#fredrick chase

"It's not my name. My name is Annabeth," she reminded him.

"Your name is Anna. I named you myself. Your mother called you Annabeth," Fred said to her.

Annabeth sat down in the hotel room's armchair. "Do you love her?" She asked.

"Your mother?" Annabeth nodded. "I loved her more than I could make sense of. The day she left, it was ..." He looked down at the floor and shook his head. "What does this have to do with anything?"

Annabeth sipped her whiskey. She felt hollow.

"Do you love me?" She asked.

Fred looked up at her as if she'd asked if he wanted a hot dog she found on the ground, or if the sky was made of pudding.

"What? Of course I do. Annie--beth, I am so proud of you," he said.

Annabeth pressed her glass to her lips as she smiled and shook her head. She took another sip.

"I'm one of the best ballerinas in the world. Of course you're proud of me. But do you love me?"

"I love you," he said. But it didn't sound like love. It sounded like he wanted to prove a point to her. That was, in her experience, her father's most constant tone. "Why would you ever doubt that?"

Annabeth held his gaze and her courage. "You didn't want to raise a daughter on your own. You wanted a family. We weren't a family," she gestured back and forth between them. "You got your family when you married Kathy and had the boys, and I didn't need to be a part of that."

Fred scooted closer to her. He was still on the bed, too far away from her to reach out and comfort her, but closer nonetheless. "Annabeth, that's not true."

"It felt true. When I was a kid it felt like you sent me to all those great dance schools just to keep me out of your way," she said.

"I did all that because you loved it," Fred protested. "Do you regret it?"

Annabeth shook her head. "I know. I know you did it out of love. But I was a child. I couldn't just be shown love. I needed to be told." Annabeth sighed. "There were kids at SAB who called their parents every day. The girls I lived with would spend hours talking to their moms every week. Some kids, their parents moved to New York to be with them. You hardly ever called, and when I called you, you answered with 'What's wrong?' As if I couldn't just call you to tell you about my week. Yes, you let me move to New York and live my dream, and I will never not be so grateful that you did. But it started to feel a lot like I'd been sent off to boarding school so you and Kathy didn't need to deal with me."

It was her father's turn to stand and take a long drink. Annabeth sat back in her chair and thought about drinking what was left in her glass. But she still had a lot to get through, and so she held back.

When her father sat back down, fresh drink in hand, he just looked straight ahead, never at her, and asked, "What do your childhood feelings have to do with what you told me this morning, Annie?"

"My childhood feelings have everything to do with it. Because I was a child. I became a professional when I was sixteen --"

"Don't dancers usually start that young?" He asked.

Annabeth laughed. "Are you joking?" He looked at her, confused. She leaned forward. "In the history of the New York City Ballet, only one other dancer was taken into the company that young, and she was chosen by Balanchine himself. She was his last great dancer. And then there's me."

"Well, how did that woman cope with it?" He asked. It felt like he was asking her Is she normal? Maybe you can ask her how to deal with your problems.

"I have no idea. I've never met her," Annabeth said.

"I thought you might have danced together," her dad suggested.

"Well, she's sixty and lives in Miami."

"I don't know why you think I'd know that."

"Well, I thought you'd at least know I'd done something impressive and almost unheard of!" She said, gesturing with her hands until her whiskey threatened to slosh out of the glass.

"Is it an impressive thing or a bad thing, Annabeth, make up your mind!" He yelled back.

"Can't it be both!? Can't be a bad thing that happened to me and a cool thing to be on my Wikipedia page?" She pointed at him, this whiskey finally making its way to her head and mixing with her anger. "Hey, isn't it cool that your daughter had a fucking Wikipedia page?"

"I already told you that I'm proud of you, now will you tell me what any of this has to do with calling off your wedding?" He said, scolding her more than yelling.

"Because I was a child, don't you understand?" This time she did finish her drink. "I was taken into the company at sixteen and lost all of my friends at SAB. I was suddenly a professional working with thirty-year-olds. I was dancing forty-six shows of Snow and Flowers. And I wasn't coming home for Christmas. I thought maybe you guys would come up and see me dance. By early December you hadn't said anything. I thought maybe it'd be a surprise. But instead you just sent me a text that you were moving. To San Francisco. In a week. You asked if I wanted anything." Annabeth took a deep breath, trying to keep herself from crying for at least a little while longer. "I wanted my Molly American Girl Doll, but I was so angry and sad I just said I didn't want anything."

She took a deep breath, and he stayed quiet, his eyes glued to the floor, his glass still in his hands.

"I was backstage at the theater, dressed as a goddamn snowflake, trying not to cry and then that show's Cavalier walked by. He saw me. For the first time in two months someone saw me. He asked me what was wrong, and when I told him, he cared. He told me it wasn't fair. He gave me a hug. And after the show, he introduced me to some other company members. He started ... taking care of me." She smiled. She couldn't help it. "When we had shows together, he'd bring me lunch or dinner. We'd talk. It never occurred to anyone that a twenty-three-year-old was spending a lot of time with a sixteen-year-old. I certainly didn't care. He meant everything to me."

