The Swan and The Sergeant

by Albertson, Alana

  Every word was like a rock to my head.

  “Do you hear me, you…you…you and that stupid towel on your head!”

  My chest tightened. I never wanted this to happen.

  Elizabeth tried to sneak out of the lobby, motioning Jenny to escape with her. But Jenny stayed put on the sofa, seemingly hypnotized by the drama. Elizabeth sat back down.

  I didn’t know what else to say. So I said nothing.

  Vika looked up. Her normally blue eyes were now a piercing shade of turquoise. The blinding lights of the cameras were still going off, trying to snap a picture of Vika and me. The ambulance chasers! As if this situation wasn’t bad enough…as if I had actually done something wrong! I’d never cheated on Dima. It was the other way around.

  Vika and those baby doe eyes—she’d cheat on Benny in a heartbeat if she thought she could find someone else to take care of her.

  “Dima gave you his world, and now you have nothing.”

  I snapped.

  “Dima cheated on me for years. And he got me drunk and took advantage of me when I was with Bret. Dima screwed me over!”

  She gasped. “Liar! Dima never would do that.”

  “He did! So what that I’m with Bret? Hell, Vika, you’re married to a man old enough to be your grandpa just to get to the top. Don’t you see this is different? I love Bret. I love him. And I don’t care if Dima hates me. He cheated on me. He hurt me. But I love Bret. And Bret loves me.”

  She smiled grimly. “Well, I hope you are happy. Now you don’t even have partner.”

  “Enough!” Nicole blurted. She shook her head at Vika.

  Nicole was always good to me. I hoped that she and Eric at least had some kind of agreement, and she wasn’t getting cheated on.

  Vika looked at her feet. “I’m sorry, Selena.”

  “It’s fine.” I just wanted the drama over.

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed, then she turned to Vika. “C’mon, luv, let’s go clean up. We still have to film this video.” She took Vika by the hand and led her out of the lobby. I watched them go.

  Elizabeth leaped off the sofa with a crooked smile on her face, like she’d just come to some profound realization. “Don’t worry, Selena. Everything will be okay. You did what you had to do. Nothing works out perfectly in the ballroom world.” She smiled and pranced out of the room.

  Elizabeth was a sweetheart. I hoped that she would never succumb to the jerks in our industry.

  My rage drained away by the second, leaving just emptiness and guilt.

  Jenny was the last one on the couch. She sat there in silence, eyeing me. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be. I’m just a mess now.”

  She offered me a hug, and I took it.

  Jenny stood up, straightening her workout shorts. “Just focus on Bret. Everything will work out.” Then she walked right past me, following the rest of the girls into the studio behind her.

  A director inside the studio clapped her hands sharply twice, then hollered, “Chop, chop, people. The dance waits for no woman.”

  Vika shouldn’t have found out like this. I had wanted to tell her but didn’t get the chance before the gossip sites leaked my new relationship.

  I walked over to the couch and dropped onto it, more exhausted than I’d been recently. My ballroom career was over, even if we did win Blackpool. And now I’d probably be on the cover of Star magazine.

  Because I chose to be with Bret.

  I loved him—and he loved me too.

  But I had to tell him the truth about what happened with Dima and me years ago.

  “Selena—now!” the director yelled. The beat of a techno tango ripped through the speakers. In a few minutes, I’d have to smile for the camera like life was just a peach. A happy, joy-joy, this-is-so-amazingly-fun peach.

  Bret

  Back in Marin, Selena and I had settled into a nice daily routine. She moved into the houseboat. We’d hiked Mt. Tamalpais, camped at Angel Island, and spent the weekend at Xavier and Robyn’s beach cottage in Bolinas. Life was idyllic away from the paparazzi in Los Angeles.

  But we needed to have a talk about the future.

  I took her out to dinner at Sushi Ran. We sipped sake and dined on the freshest sashimi I had ever had.

