Despite my silent promise, I searched for Josh all day. I looked around and around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him going from one studio to another. But I found nothing. Which was normal. There were over eighty dancers in the company, after all, with multiple studios and rehearsals going on at the same time.
Because I was still a bundle of nerves by the end of day, I decided to stay and take the evening class. Zack was there too and he offered me a grim smile when I joined him at the barre.
“How you doing?” he asked.
That was an odd question. He had seen me this afternoon during our partner rehearsal. Why was he asking me again? “Fine. Why?”
“I take it you didn’t hear about Josh yet.”
Several dire scenarios swam through my mind at once. “What didn’t I hear?”
Zack’s eyes were downcast as they met mine. “Josh’s father had a heart attack last night. Josh got on the first train out of the city and went home.”
Oh my …
“He … Did he die?”
Zack shook his head. “No, but it isn’t looking too good.”
My heart ached for Josh. Even though they had their differences, I was sure Josh never wanted anything bad to happen to his father.
That explained why he wasn’t here today. And wouldn’t be for a while, I guessed.
“When did you hear about it? And how?”
“Bastian had an appointment with Mr. McCauley. He overheard the secretary telling the director before he was called into the office.” Zack’s head turned to the door when Madam Gallant entered. She would be the teacher this evening. “Then, Wu called him during one of our breaks this the afternoon, to check how he is. The call was brief, but Wu said it didn’t sound like Josh planned on coming back.”
“What …?” Not coming back?
I wanted to plop down on the floor and think, and feel, and figure out what to do about it, but before I could say something else to Zack, Madam Gallant called the class to attention and began her lesson.
And during the whole ninety-minute class, all I wanted was to run away and go after Josh.
***
Josh
Everything seemed under control.
Dad was stable, but still not out of the woods. It had been four days since the heart attack and the doctor still mentioned the possibility of a second surgery, but it hadn’t gone further than that. For now. Dad woke up a couple of times a day, for a few seconds. He seemed out of it, but the doctor said that was normal.
Sarah was back at school, though she spent the rest of her time at the hospital with me, and only went home to sleep. Mom was still acting like a zombie, but at least now she ate and answered simple yes or no questions, so I hadn’t resorted to having a doctor look at her. Yet. Unfortunately, Grandma didn’t have a lot of advice. She said she had never seen Mom in shock before, not like this at least. Grandma offered to help, but I assured her I had everything under control and promised to call her every day with updates. I brought my mother to the hospital with me during the day, but at night, she went home with Sarah.
At least Dad was in a private room, since it was where I had spent seventy percent of my time for the last four days. Five percent of the time was spent at home, eating with Mom and Sarah, and showering and changing my clothes, and the other twenty-five percent was at my dad’s business—someone had to make sure the employees were all working as they should.
“Any plans for tonight?” I asked Sarah. It was Friday. What sixteen-year-old didn’t have plans for Friday night?
She was seated beside Mom on the couch along the window in Dad’s hospital room and, as usual, was messing with her phone. She didn’t even look at me as she answered, “There was a party, but I’m not in the mood.”
I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t in the mood for much these past few days either. “I get it.”
“How about you?”
I leaned my shoulder on the wall beside Dad’s bed and crossed my arms. “What do you mean?”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine. “Don’t your old friends know you’re home? Why don’t you take a break from this place and go out with them, try to relax a little?”
I tilted my head and squinted at her. At that moment, she looked way older than sixteen. “Actually, a couple of them heard I was back and they called me. Diego even stopped by yesterday afternoon. They also mentioned a party, but like you, I’m not in the mood.”
She shifted her gaze to the man lying in bed, growing thin and pale. “Everything is different now, huh?”
“It is, but it’s temporary. Dad will recover and we’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“And what is your normal?”
Touché. “I don’t know anymore.”
The truth was, even if Dad recovered, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had given him this heart attack. If I decided to turn my back on him, he might fall again, and I wasn’t ready for that. It had been a shock to see how much my mother and my sister were lost without my father. I couldn’t risk having that happen to them anymore. I had to be here. For them.
“You really like it, don’t you? Ballet, I mean.”
“I do,” I said without any hesitation.
“But …”
“What?”
“I can sense a ‘but’ in there.”
The corners of my lips curled up. “Not really a ‘but’. It’s just … I love it, I really do, and I want to keep dancing until I’m too old and can’t move anymore. And I wanted Dad to be proud of that. But there’s too much misconception about males in ballet and Dad doesn’t understand.”
“That most guys are gay?”
“That’s the misconception.” I shook my head. “Most guys aren’t homosexual. Some are, yes, and most aren’t afraid of others knowing about it. A handful are also bisexual. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know. Everyone should be happy liking whoever they want to like, regardless of gender. But that’s not the point. The point is, I’m not gay. I’m straight. I’m heterosexual and …” I clamped my mouth shut.
Sarah leaned forward on the couch. “And what?”
