Elle
One Week Later
I knew the asshole was right, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking my storage anyway. Sure enough, it’s been full for weeks. That’s what I get for ignoring the warning messages, but who could blame me? You delete fifty photos and twenty videos, and it’s still full.
Whatever. All isn’t lost.
There’s still a copy of that video floating around, and I know exactly where to find it. On that asswipe’s phone.
Why had he sent it to himself, anyway? What dog did he have in this fight? Not that I care. All I care about is seeing him, or rather his phone, ASAP.
I’d lurked around the studio last Monday and Tuesday, taking two buses each way in hopes he’d show up, but no dice. I have no clue what classes or levels he takes, but seeing as we met last Thursday, today is my best bet.
My final class with Madame passes by in a blur. I can’t even remember her disparaging comments as I hang around the hallway, searching for those dark eyes to finally turn up. But as five twenty rolls around, my hope wanes. I’m about to peer into every classroom window again when suddenly there’s a dull prod on my back.
I whip around and get stabbed in the gut by a white box. It’s a new phone, my dream phone, in metallic lavender. I’d salivated over it online, but the one thousand dollar price tag had made it yet another unreachable item on my digital vision board.
My old phone barely qualifies as a smartphone, with shitty graphics and enough storage for only one game at a time. Though I never got around to playing it, because the phone would crash within two minutes of game time.
He could’ve easily bought me a replacement for fifty-five bucks. So what, was this some sort of guilt trip?
“Take it.”
The obviousness of the phone aside, I don’t need to look up to know who’s impaling me. Even his fingers holding the box are beautiful, long, and perfectly manicured. My fingers were crooked monstrosities, with too-large knuckles and peeling cuticles.
Still, his cool words pull my eyes to his, and once again, I’m transfixed by his beauty. By the porelessness of his skin, and the way his hair falls so effortlessly onto his forehead. His woodsy scent fills my nostrils and wraps around my brain, squeezing it into mush.
I blink, trying to bring myself back to reality and hating the way my heart still thunders at the sight of this psycho. Whatever happened to muscle memory? Instead of butterflies dancing in my gut, shouldn’t my neck be pulsing in remembrance, in warning of how he’d handled it like a damn gear shift?
“Do your parents know you’ve bought this?” I blurt.
He looks at me like I’ve just asked the dumbest question in the world.
Why would I ask, anyway? Why did I care? He owed me a replacement. It’s not my fault he bought an expensive one.
“I have a black card. My accountant doesn’t bat an eye at any purchase under five grand.”
My accountant???
Black card?
I’ve watched enough dramas to know that a black card is usually the highest-tier card that banks offer. And he has one… Isn’t he sixteen? Seventeen at best?
“Haven’t you heard the expression never look a gift horse in the mouth? Your old phone may as well have been a rock.”
I hesitate and he prods me harder.
“Take the phone or throw it away. I don’t care.”
I take the box with shaking fingers, just as he’s about to drop it carelessly. Swallowing the thank you, threatening to spew out, I clear my throat. I’m not the one in the wrong here.
“So what? This is your apology?”
“I’m not apologising,” he says flatly. “I’d do it again.”
THIS ARROGANT ASS—
No, no, Elle. Keep calm. If you fight with him, he’ll only leave, and then how will you get his phone?
“Why do you care, anyway? About that video?” I try to ask coolly, but he brushes past me.
“It’s none of your concern.”
I grab his arm, and he freezes, looking down at the contact murderously. Just a week ago, he was the one touching me.
Hastily, I let go of his sleeve.
“Listen, despite everything, I took your tips to heart and now that I have a replacement, and the video’s gone, let’s call it even.”
“Call it whatever the fuck you want.” He shrugs, turning to walk away again.
I grip the box tighter, ignoring the urge to chuck it at his head. “Wait. I was wondering if you could watch me do a run-through of the Sugar Plum Fairy and give me your thoughts? It’ll take less than five minutes, and it’s my last day at the studio, so I won’t bother you again. Promise.”
This time his stare is as penetrating as it was last week, so unlike the dismissive one from a second before. “Why is it your last day?”
“You saw my rock phone. You see this place. Draw your own conclusions. It was only a temporary arrangement.”
