Page 19 of Blade
It took years of therapy for me to understand my parents’ decision. To forgive them for it. Being away from my mother didn’t make it any easier for me. But they couldn’t have known this.
How I would stifle tears anytime I called and heard my mother’s voice. How my brain clung to the attachments that, as a child, I still desperately needed. I don’t remember when I turned instead to what was in front of me.
When I became a scavenger for affection.
They couldn’t have known what this place was like. The place they’d sent me to live at thirteen so I wouldn’t have to watch the progression of my mother’s illness. She would lose her speech, her mobility, her memory as her tumor grew. The treatments to cure her would wreck her body. Hair loss. Weight loss. The skin on her face would turn gray and hang loosely around the bones.
But—wait.I feel a wave of adrenaline, waking me up before I walk into the trap Westin’s set.
“How is this relevant to Grace?” I ask.
“You were very attached to Dawn,” Westin says. “Grace was as well. Dawn tried to fill that void for girls like you and Grace. The so-called Orphans. But maybe it wasn’t enough.”
His gaze wanders off toward the ceiling. “The video—the rage it exposes.” Now a sigh. “The training we do—it can’t be blamed,” he says. “Otherwise, the place would be overrun with this kind of behavior.”
There it is—the party line rearing its ugly head.Of course,I think. That’s what this is.
Westin has been here forever.Dr. Fear.The Fear Training. Indy used to make up stories about him and Dawn being lovers, painting vivid images of them in bed together, Dawn screaming her favorite mantra when she came—Fight the fear!She would send us into fits of laughter, none louder than hers.
Westin reaches into his bag, resting on the floor by the chair, and pulls out a copy of Dawn’s book. I glance at the title,Making Champions—the Power of Psychological Training to Conquer Fear and Win, struggling not to roll my eyes.
“They were selling it at the conference,” he tells me.
Wait . . .
“You were there?” I ask.
Westin smiles. It’s more of a smirk. “Yes. I saw your speech. You have great compassion for troubled children.”
My mouth is bone dry as I try to carry on.
“It’s science—that’s all. I’m sure you’ve kept up on the advancements that have been made in the study of trauma.”
Westin sighs. Leans back again like a Cheshire cat. “There’s always a new study, isn’t there? I couldn’t keep track of them all at the conference.”
Now a pause. “I didn’t see you on the second day,” he says. “I thought for sure you would join the workshop on youth sports.”
I think back on the five days before I came here. I was at the opening reception. I gave a talk on the last day, in the morning. Then I got the call from Jolene.
I try to remember when I got the text message on my phone. The one I didn’t understand and still don’t. The number was a burner. The message was just one picture. An emoji of a skating blade.
I thought it was someone at the conference who remembered me from Echo. It was a shock, being pulled back for the first time.
Was that the second day? I know I was there. And I also know that I didn’t see Dr. Westin.
“Here’s the thing,” Artis says, returning from the kitchen. “All we need is a story. That’s it,” he tells us.
I shake Westin off me and launch into the first line of defense we’re going to use.
“Grace didn’t kill Emile. Someone else did, and they’re framing her. That’s it. Simple.”
“Okay. So who wanted Emile dead?”
“He was a damaged man when I was here. I doubt he changed.”
Westin knows the story. How Emile had been struggling with a quad toe loop in the middle of competition season. How Dawn was training him to stay on his feet no matter how he came down from the air. There was an automatic point deduction for a fall. He had to fight his body, make it bend to his will. Another rendition of her theme song. He went up for a quad toe, then came down twisted, fighting his body, which needed to fall.
Thenpop. And just like that, his knee was wrecked, and his career was over.