Fred turned to look at her, but his gaze wasn't on her face. It hovered somewhere around her knees.

"Annabeth, what are you telling me?" He asked. She knew he'd figured it out.

Her voice was steady. "I'm telling you that after my first Nutcracker season, Luke took me on my first date. He was my first kiss. And after that first, perfect date, he took me back to my apartment and gave me a glass of wine."

There was a long horrible pause. Her father drained his glass and looked away from her. "Did he have sex with you when you were sixteen?"

He looked like he was going to be sick, and it made Annabeth smile. "Yes. And seventeen, and eighteen, and nineteen, and every year expect this one." The memories still made her feel good, until she started to feel guilty for feeling good. "The worst part --"

"There's a worse part?"

"--Is that I don't hate him for it. That's not why I left him. I loved him. I loved him every day for nine years. I know it was wrong. I knew it was wrong then, I wasn't stupid. But it never felt wrong. It felt like he was my family. That's what he promised me. That we would be a family." She set her glass down hard on the desk next to the whiskey bottle. "So that's why it matters. Because he knew from the moment we met that I was so lonely, and my family was on the other side of the country, and I didn't think my dad cared if I lived or died."

Fred dropped his empty glass on the bed beside him to fully rest his face in his hands. She was pretty sure he was crying. Despite her best efforts, she was too. 

“He got really comfortable really quickly agreeing with me when I said that you didn’t love me. It wasn’t long before he was saying it first. Because he knew I needed to believe it was true, so that I would never tell you what he did to me. The night I left him, it was one of the last things he said to me. ‘He doesn’t love you Annie, not really.’ 

“Do you have any idea how smug he looked last night? When he realized I hadn’t told you? That he had gotten away with it? Or how happy he looked when you left me alone with him? He was confident enough to call you this morning!” She cooled her anger into a soft, accusatory voice. “And you were going to sell me out to him. You wanted me to work things out.” She wiped the last of her tears away before drinking what was left in her glass. 

Fred looked up and wiped his own tears as he stared at the wall. “I don’t know what to say.” 

Annabeth leaned back in her chair. “You’re a smart man, Daddy. You can figure it out.” 

He moved closer to her now, close enough to take her hands in his. “I love you, Annabeth. You’re my girl, my only girl. I have loved you since the moment I found out you were going to be in my life, and I have never stopped. Of course you’re my family. You were the only family I ever needed. And I’m so sorry that I was never very good at making sure you knew that.” 

Annabeth nodded, her tears returning, welling up in her eyes and falling without her permission. “And I’m sorry I never told you what he did. I’m sorry I believed him.” 

“Of course you believed him. Why wouldn’t you? What have I ever done to prove him wrong?” 

Annabeth was a smart woman, but she didn’t have a thing to say to that. 

“Did he hit you?” Her dad asked finally. 

She figured she needed to tell him why she really left Luke now. 

“No. Ballet is a full contact sport. People would have figured it out.” Her father let out a sigh of relief before she could ruin him again. “But he’d throw things in my direction, or just break things. That started when I was twenty-one. It got worse as the years went on.” 

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. 

Annabeth’s hands started to shake, and she stood to get water from the bathroom. When she came back she sat on the bed next to him. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and went on. 

“The breaking point … he,” she swallowed hard. “He did something to really humiliate me. Something I never even imagined.” 

Her father took her hand, but wouldn’t meet her eyes. Annabeth pressed her eyes closed tight, as all the shame and humiliation of it washed over her again. 

“He was showing nude photos of me to other dancers.” When she opened her eyes, her father was still looking forward, but she could see the confusion etched in his profile. “He showed them to my friend Beckendorf. And he told me right away. A few days later, after I’d kicked him out, I told Chiron what happened. The … circumstances of my relationship with Luke was enough to get him fired. But Chiron did some internal investigation. Two other dancers confessed to seeing the photos at some point. They’d been my friends. Another one of Luke’s friends, one of my friends I guess, denied everything. But I don’t believe him. I think he was protecting Luke. 

“When Beck told me about the pictures, it was like a scrim lifted on my life. Before that moment, I could see that there was bad stuff behind it but it was obscured. I kept waiting for it to go away. I kept thinking about those early years that were so good, where he was so kind --”

“The years when you were a teenager?” Her father asked. 

Annabeth sobbed. “Yes! And that makes it so much worse. I am so embarrassed. About everything! It's why I never told you, it’s why I haven’t told most people. It’s humiliating! I remember standing in my kitchen as Luke confessed to what he did and just knowing I couldn’t marry him. For the first time in nine years I saw my life for the absolute fucking mess I’d made of it. And I knew I was either getting away from him finally, or I was going to kill myself and that was it.” 

Her father sobbed. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to die then, and I really don't want to now. I’m safe, I promise.” 

