I would go willingly into the darkness.

Cool hands settled on my shoulder, turning me around, slowly, slowly as the room rotated. I leveled my eyes at his necktie, noting how expensive it looked, how beautifully the pattern accentuated the blue of his eyes.

Showtime.

I gathered together, fortified myself for what lay ahead. “Would you like to see me dance?” I asked, my quivering voice perhaps mistaken for shyness.

He nodded, moving to the bed, propping himself up on the headboard with pillows.

I removed my stilettos, and danced my audition piece, using the space I had to express the emotion, the sadness, and yes, the acceptance. The room winked out of my mind and became a spot-lit stage. A hushed audience waited just past the orchestra pit, waiting with baited breath to see me do a pas de chat or a grand jeté. I couldn’t disappoint them.

I pretended he wasn’t there, dancing for myself and for Sarah.

And then later, after time had passed, he grew weary of my grace. He became tired of my jumps and glides and pirouettes. He was not impressed with my ballet hands, how they arched and stretched. So, I went to him and did more, much more. I did it absently, vacantly, and without thought. I did it with my eyes squeezed tight.

As we moved on that bed, time seemed suspended, oddly so, like the music inside a ballerina’s box as it winds down. The seconds slid by with excruciating slowness, and I ticked them down in my head, counting over and over until I got lost and forgot where I was. I pictured what we did as two unknown people, not me and The Man. I imagined I was a lonely dandelion stalk drifting and floating away on the wind, looking for a place to take root and grow.

It was surprisingly easy to separate myself from our actions, to pretend it wasn’t me, giving myself to someone I didn’t know. Perhaps it was because I’d watched many terrible things during my childhood. Perhaps it was because I’d do whatever it took to come out of this whole.

He was demanding in his requests, and it almost pulled me from my control, but I held on, directive in mind. I did as he asked, participating with complete compliance. I pushed all the sweet things from my head and became someone I did not know.

I become one with The Man.

Yes, I grieved deep inside. How could I not?

Later, I would huddle in my room and cry. Later, I would hunker down over my toilet and lose the contents of my stomach for what I’d become. But not now. Now, I would be his.

After he finished, I pulled away to the other side of the bed, my body exhausted.

I refuse to recount the how’s and the where’s of the thing that occurred. Details do not matter. It happened. It was not forced; it was not strange. I willingly gave myself to a man—lied to him, too—for money. I checked him off my list. And he wouldn’t be the last because one man does not pay twenty thousand dollars to have a virgin. I still had debt to work off.

The Man said he wanted to see me again, and I told him yes as my head replayed what had happened here. Yes, I could do it again.

What else could I say? He was providing a way for Sarah to live. There is nothing more to add.

He left me in bed and went to shower. I did not want to think about if he had a wife at home or children. I couldn’t. I did not want to think about the other people involved in my sins.

Some may think me ruined, but I am not. Because no matter what I’d done, I was still Dovey, the dreamy girl who only wanted to dance. I’m still the good girl who didn’t sell drugs; the girl that foolishly gave her virginity to the boy who ultimately destroyed her.

That was me. Not this thing. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

I lay with my arms wrapped around myself, picking through my head, cycling through the movie of my life, searching for meaning in what I had done. I found little. Except that perhaps I had become my own Joan of Arc.

“Do the stars have enough light for me?”

–Cuba

SEBASTIAN HAD SKILLS when it came to planning a party, I thought, checking out the white Hummer limo that drove us to the dance.

Besides me, several cheerleaders, Emma, Sebastian, April, and even Spider sat on the beige leather seats, sipping champagne. Well, except for Emma. No one seemed to notice that she sipped on bottled water.

Spider kept throwing back drinks from a flask he’d brought along. Periodically, I’d catch him glaring at me, and I’d glare right the fuck back, my fists itching to ram his face for throwing Dovey out. I downed a glass of Dom, pushing down the urge to pounce on him. Sebastian had wanted him here, so I allowed it. Barely.

Emma sat in the corner, wearing a loose pink dress although I couldn’t imagine she’d be big so soon. But what did I know about pregnant girls? Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and I knew staying with her cousin was wearing her thin. She kept waiting for her parents to change their minds, to let her come home, but so far they hadn’t.

Not until she was married or confessed her sins on their TV show, they’d told her.

Before everyone else had arrived for the limo, she’d told me she was ready to talk to the guys she’d been with tonight. “I want to get it out in the open,” she’d said. “And I need to know what he’s going to say.”

I didn’t have to ask which boy she meant.

We arrived at The Dorchester and made our way to the ballroom. Decorated by the cheerleaders with red and pink hearts and about a million balloons, it looked like most parties I’d been to. Meh. I really didn’t care. I wanted to get through this night, get Emma out in the open, and then just figure things out. Today in the library with Dovey kept replaying in my mind, and I wanted some time alone to process it all. When she’d walked out that door, her face had been set with acceptance.

Like she’d decided to let me go…forever.

My chest tightened as I gazed around at the paired-up couples, wishing she was here. I don’t know why. Oh, hell, I knew why.

Sebastian got all business like as he hopped on stage and checked the equipment he’d set up earlier in the afternoon. As he worked, his band showed up. Nora arrived with Teddy, the odd looking piano player I’d met over Christmas at Club Vita. Apparently, he had Asperger’s but could play like a maniac. He seemed like a cool dude.

Leo sauntered in behind Nora, his eyes lasered in on his one and only. Dude wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to her. Where ever she went, his eyes followed as if he couldn’t bear to not have her in his sights.

I wanted something like that. I wanted something hot and crazy and so good I couldn’t stand to be without her. Oh, wait. I’d had that with Dovey, but I’d screwed it up. Done. Over.