But that doesn’t matter.
I stand and cross to the shelves, running my fingers over the spines. Books I personally stacked. One in the center leans across a gap, resting on its neighbor.
A missing piece.
And there’s only one thing that’s worth going missing.
Nausea snakes through me.
I smelled her. I knew she was in here. I knew and I didn’t think to inspect every inch of it. I was distracted. But now I’m not. Now I know she was here for one thing, and one thing only: to steal the last memorabilia from my mother.
Dad eradicated her from our lives when she left.
And then she died a year later, alone in a hospital room. She didn’t want to tell him about the cancer. And in turn, I never got to say goodbye.
By the time we found out—by the time her family clued us in—she had been dead a week.
We missed the tiny funeral out on Long Island. They spread her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean from a small fishing boat. Dad had already removed evidence of her from his house. He took down the pictures that hung on the wall, donated or tossed the clothes and jewelry she left behind. Without her physically being here. And then she was just… gone. Like she had never even existed at all.
So the photos in that book are the last pieces of her.
Without them, I fear I’ll forget her face. Her voice is already a distant memory. Her smile, her fake-serious expression when she caught me doing something I shouldn’t, and she was doing her best not to burst into giggles… those stick. Her laugh, too. I hope I never forget them.
I slide my feet back into my shoes and grab my keys. I blow by Knox and Miles and storm outside. I should be tired. Physically. But the photo album missing has given me a second wind, and I pull up my app to find Violet.
Last time I had her phone, I gave myself access to her location.
Good thing, too, because she’s not at home. At this hour?
Not on campus either.
I zoom in, but I’m not too familiar with where she is. I don’t really give a fuck, though. It doesn’t matter where she is—she’s going to give me that photo album back. Immediately.
It’s close enough to walk, so I do. And I find myself outside an old brick building, her little blue dot on the map showing me that she’s still here. The front door, which opens onto a long, narrow hall, is unlocked. I step inside and keep my weight evenly distributed. I move silently. The first door I come to reveals what seems to be a dance studio. It’s dark, but the light from the hallway shows the bars along the wall and one full wall of mirrors. There’s a piano in the corner, too.
I bypass it for the next.
Light and music spill out of the third and final one.
I stop just shy of it and peer into the opening. Piano music fills the room, and there she is, at the center. Only one row of fluorescent lighting is on, casting the edges of the room in shadow. She wears pointe shoes—I’m pretty sure anyway—and is balanced on one leg, pointed straight into the floor. Impossibly streamlined. Her other is bent, and she spins gracefully around.
Then she bends forward at the waist, and her bent leg comes up behind her. She’s still balancing on her toe but comes down slowly. She folds out of that pose and flows into another one. Her gaze is locked on herself in the mirror.
She wears athletic shorts and a cropped top, and it paints every muscle in sharp relief. The harsh lights and shadows help give her a dangerously fragile appearance. Like that of a bird about to take flight.
The music pauses and loops, the piece beginning again.
Violet seamlessly moves into a dance, and I don’t know if she’s making it up as she goes or if this is a piece of old choreography that she’s clinging on to… either way, I’m ensnared.
Which is the last thing I want to be.
When I blink, I see her in the car again. Broken and bleeding.
Then I blink again, and I see the arc of the crowbar coming down on Jack’s knee.
Again, and Violet is up against a tree.
Again, and she’s in my car, blood welling up on her thigh.