by Katie McCoy
“She’s clearly new,” I pointed out, trying a new tactic. “Why did he cast her?”
“Because he’s sleeping with her,” Viktor said bluntly.
I had remembered that too. All the rumors of what some dancers would do for a part. I had never tried that tactic, and I didn’t regret it. I could only imagine how demoralizing it was to have your lover berate you in front of your peers.
“Well.” Viktor gave me an awkward hug. “Thanks for your help.”
I was being dismissed. I didn’t take it personally. I had been so worried about coming back here. I had been worried that coming back would make me feel terrible and lost. Like I was missing out on something special. Instead, for the first time, I was a little grateful for my injury. Because if I hadn’t had gotten hurt, I would still be in rehearsals like this one. I’d still be competing with my friends. I’d still be getting yelled at by directors and choreographers. I’d still be starving.
And I would have thought all of it was totally normal.
Now I could see clearly that it wasn’t. That this wasn’t the life I wanted. Not anymore. I still loved dance—even that small demonstration I had done had reminded me that I did love to dance—but I didn’t want to be a professional ballerina anymore.
As I was heading out, I saw our former instructor standing out in the hallway. She would be the perfect person to talk to about pursuing a teaching career.
“Ms. Teagan,” I called out.
“Juliet.” She gave me the usual air kisses on either side of my cheek. “I was surprised to see you today.”
“I know, it’s been a while,” I admitted. “I’ve been staying away.”
“That’s understandable.” She patted my shoulder. “It’s very difficult for dancers to return after they suffer from a career-ending injury like yours.”
To hear it put so bluntly should have been upsetting, but I found it refreshing. Other ballet people either seemed to sidestep around the topic or ignore it completely.
“You still looked good out there,” she observed. “You always were very talented. Very observant.”
“Thank you,” I told her. “That’s actually one of the reasons I came back—and was glad to run into you.”
She arched an eyebrow at me curiously.
“I’ve been teaching a little,” I confessed. “It’s not anything too intense—a beginning class in an after-school program. The students are really great, and I’ve discovered that I really enjoy teaching them.”
“Any talent there?” Ms. Teagan wanted to know. She was always on the lookout for new talent—she had been one of the scouts that had found me and brought me to the company.
I almost mentioned Marisol, but then I remembered the rehearsal I had just witnessed and realized that even though I wanted to encourage Marisol, I didn’t want her ending up here. I didn’t want her to think that dance was her entire world. I wanted her to think it was something that was fun.
“Some talent,” I said vaguely. “They’re all beginners.”
Ms. Teagan nodded, clearly losing some interest in the conversation.
“I was wondering, though, if you could give me some advice about transitioning into a teaching role,” I continued. “I love the after-school program, but I’d love to do more.”
Ms. Teagan looked skeptical. “It’s not for everyone,” she said. “But there are several accredited training programs. With your experience, I’m sure you’d get a place. I could look up some details if you’d like.”
“Thank you, that would be great!”
I followed her to her office, where she found some information on her computer and printed it out for me. “Are you sure you’re doing OK?” she wanted to know. “I know that making the transition from the dance world to the real world can be difficult. Not easy for everyone to navigate.”
“I’m doing well,” I reassured her. “I’m really happy, actually.”
She didn’t look convinced, but I suspected that nothing I told her would convince her that I was OK. After all, she was still in the dance world and clearly didn’t see anything wrong with it. How could I show her that I didn’t miss it when she didn’t think anything about it was problematic? When she still thought it was something to be missed?
I left the theater feeling better than when I had arrived. I had told Ms. Teagan the truth—I was happy. Really happy. Things were great with my new job, I loved my after-school teaching, and things with Liam had finally thawed completely, and he was being affectionate and open with me. I was crazy about him and falling harder every day. What else could I want?
A year ago, no one could have convinced me that I would have found this kind of happiness without dance. Because dance had been my entire life. And it took an accident to forcibly take it away for me to realize that it wasn’t really what I wanted.
I was lucky.
That realization—that my accident had actually made my life better—seemed to lift a weight off of my heart that I hadn’t even realized was still there. I felt lighter—better—than I had in a long time, and I was practically skipping as I headed to work. That seemed to be the case these days—how I was nearly overflowing with happiness. With satisfaction. With contentment.
I walked into the bar, which seemed to be in the middle of a celebration. The guys were all gathered, toasting Liam, who was standing among them with a big smile on his face.
As I walked over to them, I saw Sawyer lift his glass. “To Liam,” he said. “And his amazing job offer. We’ll miss you in Chicago, but New York is lucky to have you.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, just as the guys seemed to notice me there. My eyes caught Liam’s and he looked away, a guilty look on his face. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.
Finally, I forced myself to move. I turned on my heel and headed back to the bar.
New York? A job offer?
What. The. Fuck. Was going on?
