as if it were me in the mirror throwing myself around, so desperate to make contact, even if it hurts.

  “Your lack of focus is unacceptable,” Mary snaps. The class is utterly silent. />
  “I’m sorry.”

  “Did I make a mistake starting you at the top?”

  “No, ma’am,” I say, but right now I don’t believe it.

  I hear giggles from the back of the studio. And then I am no longer human, no longer a girl or a dancer. I am reduced to a fire of shame and fury as I spin around and spit, “Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitches!”

  A collective gasp. I feel the oxygen leave the room.

  “Out!” Mary shouts.

  “What?”

  “Go and wait in the lobby until class is over. With the way you’re behaving right now, you do not deserve to dance in this studio. And if you leave before I get a chance to talk to you, you can know right now that you will not dance in the Winter Showcase and you will never be welcome back.”

  The only thing I see as I stomp out of the studio is black. I can’t see Mary’s angry eyes, or Luz’s sad ones; I can’t see all the skinny white girls huddled together in whispers; I can’t see the little girl curled into a ball, crying, in the wreckage on her side of the mirror; I can’t even see Natalie, concern pouring out of her, as she moves to follow me out of the studio, as Mary stomps across the dance floor and grabs her arm to hold her back.

  In the dressing room, I am alone. The buzzing in my ears drowns out the muted song I’ve heard a million times coming through the wall as the class dances without me. I am numb as I pull on my jeans and sweatshirt, as I move from the dressing room to the lobby, as I sit on the bench and wait.

  I think about leaving. I think about walking out of here forever. But where would I go? Dancing is all I have. Dancing is my only way out of this town and out of this life that never wanted me in the first place.

  For some reason, I think about Unicorns vs. Dragons. How it was me, at age eleven, who read the series first, before Larry. I’ve never told anyone, not even Billy, that I loved it. I was obsessed. I had notebooks full of drawings and fan fiction. I barely talked to Larry, even then, but when I did, it was about the series. So he decided to read it too. And for a short time, it was something we shared, something we could talk about that didn’t hurt.

  But then Kayla or Kaitlyn or Katelyn made fun of me for my Unicorns vs. Dragons T-shirt when I was twelve and said only babies still liked it. So I punched her to prove I wasn’t a baby. During my three-day suspension, I tore up my notebooks and posters and stuffed them in the trash can along with my Unicorns vs. Dragons bedsheets, stuffed animals, and action figures.

  I grew out of it, but Larry didn’t. He fished everything out of the trash can that I threw away and kept it. There’s something tragic in how much he loves the fantasy, something desperate in the way he holds on to it, and now, all alone and sitting on this bench, I wonder if maybe it’s the only way Larry’s ever known how to hold on to me.

  I notice the tears falling down my face just as I notice the small hand patting me on the shoulder. My little doppelganger. My ghost. My tiny self. It’s a good thing Belinda isn’t at the front desk, or else she’d have me committed—this spiky-haired girl, weeping, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around something only I can see.

  By the time rehearsal is over, I have cried myself dry. The little girl is asleep with her head in my lap. I’m not relaxed exactly, but something like empty. My rage turned to sadness, then turned to tears, and now the tears are all gone. It’s like something passed through me. I stopped fighting it, and it stopped fighting too.

  I tense when I hear the beginning of chatter in the dressing room. In a few short moments, a parade of dancers will file through the lobby, eager to see if I am still here, to see how far I have cracked.

  Natalie hurries out of the dressing room before anyone else has a chance. My body softens as she sits next to me, in the space where the little girl used to be. She places her hand in the same spot on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” she says.

  That’s all she needs to say. I put my hand on hers and rest my cheek there. For a moment, there is perfect stillness.

  But then the dressing room door bursts open, and our hands immediately return to our own laps as we create a few more inches of space between us on the bench. I look at the floor as the dancers file by. “Ooh, Lydia’s in trouble,” someone teases, and even though I’m looking down, I can feel Natalie shooting dagger eyes at the girl to shut her up.

  When all the girls have gone, Luz comes out and kneels in front of me. I can only meet her eyes for a second before I have to look away. “If something’s going on, you can talk to me, okay?” she says.

  I nod, but I don’t really believe her. Luz is great and all, but she has her own life. She doesn’t want to hear about mine.

  “Don’t mind Mary,” Luz says. “She only knows how to play bad cop.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Thanks, Luz,” Natalie says.

  “You make me proud,” Luz says. “Both of you.”

  I thought I had no tears left, but I was wrong. I turn my head and rub my eyes with my fists. I have nothing to hide behind. Where’s my long hair when I need it?