“I was going to say I have a girl I like, but that isn’t true anymore.”
“What happened?”
Why was I talking about this shit with my younger sister? Shouldn’t she be the one who came to me asking for advice or something?
“Nothing you should worry about,” I said, trying to smile at her, but it felt fake even to me. I pushed away from the wall. “I need some coffee. Do you want anything from the cafeteria?”
“Hm, bring me one of those chocolate chip cookies.”
“Sure.” I looked at my mother. “Mom, do you want something from the cafeteria?”
She didn’t answer, so Sarah nudged her with her elbow, and Mom turned to face my sister. “Josh asked you if you want something from the cafeteria.”
“No,” she said, her voice weak. Then she turned her gaze back to my father and didn’t even blink anymore.
Sometimes, seeing her like this, I was afraid that, if we lost my dad, we would lose her too.
Shaking my head, I pushed those thoughts away and went down to the cafeteria.
I was about to walk in when my cell phone rang. I picked it up, thinking it was Diego asking me one more time to join them at the party. When I saw the name on the screen, though, I tripped and halted, my heart squeezing hard.
I whirled toward the courtyard beside the cafeteria and answered the call. “Hi, Rayna.”
***
Rayna
For a moment there, I thought he wouldn’t answer. “H-hi, Josh.” And now I was nervous. “How are you holding up?”
He didn’t reply right away. “I’m doing the best I can.”
What did that mean? I looked down at my feet, wondering what else to ask, to talk about. That was why it had taken me three days after I learned about his father to muster the courage to call him. Because I had no idea what to say. He hadn’t even called me or sent me a text sa
ying he was leaving, not that he owed me any explanation, but still. We had had something, right? Wasn’t I entitled to some news from him?
I plopped down on my bed and stared at the crazy busy city outside my window.
“Is there anything I can do?” A wave of chagrin rushed through me. Damn, this was hard. I wanted to be there for him, to help him with whatever he was going through, but it was like a wall had been erected between the two of us and I didn’t know how to reach over it.
“Not really,” he answered in a clipped, irritated tone.
I closed my eyes and decided to just be honest. “When I heard about your father, I don’t know … I felt such pain, as if I could feel your pain. I couldn’t believe it had happened and that you had already left and …” I sighed. “I guess I just want to say I’m so sorry for what you’re going through.” There was a silence on the other side of the line. “Josh?”
“What do you mean you heard about it? From someone else? What about the message I left you? On your voice mail?”
I gasped. “I never got any message.”
An exasperated sigh came in through the line. “I called you as soon as I heard, when I was packing to leave.”
Oh my … “I never got your message.” And I remembered checking my phone for every kind of message imaginable—text message, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, everywhere—hoping to see something from him. “I swear, Josh, there was no message.”
“Well, I did call you and I did leave a message for you.”
My heart sank some more. “I’m sorry I didn’t get it.”
“Me too.”
Another awkward silence. Crap, it had never been this awkward between us, not even after he had left me alone in my bed and we’d had to dance together for that competition. Well, maybe that time, but still. This was pretty awkward.
I tried to reach out to him again, afraid he’d slam a verbal door in my face. “How is your father?”
A long breath. “He’s stable, but not doing well. The doctor is saying there’s a good chance he will recover, but since his heart is pretty messed up, he might need another surgery.”
“That’s tough. How is your mother doing?” He told me all about his mother and about Sarah trying to be strong. He also told me about stopping by his father’s business every day to make sure everything was working as it should. “It sounds like you’re holding the fort.”
A sarcastic chuckle. “Something like that.”
“I mean it, Josh, is there anything I can do?”
“Not from so far away,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. I can take care of everything.”
Of course he could. I never doubted that.
“So, with everything going on, you probably don’t know when you’re coming back to New York, huh?”
Another long pause. Damn, I hated it when he hesitated. “Rayna … I’m not sure I’ll ever come back.”
My heart skipped a beat. “W-what?” Zack had mentioned it before, but … I didn’t want to believe it.
“With everything going on, and what may happen … they need me here.”
“But what about ballet? What about your love for ballet?” I couldn’t keep the small note of panic from my voice. What if I never saw Josh again?
He heaved a gusty sigh. “Life doesn’t always go the way we want it to. I just have to accept that and try to be happy with what I have in front of me.”
My chest hurt. So what? He was giving up on dance? He was giving up on us?
“Josh …”
“Listen, Rayna, thanks for calling, but I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. “I was just on my way to the cafeteria to buy dinner for my mother and my sister. They’re waiting for me.”
I swallowed the tears building behind my eyes. “Of course,” I said, my voice almost breaking.
“Thanks for calling, though.”
Eyes closed, I inhaled sharply, trying to be strong. “Take care, Josh.”
“You too, Rayna.”
Then he hung up and I stared at my phone, wishing I could turn back time.
