She smiled ruefully and reached for my hand. “I’m sorry, too. I just snapped when I learned you were sneaking out. I understand you wanting to have extra help, but you should never have met with someone your father or I had not approved of.”
“I know. It won’t happen again.”
The microwave dinged, but she continued to hold my hand and look me in the eye. “You’re sure there’s nothing more you want to tell me?”
She was no simpleton. Of course, there was more, and she knew I was holding back. But I shook my head nonetheless. And even though we’d made our apologies, she didn’t trust me. It would take a while to regain her confidence.
Lying in bed that night, listening to music and thinking about Raoul, my text alert went off. I levered myself up to retrieve the phone from the bedside table and swiped my finger across the screen. Startled, I shot straight out of bed when I saw Erik’s name in the message line. Then, as if it had burned me, I tossed the phone on the bed and backed away.
He’d texted me. He’d never been the first to text, only responded to any I’d sent. I didn’t know what to do. In all that I’d stressed and worried over since that night, I hadn’t once considered having to face him again. I wrapped my arms around myself and debated whether I should delete the text without reading it. Then the alert sounded again.
I crept closer to the bed, eyeing the phone suspiciously. What could he want? Why wouldn’t he just go away?
My legs went weak and I trembled until my knees buckled and I dropped onto the bed and opened the first message.
Hello, love, I’ve missed you.
I had to read it twice for it to sink in. And upon the second reading, I grew angry rather than frightened. He spoke as if nothing had happened. Then I opened the next message.
Don’t forget to wear dance clothes. You know I get distracted when you wear those tight jeans.
My hand flew to my mouth. He was insane, delusional, acting as if we’d entered into a mutual relationship.
Throwing the phone down once more, my anger turned to outrage, and bounding to my feet, I paced the room until the phone actually rang and I shrieked. With leaden legs, I approached the bed and looked at the screen. It was him. I waited, ogling the chiming phone like it was a singing alien. Finally, it stopped, and in a matter of seconds, the voicemail notification sounded.
It was like I was in a dream, a slow-motion nightmare. Picking up the phone, my fingers wobbly, I pressed the button to listen to the voicemail.
“Chrissy, why won’t you answer my call? You didn’t respond to my texts, and now you ignore my call. I suppose if I’m going to speak with you I’ll have to phone your house—talk to your mother.”
Jenna was right. He was certifiably a Jekyll and Hyde, making the subtlest of threats that he knew would rattle me.
Before I had time to consider what to do, the phone resonated in my hand, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I knew without looking it would be him, and he would follow through with his threat to call my house if I didn’t answer. So I hit the green button on the screen. “Hello?”
“Ah, that’s better. I knew you’d see things my way.”
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“To see you, of course.”
“No.”
“You sound troubled.”
“What did you expect, Erik?”
“You’re not upset about Friday night, are you?”
For a moment, I was speechless.
“Yes, I’m upset about Friday night. You drugged me. How could you do that? To think, I’d worried about hurting your feelings, and all along you’d planned to dope and rape me.”
“No, no, that’s not the way it was.” Instantly, his tone changed. Gone was the confident swagger. “I love you, Christine. You have to know that. And you love me, too. I know you do. You came back for me. Surely, you understand. I never meant to hurt you. The drug—it was to make it easier for you. Why you said yourself you had to take a sedative before the Academy audition.”
“Don’t even compare what you did to my situation with the audition. Besides, you’d had the wine planned before I ever told you about my panic attacks. You weren’t making things easy for anyone but yourself.”
“You have to give me another chance,” he begged. “We belong together. We have to stay together.”
“Stop right there. We’re not a couple. I’m not in love with you, and I never want to see you again.”
“But, Chrissy,” he bellowed, “I can’t live without you. I will die without you. I’ll die, Christine, and it will be your fault.”
Chapter Sixty Six
Was he threatening suicide? I stared at a painting on the wall, contemplating the implication. Ultimately, I believed Erik loved himself too much to commit suicide. His threat was an attempt to manipulate me.
