Dazzle Me (When You Dance Book 1)

by Juliana Haygert

  The sky was already darkening when Robbie knocked on my half-open door. “Hey.” Lying on my bed and facing the boring white ceiling, I groaned. Knowing I could snap at any time, Robbie stepped into the room but didn’t come any closer, staying out of striking range. “I just wanted to check on you.” Another groan. Robbie sighed. “Have you decided what to do about tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow. When I had to go to work. To dance at the company’s studio. To do what I loved and my parents were ashamed of. To face Rayna after two entire days without talking to her.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed.

  “Maybe you could tell them you’re still sick,” he suggested.

  I had told Robbie that I had called the company and apologized for missing Saturday, that I had fallen ill and had no energy to even pick up the phone.

  More fucking lies.

  “What good will that do?” I snapped, sitting up. “At some point, the sickness will have to go away and I’ll have to face whatever awaits me there.” Just like lying to my parents about college and dancing—look at where that got me.

  Robbie nodded. “I hear ya.” He looked around, as if grasping for something to say. “So, hm …” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m having an omelet for dinner. If you want, I can do one for you.”

  I shook my head. “No, man. Thanks, but I have no appetite right now.”

  “All right.” The microwave beeped from the kitchen and he glanced over. “I’m gonna go check on dinner. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I didn’t say anything as he left. I felt lost, so fucking lost, like I had never felt in my entire life, and I couldn’t think of one step to take, even if it was in the wrong direction.

  With a sigh, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and, leaning back down on my bed, checked Facebook and Twitter. Rayna didn’t post much, but Sienna Sparks had tagged her and Alicia in a pic this afternoon. The three of them were squished together, all smiles, and I could see the edge of white robes or some other fur or fleece around their necks. Were they at a spa? Who cared where they were. What bothered me about this picture was the fact that Rayna was smiling. She looked happy. As if nothing had ever happened between us.

  So, that was how she felt after our argument on Saturday. She was fine. Happy.

  My cell phone rang in my hand and I almost dropped it, startled. “Fuck.” My sister’s number blinked on the screen. I thought about ignoring it, but I was curious to know what she thought of this damned mess. Was she on our parents’ side, or would she let me explain? Maybe I could find an ally in her. I forced my voice to sound normal and almost uncaring as I answered, “Hey, Sarah, what’s up?” From the other side of the line, I could hear sobs. “Sarah? What is it?”

  She sobbed again. “It’s Dad.”

  A shiver chilled my spine. “What happened?”

  “He had a heart attack this afternoon,” she muttered between sobs.

  My insides locked up and my heart … my heart squeezed tight. “W-what?”

  “The doctor said he’s in bad shape, but he’s stable for now.” She took a long breath, trying to calm down. “They are talking about surgery. And Mom is … she can’t stop crying. It’s like she snapped and I can’t get through to her.”

  Damn. Shit. Fuck.

  Sarah was sixteen years old, and if my mother had shut down, it meant Sarah was all alone, trying to stay strong and in charge while her family fell apart around her.

  I inhaled a deep breath. “Sarah, I’ll be there as soon as I can, by morning at the latest, okay? Just … hang on until then.” She muttered a thank you. “Call me if anything else happens, or if you need help, or even just to talk, okay?”

  “Y-yeah.”

  We hung up and I pulled my two duffel bags from my closet. I tried to keep my mind focused on packing while I pulled clothes from my closet and drawers and shoved them in my bags, but it was hard to ignore what had happened.

  My father had had a heart attack. He was in the hospital. And, just two days before, he had found out I was the biggest disappointment of his life.

  Cold swept through me, chilling my core. My father was in the hospital because of me.

  Fuck.

  Nothing had gone the way I wanted it to, but I had to handle each situation the best I could. And right now, the best course for me was to help my family back at home. I would deal with the ballet company later.

  But there was someone I needed to tell about what had happened and where I was going and why.

  Zipping my bags closed, I called Rayna’s phone. It rang and rang and she didn’t pick it up. Well, after doing the same to her on Saturday, I deserved it. So I left her a voice message.

  “Rayna …”

  ***

  Rayna

  “Again!” my mother’s voice reverberated around the mirrors of our small studio. “That second pirouette could have been much better. You can land four spins in the time of three.”

  I gaped at her. What she was asking was impossible. Nobody, no dancer, tried to break records in every step of a dance. She wanted me to kill myself. Besides, if I added one more pirouette and one more leap, and one more chaîné turn, and one more pas-de-chat, I would start missing the music, and if I wasn’t in sync with the music, I would be a bad ballerina by default.

  I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. “We’ve been at this for over an hour. Can I get a break? Five minutes?”

  My mother shook her head. “You’ll have a break when you’re doing it perfectly.” Which was never. I knew plenty of ballerinas who were almost perfect. Almost. Nobody achieved perfect. If they did, then what would they strive for? “Don’t you want to become principal dancer? Then you have to train harder. Harder than the others.”

  “You’re killing me, Mom,” I said, trying to control my rising temper.

  “See?” She pointed to me. “This is what you get when I’m not pushing you hard enough. You get lazy and tired. Now, do it again!”