He swallows and I watch his sharp Adam’s apple bob as his eyes dart to the end of the hall. To the girl’s locker room. Madame isn’t there. I already checked.
“Please?”
“Fine. Five minutes.”
YES!
“Can we use your phone for the music again?” I lift the box. “Obviously it’s not set up yet.”
My heart races as I follow him into the nearest study where he tosses his designer backpack onto the floor, before heading for the aux cord.
Please, please, let everything go according to plan.
My palms are already sweating in anticipation and my chest is growing so tight I can barely breathe.
“I’ll just start from the middle,” I say, getting into position as the soft music flits from the speakers. “My father will be here any minute.”
Of course, that’s a lie. Jarett’s still hungover from his week-long binger. Madame wouldn’t see her lover for a few more days at least, but he, this boy whose name I’ve yet to ask, doesn’t know that.
His eyes snap to mine, then to the door, and without a word, he storms out just as I’d hoped.
Why is he so bloody invested?
The scene from last week where he assaulted me finally comes rushing back. It imprints in my brain and curls around my throat, shooting straight down into my toes that suddenly feel like they’re scraping the floor again, desperate to find their footing.
The memory invokes a different kind of fear than the one I feel with Jarett.
But that doesn’t make sense. Fear is fear, right?
And yet, the fear creeping along my spine now feels like a different beast altogether as I watch his heel disappear.
I rush to the door and lock it before bolting for his phone. It’s just like my new one, but in hunter green and thankfully still unlocked.
I check the conversation between us where he texted himself, but the thread’s gone.
Fuck!
I exit his messages and skip over to the gallery.
Please don’t have a passcode. Please don’t—
No code!
I’m in.
My fingers are stiff and numb as I clumsily rush through his media files. There aren’t many, a few pictures with some teenage boys who look just as devastatingly handsome as he is. They’re on the lacrosse pitch, at some fancy parties, and on a yacht with some equally pretty girls.
I don’t know why my heart sinks at their pearly white smiles and super glossy hair. Maybe it’s because I’ve always wanted to be like those girls and be friends with those girls. But girls like this didn’t live in my government housing neighbourhood, nor did they attend my under-funded public junior high. They went to Beaulieu Academy and spent their free time in Saint Barts.
I shake my head and get back to my mission. The locker room isn’t that far away. I scroll and scroll, but I still can’t find the footage. Had he deleted it?
I go back to his folders, my heart pounding louder against my eardrums with each one I open and close. Glancing through the classroom window, I freeze as someone darts past, but it’s only a gangly girl from the intermediate class.
Come on.
Come on.
I click the last unnamed folder and it’s as if the heavens have opened up and rained sunshine upon me because there it is, in all its two-hundred and forty-pixel quality glory. I hit share before realising that sending it to my old number is useless until I can switch it over to a new SIM card. Not that I’d bother. I have less than ten contacts anyway, besides I need access to it now.
I press the e-mail icon instead and attach the video, typing in the first letter B to my email address, [emailprotected]. If the number isn’t obvious enough, I was seven when I made it and obsessed with Barbie and James Bond, which I probably shouldn’t have been watching. Not that Jarett gave a fuck.
I’ve been meaning to create a new address since forever, but it always slips my mind until I need to use it. You’d think the subsequent shame and cringeyness as I scribble it on official forms would finally stop my procrastination, but eight years later and I’m still Barbiegirl007.
I’m about to add the A when footsteps from the hallway startle me and I freeze again, my thumb sliding across the screen. A glance out the window shows the top of the caretaker’s grey hair and I relax, gazing back at the email. But my relief is short-lived as my stomach plunges through my asshole and onto the floor.
I’d sent the email to someone else on his list. Someone who’d popped down from the B I’d entered. [emailprotected].
Beaussip? That sounded almost as cringe as my email. Maybe it’s someone’s old address from primary school. Someone who didn’t even use it anymore…
What did it matter? If the email is in use, the person would just think it’s porn spam. He could just tell them that he’s been hacked if they ask. No big deal.
Yeah, it’s no big deal that Madame and my father’s sex tape is now in another set of virtual hands.