19
Juliet
I felt numb as I got behind the bar and set up for my shift. Somehow, I had managed to keep a smile on my face, though at the moment it felt as if my cheeks were going to fall off if I kept it up. The guys were finishing up their celebration, and I could feel Liam glancing over at me, but I purposefully kept my gaze averted and focused on my work, smiling at all the customers that streamed in for the happy hour rush.
We were busy and I was grateful for it. The guys scattered, Chase and Emerson heading to the back room, Dante and Sawyer continuing to chat, while I felt—rather then saw—Liam come towards me.
“Hey,” he said, but I ignored him.
I was still trying to process what had just happened. Maybe I heard Sawyer wrong? No, I had definitely heard him say that Liam had accepted a new job and was moving to New York.
My heart ached. I wanted to believe that it wasn’t true—that Liam wasn’t planning to move without even mentioning it to me. But I was pretty sure that it was, and I was just a pathetic girl for thinking that whatever Liam and I’d had shared had been real. That it had been meaningful.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“I’m busy,” I told him, my voice sharp.
It was enough to make him back off—at least, he backed off asking, but he didn’t go anywhere. He sat down in front of me at the bar and waited. I continued ignoring him—doing whatever I could to mix and pour drinks at the other end of the bar, but it was hard to avoid him. He kept ordering drinks, trying to get me to talk to him while I made them. He didn’t drink any of them, passing them off to new customers that arrived, making them leave the bar quickly, and giving me less to do.
“Hey,” he had just said to a couple that walked in. “You want a free mojito,” he offered. “It’s made by the best bartender in Chicago.”
I’d had enough.
“I need to take a break,” I told Chase, who had been watching the whole scene with a combination of sympathy and curiosity on his face.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who had felt left in the dark.
I left the bar, and instead of going to the back room, where I usually went for my break, I went to the alley. I needed the fresh air, which I gulped into my lungs as I stepped out into the cooling summer breeze.
The world felt like it was spinning, and I didn’t know what to do. Just an hour ago, I had been so happy. Everything in my life had seemed like it was going so well. And now this.
Whatever this was.
The optimist in me was still hoping that I had been wrong. That I had misheard what Sawyer had said. But I knew deep in my heart that I had heard him correctly.
I leaned against the wall, sliding down to the ground, not caring if I was getting my jeans dirty as I put my forehead on my knees. I was so, so tired all of sudden.
“Juliet.” Liam’s voice had me scrambling to my feet, dusting dirt off the back of my jeans.
“I’m on my break,” I told him tartly. “And I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Please,” he said, and it was the please that broke me.
I looked at him, and my heart broke a little. Because he was so handsome—standing there in his gray suit and black tie—but also because I knew in that moment that I had definitely, completely, absolutely fallen in love with him.
And he was going to leave me. He was going to leave all of this.
“You’re moving,” I said flatly, crossing my arms across my chest.
I wanted to disappear into the wall behind me. Wanted to be as small as possible, as though maybe if Liam couldn’t see me, he couldn’t tell me. As if I was small enough, I could escape the truth.
“I got a really great job offer,” he told me, looking conflicted.
I nodded, trying not to cry.
“It’s the kind of job I’ve been working towards for my entire life,” he continued, almost like he was trying to convince me of something. “The benefits are incredible—they’re going to give me my own apartment. A penthouse in the city. It’s a huge raise, and I’ll get my own team to manage. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“Great,” I somehow managed. “I’m glad that this worked out for you.”
“Juliet,” he said, both chiding and pleading.
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it,” I told him. “You were the one who wanted to make this exclusive, so forgive me if I’m a little surprised that you made this decision without me.”
“What did you want?” His forehead furrowed. “To get a vote?”
“No.” I tried to keep my emotions in check. “But a conversation would have been nice! What you were thinking, what it would mean for us . . .” My voice caught. “But I guess that was asking too much. Because you just gave me all the reasons the job is a good one. You made it very clear that you don’t have any reason to stay.”
“That’s not true,” he told me. “It wasn’t an easy decision. I didn’t go looking for this job. I would have liked to stay in Chicago. It’s where my friends are, it’s where the bar is. It’s where—” He paused.
I shook my head. “Me? Am I even a reason to stay in Chicago?”
“Of course,” he said, but even he sounded unsure. “But look at it rationally. It hasn’t been a month. We barely know each other.”
I wanted to cry. “You know me well enough to know that you wanted to be exclusive. Like we had a future.”
“That was before I found out about the job,” Liam told me.
It was like talking to a robot.
“Logically, this move makes the most sense for my career,” he said.
“Logically?” I wanted to scream. “I don’t care about logic. I care about how you feel. Doesn’t this mean anything to you?”
He looked taken aback, as if he’d never considered not caring about logic. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Liam was a man who wanted to be in control at all times. He didn’t like having things happen through instinct, or passion. Over the past weeks, I’d seen a different side to him—caring, thoughtful, sweet—but it clearly wasn’t on show tonight.
Well, unfortunately he was going to have to deal with a woman who was spinning out of control at this exact moment. Because I was done with his excuses.
