You in Five Acts(84)

“Everybody on the ground, NOW!” the cop shouted. I knelt down slowly and put Liv, still shaking, on the cool cement. Then I lay on my stomach and folded my hands behind my head.

“She could die!”

I turned my head, scraping my nose against the jagged sidewalk, to see your sneakers still upright. You were standing your ground like always, only this time you were looking down the barrel of a gun.

“Joy!” I hissed.

“Don’t worry about her,” the office yelled. “I told you to get DOWN!” He fumbled for his walkie-talkie and dropped his flashlight; it crashed to the ground and rolled toward my head. “Requesting backup!” he barked. Then, to you: “I’m not asking again. DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD.”

“She’s not armed, man!” I cried. “Joy, show him your hands!”

“Shut up!” he screamed. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

I heard retching sounds. Liv had rolled over onto her side and was throwing up.

Don’t move, I thought.

“DON’T MOVE!” the cop shouted. But I knew you well enough to know they were wasted words. You took a step and crouched next to Liv, reaching for her face, and the next thing I knew the cop was on top of you, grabbing your hair as you cried out in fear, barrel rolling you into a ditch.

I bared my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, a silent scream down into the earth. How had I ended up in this place? How had I let it happen? I hadn’t dropped you onstage, but I didn’t know then there was a worse way to fall.

“You’re hurting me!” you sobbed.

“I’m not hurting you,” the officer snapped. My limbs started to twitch.

Don’t run.

“My ankle!” you screamed.

I tensed the muscles in my upper back and lifted my head with my hands still cupping my skull, twisting enough to see the cop—who must have been six feet, two hundred pounds—sitting on your legs, pulling your wrists back as he grabbed at his belt for handcuffs. Your face was a mask of pain.

“Looks like you were running just fine to me,” he said, and then, with one wide palm, took the back of your head and shoved your face roughly into the dirt.

“GET OFF HER!”

My body moved before my brain could tell it to stop. My fingers found pavement and pushed, the muscles in my legs, conditioned by years of training to leap, sprung into action. I was on my feet, reaching for you. I didn’t touch him, I swear.

I didn’t touch him.

I heard it before I saw it.

Pop.

It felt like getting knocked down by someone sprinting, like a punch to the gut with a stick on fire.

“DIEGO!” That scream ripped through my bones. How had I gotten here? What had I done?

I saw you in flashes, a fouetté turn that wouldn’t end, my eyes focusing for a split second, grounding me in between spins: your smile, your laugh, the way you looked so mad when you got nervous. The curve of your waist in your leotard. Your silhouette on the train that night, looking out the window with the whole city stretched out behind you like some crazy constellation. The weight of you in my arms. The weight of you.

You.

You.

It’s always been you.

You know that, right?





Finale


    Joy


THEY CLOSED SCHOOL for a week in your memory. The whole city felt like it shut down. There was a protest march in Union Square, people handing out fliers with your picture on them, carrying signs—or so I heard, anyway; I couldn’t go. I was still in the hospital then. Officer Lorenz—that was his name, by the way, in case you feel like haunting him or something, 23rd Precinct—tore my anterior talofibular ligament, and even though my parents thought I should wait to have the surgery, I wanted it right away. I needed for someone to cut into my skin so the pain would be outside as well as in. Lying in recovery felt better than walking down the street because that way, everyone could see that I was suffering. I didn’t have to pretend.

Liv is OK. I know you’d want to know that before anything else. She ended up at Lenox Hill with me, but the doctors stabilized her quickly. It turned out she’d been taking three times the recommended dosage of some prescription pills she got from Dante, plus a bunch of other stuff. He’s alive, too. He got caught and charged and sentenced to a year in jail, but at least he cleared your name. The first New York Post headline after the news broke—thankfully I was still on heavy painkillers, and no one showed me, because I would have lost it—was TWINKLE TOE UP, and it was all about how you were some drug-dealing dancer who lunged savagely at a cop; within a week, after Dante went on record with why you’d been there, and I publicly challenged Officer Lorenz’s account of you tackling him, it became HERO HOOFER: WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME. I mean, seriously, f*ck the New York Post, but at least they printed a retraction.

Someone made a donation page to cover your funeral costs, and it raised over $200,000. Your mom set up college funds for Miggy and Emilio. Janus held a benefit concert, too, at the end of the year right before graduation. It was basically just a repeat of Showcase, but I wasn’t a part of it. For one thing, I was still in physical therapy, and besides, they didn’t include our pas de deux. It wouldn’t have felt right. Not that anything feels right anymore, without you. Not that anything ever will.