Tag Fight For Me

by Catherine Charles

  I grab my phone, dial her number, and pray for her to be the one that answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Sophie, hi. It’s Cora. From the summer ballet program.”

  A giddy squeal came through the phone line and I was relieved she hadn’t forgotten about me so quickly.

  “Cora! I’m so glad you called. I know it’s only been a couple of hours since we said goodbye, but I miss you. How are you?”

  Oh that was such a confusing answer as I tried to figure out the best way of explaining things so that they would make sense.

  “What? What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Everything and yet maybe nothing. Maybe I was just over thinking things. Maybe I was just fantasizing about what I wanted to happen. Maybe I was just being a silly girl with my first crush, on an older guy, on a much older guy, who was more like a brother than anything. God, I was pathetic.

  “Ehh, do you remember me telling you about Jax?” Stupid question. Of course she did because I somehow always managed to bring him up.

  “Yeah. The big brother guy? What about him?”

  I close my eyes and just say it. Quick. Like taking off a band-aid or squinting against a shot. The quicker I said it, the better. “I think I like him.”

  Heat rushes to my cheeks and I bury my head in a pillow, too mortified to even show my face to the empty air around me.

  “Wait! What! Isn’t he like fourteen?”

  “Yes.” I mumble, my voice sounding hollow against the mattress. “And I think he might have, possibly, probably, kissed me today.”

  Piercing giggles slide through the phone along with a squealing “Shut. Up. Oh. My. God. Coorraa!” I giggle with her. My heart feels as if it had sprouted wings and was now flying around my room in pure excitement.

  I flip to my back and stare up at the ceiling, and then her excitement comes to an abrupt halt, “But wait? Usually if someone kisses you, you know it. Was it bad?”

  “Ugghhh. No. I don’t know. This is why I’m confused.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I think he kissed by head tonight when we were saying goodbye. I hugged him like I always have, but then something warm and hard pressed to the top of my head and I held on tighter.”

  “Aww, Cora…that’s so sweet.”

  “When he let me go though, it was like the temperature dropped from scorching to Arctic. Can a kiss do that? Can a guy do that?”

  “I think so. I mean if there are feelings there on both ends. So you like him, and he likes you, right? What’s the problem?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” I roll my eyes at the stupidity of the question and begin to pace my bedroom. “How about the fact he’ll turned fourteen soon, and I’m ten. Or how about the fact that he’s in middle school and I’m in elementary school. No part of that sounds okay, Soph. It all sounds wrong, and pervy, and just…” I shake of the chills that came with that last part, “it just sounds gross.”

  She sighs and I take a seat back on my bed. “Oh yeah. You have a point. None of that sounds good. Or even legal. I think he could get arrested.”

  I hadn’t even thought about that part. Could Jackson really get arrested for dating me? I’d never do anything to hurt him or get him in trouble.

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  The excitement in her voice was long gone, replaced with somber tones.

  “I don’t know,” I say completely defeated. He was my Jax. My Jackson. Whatever feelings I had for him needed to be locked away and never spoken of again.

  “Well, look. Obviously you can't date him.”

  I blew out a breath and again rolled my eyes. I wanted to say no shit, Sherlock, but I wasn’t quite sure we are at that level in our new friendship. I only talked like that to Jax, and only when our parents weren’t around.

  “You’re just gonna have to squash this little crush like a bug. That’s all this is, Cora. A crush and crushes come and go. When you think of him, go dance until you can’t think anymore. Choreograph something and work your butt off so you’ll get into ASB and then we can be roommates.”

  Sophie was right. I could dance Jax out of my mind. I would become laser focused. I had six years before I could apply for ASB. Six years to hone my craft and hopefully work whatever feelings I was developing out of my system. I would be their best applicant ever.

  “You’re right. Besides, why would a thirteen-year-old even be interested in a ten-year-old.” The more I said it, the worse it sounded. Thirteen. Ten. Even if I accounted for our birthdays, it still didn’t sound any better. Fourteen. Eleven.

