And once again, I’m replaced.
Angry at being forced to watch, I walk back to my yoga mat and sit down, using the yoga ball for a chair. They can’t stop me from working on the upper body. I’m not going to let a bit of rest stop me from improving. Stupid ankle. Aware that I’m being irrational, I can’t stop myself from mentally critiquing every move Min makes as they run through the pas de deux with the music one more time, even as I’m busy doing all of the upper body in my corner of the room. She has lovely extensions, but she doesn’t have the control she needs for the more difficult turns. Not that I’m perfect, but my struggles have more to do with trusting my partner than control.
I’ve been a bubbling pot of anger ever since Saturday night. After what should have been a wonderful, sweet date with Trevor, it ended on a sour note and I haven’t been able to shake off my anger ever since. I spent all day Sunday in my room, watching Netflix while Lisa worked on some study guide her parents made her promise she would finish by the time she got home. I guess she’s been putting it off to hang out with me.
Trevor texted a million times to apologize, I responded, but not very enthusiastically. I know I’m being horrible, but I can’t seem to help myself. It got worse when Lisa and I went down to the dining hall for dinner and he was sitting at a table with a bunch of people from his running camp. He looked at ease with them, laughing and talking. Lisa took one look at my face and stuffed me back in the elevator, promising to bring me a sandwich.
What is he even doing with me?
The question has been gnawing at me for the last two days. Combined with my anxiety to get back on my feet, and irritation at my inability to dance right now, I’m a mess.
Finishing the rehearsal, Noah wanders over to me as I tidy up my mess. “Hey, how’s the ankle?” I know he wants me to get back on my feet as well. He told me at breakfast that Min is a difficult partner.
“It feels fine today. I didn’t want to stop, but Marco made me.” I dutifully rested my ankle all day on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. This morning I was allowed to take most of our morning ballet class and about half of all the rest of our classes today. I haven’t been allowed to jump or put my pointe shoes on yet. My ankle is aching and tired, but I haven’t felt a sharp pain all day. I’m not counting the one when I stood up too fast in the contemporary class. Or the one at lunch when I tripped over someone’s dance bag between tables. I wasn’t dancing, they don’t count.
Noah waits until everyone else has left the studio, taking my yoga mat from me before he speaks. “Hey. Do you want to mark through it once with me before we go to dinner? I don’t want to forget the way we do it.”
I eye the empty space. No teachers to tell me to stop, to take it easy, to rest. Noah grins at me, he gets it. “Give me two minutes to put my pointe shoes on.” I say, dropping my bag and everything else to floor.
“Are you sure you should do that?” Noah sounds dubious but I don’t care. I need to do this. I need to make sure I still can.
“Heck yes! I’m dying to do it, besides, what’s the point of practicing it without my pointe shoes on? You know it’s completely different. Go get the music ready.” He takes off to plug his phone into the stereo system. “And Noah—don’t you dare tell anyone. Lisa would freak if she knew.”
He grins at me from across the studio, taking his place on stage left while I take my place opposite on stage right, ready to come flying in on the music, the sly, seductive Odile, imitating the shy and sad Odette. “My lips are sealed.” With that he presses play and we take off. I ignore the ache in my ankle as I land the first jump, instead focusing on the power in my legs and the sharpness of my movements. The whole first section is on my good foot, I brush my leg back behind me in attitude with a sharp cock of my head, reveling in the almost satirical imitation of Odette’s movements. As much as I love the soft and desperate movements of the White Swan, Odile’s attitude matches my own anger and frustration right now.
As we run through, it becomes clear that there are two spots that are going to give me trouble on my bad foot. There is a series of saut de basques from either corner that mean on one side I’ll have to jump off my bad foot while brushing the other and turning in the air. The other is the supported fouetté sauté we had trouble with when this all began.
“Hey Noah?” I stop dancing halfway through, letting the music play on. “What if we switched the fouetté to the other side? Then I would be taking off from my good foot.” Noah jogs over to pause the music while I work backwards from the starting point of that section to see if we would need to adjust anything else to make it happen.