  I gazed at her over the small table, enamored with my girl. “Let’s talk, Sel. How are we going to make this work?”

  Selena took a long sip of her glass of water. “Well—you are stationed at Camp Pendleton, which is only two hours from Los Angeles. We can live off base in Orange County. Maybe Laguna Nigel? Or Ladera Ranch? I have a friend who owns a dance studio down there so I can still teach. My students will come to me. And I can commute during the tapings.” She paused. “I mean, after Blackpool, of course. I still need to be close to Dima until we compete.”

  I pursed my lips and nodded. I had accepted that she was going to still train with Dima until Blackpool, so I wasn’t going to complain. She deserved to achieve her dream.

  I was impressed that she’d at least already thought out some logistics of how we could stay together.

  “Ladera Ranch or Laguna Nigel? Yah, I mean the locations are great because they’re both close to the back gate of Pendleton, and I work right there. But those places are expensive. My housing allowance with dependents would be two thousand a month. So that could maybe work when we get married.”

  Selena spat out her water. “Married? Was that your version of some proposal? And don’t worry about the housing prices, I can handle them.”

  My lips burned, and it wasn’t from the wasabi. “No, Selena, when I propose, you’ll know it. And it sure as hell won’t be in a crowded restaurant. But let’s cut the crap. Marriage is where this is heading, right? You didn’t just ruin your dancing career to have a fling with me, did you? We’ve said I love you. You want kids and a family. I didn’t just pick you up the other night at a bar. We have a past. And hopefully, a future. Plus, I’m a Marine. If we aren’t married, you won’t get any benefits.”

  Selena’s chopsticks pushed around the fish on her plate. “Sorry, Bret, I didn’t mean that. I’m just so overwhelmed. Please forgive me. Of course, I’d love to eventually get married and start a life with you. I’m just really worried about the tabloids. They’re already having a field day with this story. They’ll paint me as a vixen in some weird twisted love triangle.” She paused, and her lips parted. She shook her head as if she changed her mind about what she was going to say. “Who knows what other lies they’ll make up?”

  What had she wanted to say? Was she hiding something? I kept my concerns to myself.

  Selena continued. “It will be awful. I just know it. And I don’t want to scare you away.”

  She was right—everything she said. What had I been thinking? Being on the show was one thing. I’d agreed to do it for my friend. Being a tabloid kicking toy was another.

  My mind raced. This could ruin my career. Would they interview my friends and family? Would they twist my motive for going on this show as a devious attempt to get Selena back?

  “Bret, babe, we can make it through this. I can talk to my publicist. But we just have to plan it.”

  “I refuse to be made the laughingstock of the Marine Corps.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “I’m not going to lie. We didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not embarrassed by you.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Perfect. I’ll contact my publicist and see what our options are. We will probably have to give an interview. It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  I tossed a piece of hamachi into my mouth. She was in the public eye, I knew this.

  “Fine, Sel. I’m in. Just tell me what to do.”

  I knocked back another sake bomb, but my gut twisted. I thought Selena would be thrilled to talk about the future, but she panicked. There was something she wasn’t telling me. I had to find out what she was hiding.

  Bret

  The alarm clock on my phone went off at four a.m. Selena and I had
another long day ahead of us. I wanted to get on the road by five to skip the Bay Area traffic and start our journey down to Los Angeles.

  I turned my phone alarm off and noticed a missed call and a voicemail from Ray. He was probably just calling to tease me again about my outfit from the first week—I’d already been fielding insults from my buddies since the show aired last week.

  “Lord, Nia just showed me an article online about your scandalous affair with Selena. By the way, you looked like a fruitcake in that getup. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

  What the hell?

  I googled my name, something I never thought I’d do.

  Headlines popped up, one after another. Radar Online, People, Us Weekly. I clicked through the articles. Each carried a version of a heartbroken Dima finding out about Selena and me. Some included pictures of Selena and I dancing on the show, one even had my boot camp picture. Nothing shocking.