  “Umm…because you’re a hottie and could break his nose with a pirouette to the face?” She giggled, and I couldn’t stop myself from joining in. The image her words created in my mind was hysterical, but I could never hurt Jax like that…at least not intentional, anyway.

  “Look, I’ve got to go, but call me soon and let me know what’s going on.”

  “I will. Thanks Sophie. I’m really glad I met you.”

  “Me too, Cora. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  She hangs up, and I’m left pondering her words.

  She was right. I needed to focus on school and dance. I didn’t have time for anything or anyone else in my life. Distractions would only hurt my future. One day I would be a Principal Dancer for the New York Ballet, it was my dream, my goal, and no boy was going to get in my way. Especially one I couldn’t have in the first place.

  That night, as I laid in bed, staring at the tree house, I wondered two things: one, could I really forget about Jax and that maybe kiss and move forward like nothing had happened, and two, I wondered how early was too early to visit my new studio space that had been built this summer.

  There were lights on in the tree house, and a figure sat on the balcony, his feet swinging off the side and I whispered my final good night to Jackson before closing my eyes and praying for sleep.

  Sleep. Such a funny, fickle thing as I realized tonight for the first time that I would probably never sleep again. Jax was always in my dreams.

  I tossed and turned for five hours at least. The neon lights of my bedside clock read four-twenty-seven. The full moon bathed the open fields in light. The house was quiet, but inside my mind a war was raging, a Jackson centered war to be precise.

  I couldn’t sleep. The harder I tried not to think of Jax, the more I thought of him. It was a never-ending circle, round and round and round with no end in sight.

  I scrub my hands against my face, pulling at my hair, refusing to give in to the weakness inside of me. It was time to take Sophie’s suggestion and go dance.

  Quickly, I get dressed in a black leotard and matching dance pants, grab my point shoes, leave a note on the fridge door, and head down to my new studio.

  The night air is a welcome reprieve from the fire coursing through my veins. It’s cool and dry, cicadas can be heard in the nearby forest, and the grass is thick with dew while the moon cast long shadows across the field.

  I pull open the door to my studio and am pleasantly surprised at the chill in the air and hear the hum of what sounds to be a mounted air conditioner. I feel around the wall and find a light switch just inches from the door frame and click it on.

  Before me is a stark white room. The floors, the ceiling, the walls, a perfectly blank canvas. The wall across from me is nothing but mirrors from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. I feel captivated in a trance as I make my way inside, the door slamming behind me as my arm drops.

  I can't believe this is mine.

  There are two windows on the left side of the studio just above the ballet barre, and on the right is a small electrical set up with a stereo system and speakers placed in each of the four corners.

  Bright lights reflect off the mirror and bounce onto the pristine floor.

  Why?

  Why would they build this for me?

  This was the greatest gift I had ever been given, and the ones that built it weren’t even
here to share this moment with me.

  I sit down in the middle of the room and quickly change my shoes, tossing my sandals to the back wall and put my ear buds in, forgoing the new sound system as to not wake Jax and Jace, and randomly pick a song from my playlist, making sure the volume is up loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

  A techno intro fades to competing guitars, drums with a heavy beat, violins to compliment the guitars in a peculiar but fitting way, and a strong piano presence. The vocals are airy and somber and in seconds I’m transported to a different reality, one in which Jax doesn’t exist. It’s just me, the music, and my blank canvas.

  I move from one end of the studio to the other, focused on my steps and just feeling as the instrumental vibrations pulse through my body, for the next three minutes and fifteen seconds, the outside world around me fades away. I can do this. I can forget about Jax as long as I have this space, I can move forward and that realization is what brings a smile to my face.

  It isn’t until the song ends and I open my eyes that I’m startled to find Jax standing in the doorway just staring at me in awe, grinning like a damn psychopath.