“When were you going to tell me?” I demanded. “Tonight? Next week? Or were you just going to call me when you got to New York, to your nice new penthouse apartment? ‘Sorry, babe, I meant to tell you that I decided to uproot my entire life, but I guess it just slipped my mind.’ ”
I knew I was getting hysterical, but I didn’t care. I was too hurt to care. Too heartbroken.
Because my heart was aching, tearing apart at the seams. I’d opened up to this man, let my guard down, been swept away by his passion and charm, and underneath it all, his amazing heart.
But Liam seemed completely fine. A little thrown off by my reaction, but still in control of all his emotions. If he even had any of those.
“I would have told you,” he said, slowly, as if the tone of his voice could calm me down.
Unfortunately it had the opposite effect.
“I thought you wanted this to be something real,” I told him, precariously close to bursting into tears.
For the first time, I saw a glimmer of sadness, but it was quickly hidden behind a stoic expression.
“I didn’t expect any of this,” he told me, and I didn’t know if he was talking about the job, or me, or both. None of the options, though, made me feel any better.
“You think I did?” I wanted to know. “I just wanted to have fun and then you came into my life with your stupid handsome face and your hot-cold behavior and . . . you made me fall for you.”
I knew I wasn’t being fair. I knew we had both been surprised by the chemistry and the attraction between us. But instead of fighting it, I had embraced it. Liam had resisted. Kept resisting. And now, he had made it clear that as good as it had been, it wasn’t good enough to make him stay.
I wasn’t enough.
And that hurt like hell.
But maybe he’d never cared about me. Maybe I had just been a distraction. A detour, until he got back to that plan of his. And now that he had what he wanted—what he always wanted—he’d go and find the perfect girl to fit that life he’d created.
Because it was clear that I wasn’t that girl. I had never been that girl, and I could never be.
“I thought we were on the same page,” I told him, hating the single tear that slipped out, rolling down my cheek. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. I didn’t want him to see how much he had hurt me. Because it was becoming clear that those feelings were entirely one-sided. And I’d had enough humiliation for one day. For one year. For a fucking lifetime.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, looking helpless.
I could practically see him shutting down. Could see that he was done arguing, done engaging.
“You should go,” I told him. “Go to New York if that’s what you want.”
Maybe a part of me was still hoping he’d stay—hoping he’d tell me that he didn’t want to leave me. But he didn’t say any of that.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead, and I could tell he really was. He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, and he was too stubborn to change any of his plans because of it.
“Me too,” I told him, my heart bruised and aching.
And then I turned and walked away before he could see me cry.
20
Liam
TWO WEEKS LATER
New York wasn’t what I expected. When I arrived two weeks ago, it had been after a whirlwind of activity in Chicago. It hadn’t been enough time to sell my apartment, so I had decided to sublet it—leaving most of my stuff behind. The company had put me up in a fully furnished apartment, overlooking Central Park. Whatever I needed, they got for me.
I had begun to settle into a routine that suited me. I woke up and went for a run in Central Park. Went to work, where I had my own team and significantly more responsibilities than I’d had at my last job. I loved my work, and it was great to
have the kind of stability and salary that had been missing in my last position. After work, I either went home or continued my search for a bar that was comparable to Rascals. But wherever I went, I found that something was lacking. It wasn’t the drinks or the service or even the people. New Yorkers were salty and didn’t give a shit about your feelings, but so were Chicagoans. I should have fit right in.
But I didn’t feel at home. In fact, I felt homesick, which was a new feeling for me.
It took a while for me to realize that Chicago was the first place where I had actually stayed long enough to create a home. To find a family. And I had just left them all behind. No wonder I was lonely.
It was not a comfortable feeling for me at all.
I tried to throw myself into work. That had always worked for me in the past. It was part of the reason I was so good at my job—I could turn all my personal frustrations and issues into productivity.
But this time, it didn’t work as well as it had before. Because whenever my mind would wander—which it seemed to be doing more and more these days—it always wandered back to Juliet. Sometimes it was good memories—the two of us in the water during that afternoon out on the lake, or our impromptu food truck festival date. But mostly it was the memory of how she had looked at me in the alley behind Rascals. How angry she had been. How sad. I couldn’t scrub the image of that tear rolling down her cheek out of my mind.
And once that got stuck in my mind, I couldn’t focus on anything.
I tried to work it out of my memory—tried to run it out of my memory—but nothing worked. Juliet kept coming back to me. And every time she did, I felt this hollow ache in my chest.
It didn’t make sense. This was what I wanted. I had worked so fucking hard to get to this position—to get this responsibility, this salary—why wasn’t I overjoyed? I was in a beautiful city, surrounded by beautiful women, and all I could think about was Juliet.
She had never been part of the plan. She wasn’t anything like what I thought I wanted. And, yes, the sex had been incredible, and I always had a good time with her—in or out of bed—but she didn’t fit any of my carefully thought out requirements. It should have been easy to forget her.