“I let you close enough to deceive me, once," I said into the phone. “But never again. You’re not going to make me feel responsible for your life.” I said this not thoroughly confident he wouldn’t do it. But I couldn’t allow him to exploit my sympathies anymore, and his response proved me right.
“You ungrateful bitch!” His voice sliced through the phone, sending runners of ice up my spine, and reminding me of how he’d destroyed Raoul’s necklace and choked me. “You’re nothing without me. I’ve made you what you are now. None of the instructors in that stupid school could have done it. Certainly not Elaina Hahn.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “You have helped me. But what happened between us—what you did—was wrong.”
“But I love you, Christine. Don’t you believe me?” Once more, his voice turned pathetic and mewling.
“I trusted you with the one thing that meant the most to me,” I said. “My dancing. It’s always been about dancing for me. I’ve never thought of you as anything but a teacher. A brilliant, gifted teacher, but that’s all.”
“No. No.” He sputtered. “You love me. I know you do. You wouldn’t have come back to the leather-faced monster if you didn’t.”
“What makes you a monster is not what’s on the outside, but what’s on the inside. And, I felt sorry for you, but I never loved you. I love Raoul.”
He howled then, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear. When I pressed it close again, I heard huffing and puffing, punctuated by sharp hisses. “Ehhh!” he yelled. “I told you to never say his name to me! I hate him. Raoul! Raoul! Raoul! You don’t seriously think I’ll let you go back to him, do you? You belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to you or Raoul. I don’t belong to anyone. I’m just me, and I’m okay with that.”
“But you need me.”
“No, I don’t, and I told you, I never want to see you again.”
“I should have known. You’re a slut—just like her.”
The word was like a slap to the face.
“She never appreciated what I did for her either,” he went on. “She used me—the same way you did. And then she pushed me aside for another.”
“What are you talking about? Who is she?”
“Elaina Hahn.”
I gasped then pressed my fist to my mouth. He stormed on, but stunned by his revelation, I couldn’t hear him. He’d had a relationship with Mrs. Hahn. What had I allowed myself to be pulled into? My thoughts scrambled for something that made sense. Had he slept with her to be promoted? Maybe she found out he was mentally unstable and dismissed him from the school. Whatever the case, the whole thing was revolting.
“You’ll see,” he said, breaking into my reasoning. “Just wait. When you realize what I can do, you’ll come crawling, begging me to take you back.”
“No, I won’t. And if you keep calling and texting me, I’ll call the police.”
“Oh, really.” My blood went cold at the tone in his voice. All at once, it had veered both daring and threatening. “Does this mean you plan to turn yourself in for the stolen Xanax you keep hidden in your room? Because I know you’re not going to show them all the texts
you’ve sent me. There are probably, what, a dozen of you scheduling our midnight meetings. Then there are the ones you sent begging me to see you again, with promises of doing anything to make it up to me. Hell, you even sent old man Sims to intervene on your behalf. And let us not forget that you came to me. Every. Single. Time. So go ahead. Call the police.”
Tentacles of fear wrapped around my stomach and squeezed it into a hard ball. He was right. I’d initiated every encounter. There was no way anyone, let alone the police, would believe that he’d raped me.
“Aw, what’s the matter?” he teased chillingly. “Cat got your tongue.” Then he chuckled derisively. “Don’t worry, Chrissy. You can go on with your little Barbie doll world and forget about the monster you stepped over to get to the top. But the time will come when you regret turning your back on the phantom. You, Hahn, the whole damn school. You’ll all regret it.”
That was when I pushed the End button and turned off my phone.
Chapter Sixty Seven
I waited until Mom had gone to bed and retrieved the house phone from the dock in the kitchen. Because I’d powered off my cell, I didn’t want Erik to call and Mom answer it. And I wanted to phone Jenna.
