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I pick up my phone and try to dial August, but there’s no answer. He’s in there, in that mansion somewhere – so close to me right now and yet so far. And he’s not picking up his phone.
He’s ignoring me.
“I can fix this,” I tell Mom. “I bet August is busy talking to his mother right now. He’ll fix this, he promised. He told me he’d never let us leave. He’s going to help us.”
“Are you sure, Emma?”
“He promised, Mom. That’s what he said to me. Hepromised.”
* * *
August continues to ignore my calls. He never comes. I never see him again.
He never fixed it.
He breaks his promise.
It was built on nothing but falsehoods.
I force Mom and me to wait by the front gates of the mansion for hours just in case he does talk sense into his mother, but nothing happens - there’s no call back, no movement from inside the mansion. Not a single word from the man who professed his love for me just hours ago.
He’s nothing but a liar. Nothing but some man making empty guarantees.
Even a Penmayne can’t bend the whole world to his whims.
“Come, Emma,” Mom finally says to me, nodding at our belongings. “Pick up your bags. Let’s go.”
I dig inside my pocket to find the piece of parchment August wrote in that bottle I discovered on the beach. The one scrawled with his handwriting where he declares his love for me. The last few days have been the best days of my life, but now they have turned into the worst nightmare.
I’m done with this shit.
I rip up the piece of parchment and scatter the shredded strips into the dirt by the Penmayne family mansion walls. That’s where that declaration should lie – on the ground beneath my feet.
I should never think about August Penmayne ever again.
He truly has betrayed me.
And I can feel it in my soul.
I reach down to pick up my bag and I see the ballet shoes resting on top - those same ballet shoes August bought for me two years ago. The best present I’ve ever received.
I gather them up and hug them close to my chest.
And, after all that’s happened today, I finally let myself cry.
21
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
EMMA
I look up at the giant poster of the new production of Swan Lake and smile to myself. The show has got its premiere in a few weeks, and the marketing team is in full swing promoting the ballet. You can’t walk down a block in this city without having some billboard or poster of this new show thrust into your face.
And it’s happeninghere - at this famous theatre I’m standing in front of right in the heart of downtown.
This would be amazing to dance for.
I clutch my bag tight and continue to stare at the immense poster. I can see my face up there, dressed up as the lead dancer in the middle, looking out over the city I now call home with pride and joy.
