Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
He looks better. His color is back. He smiles when he sees me. Then his gaze moves just past my shoulder and the smile does something complicated.
"Rye."
"Brother."
The silence that comes next lasts four thousand years. Somehow, I sense, Dad knows.
It’s a twin thing.
"Elodie." Dad looks back to me. "Are you—"
"Safe. I'm okay."
"I know what happened with the trial at the house." His jaw moves. "Rye texted me after you were asleep."
I look sideways at Rye. He does not look at me.
Of course he did.
"Scotch." Rye leans slightly into frame. "I need you to hear me before you say anything."
“What?” He’s not happy, but this needs to happen so I take a long breath and hold it.
"Your daughter is the most important thing in my world. That was true before this week and it will be true until they put me in the ground. I should have come to you before it came to this." Rye doesn't pause. "I won't apologize for what I feel. But I am asking you to trust me when I tell you I have never put my needs ahead of her. Not once. I never will."
I'm holding the edge of the island like I’m going to float away.
"If she'd come to me at seventeen," Rye says, "I'd have deported myself to another continent." His voice drops. "But, she's eighteen. She's extraordinary. And she deserves someone who will move the actual earth for her." A pause. "I intend to be that."
My father is quiet his eyes not meeting mine and my heart cracks in my chest.
"You're my brother," he says.
"I know."
"I need time, Rye. You’re as asshole."
"That I am. Take whatever you need."
Dad's eyes come back to me and soften in a way that does something to my throat. "You okay, baby?"
"Yeah, Daddy." I feel Rye's heat next to me. "I really am."
"Okay." It’s a door cracked open at least but it needs time to open all the way. "Okay."
Then my mother swings into frame.
Arms folded. Controlled-breathing. The performance is not going great.
"Elodie Christine."
"Mom." I lift my chin. "I need to say something and I need you to listen."
She opens her mouth but I keep talking.
"Dance matters to me. But principal dancer at the Ford Center is your dream, not mine. It's been yours since you put me in my first ballet slippers." Rye's hand settles at the small of my back, invisible from the camera. "I want to dance. For the rest of my life. But not like this. Not counting grams and weighing myself twice a day. I want to dance because it makes me feel alive. I want to figure out what that looks like."
My mother stares, her unmoving face hard to read.
"Patrykov was going to exploit that desperation," I say. "And I almost let him."
The silence stretches long enough that I hear a car pass on their street.
"I only ever wanted—" She starts but I override any excuses she might make.
"I know what you wanted."
She looks at Rye.
"Take care of her," she says, and he nods. "She is everything."
"We agree on that," he says. "Completely."
A long beat. "I need to go lie down," and walks out of frame.
Dad watches her go. The corner of his mouth moves. "She'll come around."
"Tell her the diet shakes are gone," I say.
His eyes go wet. He laughs. "Love you, baby."
"Love you, Dad."
Rye ends the call.
He turns me by the shoulders, tilts my chin up.
"You did good."
"You coached me."
"You didn't need it." His thumb traces my jaw. "You've known all of that for a while."
His mouth finds mine and he kisses me slow, like he has all the time in the world and has decided to spend it here.
The doorbell rings.
Then, through the door: "The donuts are getting stale.”
"Jeremy, she might be—"
"She’s fine. Uncle Rye…open the door, I have feelings—"
Rye pulls back. Looks at the door. Looks at me.
"Your friends," he says.
"My friends," I confirm. “They’re early.”
“Shocker.” He shakes his head, dropping his forehead to mine. “I love you Elodie. I always have.”
I sit, silent as he turns and stomps to the door, swinging it open.
Jeremy launches through it before it's fully open, pink-frosted donut box in hand, and wraps himself entirely around Rye, who endures it with the frozen dignity of a man being consumed by a golden retriever.
"I knew it," Jeremy announces into Rye's shoulder. "I called this in the limo—"
"You absolutely did not," Anna says, and goes directly for me. Both arms around my neck, chin on my shoulder, squeezing hard. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I squeeze back. "I really am."
She pulls back, does the scan she's been doing since second grade and nods.
Jeremy has released Rye and is studying him with both hands on his hips like a man appraising expensive art. Rye crosses his arms and waits.
"Okay," Jeremy says. "Yeah. I get it." He turns to me. "No further questions. Where's the kitchen? Everyone in this house is having a donut."