  She hit the play button and the song restarted. I went along with it, but my mind shifted other things.

  I thought about what my mother had said. If she hadn’t pushed me hard lately, it was her fault. She was the one exchanging our private training time at night to spend more time with her boyfriend. Not that I was complaining. I liked the quiet, and before … before, I’d had Josh to spend that time with.

  Josh. He had been in the back of my mind all day, even when I was having a good time with Sienna and Alicia this afternoon.

  Which brought me to square one. Why did a perfect day, an off day, have to end with my mother acting like a military mistress and yelling at me?

  The variation ended and I remained frozen in the last pose, breathing hard.

  “Look at how winded you are,” my mother said. “If we had practiced every night last week, you wouldn’t be like that.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, to tell her that even Paulina Ferrera and Alberto Dolle were winded after dancing with such intensity for a whole hour—for half an hour!—but decided that arguing with my mother wasn’t the best solution. If I decided to go against her, she would yell more and more, trying to make me see she was right and I was wrong, and I so wasn’t in the mood.

  So I let it go. One more time.

  “Again!” she yelled, pressing play on the stereo.

  The song filled the room and I started dancing.

  A cell phone vibrated against a table and I almost tripped. It was the third or fourth time in the last thirty minutes.

  “Is that mine?” I asked without stopping. We always set our phones to vibrate only when I was practicing, and didn’t pick them up until the end of the session. But if it was Josh? I wanted to know, even if I was in the middle of practice with my mother breathing down my neck.

  My mother had her back to me. “No. It’s mine. I have to get this. Keep dancing.” She walked out of the room-slash-studio.

  Ugh, it was probably James. I hoped he scheduled several dates with her this week, so I
could be free of these extra practices. Who else danced for eight to nine hours, then came back home and danced for another two or three? Only me, apparently.

  My mother came back in time to catch the last fifteen seconds. Once the music ended and I relaxed from the last pose, I turned to her. “Everything okay? With the call?”

  Her hand over the counter, she offered me a half-grin. “Oh, yes, everything is wonderful.” She stared at me for another minute before saying in a calm voice, “I think we’re done for tonight, darling. You can take a shower and go to bed now.”

  With deliberate movements, my mother spun on her heels and left the room with her cell phone in her hand.

  I picked up my towel from the barre, wiped at my sweaty face and neck, and leaned over the counter where my phone was, just beside the stereo.

  Nothing new. No calls, no texts, no updates. Nothing.

  With a heavy heart, I snatched the phone from the counter and walked out of the studio, emotionally and physically drained.

  ***

  Josh

  The last-minute train ticket had cost a fucking fortune, but it couldn’t be helped. Sarah was in no position to take care of things alone.

  I found my mother and sister at the OR waiting room. My mother’s blank gaze was glued to an abstract painting on a wall, and my sister was dozing off, her torso bent awkwardly and her head on the wide armrest.

  Even though I was carrying a duffel bag—I had decided to leave the other one behind since I didn’t know how things would be around here—I asked the cab to drop me off at the hospital. I hadn’t received any new messages or calls during the night, so I expected to find everything under control. At least, I hoped my sister would have called me if things got worse.

  I dropped my bag on the floor and approached them. “Hey, Mom,” I said gently. She didn’t move; she didn’t even blink. A vicious pain seized my chest. I had never seen my mother like that before. “Mom?” I tried again, but still she looked like an empty shell. I wanted to grab her shoulder and shake her awake, but I was afraid of hurting her, of making her worse.

  With a heavy sigh, I turned to my sister and patted her shoulder. “Sarah.”

  She jerked awake and straightened in a rush. “What? What happened?” She looked around and then her gaze settled on me. Her shoulders relaxed and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered. Then she flew from her seat and threw herself at me, burying her face in my chest. Her arms were tight against my neck. Wow, I had never seen her like this either. We never exchanged more than a quick embrace during birthdays or other celebrations. To see my beautiful and fierce teenage sister sobbing like that made my chest hurt.

  I returned the hug. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

  She nodded. After a few minutes, she stopped crying and pulled away from me. “The doctor came by around five in the morning. Or was it four? I don’t know.” She picked up her phone and glanced at it. “Oh, wow, it’s already almost seven.” She turned her eyes to me. “He said Dad was out of surgery, but had to stay in the recovery room for a few hours.”

  “Did he say how Dad was?”

  She nodded. “He said Dad’s heart is all messed up and he might need another surgery in a couple of days, but for now he’s stable. They plan on moving him to a room in ICU later this morning, and then we’ll be able to see him.”

  I let out a long breath. Heart messed up? Another surgery? Shit. None of that sounded good.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked.

  Sarah glanced at our mother and her eyes teared up again. “Not very well.”

  I wiped her tears away. “When was the last time she ate anything?”

  She shrugged. “We’ve been here since seven last night, and neither of us has eaten anything since before that.”

  They were probably starving.

