“She doesn’t like to remember. It hurts her, Blake.” His excuse is lame, and he knows it. I don’t like to remember and it hurts me but I still do.
“She’s dead, Jase. She existed, as much as our parents would like to believe she didn’t. Tori was real and pretending she wasn’t and her death never happened won’t make it better.”
“It just hurts Mum that you left, and the fact you left to do what Tori wanted to do rubs salt in the wound.”
“Juilliard wasn’t – isn’t,” I correct myself. “Just Tori’s dream. It never was. It was always our dream, and you know it.”
“What’s wrong with dance school here? You could get into any London school you wanted!”
I swallow as I remember the honest reason I’m here. That conversation that the twelve year old me didn’t understand.
“Blake?” Tori had knocked on my bedroom door softly, pushing it open a crack.
“Yeah?” I looked up from the science homework I was working on into my big sister’s wide green eyes. We had the same eyes – we were the only ones of all six of us that had Mum’s green eyes. Jase, Laura, Allie and Kiera all had Dad’s blue eyes.
“Can I come in?”
I looked at her feet inside my room and laughed. “You already are.”
She looked down, shrugged, and laughed with me. “I suppose I am.” She moved across the room with the grace of the dancer she was and jumped on my bed. My homework scattered everywhere, sheets of paper flying onto the floor, and I chucked my pencil at her.
“Dammit, Tori!”
“I’m sorry!” Her amused tone said she was anything but. I glared at her for a minute before breaking into a big grin. I could never stay mad at her. She was both my sister and my best friend, both of us the black sheep of the perfect family for our dreams.
“I need to ask you something.” Her tone was hesitant and more serious than it was before. I froze from grabbing my work from the floor and looked up at her.
“What is it?”
“Did you mean it when you said you wanted to go to Juilliard? To dance?”
“Of course I did. Why? Did you think I didn’t?”
“I did wonder.” She chews her lip. “I wondered if you were just saying it for me.”
“No, Tori. I want to go to Juilliard. We’re gonna take on the world, remember?” I smile at her, and she smiles back almost sadly.
“Right. The world.” She pauses. “I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
Tori climbed from the bed and knelt in front of me. She reached forward and pressed her palms against my cheeks, cupping my face.
“Promise me, Blake, that no matter what happens, you’ll go to Juilliard. That you’ll go to New York and live our dream.”
“What?”
“Promise me. No matter what.”
I stared at her, not understanding why she was saying that. But I promised. I always would. I’d promise Tori anything.
“I promise. No matter what.”
She stroked my cheeks with her thumbs and pressed a kiss to my forehead as she stood up. Then she turned and walked away, pausing for a second at my door. Her head turned slightly, and her shining, wet eyes met mine.
“Thank you.”
I swallow, wiping at my eyes. “I promised her two days before she died I’d go to New York and get into Juilliard. I promised her no matter what, Jase.”
I’m halfway there, I remind myself. Halfway there.
“Right. Look. I gotta go,” he says in a slightly thick voice. “Going out. Bye.”
The line clicks dead, and I fight the urge to throw my phone across the room. Same old response, same old thing every single time her name is mentioned. No one wants to talk about her, about the blot on the family name, about the perfect family’s dirty little secret.
No one wants to remember her. If my parents had their way, she’d be wiped from every family photo she was ever in, our house would have one less bedroom, and my mother would have a handful less stretch marks. If my parents had their way, my eldest sister would have never existed. They would have had five children, with Kiera being the eldest. As she is now, by default.
I look at my dinner on the table, still steaming slightly, and chuck my phone on the sofa instead of at the wall. I glance at the plate again, shake my head, and walk into the dingy bathroom.
My family may pretend Tori never existed, but they weren’t the ones who spent every spare second with her. They weren’t the ones who knew her hopes and dreams.
And they weren’t the ones who found her body.
They can try to forget all they want, but that’s the one image I will never, ever be able to erase from my mind. That memory will haunt me forever.
Chapter Five – Abbi
The clock ticks steadily in the background. Every tick brings me a second closer to leaving Dr. Hausen’s office and entering Bianca’s studio. Every tick brings me a second closer to my true therapy.
My psychiatrist clicks her pen in time with the clock ticking. My foot bobs as I stare blankly at a spot on the wall.
“I like your hair,” she says.
My hand goes to the braid hanging over my shoulder. “Thanks.”
“It’s a big change.”
“Yep.”
“Do you think it’s a good one?”
I sigh and look at her. Her greying hair is clasped to the back of her head and her glasses are perched on the top of her head precariously. She stops clicking the pen, instead tapping it against her papers. I know this tactic – but I still fall for it. Every time.
I hate pen clicking, tapping, or any variation of a repetitive noise. She knows if she taps long enough, I’ll answer just to get her to stop.
“Yes,” I grit out. The tapping stops. “You know, that’s a dirty trick.”
Dr. Hausen smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Ah, but it works.” She lets out a small laugh. “Tell me what made you do it.”
“What made me answer you? The pen clicking and tapping.”
“Abbi.” She tries for stern but the lingering upturn of her lips gives her away.
I shrug. “Worth a try.”
“What made you dye your hair?”
“The old Abbi was blonde. I’m not that person anymore,” I say quietly.
“So it’s the same reason you had for decorating your room before you moved back home.” Statement. Not a question.
“Mhmm.”