It’s fine.The video’s a little fuzzy and you can’t see their faces clearly, right? I ask myself as the video plays and Madame stares almost directly into the camera. I squint at the screen and tilt my head, trying to make her as blurry as possible. There. See? It’s fine.
Then why does fear crawl across my spine like an icy tarantula? Madame’s a prominent figure in the dance community, but would people outside of ballet recognize her?
With trembling fingers, I send the video to the right email this time, before grabbing my bag and checking that the hallway is clear.
“Shouldn’t you be making your way home, Eloisa? Don’t the buses stop at 7?”
I nearly jump out of my skin as Madame calls to me from an open doorway across the hall. A few older girls I don’t recognize giggle like a gaggle of geese behind their hands at the word bus. They must be from the advanced class.
I don’t have time for their classist shit right now. I’d accomplished my mission with the email. Now it’s time to confront Mum and finally get us away from Jarett.
I’m about to storm off without a word when Madame’s phone screen shines with a notification, one that’s pinging all around the room as the girls dig into their designer, warm-up tracksuit pockets. I can see the little email icon across a few dozen screens…
Why’s everyone getting an email at the same time?
Maybe it’s from the dance academy.
Maybe… My stomach flutters and my asshole clenches as I fiddle with my bag’s strap. No. NO! Beaussip is some nine to thirty-year-old’s first email address.
It’s just a coincidence.
I slip into the hall, and I’m about to dart past the classroom when a girl behind Madame asks, seemingly half annoyed and half intrigued, “What dirt does Beaussip have now?”
“It says Gant sent in a tip,” another girl responds, her brows knitting and her eyes flying to Madame, who whips around.
“My Gant?”
The first girl nods, and clicks open the message with half the class that eagerly follows suit.
A buzz rises around the room as the sound of a shower erupts from multiple speakers.
I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I break for the exit, shoving past a group of students entering the hall. Hovering above them all, is a mop of inky black locks that sets my heart and legs galloping even faster. Over his shoulder, and through the glass doors, I zoom in on the reflective bus stop sign across the street. My only escape.
Shrinking against the wall, I dart past him, unseen in the crowd, and ram through the exit doors, before bolting into the dark street.
One second I’m leaping off the sidewalk and the next…pain.
That’s the first thing that comes to mind as something bumps into my side with enough force to knock me onto the asphalt. Winded, I peer up into the blinding circular lights of a vintage black vehicle. The kind from the nineteen forties.
I clutch my aching side and gasp. Something had dug into my flesh, not enough to puncture the skin, but deep and blunt enough to tear through my leotard and leave what would undoubtedly be a ghastly gash. I finger the small concave spot gingerly. Already, blood was pooling beneath my pale skin.
Seconds tick by until I realise the driver isn’t getting out. Maybe they’re in as much shock as I am. As I get to my knees, I see the object that attempted to stab me. An animal of some sort atop the hood. Maybe an eagle.
Over the steering wheel, I’m met with crystal clear, unrepentant eyes. He lifts a leather-gloved hand and shoos me as if I’m a stray dog and not a person he just ploughed into. Given the size of the vehicle, he must’ve been driving super slowly to just bump and not kill me.
He could’ve fucking killed me.
I could’ve killed myself…
I hobble to the driver’s window indignantly, and I’m about to ramp on the glass to confront him when two things happen at once. One, he speeds off the moment I’m out of the way and two Gant appears on the top step of the studio’s back entrance. The same step we stood on when he smashed my phone and grabbed my throat.
Cradling my side, I look both ways this time before sprinting across the street to the bus stop. Like a beacon in the night, I spot its headlights inching closer. Over my shoulder, Gant’s expression is murderous as he weaves across the four lanes of traffic toward me.
I speed up, squeezing my eyes shut as the pain nearly blinds me, but in three paces I’m there clutching the bus’s rail. I hobble up the steps and into its toasty refuge. As I stumble into the nearest free seat, and the doors shut behind me, I see Gant through the window, just one lane away. Just one lane, too late.
