“I’m not,” I lie, wondering how he even knows when he’s been too busy with his awesome life.
“And I’m not letting you run from me again.”
His words hang in the air menacingly and I ask, “Letting me?”
“Yeah.”
I frown at him. “Isn’t that… criminal?”
“Is it?”
I exhale sharply. “Yes, it is. You can’t lock a girl in a closet against her will. Just because you don’t want her to run.”
Something like amusement passes over his features. “Right. I think I heard about something like that.”
“You –”
“But also, I don’t think I’m holding her against her will. Am I?”
I swallow and grab hold of the edge of the shelf tightly. “Why don’t I scream and you can find out if it’s against my will or not?”
It only makes him smirk. “Why don’t you? Let’s see if it reaches your brother and he comes to save you.” He flexes his fist by his side. “I’d love to give him a matching bruise for last Friday.”
My heart jumps. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“No. Because… Because you apologized to him that night,” I remind him, trying to tamp down shivers at the thought of him keeping that promise to me. “You kept your promise.”
“And that means what?”
“It means that maybe you’re not as bad as they say you are.”
“Yeah, no. I’m exactly as bad as they say I am.” He spreads his hands as if in a magnanimous gesture. “I’d be happy to show you if you like. All you have to do is scream.”
I study him for a long, careful moment before saying, “How did you even know that I was here?”
“I saw you dancing through the window,” he says.
“You did?” I ask, surprised.
“Uh-huh.” His eyes grow heated, and all my ire seems to be on the verge of melting. “You were spinning. So fast. And I stopped.”
“Why?”
He licks his lips and I’m reminded of how excited he looked that night when I danced for him.
When he called me a fairy.
God.
God.
He called me that, didn’t he?
I’ve been trying not to think about it. Not to think about his words, the words no one has ever said to me before.
Fairy.
“Because apparently when you spin, I stop. When you dance, I have to watch,” he says in a low, slightly rough voice.
And suddenly I feel the same way. As I did that night.
All hot and restless. My limbs buzzing.
“I sucked,” I say.
He frowns. “What?”
I’m not sure if I should tell him this. But I’m going to.
I don’t know why but I have to tell him the truth.
So swallowing, I whisper, “My routine. I can’t do it. I-I mean, I can. But I’m screwing it all up.”
His frown only grows. “Someone tell you that?”
I shake my head. “No. Everyone has been super kind so far. But I-I’m supposed to hold this pose, a developpé écarté devant, at the end for like eight counts before coming down on my knees, but I could only do it for like four or something. And even then, my calves were shaking, and do you even know how big of a crime that is? Not being able to hold straight and still. A very big crime. Huge.”
It is.
And if they don’t kick me out then I’ll just quit myself because this is a disgrace.
For some reason, his lips twitch. “I don’t think anyone would notice how long you stood on your toes.”
I narrow my eyes at him, at his amusement. “Why not?”
“Because they’ll be too distracted at the sight of you down on your knees.” He tips his chin at me. “Especially in that.”
All of a sudden it hits me that I’m in costume.
I’ve been wearing this for three hours now and I completely forgot. I completely forgot that this is the first time Reed is seeing me in this.
A white leotard and a light green tutu.
Not to mention, I also have wings.
They are heavy — although after wearing them for so long, my shoulders have gone numb so I don’t feel their weight anymore — and made of white fur. They’re slung over my shoulders with white ribbon-like strings and rustle across my spine and arms.
Like a fairy…
I’ve been wearing leotards and tutus all my life so until he looks at me from top to bottom, I don’t realize how revealing it can be.
How tight the costume is and how it fits me like a second skin. How it highlights every lithe muscle, every delicate bone in my body.
How exposed I am.
Even more than I was back in the woods.
And before I can stop myself, I say, “It’s my tutu.”
When he lifts his eyes back to my face, they’re the darkest that I’ve seen them.
Liquid and fiery.
“Yeah?” he rasps in an almost indulgent tone.
I bring my trembling hands forward and trace the frilly fabric. “It’s like a skirt.”
“And what are those?”
He points to my feet and I look down. “Uh, they’re called pointe shoes.” I chuckle as I look up. “You know, people say that ballerinas have the ugliest feet. They’re all swollen and bruised and cut up and –”
“People are stupid.”
“But –”
I stop talking because something makes him move.
I don’t know what it is but he straightens up and I’m wondering what the chances are that he’ll stay put where he is, by the door, when he starts walking toward me.
It’s not a big space so by the time I gather my wits to ask him what the heck he’s doing, he’s already here.
He’s already touching me.
Not me, per se.
He’s touching my wings. Or one of them actually.
Standing over me like a threat or something, a delicious, gorgeous threat in a white hoodie and a pulsating bruise, Reed reaches out and brushes a finger along the edge of my wing. Crazily, my spine arches up at the touch. As if he’s touching my skin instead of my fake wing.
His eyes drop to my bowed body and if he couldn’t see the shape of it before, he can sure see it now.
He can see the bones of my ribs, the hollow of my stomach. My really small but jutting out breasts.
“What are these wings for?” he asks, bringing his eyes up to mine.
“F-for my character.”
“What character is that?”
“I’m a fairy.”
Somehow his eyes grow all heated even as a slight lopsided smile pulls up his lips. “So I was right, huh?”
“I –”
He rubs the fur between his fingers as he continues, “You are a fairy. You dance like a fairy.” His eyes flick over my face, my bun. “You look like one too.”