  But then something caught my eye.

  “A source close to the situation said that Bret and Selena broke up as teens after Selena cheated on Bret with Dima at a dance competition.”

  I slammed the computer shut. It was a tabloid, so it was probably not true.

  Even so, heat rose in my chest, and I had difficulty breathing. I always assumed that Dima had seduced her, but I was dumb enough to believe that it had been after Selena and I broke up.

  But the thought that she had cheated on me had consumed me at the time.

  I had been so lonely in boot camp—the thought of Dima touching Selena had tortured me. For years at night, I would picture them fucking, and it drove me insane, like a never-ending porno in my mind.

  But to read it in the press made it more painful. Now I was just another reality loser that the tabloids could use to sell magazines. I looked over at Selena, still sound asleep. It was probably better that she wasn’t awake yet. I would try to calm down.

  I attempted to take my mind off the rumors by reading the morning paper that had been slipped under the door.

  An hour later, Selena rolled over, her tank top scrunched on her stomach. “Morning. Did I oversleep?”

  “Forget that, Selena. I have to show you something.” I clicked on the website.

  She sat up, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and focused on the screen.

  I studied her eyes. She skimmed the page, until she gasped for breath—then bit her lip.

  It was true.

  “Look me in the eye, and don’t lie to me. What happened?” I could tell her mind was racing, trying to think of what to say to me.

  Selena blinked furiously. “Bret, I …I wanted to tell you so many times—”

  I slammed my fist into the bed. “Are you kidding me, Sel? You wanted to tell me that you cheated on me? And now I find out the details from the tabloids?”

  “Bret, please! I was so young!”

  “Do you have any idea how tough it was for me to get over you? I joined the Corps to make a good life for you—for us! We agreed that we wanted to be on our own, not dependent on our parents. I had no money or education. The military was the only way—there was no money in ballroom back then for amateurs, and it would’ve taken us years and a ton of money to turn pro. Plus, you know I never really enjoyed it. I only danced because my parents forced me, and then when I got paired with you, I just wanted to make you happy. In boot camp, every time I got trashed on the quarterdeck, doing pushups ’til my fingers bled, I got through it because I knew I was doing it for our future. And then you left me—and you didn’t even have the decency to show up at my graduation to tell me to my face.”

  Selena’s chin quivered. “I had no idea how hard it was for you, Bret. I have nothing to say for myself. I was just so devastated and confused.”

  “What happened? That competition was only a few weeks after I left. The truth. You didn’t even wait that long. You owe me the truth.”

  She grit her teeth. “Well, Dima convinced me to do a Pro/Am competition. Since it was in Miami, we shared a hotel room. I had no money, so Dima paid for everything. My flight. The entry fees. Even bought me a new dress.”

  “Oh, isn’t he generous.”

  “After the competition, we went back to our room. And to celebrate, he ordered champagne and strawberries.”

  It took me a second to register what she was saying. “Wait, he got you drunk?”

  “Well, that’s not really his fault. I mean, he ordered the champagne. But I willingly drank it.”

  “But you were eighteen, Selena. He was twenty-eight.”

  “So you never drank underage Bret? Don’t be a hypocrite.”

  “That’s not the point. How drunk did you get?”

  She pursed her lips. “Drunk. I don’t remember what happened. But I woke up in Dima’s bed. Naked. Dima told me that we had slept together. I was so ashamed Bret. I knew that you would never forgive me, so I ended it between us.”

  What in the fuck? The room seemed to be spinning as I tried to process this information.

  This was even worse than being cheated on. Did she even realize she had been raped? I had imagined this scenario a thousand different ways, but I never ever thought that I’d lost her because Dima had raped her.

  I needed to tread lightly. I was no longer angry at her. But she needed to understand what had happened.

  “Selena. Listen to me. He raped you.”

  She shook her head. “No, not at all. It was nothing like that. I was in the room with him alone. I traveled with him. I drank.”

