Eli can’t sit here and watch Echo die. Again.
She hated this part when she was up in the booth and she hates it more now. At least when she was working it kept her mind busy enough to interrupt the constant spin cycle of the girl I think is cute is dying, the girl I want to kiss is dying, the girl I love is dying.
The woman on her left and the man on her right — both in full evening dress, the lady drizzled with beads — are sitting with their mouths open. It’s like they’re wearing their heartbeats outside their clothes.
Eli stands up, ruffling her entire row. She passes them one at a time, bumping into knees, not even caring. “Excuse me,” Eli whispers. “Coming through.”
She shouldn’t be drawing more attention to herself. She isn’t, technically, a ticket holder. Eli used the oldest trick in the broke-theater-girl book: dress up, wait until intermission, and then flood into the lobby with everyone else. Claim a stall in the bathroom, wait until the last second, check the theater for an open seat. The woman on Eli’s left gave her a quick, prodding glance and then left her the hell alone.
Eli could have kissed her.
She breaks through the double doors and heads straight past the ushers. It’s a miracle they didn’t throw her out after the lantern trick.
When Eli left the Aurelia, she was fully prepared to be angry at Zara for days or weeks, but she just ended up angry at herself, Leopold, and the entire world, in that order.
Why did you make her choose? Eli asked herself as she boxed up her books and her ripped jeans and her chipped bowls. She spent all Christmas day packing. Her parents called a dozen times: M’ija, come home. ¿Dónde estás? It’s Christmas. We’re all here waiting for you. But she couldn’t do it: couldn’t face them with a broken heart and a life in glass splinters. She’ll be back with them soon enough — no way she can afford Manhattan without the Aurelia money. Eli wanted to be mad at Zara for that. She wouldn’t have been fired from her dream job if she hadn’t fallen in love with the wrong girl.
But what made her wrong in the first place? The world, Leopold, and Eli, in that order.
Cue guilt. Cue emotional meltdown. Cue kicking at packed boxes until her toes went numb.
Eli imagined a thousand different phone calls — but what was she going to say? I’m sorry I asked you to give up your dreams for me, when I built my whole life around mine. I’m sorry that Leopold is a controlling asshole of the highest order. I’m sorry I don’t want you to die.
That’s why Eli is here. Zara might not want her back, but there was no way Eli could sit across town while Zara fought her way through opening night alone. The curse ends on opening night.
It makes Eli sick sometimes, thinking she could have changed things if she’d been there the day that Roscoe died. She’s not going to let that happen twice.
But Zara made it to the last scene of the play perfectly alive, so it’s time to go. Still, Eli hesitates in the lobby.
Twelve hours ago, right around dawn, there had been a knock at Eli’s door, and hope had blinded her. It was the most painful thing Eli ever felt, but also beautiful — like staring straight into a cloudless sun.
When Eli opened the door, it wasn’t Zara. It was an even less likely person. Adrian Ward.
“Don’t kill the messenger,” he said, looking very Hollywood in a leather jacket and dark glasses. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, shocking it straight up. Eli couldn’t help thinking: he would make a pretty cute lesbian.
“Look,” he said, taking an envelope out of his pocket. “I’m not supposed to give you this until later, so I’m going to give it to you now. If Greek tragedies have taught me one thing, it’s that what you don’t know always comes back to bite you in the ass.”
Eli just stared at him.
“I’m going to leave this right here,” Adrian said, crouching down to deposit the envelope on her apartment doormat. “Now, if you and Zara don’t need me anymore, I’m going to call my girlfriend.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Eli asked, latching on to the least confusing of the very confusing things he’d said.
“It’s a long story.” And with one last hair scrub, he was gone.
Eli has the letter now, folded into a thousand squares and stuffed in her bra. One corner spikes into her skin. Leopold killed Roscoe, but Zara made it through opening night, safe. Eli should leave, but the letter is proof: Zara loved her. Loves her.
Eli kept thinking that she wasn’t enough for Zara, but sometimes it was too much for Eli. The secret keeping, the constant fear. All she ever wanted, besides her light board, was to fall in love with someone and have it be this good, simple thing. Maybe she was being painfully innocent.
The lobby is empty, no patrons yet. Eli waits until the ushers are turned away, and then she slips through the door that she knows, from plenty of experience, will lead her backstage. She strides right down that hallway like she belongs. It’s a good thing everybody else is in the wings.
Eli can slip into Zara’s dressing room before the actors and crew flood out of the theater. She can be waiting for Zara when she gets back, and finally help Zara out of that wet dress. But in front of the men’s dressing room, a few steps from her final destination, Eli hears voices.
She tucks into the doorway, ready to rush away if the door flies open.
“Stop it,” Carl says. “We have to go out there and bow.”
Someone else is in there. Someone is crying.
Toby.
Eli’s fear is a freshly struck match.
“Pull yourself together,” Carl says. “No one can see you acting like this.”
“I defended you. I told Zara you would never hurt Enna. . . . I believed it.”
“Is that really what you’re worried about right now?”
“All I had to do was tell one little lie,” Toby says, panic welling in his voice. “That’s what you said.”
“And that’s all you had to do,” Carl says. “All Cosima had to do was make costumes and follow Meg’s orders. Some of us had to do more.” His tone is bitter, bleak. “It all went wrong.”
Eli blinks. What went wrong?
“Meg will think of something,” Carl says. “She always does.”
Toby cries harder. Carl must be bringing him toward the door because footsteps are growing close and loud. Eli quick-strides into the women’s dressing room. It’s empty. The door to the little dressing room stands open.
Zara should be back from the pool under the stage. She should be here by now.