Tempest.
My best friend from my old life and the sweet little sister of the guy I fell in love with.
I did tell Tempest where I was going to be, yes.
I usually do.
We pretty much email each other every other day.
After the whole car-stealing debacle and him pressing charges against me and me almost landing in juvie, I thought I’d lose Tempest’s friendship as well.
Even though she helped me and stole his keys, she’s still his sister and so I thought she’d inevitably take his side.
But she never abandoned me.
She still came over to my house whenever she was in town; I wasn’t ready to go to her house though. She still visited me, hung out with me.
In fact, she was the one who got me through that last month of school, after the championship game and my dance that I didn’t get to do, and the whole horrible summer before I came to St. Mary’s.
We still see each other.
Although not as often as I’d like because of all the stupid outing rules of reform school, but I love her. Not today though.
Today I want to strangle her.
Because I thought we had a pact.
Like our brothers, we made a pact too after everything happened.
A pact of no brothers.
Meaning our brothers would have no place in our friendship.
We wouldn’t talk about them. We wouldn’t mention them. It would be like we had no brothers.
Although one thing never made sense to me.
I knew why I was making the pact, but I’m not sure why she did.
Why she never wanted to hear about Ledger, whom I know that she liked two years ago, and I never asked; she respected my space and so I respected hers.
So I don’t know why she’d rat my whole schedule out to her brother.
But anyway, right now I need to deal with him and ignore the slight sinking in my chest.
The absurd sinking.
That feels like disappointment.
Because he wasn’t really stalking me as I’d assumed.
See? Absurd.
“So she sent you here?” I ask, confused, my mind going two years back.
To that closet when he came to give me his sister’s birthday invitation. The day he gave me his name, Fae.
“No,” he says with an irritated frown. “No one sends me anywhere. But she does think that I should apologize.”
“For what?”
“She had a long list.”
I look at him for a beat. “I’m sure she did. But apology not accepted.”
“You should probably wait for me to apologize before you say that.” I open my mouth to say something but he goes on. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to ask you something.”
I draw back slightly. “What?”
His jaw moves back and forth in annoyance before saying, “Do you sneak out to Blue Madonna every week?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He studies my features for a few moments before sighing sharply. “I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t want to see you again. It wasn’t my plan when I came back to this fuckhole town. But now I’m assuming you sneak out every week to go to your ballet studio. Like you do to go to that shitty bar with your friends. Is that correct?”
“It’s not a shitty bar,” I say, offended.
That frown on his forehead grows. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. It’s a great bar.”
“It’s a dance bar, Fae. The only dance bar where when they put on the music, instead of dancing, you want to kill yourself.”
I ignore the flutter in my chest at Fae and say, “You only think that because you have crappy taste in music.”
It’s a lie. He doesn’t.
I like his taste in music.
It’s usually a mix of vintage rock bands and modern hip hop, and well, it’s not a secret that I love it. He knows that too; I’ve danced to it quite a lot, haven’t I?
So before he can make a comment about it — dirty, of course — I continue, “And their whiskey is excellent too, don’t you think? It’s so excellent that people steal it just to have a sip.”
“If you think that then you should probably just stick to your lemonade and leave the hard liquor to the grown-ups,” he says, tipping his chin to my half-drunk glass of lemonade, not taking my bait.
“You’re such a —”
“The point is,” he speaks over me, “that I’m willing to give you a ride to your ballet studio.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Just so you can stop being stupidly reckless and taking the bus at midnight. Where at worst, you could be kidnapped and murdered and at best, robbed and raped.”
I have no words right now.
I don’t.
He’s insane.
“You’re insane,” I tell him.
“And you’re lucky.” He sips his coffee coolly. “That I’m willing to drive you around on your foolish errands.”
“Foolish errands?”
“Yes.”
My fingers claw at the lemonade glass as I say, “The reason I have to run those foolish errands is because I’m stuck at St. Mary’s. And in case you forgot, it’s a reform school. Meaning they don’t have a ballet teacher. Because apparently, ballet doesn’t rank so high when it comes to restoration and reformation of teenage criminals.”
“Well now you know, don’t you?” he says with a harsh jaw. “Next time you’ll think twice before stealing someone’s car with the intent of destroying it. Almost wrecking your future in the process.”
I bite the inside of my cheek at his words. I bite it so hard that I think I taste copper.
I taste the broken pieces of my heart, my foolishness.
My recklessness.
And I gulp it all down with a hard swallow. “Yeah, you’re right. I will. I will think twice about it. At least then I won’t be stuck in a cage, trying to chase my dream. Trying to break into the one place that was supposed to get me there but they kicked me out instead and —”
“What?”
I flinch at his severe tone. “What?”
“They kicked you out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I frown at his ticking, angry jaw. “Because I stole your car.”
“So?”
“So… apparently you steal one car and the world suddenly thinks that you’re running a grand theft auto ring,” I tell him as I grow increasingly confused again.
What is it to him if I got kicked out?
“They said that to you?” he asks then, his voice all low and his features tight.
“I…” I shake my head. “What does it matter what they said to me?”
“What about Juilliard?”
“Again, none of your business. Besides, it’s done. It happened two years ago.”