Not anymore though.
Even though the wings at my back flutter and rustle against my spine as if coming alive now that he’s here. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re fucking up your développé écarté devant,” he says. “Isn’t that what it is?”
I watch him a beat. “Yes.”
“And you’re supposed to hold it? For eight counts.”
I remain speechless, motionless. He remembers.
He keeps going though. “And if you can’t hold a position in ballet, it’s supposed to be a big fucking crime.”
How does he remember everything like I do?
When I always thought that all this time he’s been living his glamorous life in New York, I probably never even crossed his mind.
He straightens up and moves away from the wall.
Keeping his eyes on me, he starts to walk. Toward me.
And when he does that, again all I can do is stand in my spot, all frozen and immobile. Like I used to two years ago, whenever he decided to prowl toward me.
I used to stand glued to my spot, my traitor legs refusing to move.
My traitor heart refusing to slow down, and I’m about to stop him. I’m about to tell him to not come anywhere close to me.
Because I don’t know what’s happening.
I don’t know what he’s doing.
I don’t know how and why he remembers everything from two years ago. And neither do I know why he saved me.
But my wayward, confused thoughts break when I realize that he wasn’t.
Coming near me, I mean.
He was going somewhere else.
He was going to the black stereo off to the side. And when he reaches it, he bends down on his knees and starts fiddling with the buttons.
I finally string some words together as I watch him. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you with your routine.”
“My routine.”
When he’s done with it, he comes back to his feet. “You want to go to Juilliard, don’t you? Well, you’re not going with the way you’re dancing. Because it sucks.”
I’m too shaken up to take offense.
Besides he is right.
It does suck. I can’t, for the life of me, hold that pose. I can do développé à la seconde, which is folding your leg out to the side, but écarté devant is my weakness.
Even so, I don’t need his help.
I don’t need him to give me any more reminders of before. Of when he used to help me, make me better. I already remember those days plenty on my own.
I’m already plenty devastated and broken.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re getting it nonetheless.”
“You hate twirling, remember?”
“Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe now I’m ready to embrace my feminine side.”
“You —”
“Unless you’re afraid,” he says, tilting his head to the side.
“Of what?”
“Of me.” His eyes turn hooded. “Touching you.”
I frown as my spine goes up. “Why would I be afraid of that?”
He shrugs, his shoulders that were already massive have now become even more muscled as they move. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Disgusted, yes. But afraid, no.”
He hums thoughtfully. “Maybe you think that once I put my hands on you, you won’t be able to control yourself.”
“Control myself from what?”
His ruby red lips stretch up in a smirk. “From touching me back.”
“You mean my fist touching your face?”
His smirk only grows as if I didn’t say anything. “From wanting me. From falling for me again.”
“You —”
“I mean, you did before, right? I twirled for you a little and you thought I was your knight in fucking armor.” Then, “Wait, shining armor. That’s what you called it, isn’t it? You thought I was your knight in shining armor.” He chuckles then, thick, syrupy condescension dripping from it. “I mean, there are silly teenage girls who fall in love at the drop of a hat and then there’s you. You, who lives in a house made of cupcakes and whose dreams are full of pink glitter. And who thinks that every story is a love story where the prince is going to get down on his knees and offer you forever. And you both will ride off into the sunset. In his Mustang.”
By the time he finishes, I’m flushed.
With anger.
My spine is the straightest that it’s ever been and my chest is the heaviest. It feels like my bones have turned into iron and all I want to do is use them to hurt him.
To hurt him like he’s hurt me.
Like he continues to hurt me.
But I won’t.
I won’t lower myself to his level. I know he’s provoking me and I know he wants me to give in.
And I will.
But in a different way.
In a way that will prove him wrong. That will show him that I will never ever be that stupid again.
“Fine,” I say, fisting and unfisting my hands at my side. “Let’s do it. But only because you taught me that not every story is a love story and you’re the villain everyone said you were.”
He watches me a beat before he throws a curt nod and bends down, hitting play on the stereo.
The sound comes on, the buzzing static before the music fills the air.
This moment has the power to send me back to the past, to Bardstown High, to the auditorium. But I keep myself in the present. I keep myself grounded to Blue Madonna as I walk toward him to begin.
I try to erase my memory.
I try to develop amnesia.
Especially when as he sees me approaching, he widens his stance and dips his chin like he used to do two years ago.
Especially when the violins come in and I have to assume position, my arms straight up in the air and my calves stretched up, my weight supported on my toes.
Especially when I remember that when I danced for him, I felt perfect.
I felt beautiful.
I felt like a flawless ballerina, and when I take my first turn under his scrutiny, that feeling comes rushing back.
The feeling that I’ve been missing.
The feeling that I’m on fire. That the wings on my back can really fly me away and that I’m spinning so fast that my toes have left the ground and I can levitate.
The feeling that I’m really a fairy.
I haven’t had this in two years.
Not since he went away.
But tonight it’s back.
Tonight, I feel perfect. I feel beautiful and ethereal.
I feel like a fairy.
His fairy, as I dance around him.
As I twirl and leap and jump and lose myself in the music like I was made for it.
As he watches me with a certain kind of possession in his eyes, the same kind from two years ago.