  “Jesus Christ! Tits on a hog!” I say jumping and clutching my racing heart in fright, just like any sane person would do at almost five in the morning.

  “Nope,” he chuckles, “just me.”

  “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you asleep?” I growl back at him. A growl? Where did that even come from.

  “I could ask you the same thing.” He shakes his head and steps inside, and for some reason I take two retreating steps back.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me either.” Why is he looking at me like that? Jax’s eyes don’t twinkle and he sure as shit doesn’t ever look this confident. Maybe it’s the lights that have his eyes looking like Christmas lights. And why am I all of a sudden so damn nervous?

  “You know you should really lock the door if you’re going to be in here alone.”

  I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to cover myself for some unknown reason. What in the world has come over to me. “Oh yea. Right. Next time.” My eyes dart around the room, looking everywhere except at him. Cora! Get your shit together!

  And as if Jax knew the internal struggle I was having currently; he dropped his sexy…what? Sexy? I’m ten! Jesus, Cora! His grin. There is nothing attractive about Jax. His grin. Jax dropped his grin and blew out a breath of air. “Cora, can we talk?”

  The sadness in his tone startled me enough to quiet the voices in my head and I take notice of him. He wasn’t confident anymore, just sullen and somber, and my heart began to break for reasons I couldn’t understand. And before I knew what was happening, I hesitantly asked, “About what?” No longer casting my glance this way and that, but now completely focused on him.

  He raised his eyes and took a deep breath, “About us.”

  No! No! I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t even know what this conversation is, but Sophie told me to just focus on dance when I thought of him. Thirteen. Ten. There was no us. There could be no us. But if there wasn’t an us, would that mean I’d lose my best friend? I didn’t want that. “Nothing to talk about Jax. We’re best friends, right. That’s it, right?”

  He looks like the twins do when they punch each other in the stomach. I did that. I hurt him. The last thing I wanted to do, and it was the first thing I had done since things went wonky.

  “Yeah. Friends. Exactly.” He runs his hands through his hair and looks like he wants to run out of here, or at least away from me, but then he stops and turns back around. “Look, Cora, about earlier, I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what happened. I guess I just missed you.”

  He did kiss me. Jax really did kiss me. But that kissed just complicated my life. “I missed you too, Jackson.”

  He forces a smile and gives me a little nod. I know all his smiles, and this is the most painful one. “Well, I guess I’ll try to get some sleep. Lock the door behind me if you stay.”

  I nod, and he heads to the door while I stand there watching him leave until my mouth betrays my head and I call out to him, stopping him. He gives me his side profile, one hand on the door, “Play something for me, Jax?” His shoulders raise and fall with a great breath, and I feel like I could cry if he walked out that door. “Please, Jax.”

  He shakes his head, and then faces me with a chuckle, “Always, Buttercup.” This time the corner of his lips pull up a little higher, and though it’s not a completely happy smile, but it’s not a forced one either.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I kissed her.

  Why did I kiss her?

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It was selfish. It was wrong. Oh so wrong, on so many levels. What the hell is wrong with me. She probably thinks I’m a creep now. Way to go Jax, you moron.

  The sound of a door closing forces me from the internal argument going on inside my head. Jax the good guy versus the hormonal teen that can't seem to keep his damn eyes, or lips for that matter, where they should be; and now, the sound of the studio door closing brought on new thoughts.

  Is she downstairs?

  Could she not sleep either?

  What was going through her mind?

  I look over at Jace who is passed out on the couch. He won’t be waking up anytime soon, and I need some time alone with her. I need to talk to her about what happened.

  Silently I make my way down the ladder and turn the knob on the only thing separating the two of us. The latch clicks open and I make a mental note to remind her about the lock on the door. Slowly I open it and watch her from where I stand. Her movements are incredibly fluid as she spins in place on a single foot, her other leg swinging around her, building momentum until she drops it down, and the tip of her shoe brushes over the floor. She kicks one leg high behind her, her back arching backward, dropping her neck and pulling her foot higher into the air before finishing in what looks to be some type of yoga pose.