Relief washes over me as the bus lurches forward, but for the second time that day, it’s fleeting. He’s holding up traffic, ignoring a sedan whose owner is laying into the horn. His eyes are trained on me, but he isn’t yelling profanities, nor flipping me off. He’s merely watching me go as if he knows this isn’t the last time that we’ll meet.
Well, he’s wrong, because I’m never coming to this part of town ever again.
* * *
At home, the house is shrouded in darkness save for a single flashlight, moving around Mum and Jarett’s room. His truck isn’t inside the driveway, and when I hobble into their bedroom, his side of the closet is empty.
“What’s going on?” I pant. My heartbeat, which never eased on the bus ride over, slams into overdrive so fast and hard that I feel faint as I watch Mum throw what little clothes she owns into a trash bag. We only own one suitcase and it’s gone.
And so is Jarett.
“Shhh!” she hisses. Her gaze flies to the drawn curtains completely oblivious to my distress as I slump against the wall, still cradling my aching side. “We have to go, Elle. Now.”
“What? Why?” I whisper, as she drops to her knees and shoves the mattress off the bed. Our government documents flutter around, as do a stack of loose bills. Maybe four hundred in total.
She grabs my birth certificate, then hers. “Y-your father got into a bit of trouble.”
A mild dose of peace washes over me. Okay, that’s nothing new. Jarett always gets into trouble and spends a few weekends out of the year in jail.
“What did he do this time?” I ask hopefully. “Get into another bar brawl?”
But the suitcase…You don’t get to wear your own clothes in jail…
Normally Mum would jump to Jarett’s defence and snap at me in the process, but she doesn’t spare me a second glance as she crawls around on her hands and knees, securing every bill. When she’s collected them all, she finally speaks reluctantly. “There’s an inappropriate video going around. People are alleging that your father is in it.”
Damn, the internet works fast. Who the fuck is Beaussip? And why does every student at the dance academy follow him or her?
Then again, why does it matter? This is good, right? I don’t have to spill the beans personally. I don’t have to be the bad guy.
“Have you seen it?” I ask quietly as she loops a rubber band over the bills. Jarett couldn’t have known he’d been sleeping on top of that much cash this whole time. If he had, they’d already be spent on enough alcohol and buffalo chicken wings to put him in a coma for the weekend.
Good thing he barely flushed his shit, much less changed the bedsheets.
She nods, a hiccup bubbling in her throat.
“And? If you watched it, how can you say it’s all alleged?”
“I-I can’t be sure. I mean, the video’s fuzzy—”
She…she has her out, and she’s still taking up for him? Still making excuses?
“There’s a hammerhead shark tattoo on his neck,” I blurt.
Her eyes finally flicker to mine. “You, you watched that…that filthy—”
“Porno your husband made at my dance school? Trust me, it wasn’t by choice.”
“Ellie—”
I raise a hand to stop her. Ellie is always her bullshit segway into excuselandia.
I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think that the video would finally open her eyes.
“It’s him,” I say bluntly. “I know it’s him.”
She stares at me, wringing the money in her hands before tossing it into her purse. “Look Elle, your father’s a lot of things but this…”
I gaze at her incredulously. “He’s an abuser. An alcoholic. A gambler! Do you think he’s above cheating on you? In public? With my teacher?”
“Ellie—”
“He’s a murderer, for fuck’s sake. He kicked babies out of your—”
“That’s enough! I had miscarriages! Your father had nothing to do with it.”
LIAR!
I gawk at her and the room, no, the entire world swims around her form like some upside-down, alternative universe where nothing makes sense because this cannot be real life. She cannot be a real person. None of this can be real.
“Why are you like this?” I ask with genuine curiosity. “Why will you defend that piece of shit to the ends of the earth?”
“Elle—”
“It’s him!” My shriek takes her by such surprise that she doesn’t shush me. It winds me, however, and I slump down the wall to the fugly moss-green carpet as my ribs scream bloody murder. “I saw him, Mum. At the studio, in the shower, with my own eyes. Instead of picking me up, he was fucking Ma—”
She flies towards me so fast I don’t have time to brace myself before her clammy hand clamps over my mouth. My body shrieks louder, hot tears burning my eyes.
She doesn’t notice.
Or rather, she doesn’t care.
Shaking her head again, her eyes darting to the curtains, the ceiling, the walls, everywhere but at me.