“Do you think we can?” he asks, walking back.
I shrug. “Why not? Professionals change little things all the time to suit their strengths. That just happens to be my strength right now. It would be super easy, I think. We would have to run to the right instead of the left to start, it’s an easy fix. Come on.”
I pull him to the opposite corner and we walk through it, figuring out which hands to hold and which way we’re turning and lifting. “Hey, that’s easier for me with that arm,” Noah says after we try one of the supported jumps. “It feels more coordinated too. That is so much better.” We slap our hands together in a high-five. “Teamwork makes the dreamwork, baby!”
Laughing, I head to the starting position so we can try the new side with the music. Noah cues up the music, then heads back over to me. “Okay, once with the music then we need to go. I’m starving.” Laughing, we hit our mark and let the music catch up. We pull it off without a hitch. Jumping off of my good leg is so much easier, I go flying up into the air, Noah’s hand holding mine secure, his other hand pushing up against my hip. For a moment I’m weightless, the anger I’ve been tamping down floating away.
Grinning, we collect up our stuff, turning off the lights as we leave. I leave my yoga mat and ball in the studio since we’ll be back there for our first class in the morning. Walking down the dark hallway with Noah has me nervous about getting in trouble, but no one notices us. We slip into the dining room and grab some food, thankfully no one passes by to make any snide comments. Feeling a little more like myself, I follow Noah to the table where our friends are already sitting, plates empty.
“How was rehearsal?” Lisa asks as I sit opposite her.
“Good.” I shovel a bite of food in my mouth so I don’t have to give any details. Looking around the table, the person I wanted to see the most is conspicuously absent.
Swallowing, I ask, “Where’s Trevor?”
Lisa grimaces and points to a table behind me. Trevor has his back to me, sitting at a table full of guys I don’t recognize. “He saw you weren’t here and decided to go sit with them.” Lisa shrugs. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s my own fault. I need to talk to him, but I’m nervous,” I admit. “How was your rehearsal?” Lisa’s been called to almost as many extra rehearsals as Noah and I have, the difficult Cygnets dance proving to be a challenge. After all the pros and cons lists we made, neither of us considered that we’d be put in one of the highest levels of the intensive and all the extra dancing it would mean. It would have gone on our pro list, for sure.
I keep eating while Lisa fills me in on her own rehearsal. It sounds like a real struggle with the Cygnets, trying to get everyone to remember all the precise heads. I’m glad I only have myself and Noah to worry about. She’s in the middle of telling me what went wrong on their last run though when her eyes go wide and she stops speaking.
“What?” She shakes her head. “Lisa? What’s wrong?” I follow her gaze over my shoulder and turn to see what has her so flustered. A group of girls has descended on the table where Trevor was sitting and are busy squishing themselves into the group. Since there isn’t a lot of space, half of them are sitting on the laps of the boys.
Including Trevor.
Every ounce of happiness I had mustered from dancing wi
th Noah vanishes. My heart cracks as the girl sitting on him flips her long, carefully curled brown hair over her shoulder, her hand resting on his shoulder. I see all this in a moment before tears fill my eyes and I push to my feet. I have to go. I have to get out of here.
Half blind, I grab my bag and start walking towards the elevators. I can’t look. I should have expected something like this. I knew everything was too good to be true. Trevor belongs with someone like that, someone who understands his world better than I do. Someone who is here, not a thousand miles away.
“Hannah!” Lisa rushes up behind me. “Hannah, wait. Maybe it’s not—”
“Lisa. I can’t right now. Not with everything else. I need to go.” The elevator doors open right away and I step inside. I risk one more glance across the foyer towards the dining area. Trevor is on his feet, jogging towards me, but I let the doors close before he can get there.
My phone buzzes before the elevator can get to the third floor. It keeps buzzing as I walk to my room, but I refuse to look. Not until I’m safely hidden away in my room. I slip inside the door, throwing my bag on a chair and myself on my bed, face buried in my pillow as hot tears soak into it. Why is everything falling apart now?