  How her body contorts and moves that way is a mystery to me, but I’m hypnotized by every exquisitely graceful movement, so smooth, so beautiful. She is in complete control.

  “Jesus Christ! Tits on a hog!” she says breathlessly while grasping at her chest.

  I chuckle and shake my head. “Nope. Just me.”

  Her expressions are something else and I can't wait to hear what comes out of her mouth as she gets older. I take a step inside and she moves away from me. She’s never done that before, and I’m realizing these last twelve hours have been chalked full of things neither of us have ever done before. But why is she acting nervous? She’s cute. Hell, she’s always been cute. Focus Jax. Focus.

  “Cora, can we talk?”

  She looks at me in shock, as if she has no idea what I could possibly want to talk to her about. Maybe she didn’t know I kissed her. Maybe she didn’t feel it, and here I am just making matters worse.

  “Nothing to talk about Jax. We’re best friends, right? That’s it.”

  Hell. She knows I kissed her. Surely, there’s no way she really believes what she’s saying. I watch her struggle just as I’ve been struggling all freaking night. Friends. That little demon word was reality and the current pain of my existence. But what kind of friend would I be if I let her know how that little word really affected me, so instead I offer a small smile and nod my head.

  It didn’t matter what I felt towards her, what matter was that she saw me as a friend and needed me as a friend. That was that.

  “Yea. Friends.” I force a smile and turn to leave. “Make sure you lock the door behind me.”

  Stop me Buttercup.

  “Jax?” Oh thank God. I breathe out a sigh of relief, happy that she’s hopefully granting me more time with her. “Play something for me?”

  I chuckle and shake my head. She knows how to get to me, and as if I could tell her no. “Of course.”

  I grab my guitar from the corner and start to play something new for her.

  She moves around the floor, dancing c
ircles around me, and once again I’m captivated by how graceful and effortless she makes everything look. However, I’ve seen the dirty, gritty side of this sport. I’ve seen her feet after hours of being on her toes and know the blistered and bloody mess they can be even at her young age.

  All she wanted was to earn her point shoes, and the day she did I watched her break her feet into them, and then helped her bandage her wounds after she was done. There were no tears, only giggles and laughter that day, a radiant beaming glow pulsed from her for hours. Her teacher at the time told her only an hour of dancing, but an hour turned to two, and then by the time she was done, the early afternoon had faded to late evening.

  What she does is difficult, and on numerous occasions she pushes herself further than she should; it’s as if she doesn’t know the word quit or stop.

  By the time I stop playing and Cora’s ready to rest, the sun is starting to come up and her chest heaves with each labored breath. “Thank you, Jax.”

  “Anytime, Buttercup.”

  “Hopefully we didn’t wake Jace up.”

  I chuckle, “Cora, are you kidding? You know he could sleep through a freight train passing right by him.”

  She giggles and sits on the opposite wall from me and begins taking off her shoes, stretching and popping her toes as she massages her feet and addresses the red markings. “Jax?” her playfulness is gone and once again hesitation hangs in the air of the studio. She won't bring her eyes to mine but rest her chin on a bent-up knee.

  “Yeah?”

  “What now?” She hesitantly raises her eyes and they look lost. The vibrant green is muted and muddy, and I have this overwhelming desire to wrap my arms around her. To tell her it’s all gonna be okay, that everything will work itself out, but I don’t even know what that means.

  Instead, I lean back against the wall, hands clasp in front of me, legs splayed in a V, and close my eyes. I can’t look at her. “I don’t know, Cora.” She sniffles and it almost breaks my heart.

  “You’re still gonna be here, right?” I clench my teeth and grit out her name. “Jax promise me. Promise me you’re still gonna be here when I need you, that you’re not going anywhere.”