“Please don’t say that woman’s name,” she whispers, but there’s no jealousy or anger in her tone. Just sheer fear.
“Why?” I croak when she releases me.
“Elle, do you know who she is? Who she truly is? This woman you’ve idolised from the moment you won that scholarship?”
“Yes. She’s a prima ballerina—”
“She’s also the wife of a notorious crime lord.”
I freeze. I didn’t even know Madame’s married. “W-what?”
“She may go by her maiden name in the dance world, but in the real world, she’s Mrs Auclair, as in Auclair Enterprises.”
I swear the world spins to a standstill as I crawl to the bed and sink onto the sagging mattress.
Auclair Enterprises ran at least fifty per cent of everything in town. The thing is, you never saw that name plastered anywhere. It’s like a phantom, one that everyone knows and fears. One that infiltrates and festers in every business sector known to man here.
“Your father called, telling me to get a bag ready for him,” Mum says, choking back a sob. “They’re already threatening him. He’s leaving town, and I don’t know when we’ll see him again.”
No, this couldn’t be happening. I didn’t care what happened to Jarett on a good day, but still, a crime lord? As in the mafia?
“That video only leaked three hours ago,” I say in disbelief.
“I can’t believe her son would do that to her,” Mum whispers, before throwing some toiletries into a separate trash bag.
“H-her son?”
My Gant, Madame’s words ring in my ears.
“It came straight from his email. Unless it’s some sort of prank and someone’s framing him.”
I swallow.
“But that boy can’t be that stupid, right? He knows how insane his father is.”
“Why didn’t Jarett know about all of this?” I ask, suddenly fiddling with my collar that’s too hot, too tight against my throat. “Why would he fuck someone so dangerous?”
Normally, she’d scold me for using so much foul language. The same language her husband is fluent in. Instead, she continues rustling through drawers, trying to keep her hands busy.
I know if she stills, if she sits, she’ll crumple and never get back up again.
And all because she’s stressed over Jarett. Not because she’s terrified for our safety.
“I told you. She goes by her maiden name, in ballet. Always has. I doubt your father even knew who she really was. He must’ve met her one day after picking you up from practice.”
He’d only picked me up one other time before. That must’ve been his first encounter with Madame. I guess he moves just as fast as the Auclairs are now.
“Don’t worry Ellie,” she says, stopping her frantic packing to rub my arm. “Your father’s going to be okay.”
I gape at her incredulously. How is she interpreting my shock as concern for Jarett?
“I got him a hotel room three towns over in an old friend’s name. They’ll check him in. I managed to get him a burner phone too. He promises to call in a few days.”
He won’t. We both know that.
“What about us? Where are we going?” I ask, staring at the empty closet and the dozens of trash bags.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” she says, cramming two rolls of toilet paper and a bottle of cheap shampoo into a new bag.
“So…you got Jarett a room and a phone, but not us?”
“There wasn’t enough time. Things escalated so quickly.”
“But you got Jarett all sorted out! What are we going to do? What about school?”
“How the hell should I know, Eloisa?” she snaps.
You knew what to do for Jarett. But not us. Not me. Your kid.
“We’ll figure it out as we go. We don’t have time to fool around while these people surround the house and take us out.”
Take us out?!
Forget about Jarett. Us. I’d involved us.
What had I done?
“But why do we have to leave? Jarett cheated. It’s him who they want. W-we didn’t do anything wrong.”
Liar!
You spread the tape.
Not Gant Auclair.
You.
“You think a man like Bart Auclair cares? He can’t undo the affair, but he can make sure it never happens again, at least with the same man. And if he can’t find that man, who do you think he’ll come after next?”
I swallow.
“Get your bags. They’re already packed in your room.”
“But—”
She gazes over her shoulder, and for once I can find some strength in her when she hisses. “Get in the fucking car, Eloisa. We’ll sort the rest later.”
And I do, scrambling into the passenger seat of Mum’s old wagon ten minutes later, with so many trash bags on my lap I can’t see out the window as Mum books it to the highway.
I guess I got my wish. I’m never returning to that side of èze.
Because I’m never returning to èze at all.