Page 97 of Xavier

Twenty-five

Her

“It started the moment I got to New York. The moment I stepped into my freshman contemporary dance class. The moment he saw me. I thought at first it was just the way he looked at everyone, all the students, girls and boys, sizing them up from the start, picking his favorites, his prodigies. I was so stupid. I thought he liked me for my dancing.”

Her voice is quiet but steady. She stares out the window as she speaks, her hands clasped in her lap, eyes lost in the memory. I tell myself I won’t interrupt until she’s done. I don’t want to spook her, stop her. I need to know it all.

“He never really said anything that I thought was out of the ordinary. It was just the looking, the staring. But that’s what dance teachers do, I told myself, they watch your every movement. I was used to it. I should’ve listened to my instincts. It didn’t feel the same. But I’d worked my whole life to be there, I wasn’t going to ruin my chance. No, I wanted to make the most of it, no matter what.” She nods, as if her past was reminding her of her reasons.

“About a month in, the looking moved onto touching. Again, it wasn’t anything I could pinpoint, instructors touch us all the time, helping our angles, our turn out, making sure our positions are correct. Even a ten-degree difference in the turn of your hips sets the good dancers from the best. I wanted to learn it all. I almost welcomed the touches, because I knew I was improving with each one. Then he started singling me out, picking me for demonstrations in front of the class, praising me in front of everybody. The other girls both loved me and hated me in equal turn. I didn’t really have any friends. I would spend my mornings in dance class, my afternoons studying and my night time writing letters to you. I missed you so much, Xavier, so much. It was almost unbearable.”

Her rhythm breaks for a moment and she turns to me, her eyes sad. I give her a gentle nod, encouraging her to continue. She gives me a tight smile and then turns back to the film running through her brain.

"He asked to see me once, after class. It sounded like just an opportunity to talk about my future. I was the last one to leave one day and he came up and asked me if I had thought about what kind of dance company I wanted to work with. I told him I would work with any that would take me. I just wanted to be given a chance to perform. He told me not to be small-minded and that if I worked hard, I could pick and choose who I could work for. And then he told me to come by the studio later that night and we would talk about some of my options. I didn't really think anything of it. I showed up that night and we didn't talk for very long. There were a few stragglers training with one of the other instructors, so he just handed me a few brochures for local dance companies and told me we'd talk another time. But after that, the uneasiness I felt at the start was growing. So I put it off for a while. He didn't seem too bothered by it, so I thought maybe I was just imagining it."

She shrugs and then takes a deep breath. I can sense that whatever’s coming next is hard for her. Hard to say, hard to remember. I look down and notice her hands that were laying still on her lap are now wringing themselves. Her fingers nervously tugging on each other as she struggles with her story.

“Go on, sweetheart,” I urge her gently and she just nods.

“About six weeks into the semester, we were getting ready for a performance exam. I was having trouble with it, my pas de deux partner wasn’t very good and I felt like he wasn’t doing the lift right, which affected my own performance. He came up to me at the end of class and said, 'This first exam is very important, it's going to set the tone for the rest of your time here. The way you're going, you might not even pass. If you want help, I only have tonight to help you. All the other girls have booked up my other one-on-one sessions.' I panicked. As I said, I'd worked hard to be there. If the person who was going to be grading me didn't think I was going to do well then I was going to get all the help I could."

She takes one long, deep breath.

“I showed up that night, and he was alone. He was… strangely quiet. He kind of just murmured a hello and then we warmed up together, but he didn’t talk much. Once we were done, he pointed to the barre and he followed behind me as I walked over. Then, I caught him in the mirror, one second too late. He ran up and grabbed me pushing me up against the barre, hard. I can still feel it digging hard against my ribs, bruising me. He pushed his mouth against mine and started kissing me really roughly. I was so surprised, I didn’t even know how to react. I tried to push him away, but I couldn’t. He was too strong. I screamed. But nobody heard me. He didn’t say anything, he just kept running his hands all over me, trying to pull down my tights. I just kept kicking my legs, and struggling, trying to break free.”

Her voice grows louder, shaking. Her hands tearing at each other, her skin rubbed raw. But I know I can’t stop her. I close my eyes and try to swallow the bile rising up my throat. I don’t want to hear this, but I know I have to. This is why. This is why our lives turned out the way it did.

“I kept trying to scream, I remember he slapped me. It was so hard. I saw stars. His mouth was all over my face, my neck, even while he tried to… tried to pull my tights down. I did everything I could to just keep moving, struggling, kicking my feet out, freeing my arms. I think I even tried to bite him. One of my kicks finally connected with his shin or something and he let go, just for a moment and I manage to break free.”

My heart leaps in my chest, as if I'm there watching it.

“I ran as fast as I could but he chased me. I didn’t think I could make it to the door before he’d reach me so I picked up one of my slippers I saw laying on the floor and flung it at him. It hit him on the side of his head but it didn’t really slow him down. He grabbed me from behind and threw me down onto the ground.”

I almost throw up in my mouth. I want her to stop. Tell me it’s all just a bad dream. This never happened. She’s making it up. The thoughts swirl in my head so fast I can barely process them. No, I can, I can see them, they’re just buried under the one clear thought that is flashing clearer than anything else; I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find him and I’m going to fucking kill him.

“He… started to kneel down, to straddle over me, I can still see his face, he was sweating, not even looking at me, like he was in some sort of haze and… I’m not sure how but I lifted up my knee and it… it hit him in the groin. He doubled over and I… got up and ran to the door. I could hear him yelling after me that he was going to kill me if I ever told anyone about what just happened. That he knew everything about me. And to never come back to his class. I… I never did.”

She stops.

But she doesn’t move.

I want to feel relief, that that’s all that happened. But I know there’s more. I know how it ended. With us apart. There had to be more.

“Malynda,” I say, after she’s quiet for almost a minute. The sound of her name triggers something, and she turns to me, shaking her head. “You can tell me. Nothing you will say will change the way I feel about you.”

She sighs, her shoulders dropping after the tension from the story.

“If only that were true, Xavier.” She says and leans over and presses a kiss against my lips. “One last kiss,” she whispers.

Then she sits up and tells me the rest of the story.