 He patted her hand. “Good, that’s good. I wouldn’t .. if I lost you … “ Annabeth rested a hand on his back, inviting him in for a hug, which he accepted. He held onto her tight, and for a while the only sound in the room were their twin cries. 

When he pulled away, he said: “Your mother said almost the exact same thing.” 

Annabeth sucked in a sharp breath and exhaled a confused, “What?” 

“She had depression. You know that,” he said. 

Annabeth forced a smile. “Her depression and her eyes, it’s all she left me.” 

“And your name,” he reminded her. 

“Right.” 

“When you were born it got worse. We kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. And treatments back then weren’t as good as they are now. Some days it was like I was living with two different people. I’d wake up and my wife was there, and by nighttime, I was living with a stranger.” Annabeth knew how that felt. “And one day she said she needed to leave, or else she was going to kill herself or …” he let out a deep breath, “or kill you.” 

Annabeth couldn’t find a single word to say, not even a question. 

“I just scooped you up,” he continued, “I held onto you so tight. I got your mother in the car and drove her to the hospital. When she got out three days later she said she still wanted to leave. I was okay with that. I didn’t want her anywhere near you. I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt you. I held you the whole time she packed, and then I called her a cab to the airport, and I just kept holding onto you. I didn’t put you down all day. For weeks after she left, I hardly slept. I just stayed awake looking at you. You were so little. And it was just you and me. But you were all I needed. All I ever wanted. You were always enough.” 

Annabeth let her tears fall and splash onto her pants. 

“I’ve thought about how, and I think about this with your brothers too, how there was one day I carried you to bed or put you on my shoulders to watch fireworks, and then I put you down. And I never picked you back up again, because you’d gotten too big. You especially. You grew like a weed.” He laughed a little. “I remember getting you four new pairs of pointe shoes, and you coming to me the next day and telling me they didn’t fit. You’d grown out of them overnight.” 

Annabeth laughed too. She’d been so nervous to tell him that, but he just laughed and drove her back to the dance store.

 “I didn’t care. All your teachers told me you were one of the best, but they didn’t need to tell me. I knew. And you won that big competition, and all those schools offered you scholarships. London, San Diego, Houston, but you just looked at Chiron’s offer and said to me --” 

“I’m going to be in the New York City Ballet,” she finished for him with a smile. 

Her father shook his head and smiled for the first time all night. “No you said ‘I’m going to be a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet,’ and I said --” 

“‘Of course you are,’” She finished for him, suddenly ashamed that she’d ever believed he hadn’t loved her. 

“That’s right,” he said. “I wanted to give you everything. Whatever you needed, whatever you wanted, I’d’ve gotten it for you. I’m just sorry I forgot to say ‘I love you’ along the way, I’m sorry I ever led you to believe I didn’t.” 

She took his hand. “I guess I never really said that I love you too.” 

“It wasn’t your responsibility to say it first,” he said. 

“But I still could have.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

He pulled her into a tight hug. They stayed like that for a few long minutes, as her dad continued to whisper apologies. 

When they pulled away, he asked: “Can I call that ex of yours?” 

“What are you going to say?” She asked. 

“I’m going to tell him the truth. That if he ever comes near you or the ballet again, I will have him arrested.” 

Annabeth smiled the whole conversation. 

~ 

Her father checked out of his hotel early and traveled with her back to her apartment. She tried to get him to take the bed, but he refused and made himself comfortable on the couch. 

When she got home from rehearsal, he was setting up plates of takeout for them. 

“How was your day?” He asked. 

“Really good. Rehearsals went well, and Chiron is so happy about that first performance. I really think he’s going to promote Percy soon,” she said, not able to help her smile. 

Her father looked at her knowingly. “He’s a nice boy isn’t he?” 

Annabeth nodded. “He is. Maybe next time you’re in town, I could introduce you?” 

“Okay,” he said. “But Annabeth … just be careful.” 

“I will be,” she promised. 

“You trust him? He won’t hurt you?” He asked. 

Annabeth shook her head and almost laughed. “Yes, I trust him. No he would never hurt me. We’re not dating yet, but I think he really likes me. And even if he doesn’t, he’s a really important friend.” 

“Then I’m happy for you,” he said. “I got you something today.” 

“What?” She asked as he walked to her bedroom. 

“I know that I shouldn’t only show my love for you with gifts,” she followed him to her room, “but that’s not exactly what this is. This is something that I owe you.” 

“What --” 

He stepped out of her room with an unwrapped rectangular box. The size and magenta color were recognizable right away. 

“Stop,” Annabeth said, reaching for the box. She turned it around, and sure enough, it was Molly. She started to cry. She set the box on the ground and threw her arms around her father. 

“I love you,” she said. 

He squeezed her tight. “I love you too, Annabeth.” 

“You know, it’s okay if you call me Annie,” she said. 

“I thought you hated it?” He asked. 

“I don’t mind it so much, actually.” 

~