Chapter Twenty Three
Josh
Dad woke up on Saturday. The minute he did, my mother snapped out of her incoherent daze. It was like her life was connected to his. I had never seen a couple more in sync.
The doctor visited three times that day and said that, if my father continued to improve, he would be out of the hospital in two days, no additional surgery necessary.
It was three days, actually, but on Tuesday, we took my father home. He was supposed to stay in bed for another two weeks before slowly restarting his normal routine. Like that was going to happen. He could barely stay in the same place for more than five minutes. I could sense another argument between us coming, though this time would be about him following the doctor’s orders.
As for the state of our relationship, we both pretended nothing had happened, though I could feel the tension in the air whenever I was around him. I knew that at some point that tension would explode, but for now, I tried to ignore it.
During the day, my mother took care of him, while I went to his office and worked. His employees had always been nice to me, but now there was a certain air around us, as if now that I had to step into my father’s shoes, they respected me as an equal. I guess my father hadn’t told them what a shame I was before his heart attack.
I went through my days as if I were a zombie. I woke up, went to work, came back home late, had dinner with the family, and went to bed. All the while, I pretended as if I wasn’t dying inside. Because that was exactly what was happening. My father was getting better, my mother had snapped out of it, and my sister acted like nothing had ever happened … but I was dying and nobody noticed.
***
Rayna
Nine days.
That was how long it had been since I had last spoken to Josh. I knew his family needed him more than I did at the moment, and I was doing my best to give him space to deal with everything. But sometimes, I felt as if nothing had happened, as if he and I had been something I created in my mind, an imaginary guy I had fallen for while dancing alone. If not for the fact that sometimes Wu or Bastian or the other guys mentioned his name, I would think I was going crazy.
Nine days, and I was still not over it. Which made me believe my feelings for him ran deeper than I had first thought. While we had been together, I tried to enjoy his company, have fun with him, and be happy. I didn’t analyze what would happen next, if we would be together in a couple of months. But now that we weren’t together anymore, it was all my brain wanted to think about. I kept imagining Josh entering the classroom saying, “I’m back!” and falling back into our old routine.
I sighed as I got up from my bed. It was a freaking Sunday, but I had promised I would be at The Dance Corner by eight thirty to help set things up for the winter recital in two weeks—one weekend prior to Thanksgiving.
In a daze, I got dressed and packed my tote with everything I might need. Then I left my room, going to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast, when I heard my mother’s low voice coming from the dining room.
“… that boy would have been her ruin. Can you imagine if she had heard his message? Thank goodness I deleted it.”
A cold wave rushed through me and I froze in the hallway.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” James said. “She’s nineteen, and she makes her own money. She’s living with you because it’s convenient, but if she gets tired of your insane practicing schedule, or if she finds out you interfered in her relationship with that boy?” He tsked. “It’s not going to be pretty.”
“Don’t lecture me on how to raise my daughter!” By her tone, she was irritated with him.
“You don’t need to raise her anymore, Karen. She’s a grown woman. She needs you to be her friend now, not her ballet teacher.”
Wow. This man … I liked him. He had balls if he was willing to go head to head with my mother.
“I don’t care. I’m glad that boy is go
ne. Now she can focus on her career. If she does what I tell her to, she’ll be principal in no time.”
“You mean, if you interfere some more, like you did to get her into the company, right?”
My breath seized. I was choking on thin air.
What?
No, no, no, no, no. It couldn’t be true. She told me she hadn’t done that.
“She’s truly a great dancer, but she has no competitive spirit. She’ll never get far alone. I did what I had to do and I’ll do it again.”
Rage swept through me and my core shook as I stomped into the dining room.
Gasping when she saw me, my mother dropped her teacup. The delicate porcelain shattered and hot liquid splashed everywhere.
“Oh no,” James whispered.
“I can’t believe you!” I shouted, my hands curled beside me. “I can’t believe you lied to my face, that you cheated for me, that you kept things from me!”
My mother grabbed a few napkins and dabbed at her legs, where the scalding tea had done the most damage. “I did what I had to do.”
“No, you didn’t have to do anything. This is my life, my career. You can’t manipulate me like that. You have no right!”
“I’m your mother,” she said, her voice rising. “I have the right to do anything I think is best for my daughter.”
I shook my head. “No, because what you think is right for me isn’t what I think is right”
Her face paled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t want this career. I think I never did, but I was so consumed with pleasing you, with having your attention, which only happened inside a ballet studio, that I let your dreams erase mine.”
She stood from her chair. “No, no, no. I clearly remember you saying you wanted to go to NYBT.”
“Because you wanted me to go there. You wanted me to become the principal dancer you never got to be.” I sighed. “I’m sorry your career was cut short, Mom, I really am. I think you would have gotten there and more, if it weren’t for your injury. But I’m not you. I don’t want to become a principal dancer.”
Dazzle Me (When You Dance Book 1) Page 18
