Ella shakes her head.
She doesn’t have time for any of it. She doesn’t have the emotions to spare. Hayden was something that happened to an outdated version of her, and the version that’s here now sees him as a waste of time then and even more so, now.
She closes the laptop, shoves it in her bag, and stands.
The night is cool, the clouds low and puffy, the still air promising rain.
It’s beautiful, and for the first time in her life she’s not afraid to be out alone at night. She has Mrs. Reilly’s mermaid pepper shaker in her pocket, after all.
The only sounds are the wind in the summer leaves and the flapping yellow caution tape, the high strain of bugs, the desperate bleatings of summer frogs. There are no lights on around the playground, no one outside smoking a cigarette or walking a dog.
Tentative still, Ella walks to the swing set and sits on the cool black swing. She starts slow before kicking off and pumping her legs. It’s a delicate thing, swinging in a child’s swing as a seventeen-year-old with big hips and long legs, but she figures it out, splaying her feet as she swoops back and pumping forward aggressively on the upswing. She goes high enough to bump the wood set and rattle the chains, and the clouds momentarily part to reveal the moon, and it feels like she’s swinging into the sky among a blanket of glittering stars like the Little Prince. When she was younger, she’d wait until just the right moment and then jump off, but she’s all too aware right now that if she broke an ankle or wrist, she’d be fucked.
She lets the swing slow down gradually and then climbs up the ladder to the slide and zips down the cool green plastic, laughing at the way it jostles her shoulders. She wishes the playground still had the old metal merry-go-round so that she could spin on it until all the stars blended together, but they pulled it out of the ground years ago after Sophie flew off it and busted a tooth and ran around the playground spitting blood and screaming.
Time passes as she plays in a way she hasn’t been able to for years. When she was twelve, Logan Johnson made fun of her for being at the playground, and after that, she didn’t come here unless there was something rebellious about it, like sitting on top of the tables with Sophie at dusk and scratching curse words into the scarred wood with a ballpoint pen, but even then, some older guys showed up and offered them weed and tried to lure them into their skeevy van. After that, she didn’t come here unless it was fully light outside. If there were adults here with little kids, she felt safer…but the adults always shot her dirty looks, like she didn’t belong here at all.
Like she was the dangerous one instead of just a big, floppy kid who missed swing sets.
She used to bring Brooklyn here and push her on the swings and catch her on the slide and wish she could play, too, but there was just too much that could go wrong. Logan would see and call her a baby, some terrified new mom would complain to the HOA, creepy guys would approach her again, something. It’s dangerous for teens to be seen having fun like that, like they actually care about something.
But behind the yellow caution tape, alone at five in the morning, Ella can swing all she wants.
For once, she really is the dangerous one.
As she dangles from the monkey bars, she has an odd realization: This could be her last time on this playground. She can’t stay here much longer. Her old life, this neighborhood, this playground—they will soon be in the past.
She doesn’t know where she’s going next, but she knows it’ll happen soon.
35.
Chelsea fights for space in front of a mirror lined with lightbulbs, coating her lashes in thick black mascara. A few weeks ago, she would’ve been disgusted by the thought of sharing her mascara, much less a communal tube, but she’s already infected with the most dangerous pathogen around. It’s hard to be scared of a little pink eye.
Amy squeezes in, and Chelsea rams the wand home and hands over the tube with a grin. She hasn’t been backstage since the night she abandoned her Phantom of the Opera costume and her last best friend for David. It feels good now, just as good as she remembers. She feels free. Energy thrums through the room, grins spread from face to face, costumes shimmer in the lights. She feels…alive. Like she hasn’t in years. Like she’s been asleep, all this time.
She could’ve always had this, if she’d just been brave enough. If she hadn’t been so na?ve and fallen for a monster.
She could’ve been in local plays, could’ve helped with Ella’s drama productions.
Could’ve felt the hot kiss of the lights, her stuttering heart as she stepped onstage.
But David took all that away. He didn’t even have to ask, really. Just a few well-placed comments, a few disappointed frowns, and she dropped theater and chorus just to please him. She gave away something she loved for so little. She hates herself for that, but that version of Chelsea was so young and stupid, and she’s gone now. David choked her to death.
This new version of Chelsea is something else entirely. Born of pain and tears and failure, she has nothing left to lose. When she screams her rage now, people feel it.
Tonight, they’ll all feel it.
Because it’s finally the big day: The VFR is officially launching. After all the training and practice, all the acting that was actually therapy, all the time learning to do their own hair and makeup and put on their costumes, all the publicity photos, their very first show is tonight.
It’s amazing how quickly it all came together. How they learned the moves, practiced their theatrics, embodied their characters. Harlan came out to watch, finally. He always seems to wear the same perfectly fitted black V-neck, black wrestling shoes, and pants halfway between sweats and slacks, but his scarf is always different. Arlene calls it a shemagh. He’s the first person she’s ever met who wears a uniform, and Chelsea is also relatively certain that he blows his hair out every morning. Perhaps wrestling is no longer his calling, but Harlan Payne continues to act like a rock star. As they trained this week, he watched them from a chair by the door, scribbling into a notebook with Arlene by his side. It was fascinating…up until it was Chelsea’s turn. In that moment she knew she was being graded, and harshly.
Everyone received notes, that first day. And the next day. And the next.