When I’d rehashed Erik’s phone call to her, she said, “This guy had a fling with Atilla? That’s creepy. He is clearly out of his mind.”
“What do I do? I can’t notify the police because I have nothing to prove my side of the story.”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do. But watch your back, at least until this blows over.”
“Do you think it will—blow over, that is.”
“Maybe. Obviously, whatever he had with Hahn blew over because we’ve never heard anything about it. And you know it’s nearly impossible to keep secrets at the Rousseau. Look, if he texts you again, ignore it. And leave your house phone off the hook for the next few days. I doubt your mother will notice, and if he can’t get through, after a while he’ll give up.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
More than anything, I wanted to believe she was anyway. So I did as she suggested, keeping the cordless phone line open, and leaving it in the closet so Mom wouldn’t find it. And I didn’t reboot my cell again until the next day. By then, I’d pushed away some of the doubts and fears. In the light of day, I was less frightened, and I could view things more logically. And when he’d cooled down, I doubted Erik would really carry out any of his threats. At some point, he’d realize I was not coming back and he’d move on.
Wednesday morning I went to school, feeling optimistic. I was even able to laugh when Jenna made a snide comment about never being able to look at Mrs. Hahn the same way again. And I steeled myself for that very thing when we went to repertoire that afternoon, but she wasn’t there. Admittedly, my first thoughts were of Erik, but I dismissed it and clung to my earlier hope that he’d move on. Then when she wasn’t there again on Thursday, I began to worry in earnest that Erik had followed through with his threats. But I felt silly on Friday, when Mrs. Hahn was there, stern as ever.
And that was why, when Raoul asked me to his mother’s house for lunch on Saturday, I really thought my life was moving forward. At least until I climbed into his car in front of Templeton Towers that morning.
“I am super nervous about this,” I told him as I buckled my seatbelt. “What if your mother doesn’t like me?”
“Of course, she’ll like you.” Looking out the driver’s side window, he was checking the oncoming traffic, waiting for an opening to slip into. “What’s not to like?”
That was when I noticed his knuckles gripping the steering wheel. They were red and splotchy and dotted with tiny cuts. Without thinking, I reached out and tugged his hand free of the steering wheel to examine it. “What did you do to your hand?” He turned to face me then, and I gasped. “Oh, my God, what happened to your face?” Beneath his left eye was a purply-black, crescent shaped bruise, its edges already turning yellow-green. Concerned, I released his hand to skim my fingertips gingerly over the ugly bump. “Does it hurt?”
He slid away from my touch to look out the window again. “Nah, it’s no big deal.”
“But what happened?”
Bearing down hard on the gas pedal, he shot out in front of a honking car. “It’s nothing—almost gone now.”
“Was it football practice? Did you get hit without your helmet on?”
He watched the car in front of us and shook his head, and an uneasy feeling crept over me. He was avoiding my questions. Why wouldn’t he tell me what had happened?
“Raoul, answer me.”
Glancing briefly my way, he pressed his lips together then said, “I didn’t want to upset you. I got into a fight. Erik jumped me and we fought.”
I inhaled sharply. “What? How? When?” My thoughts splintered a thousand different directions with all the possibilities.
“The other night. He ambushed me after the team’s lesson with Ms. Zaborov.”
My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t form words as fear and dread filled me like ice water being poured into a glass. Erik had attacked Raoul. The thought of it caused my heart to race, and I broke out in a cold sweat as the familiar panic returned. But this was worse than before. The panic attacks I’d suffered so far were a result of fears of my own making. There had never been a real threat. Now, there was reason to freak out. The threat was a living, breathing man, and he’d attacked Raoul.
“Chris—Christine?” Raoul’s voice elevated and he seized my hand. “Hey, are you okay? I started not to tell you. I should have let you believe it happened at football practice, but I’m no good at lying.”
