The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(71)

“Let who do what?” Emma said, and drank. The burn slid down her throat and warmed her stomach. She felt steady, then a pleasant dip, like the first drop of a roller coaster.

“Seriously,” Abigail insisted. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Dude. Are you my mom?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I know. I just think—”

“Seriously, Abby. Fucking get over it, okay?”

“Excuse me?”

She went back to the bottle. “Why don’t you have a drink and, like, relax for once in your life?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Emma said, refilling her cup.

In the living room, lounging on white couches, Ryan’s friends were glancing at her, smirking. Damon Flintov said, “Yo Ry, did you just get some ballerina ass?” and Ryan shrugged. The freshman girls were back; they glommed on to him like metal shavings to a magnet, and not one of them understood him the way she did.

Emma didn’t care. Dance was the real thing in her life, the core of it. School was something to do beforehand. The weekend was the way to unwind after. And Ryan Harbinger was only a “distraction” (so Miss Celeste would say), a “harmless crush” (so her mother believed), or an “idiotic, misogynistic waste of time” (so Abigail told her, whenever she found out that Emma and Ryan had hooked up again). He was most certainly not a boyfriend.

Abigail flipped her middle finger at Ryan and his friends. “He’s such an asshole,” she said.

“So what,” Emma said.

“I’m just saying. You deserve better.”

The vodka was gone, so Emma found a fresh bottle. She thought about the cup but why bother. She pressed the bottle to her lips.

“I’m just saying, you can’t, like, expect these guys to give you respect. They want what they want and the truth is they don’t give a shit about us. So you have to protect yourself, Em. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken. Especially not by an immature asshole like Ryan Harbinger.” Abigail paused, crossed her arms. “And look, I’m sorry, I really don’t think you need another drink!” She grabbed at the bottle in Emma’s hands.

“Oh my God, Abby!” Emma jerked back, and the vodka sloshed onto her wrist. “You fucked one teacher. That doesn’t make you an adult!”

Only in the silence following this outburst did Emma realize she had yelled. Around them the silence spread outward in slow, awful waves. And everyone—whether milling in the kitchen, playing flip cup in the dining room, lounging in the living room, or huddling in the doorway to the deck—stopped and turned to stare.

Abigail blinked at Emma, a permanent hurt in her small gray eyes.

“Fuck,” Emma said, dropping the vodka bottle on the counter. “Abby. I didn’t mean—”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Abigail said evenly.

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what to say. “I just meant—”

“You know what?” Abigail said. “Fuck you, Em, okay? Find your own ride home.”

—

Emma’s parents returned to the hospital room bearing cafeteria coffee and strained smiles. Their anxiety emanated from their skin. It flowed outward like the electricity in textbook illustrations and made Emma squirm in her bed, her pelvis yelping in protest. (That was what it was—a pelvis. She was never so aware of the presence of a bone. Of its precise location within her center, where Miss Celeste said she derived all her power—not from the legs, but from the core. Make yourself as light as a bird, Emma. It is up to you to lift yourself up.) She wanted to go to rehearsal. It was torture to lie there, flexing and pointing her toes under the thin, tight sheets, with nothing to do but think. She wanted her phone, the portal to life outside this room. She wanted her phone, her missed texts, her Facebook, her friends.

Her parents answered her questions with questions of their own:

“The other kids are fine, sweetheart. Tell us, please, what do you remember?”

“Why did you get in that boy’s car?”

“Did you know that he was drinking?”

“We always told you to call us if you needed a ride home—even if you had been drinking. Were you scared to call us? Did you think you’d get in trouble?”

“Honey, why didn’t you call?”

“Honey, tell us, why did you get in that car?”

She had no answer for them. What she remembered of that moment they could not possibly want to hear:

She was puking at the feet of the redwood trees that lined Elisabeth Avarine’s driveway. Cold sweat broke on her forehead, and although the rain had stopped, the trees dripped on the back of her neck. The air smelled of wet pavement. Someone was holding her hair back. Pulling her up, leading her away from the house. Had her by the arm and was guiding her out toward the street, into the dark and the wet. She didn’t want to. She wanted to lie down, to sleep. The earth reeled beneath her and the house was slanting sideways, tilting on its stilts.

“Come on, hurry, you have to get out of here,” said the boy who held her triceps in his grip.

She dropped her head on his chest. “I just wanna, let’s sit here a minute.” Let her weight sag against his body, pulling him down. “Let’s sit and look at the stars and just rest. Okay?”