  I gently pushed Sarah down on her seat. “I’m going to grab something for all of us to eat, okay? I’ll be right back, okay?” She nodded, but her eyes teared up again. I knelt in front of her. “Hey, Sarah, I meant it. I’m here now and I’m gonna take care of you. Of both of you, okay? And that starts by making sure you two eat something before you faint on me.”

  I glanced at my mother and wondered if I should try asking her if she wanted anything. I sure as hell was bringing something for her to eat, even if I had to shove it down her throat.

  Stifling a sigh, I kissed the top of Sarah’s head. “I’ll be right back.”

  I kicked my bag under Sarah’s chair, then walked out to the hallway and looked for signs leading me to a cafeteria.

  Fuck, things were so messed up. My family clearly needed me here now. One hundred percent.

  A small part of me—okay, a fucking big part—kept thinking about Rayna and NYBT. She must have seen the voice message I left her last night, must know where I was and what happened. A jolt of pain cut through my chest. I thought … I thought she would at least call me and ask me if I was all right, if she could be of any help, because that was how she was.

  I shook those thoughts away. Worrying about it wouldn’t solve anything right now. I’d deal with everyone else later, when things were more under control. I had to focus on my family. On my sick father, on my lost sister, and my shocked mother—what was up with her? I turned a corner and arrived at the cafeteria. As the line moved, I made a mental note to call Grandma later and ask if my mom had ever been this shocked before. Maybe it sounded fucking sick, but I hoped she had, because it meant she had snapped back to life, and if Grandma knew how to bring her around, I needed to know.

  “Next,” the attendant called.

  I ordered three large coffees, three bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, and three big chocolate chip cookies—with everything that was going on, we all deserved a little sweetness in our lives.

  With a tray of drinks in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, I went back to the waiting room. Nothing had changed. Mom was still in the same position and Sarah was curled over her chair, snoozing.

  This time, I didn’t disturb her. Instead, I placed our food on the low table in front of our seats, took off my jacket, and tucked it around her, wishing I could rip off the armrests from these chairs so she could stretch across several of them. Then, I grabbed a biscuit from the brown bag and sat in the chair beside my mother.

  “Mom,” I called her. “Mom, please, talk to me.” She still looked and acted like a zombie. I grabbed one of her hands, hoping the contact would jar her awake, but she was like one of Sarah’s old dolls. Her arm was heavy and when I placed the biscuit on her hand, hoping she would grab it. It just stayed there, on her outstretched hand over her knee.

  Okay, that was it. I was giving her a few more hours. Then … then I would shake her, hard if I had to, and she would snap out of it.

  While Dad couldn’t, I would take care of this family, and that meant I would bring my mother back from whatever place her mind went to hide. That was a promise.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Rayna

  After teaching an early Tuesday morning class at The Dance Corner, I walked to the company’s building for my morning class.

  I was a bundle of nerves as I walked in the studio. My hands shook and I had to consciously breathe in and out, otherwise I would hyperventilate. After almost three days without talking to Josh, I hoped today he would at least say hi to me. Or wave from across the classroom. Or—my heart sank—he would pretend he didn’t know me.

  But he had no reason to do that, right? I mean, we had an argument, and we both said pretty mean things, but the argument hadn’t even started because of us, but because of his parents’ surprise visit. He couldn’t still be mad at me, could he?

  I had been mad at him for what he said to me, that I didn’t stand up to my mother, for most of the weekend, but … but I was mature enough to admit he was right. Just last night I had let her stomp all over me with extra training on my day off.

  While I was changing my clothes in th
e locker room before class, my favorite hair clip fell on the floor and I knelt behind one of the benches to look for it.

  Two seconds later, I heard Martha’s voice.

  “… winning that competition was pure luck,” she said, her footsteps echoing on the tile floor. “That girl is the worst dancer in here. I bet her mother has to beg Mr. McCauley every day not to fire her.” Clare and Joanna both laughed. Shit.

  Very slowly, I scooted behind the bench until I was hidden by a row of lockers.

  “There’s something off about her,” Clare said. “Like she’s hiding something.”

  “I think so too,” Joanna said.

  “Hm, interesting,” Martha said. “If she’s hiding something, must be for a good reason. We should try to find out.”

  “And use it against her!” Clare exclaimed, sounding excited by the idea. My stomach rolled—these girls were sick.

  “Yes,” Martha hissed. “We could use it against her. Like a revenge. We have been sweating over ballet for years, going from workshops and summer intensives to competitions and auditions, for what? Have a spoiled mommy’s girl come and snatch it from us? That’s so unfair.”

  Oh … so that was why she hated me so? Because she had worked on this for years and I hadn’t? Was she crazy? I had been dancing since I could walk! I probably had worked harder than she ever did.

  “I know, right?” Clare said, clicking her tongue. “Totally unfair.”

  “Hey, it’s almost time for class,” Joanna said, interrupting their evil planning session. “Let’s go.”

  I heard their footsteps retreating, but I still waited a full two minutes before standing from my hiding place. It had been a cowardly move, to hide like that, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue with anyone today.

  When I exited the locker room and headed to the classroom, I pushed Martha and her friends out of my head, promising myself that I would focus one hundred percent on class and rehearsing today.