He squeezed my hand as if expecting a response, but when all I could do was shake my head and gulp for air, he let go and cut across traffic to whip into a small parking lot behind a building. Slamming the car into park, he unfastened his belt, then mine, and forced me to face him. “Take a breath,” he commanded. “In—out. In—out. Focus on me. In—out.” He bobbed his head as my pace slowed to match his. “Good. Now look at me. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re both fine—okay?”
Slowly, I floated back down from the heights of soul splitting fear, and nodded to let him know my composure was returning. “I—I’m all right.”
He rubbed his hands up and down my arms as if trying to warm frozen limbs, and at last I spoke. “Tell me what happened.” My voice was so weak I was surprised he could hear me.
“On Thursday after the team’s ballet class, I decided to hang out with some of the guys. I left my car in the parking garage and we drove to the paintball field. When we came back, Troy dropped me off by my car, but I didn’t notice until he’d gone that I had a flat tire. When I walked to the trunk for the spare and the jack, Erik rose up from where he’d crouched on the other side.” I slapped my hand over my mouth, and Raoul continued. “I’m sure he flattened the tire because my trunk had been popped open and it was my tire iron he came at me with.”
“He hit you with a tire iron?”
Raoul shook his head. “I’ve dodged enough linebackers to know how to get the hell out of the way when someone’s coming at me like that, so when he lunged, and the blow didn’t connect, it threw him off balance and I took the iron away from him.”
“Did you hit him with it?”
“No, of course not. If I’m gonna fight someone it’ll be mano a mano.”
“So what happened?”
“I beat the crap out of him, that’s what happened.” A satisfied smirk crossed his lips. “Stupid son of bitch should have known he’d need more than some fancy dance steps to take me down.”
Again, my fingers went to the semi-circle bruise on his cheekbone. “You’re sure you’re all right, though?”
He took my hand in his and kissed the inside of my wrist. “Never better.”
Drawing my hand away, I stared out the front window. “You’re certain it was him? I mean, it could have been someone else, a mugger maybe.”
“I saw his face, Christine
. It was him.”
“We have to call the police then.”
“Why? I told you, I handled it.”
I looked at him again and pointed at the bruise. “What did you tell your mother—about your face?”
“That I head-butted someone on the field.”
“And she believed you?”
“Sure. She’s seen me in worse shape than this.”
“But what if he comes after you again?”
“He won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he ran.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was wearing a big hoody, and in the scuffle we got tangled up in it. I flipped it inside out and yanked it over his head, which is how I got this”—he indicated the blackened eye—“the idiot flung an elbow in my face as he tried to get free. When he peeled out of the hoody, I went sailing backward and landed flat on my back. It took me a second to catch my breath, get the jacket out of my face, and get back on my feet, and by the time I did, the damn coward was haulin’ ass for the garage exit. I yelled after him, told him what I’d do if he ever came near you again.”
I let my head fall back against the seat’s headrest. I wanted, really, really wanted to believe Raoul was right, that Erik was gone, and would never come back.
“How can you be so sure?” I asked again. “He’s crazy. He may still come back for one, or both, of us.”
Raoul placed a hand on my arm, “Chris, I pounded the pavement with the guy. Trust me, he’s not coming back.”
Covering my eyes with my cupped hand, I wanted to shut everything out, but it only made matters worse as visions of Raoul and Erik throwing punches and battering one another filled the dark behind my eyes.
“Tell me you’re not mad,” Raoul said. “I had no choice. He came at me, and instinct kicked in.”
Dropping my hand, I looked at him. “I couldn’t possibly be mad at you. I’m only sorry that it happened. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“Don’t even go there again. If anything, this proves it wasn’t your fault. It’s all on that crazy S.O.B. But it’s over now.”
“I hope so,” I mumbled.
Shifting around in the seat again, he gripped the steering wheel. “So we’re good? You’re okay with coming to my house now?”
We buckled our belts simultaneously. “Yeah, we’re good,” I said, hoping he was right and the nightmare was truly over.