I let myself cry for a moment before digging my phone out of my pocket to see the messages I know are from Trevor.
Trevor: Hannah, it wasn’t what it looked like, I promise. I swear, I don’t know that girl.
Trevor: TT, please talk to me. Please. I’m so sorry about everything, you have to believe me. Those girls appeared out of nowhere. I told her to move, I didn’t want her touching me, I promise.
Trevor: I’m not going to stop texting you until you respond. I let you have space after Saturday, I knew you were upset, but I miss you. I need to see you, I need to talk to you. Please.
Trevor: Come on Hannah, please talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Talk to me, that’s what we do, right?
Fingers shaking, I ignore Trevor’s messages for a minute and call someone who isn’t going to ask me about my ankle, who isn’t going to look at me with sad eyes and definitely isn’t going to ask me about Trevor.
“Hi!” Katy’s voice in my ear is so normal. I pull a deep breath into my lungs so I can speak.
“Hey,” I manage to sound almost okay.
“What’s up? I was about to call Lisa and see how your day went.”
I grab a tissue and try to silently blow my nose. “It was okay. They let me do barre and part of class today. Did you go to class today?” I’ve been bugging Katy about going to class since she got back from her big trip. I’m sure Ms. Parker wants her there.
“I didn’t,” she sighs. “Don’t yell at me.” I let Katy’s voice wash over me explaining about some workout she did with JJ, willing myself to calm down, to pretend I didn’t see what I saw, to ignore the buzzing of my phone against my ear. I’m sure it’s more texts from Trevor but right now, I can’t deal with it.
“Katy?” I interrupt. “What is more important than going to class? You’re not pulling an Olivia and doing nothing are you?” I’d much rather focus on being annoyed with Katy than upset over Trevor and my ankle.
There’s a pause on the other end of the call, accompanied by another buzz against my ear of incoming texts. “Um, excuse me? I was just telling you what I was doing. And for your information, there are plenty of things in life as important as going to class. It’s ballet. It’s not life or death. Geez.” Great, now I managed to piss off Katy. I can’t win tonight.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Katy. It’s been a rough day.” I sigh, swinging one leg up in the air while I speak, enjoying the stretch in my hamstring.
“You called me,” she points out. “You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” I’m about to elaborate when there’s a knock on my door. “Hey, someone’s at my door, I gotta go. Talk to you later?”
Katy heaves a sigh. “Yeah, I’ll call Lisa. Bye.”
Swinging my legs off the bed, I make my way over to the door. That can’t be Trevor can it? He’s not allowed on my floor. I know he came with me the other day, but he wouldn’t do that again. Would he? Especially when everyone is around after dinner? Who else would it be? Gloria?
I pull the door open, not sure who’s going to be on the other side. A brunette I don’t recognize is standing there, hand on hip, looking smug. There are more girls I don’t recognize with her. “Um, can I help you?”
“Are you Hannah? The one who’s dating Trevor Stanley?” Who is this girl and how does she know who I am? Movement down the hallway catches my eye, I glance over in time to see Becky disappear around the corner.
“Yeah…” I draw the word out. “Why?”
“I thought you’d want to see this.” She holds out her phone to me, a picture on the screen. Lisa and Trevor are sitting next to each other on one of the couches in the lobby, Trevor’s head on her shoulder. “I guess even the picture perfect ballerina can’t keep her friend from stealing her man. What a pity.” She smirks before tucking her phone away. “I just thought you’d want to know.”
Um, what the heck is going on? “Why are you telling me this? I don’t know you.”
“Oh, I thought, you know, girl to girl, you’d want to know. I mean, if my boyfriend were cuddling up to some other girl and letting other girls sit on his lap, I would hope that someone would be kind enough to tell me.” Her saccharin-sweet tone and exaggerated words should make me want to laugh, but the razor’s edge I’ve been balanced on all week, trying to keep calm and focused instead of freaking out about my ankle, has left me with zero ability to laugh this off.
