Page 83 of Blade

She nods.Yes.

“Okay. So you got back from training in the afternoon. You were in the TV room at Avery Hall when you had the fight with Tammy. Right?”

Another nod, affirming these facts.

“Where were your skates?”

Her eyes move to the corner—of this room.

“Your skates were here? In Dr. Westin’s office?”

“I had a session after practice,” she begins quietly. “I can’t land the quad toe, and Dawn says I have to get more speed. But something is holding me back.”

Anger rises inside me. Fourteen years later and she’s still at this. They both are.

“So you had your session, and then you walked home?”

“But I forgot my skates. I had them with me because they needed to be sharpened.”

Finally, she’s talking. And in full sentences that make sense—that are part of the story. I’ve broken through but now tread carefully so she won’t shut down again.

“You were going to take your skates to the pro shop—but then you forgot them because the session with Dr. Westin distracted you. Is that right?”

“I hate coming here,” she says.

“Okay,” I say, remembering the same feeling about these sessions. How Westin was so calm when he listened to our despair, always circling back to why Dawn was right and why we needed to stop being afraid. “So you forgot your skates.” I repeat what she’s said to anchor us in the story.

“What happened next?”

“I walked back to Avery and saw the other girls on the couch, talking,” she says. “We’d all heard about Emile and his California plan that day. I thought that’s what they were whispering about, but ...”

She stops as a new wave of emotions comes. So I press forward, hoping to bring her with me.

“What were they talking about?” I ask. “When Tammy told you to ask Emile?”

“I thought they were lying. But they weren’t. Emile told me.”

“What did he tell you, Grace?” I ask. Luring her closer.

She tightens her face and stares at me. I feel a chill run down my spine.

“About my mother,” she says. “And about you.”

“Okay.” My heart races as I imagine what is going through her mind. This secret her mother kept all these years. A secret so difficult to comprehend. A girl not much older than Grace, the child who sits across from me. Her mother’s cheeks. Her father’s dark hair and eyes. A child unable to comprehend the decision another child faced fifteen years ago. The violence she feared. There are so many missing pieces Grace doesn’t know.

But there’s no time for this now.

“What exactly did Tammy say?” I ask.

A switch flips inside her. She tilts her head with indifference as if none of this matters. But her eyes sharpen like two daggers, pointed right at me.

“She said my mother didn’t want me. That you drove her to a clinic to have an abortion.”

And there it is. Finally spoken out loud. I can see the expectation on her face. For an apology. A plea for forgiveness. But I don’t give her any of that. “How did Tammy know?” I ask instead. I have to find out what happened the night Emile disappeared.

She looks at me with a blank stare. She doesn’t know, but I have my suspicions.

“Shannon talks to all of you, doesn’t she?” I ask. “Like you’re her friends.”