THEY CLOSED SCHOOL for a week in your memory. The whole city felt like it shut down. There was a protest march in Union Square, people handing out fliers with your picture on them, carrying signs—or so I heard, anyway; I couldn’t go. I was still in the hospital then. Officer Lorenz—that was his name, by the way, in case you feel like haunting him or something, 23rd Precinct—tore my anterior talofibular ligament, and even though my parents thought I should wait to have the surgery, I wanted it right away. I needed for someone to cut into my skin so the pain would be outside as well as in. Lying in recovery felt better than walking down the street because that way, everyone could see that I was suffering. I didn’t have to pretend.
Liv is OK. I know you’d want to know that before anything else. She ended up at Lenox Hill with me, but the doctors stabilized her quickly. It turned out she’d been taking three times the recommended dosage of some prescription pills she got from Dante, plus a bunch of other stuff. He’s alive, too. He got caught and charged and sentenced to a year in jail, but at least he cleared your name. The first New York Post headline after the news broke—thankfully I was still on heavy painkillers, and no one showed me, because I would have lost it—was TWINKLE TOE UP, and it was all about how you were some drug-dealing dancer who lunged savagely at a cop; within a week, after Dante went on record with why you’d been there, and I publicly challenged Officer Lorenz’s account of you tackling him, it became HERO HOOFER: WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME. I mean, seriously, fuck the New York Post, but at least they printed a retraction.
Someone made a donation page to cover your funeral costs, and it raised over $200,000. Your mom set up college funds for Miggy and Emilio. Janus held a benefit concert, too, at the end of the year right before graduation. It was basically just a repeat of Showcase, but I wasn’t a part of it. For one thing, I was still in physical therapy, and besides, they didn’t include our pas de deux. It wouldn’t have felt right. Not that anything feels right anymore, without you. Not that anything ever will.
I learned to walk again over that summer, and Liv went to rehab, some fancy place out in California. Dave went out to visit her a few times. They’re still together and seem pretty happy. I try not to hate them for it, and usually I do a pretty good job. Both of them are still hustling, taking graduate acting classes, living at home, waiting tables to make money. We meet up whenever I’m back in New York. Ethan, too—after what happened, all of the other stuff seemed so incredibly petty that we all just forgave one another, without having to say it. I know this will shock you, but E takes his NYU workshops extremely seriously. He’s always sending invitations to his staged readings, but luckily I’m 880 miles away, so I have an excuse.
Yup, I’m an Atlantan now. It took me a year to get back in the kind of shape where I could really dance again, but I worked harder at it than I’ve ever worked at anything. And when it was time, I walked into that first company class ready to drop a mic. I did it for you. Everything I do is for you. And not in some creepy shrine way, although I do have our photobooth strip in my wallet. It’s just that, after you died, and after a few really rocky months I spent wishing it had been me, I finally decided I’d rather live for you than die with you. I wanted to live a life you would be proud of. And that meant getting back onstage. Now I’m in the corps de ballet, and I’m thankful for it every day.