“What the hell is your problem? Did I do something to you?” I snap. Between my ankle, Trevor, fighting with Katy and now this, I’m done. There isn’t one drop of patience left in me for this kind of pettiness, I don’t even know this girl’s name.
The brunette turns back, smirk still in place. “Trevor should be with someone like me, not some prissy little good girl. You’ll never understand him in the way that I could, you have nothing in common. Quit taking our boys and stick to your own kind. That is, if you can find one who likes boobs instead of balls.” I’m numb with shock at the venom coming out of this girl’s mouth. “Or do you even have boobs?” She eyes my chest while the rest of her gang titters behind her. I recognize her now as the girl who made the awful homophobic comment the other day. Did they set this whole thing up on purpose? “Maybe you’ll be fine, since you don’t have boobs anyway.”
Her words are so unexpected that she’s walking away before I can formulate a response.
“Hey!” I call down the hall. The whole gang of them turns back to look at me. The sight of their beautiful, flowing hair swinging as they turn in a group, a flock of swans ready to protect their queen, has me shrinking back against the frame of my door. I can’t compete with that. Maybe they’re right, maybe Trevor should be with someone like her. Didn’t I just think that earlier today?
“What?” The leader stares me down from the hallway, daring me to talk back. The fight goes out of me in an instant. Deflated, I slip inside my room and shut the door on their laughter. It doesn’t matter if they set the whole thing up to mess with me, I have nothing left to fight with.
Flopping back onto my bed, feet up on the wall, I catch a whiff of myself. Nose wrinkling, I should shower, but instead I unlock my phone.
Lisa: Hannah, nothing happened with Trevor and that girl. I saw the whole thing, he pushed her off a second after you saw it. He didn’t even know you saw until then. He’s really upset down here, I think you should come talk to him.
Trevor: TT, please, I’m begging you, come talk to me.
There are a couple more texts along the same lines, but they all boil down to Trevor begging me to come downstairs and talk to him, and Lisa letting me know she’s staying in the lobby with him for a while, hoping I’ll come down too.<
br />
I should go talk to him. Set up or not, I owe him an apology. But first I need to clean up. I can’t eat humble pie smelling like a locker room.
Trevor doesn’t notice me at first, his head down looking at something on his phone screen. Lisa is the one who looks up from her phone and sees me first. “Hey,” she says, nudging Trevor with her elbow. “I guess I’ll go upstairs?”
“Yeah, we’re good. I’ll be up later,” I tell her, eyes glued to Trevor’s. He reaches out to take my hand, running his thumb across my knuckles. I suppress the shiver it sends down my spine, doing my best not to melt into a puddle on the floor. “You want to go outside?” I nod my head towards the main doors. I don’t want to have this conversation out here in public, not with all these groups of people scattered around. Who knows who they are and who they might talk to?
“Of course, whatever you want, Han.” Trevor keeps hold of my hand as he gets to his feet. Giving me time to pull away, he loops his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side. His sigh of relief against my side would be funny if I wasn’t such a wreck from tonight’s emotional rollercoaster. I slide my arm around his waist to take the weight off my ankle as we walk, hoping he doesn’t notice. Maybe running the whole pas full out wasn’t the smartest move, but it felt so good to be able to dance again that I don’t care.
Silent, we step outside into the warm air, the setting sun casting golden light across both our faces. “Hannah, I’m—”
“Trevor, I’m—”
As our words crash, we freeze. Trevor clears his throat, pulls me two steps away from the door to a patch of dying sunlight and turns me to face him, hands on my shoulders. “Han, do you believe me that nothing happened? I promise, nothing did. And I’m so sorry about Saturday night.” I’m mesmerized by the pleading in his brown eyes, the sharp line of his jaw and straight nose. The light catching the different tones of brown and gold in his curls. He’s studying my face the same way I’m studying his.
Face to Face (On Pointe Book 3) Page 16