  “None of that matters. Even if you hadn’t had a fiancé, he raped you. This is not your fault.”

  Her hand shook. “No. It is my fault. Dima would never—”

  “Why are you defending him? He got you drunk and then took advantage of you. He destroyed us. Don’t you see Selena? The tabloids are wrong. You didn’t cheat on me. You were raped.”

  “He said I wanted it. That I came on to him.”

  Jesus. “Of course, he did. That motherfucker. Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have been mad at you. I loved you.”

  “I wanted to write you so many times, but Dima said—”

  “Dima?!”

  Selena slumped on the bed. “I planned to tell you. But you were away for three months, and the guilt grew. I didn’t think you would ever want me. I was so ugly and fat. After that happened, I was so depressed that I just gorged myself on food. I was so alone. But then Dima came to see me. Told me he could make me over. He put me on a diet plan and trained me. Then he asked me to dance with him. I couldn’t say no. I thought you would never want me again after what I did.”

  Fuck. This was even worse. “He did that all on purpose, Sel. He always teased you about your weight and your acne, no matter how many times I told him to shut the fuck up. He tore you down so he could transform you into a swan. His swan.”

  Her hands shook. “Maybe he did. But I was so lost. So, I chose to dance with Dima. I’m sorry I didn’t come to your graduation, but I didn’t think I could handle seeing you knowing what I had done. It was cowardly. Once I gained some perspective, I tried to find you. But you had vanished. Ever since then, I’ve looked for you. Facebook, Instagram. But you were gone. Completely gone. It’s like you existed only in my memories. You don’t know the guilt I’ve felt. I’ve wanted to tell you since we got back together, and I tried to, but you didn’t want to talk about the past. I screwed up. I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. Please forgive me, Bret.”

  I could forgive her. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  But I could never forgive Dima. I was going to beat the shit out of him next time I saw him.

  “You don’t need to ask my forgiveness because you did nothing wrong. But you can’t dance with Dima anymore.”

  Her mouth twisted. “You can’t tell me what I can do. Of course, I’m going to dance with Dima. We have one more competition left. The competition. I can’t just walk away.”

  “He’s a rapist. I can’t trust him. He could do it again. You shou
ld press charges.”

  “It was ten years ago! And I don’t remember what happened. Maybe I did come on to him?”

  “You were drunk, Sel. And a kid.”

  “It’s just one more competition.”

  “Yeah. One more competition. You have a bunch of titles. You don’t need this one. Not with your rapist.”

  “You are being irrational. It’s in the past. He won’t touch me.”

  “You don’t know that. And you don’t know that he won’t do that to someone else. Like Elizabeth. I was supportive of you doing one more comp, but not anymore.”

  Selena broke into sobs. “Please Bret…please!”

  “I’m done, Selena.” I didn’t turn around. I put on my shirt and shoes, leashed up Banjo, grabbed my bags, then slammed the door behind me.

  After I made my way on the dock, I got into my truck and just drove.

  Selena could fly to Los Angeles.

  This was it for me. No more women. I’d gone against my better judgment getting involved with Selena again. I had been happier with no complications, just my loyal dog and my buddies. Buddies who would die for me. My brothers in the Corps were the only people I trusted.

  I thought about Robyn’s words to me recently about my path. I didn’t believe her mumbo jumbo for a second, but she was right about one thing: had I never done this show, I never would have reunited with Selena, nor would I have found out about what had happened with Dima.

  My heart ached at the loss…but also, I felt strangely at peace. For the first time since Selena had left me years ago, I knew that I’d finally found the complete closure I’d always craved.

  Selena

  I cried myself back to sleep after Bret left. I called and texted him repeatedly, but my calls went straight to voicemail, and my texts went unanswered. He had already written me off.

  Not that I could blame him. I had created this mess, so many years ago. Ever since our reunion, I’d tried to tell him, but he didn’t want to talk about it.