  “Ladies, will you give Lydia and me some privacy, please?” Mary says as she enters the lobby.

  “Bye, y’all,” Luz says as she stands up. “See you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” Natalie says softly.

  “No, it’s okay,” I say.

  “It’s no problem.”

  I look Natalie in the eye. “Really. No. But thank you.”

  She nods. “Okay. But call me if you need to talk.”

  Mary sits next to me in silence after Luz and Natalie leave. She smells like baby powder. I hate the smell of baby powder.

  “My father died the day before my very first Nutcracker,” Mary finally says after everyone else is gone.

  I look at her, too surprised by her statement to remember to sulk.

  “But I had to forget about him—I had to forget about my feelings—as soon as I stepped on that stage. Whatever’s bothering you right now, it must cease to exist when you enter this studio.”

  “Fine,” I say. I just want this conversation to end. I just want to get out of here.

  “Tell me something,” Mary says. “Do you think you deserve to be here?”

  I suddenly feel sick. Desperation and fear swirl inside me, heating up, transforming into what’s familiar: anger.

  “Are you threatening me?” I say.

  “Excuse me?” Mary says, looking genuinely surprised.

  “You think you can treat me like shit because I’m a scholarship student,” I say. “You think all those other girls are better than I am because they can afford their pink overpriced shoes and ballet bullshit? Why even have a scholarship if you think I’m not worth your time?”

  I am the twelve-year-old girl who punched Kayla or Kaitlyn or Katelyn. I am the girl attacking the person threatening to take away the thing I love.

  “Scholarship?” Mary says. Then she laughs. A sharp, humiliating cackle. “Is that what you think happened? Oh, honey, I don’t know what that strange little friend of yours told you. There’s no scholarship. There’s never been a scholarship. That boy is paying for all your classes. He asked me not to tell you, and I’m not sure why. I agreed to see you dance because quite frankly the whole situation was odd and I was curious. To be honest, I wasn’t planning on taking you on as a student. I thought the whole thing was a joke.”

  I don’t know if I’m breathing. I don’t know if my blood is even pumping. My heart has stopped.

  I’m a joke. That’s all I’ve ever been.

  “I changed my mind when I saw you dance,” Mary says, her voice softening. “I felt uneasy about the whole secret payment thing, but I thought, if that’s what it was going to take for you to dance here, I was willing to do it.” Mary tilts her head to make eye contact, but I can’t do it. I already feel too seen.

  “Because you deserve to be here,” Mary says. “You have the kind of raw talent I’ve frankly never seen before. And when I’m hard on you, it’
s not because I don’t believe in you. Just the opposite. It’s because I want you to be prepared. You haven’t had the years of classes these girls have. You don’t know the culture. It’s vicious out there. You need to know how to maintain control even when it’s vicious. That’s why I’m vicious.”

  “Can I go now?” I say.

  “Are you hearing what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.” I stand up.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mary says. “Remember, leave everything else outside. All you are in here is a dancer.”

  “Okay.” I start walking toward the door.

  “I want you to make it,” Mary says. “I think you can make it.”

  But I don’t look back or stop walking. I don’t hear the “I think you can make it.” All I can hear is Billy’s lie.

  BILLY

  GRANDMA’S BUSY GIVING TOURS ALL day, so I steal her computer and spend the rest of the afternoon watching old videos of Caleb. Not the ones I used to watch when I missed him the most, not of him young and mostly sober. I’m watching the bad ones, the ones right before he was sent to his many rehabs, when his skin was gray and his words were unintelligible, when he was angry and mean, when he seemed half dead. I’m done looking to be soothed by some nonexistent, fantasy version of my uncle. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but whatever it is, it’s not coming.

  I’m numb as I watch Caleb nod off during an interview, as I watch Caleb fall down a short flight of stairs and just lie at the bottom without even trying to get up. I don’t feel that familiar tug inside me, the one I’m realizing has made so many of my decisions. Maybe that feeling is some weird version of love. Maybe it’s pity. Whatever it is, it makes even someone as pathetic as me feel like I have some kind of power.

  It takes me several moments to figure out what I’m seeing when I walk downstairs to get some food. My house and everything in it keep changing. At first, I panic because I think Grandma’s going to kill me because her computer’s gone, but she doesn’t even seem to have noticed. She’s in her usual spot on the couch, but something is very wrong. The TV’s not on. She doesn’t even notice me standing there staring at her because she’s so immersed in the thing she’s holding in her lap.