“God, Sawyer,” Taylor said, picking up the shattered triangles of powder. “Don’t ever sneak attack a bunch of girls in a huddle unless you want to get an elbow in your balls.”
He tapped his head. “Duly noted.”
“What do you want?” Taylor asked, melting a bit under his smile.
“I came to borrow Lucy.” His hands rested on my shoulders. “You girls don’t mind, do you?”
“That depends,” Taylor said, watching Sawyer’s hands on me.
“On what?”
Taylor slid me a loaded look. “On what you came to borrow her for.”
“A man’s business is his own,” he replied, pulling my chair out.
“Except when it isn’t,” Taylor said under her breath, before making a tunnel of her hands and whispering in my ear, “I expect a full report.”
Popping up, I waved to Taylor and Samantha and turned to Sawyer.
“Get me out of here,” I mouthed.
He grabbed my hand and led me out of the cafeteria. “Come on.”
If this is what having every head turned at me, gazing with scandalized eyes, felt like, I never wanted to run for office. I didn’t get what the big deal was with Sawyer and me walking together, but they did. Probably had something to do with him holding my hand, which I should’ve pulled away, and the rumors that were formed and written in the book of fact after homecoming.
Once we were free of the cafeteria, I exhaled. “Thank you.”
“You looked like you were in physical pain back there,” he said, leading me down a quiet hall. “I had to save you from that.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said, looking around. No one was around and I knew if someone walked by, Sawyer and me camped out in a quiet hallway would start a fresh round of rumors. “Why did you?”
Leaning into a wall of lockers, Sawyer tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “I wanted to apologize,” he began, taking me by surprise. “I shouldn’t say anything to you, good or bad, about Jude. Whatever relationship the two of you have is none of my business. I’m sorry I tried to make it mine.”
The apology took me off guard, but hearing Jude’s name affected me more. Every time I heard it, another dagger was twisted into my heart. It was fast becoming a pin cushion.
“I’m not sure if there ever was a relationship,” I admitted, letting my head fall back against the wall, “and if there was, there isn’t anymore.”
It should be because he’d stolen a car, or he’d been arrested more times than I could count on two hands, or because he personified everything we girls were taught to stay away from since we were grade schoolers. But it wasn’t any of these reasons. I knew Jude and I had no relationship because if he had indeed turned himself in, he hadn’t bothered to call me first. Not to check to make sure I’d made it home safe or to explain what the hell had happened Saturday night. If we had anything of a relationship, Jude would have cared enough to contact me, but he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Sawyer said, turning his head and looking at me.
“No, you’re not,” I said, laughing about the fact that Sawyer was the one I’d open up to about Jude, but I knew it had something to do with the way his face was always warm and his eyes never judgmental.
“I’m sorry for you and the pain this has caused you,” he said. “But I don’t feel sorry for Ryder. He can kiss my ass the next time I see him.”
Another dagger right through the left ventricle. “I’d like to see that.”
“Stay tuned,” he said, looking off into the distance, “you just might. Jude Ryder might finally get a dose of his own medicine before we all head off to college and he stays behind as a waste of space lifer.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The second week of school passed by ten times less dramatically as the first week. In fact, I felt like I was settling into a pattern of normal when I worked my way through the metal detectors Friday morning. I was getting As in all my classes—kind of hard not to when it was one times one equals one and spelling words like question and mystery were as hard as my senior year got.
I’d also joined the dance team, ignoring Taylor’s warnings that my popularity would drop by at least fifty percent, and joined the Environmental club, which she said would drop my popularity by the other fifty percent.
I was now zero percent popular.
I’d also managed to put up some boundaries between Miss Taylor and friends—which they, on most days, tried to respect—and mom and I had even had a couple other mostly amiable talks.
Life hadn’t felt this normal in years, and while I’d mourned normal for so long I should have been reveling in it, I wasn’t. I knew that had something to do with a certain someone I still hadn’t heard from, and a certain someone I should avoid from here until the grave, but as I’d learned the hard way, the heart wants what the heart wants. And it wanted Jude.
But I wouldn’t let it have him, much like a parent who wouldn’t let a child have a second piece of cake because they know it’s not what’s best for their sweet-tooth loving, impulsive child. I couldn’t let my heart have what it wanted most because I knew it would lead to the destruction of it.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
I elbowed Sawyer as we settled into our morning routine. “Go away, ugly, and don’t come back until you come up with a better line.”
“Just you wait, I’ve been working on a few and I think you’re going to be rather impressed come next Monday,” he replied, handing me my morning mocha he’d started bringing a few days ago.
“Unlikely,” I said.
“You calling me ugly every morning might actually bruise my delicate ego if I wasn’t sure you were only teasing,” he said, nodding his head at a couple of his football teammates as they passed by.
“Or if you weren’t positively certain you weren’t ugly.”
“Are you saying you think I’m hot?” he asked, grinning a wicked one over at me.
“If that’s what you heard, you need a couple of hearing aids,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “I was merely confirming you are not, in fact, ugly.”
“I think that’s the worst compliment I’ve ever been given,” he said, slinging an arm around me and pulling me in.
And the whole easy relationship Sawyer and I navigated most of the time just ended, like it always did, when he tried pulling me into some awkward embrace or touched me with a certain look in his eyes.
“How’s the ankle, Diamond?” a voice called out from behind us. A voice that froze my feet to the ground, but melted me in every other place.
Coming around us, Jude crossed his arms, glaring at Sawyer’s arm hung around me before looking at me. I’d never been stared at with such a mix of emotions. I’d never been stared at in a way that made my breathing irregular and painful all at once.
Lifting a shoulder, Sawyer glanced down at his wrapped ankle. “It’ll heal up all right.”
Jude’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “I was talking about your other ankle.”
Sawyer paused, clearly thrown off guard. “It’s fine,” he answered.
“Do you want it to remain that way?” Jude asked, stepping forward, still watching me. Other than a bruise shadowing his cheekbone, he looked the same. I don’t know what I expected, but it just seemed like a person who’d spent almost a week in prison would come out looking different, and maybe they did, but for someone who’d been to jail a grand total of thirteen times now, it was just another day in the park.
“You’ve got your arm on something of mine,” Jude said, his eyes flashing when he looked at Sawyer.
“I believe that property changed ownership when you left it high and dry curbside.” Sawyer tried to cinch me in closer, but not before I weaved out from under his arm.
Turning on him, I leveled him with my glare before spinning around and giving Jude the same. I had not worked my ass off for the grades I had, or worked tireless summer days waiting tables, or paved my way as a strong woman to be reduced to some
object two jealous boys could fight over.
“I am not a piece of property,” I said, lifting my finger at Sawyer. “I am not yours,” I said, before turning around and meeting Jude’s eyes. “And I am not yours.”
Saying that the first time around was infinitely easier, and that pissed the hell out of my parental I-know-what’s-best-for-you psyche. “Now both of you leave me the hell alone.”
I shouldered past Sawyer, shoving the mocha back into his hands—I didn’t want anything from him—before weaving through the crowded hall, trying to calm my heart. For the first time this week, it felt warm.
And I didn’t want to accept the reason why it was because I could feel his eyes on me the entire journey down the hall, and even after I rounded the corner, I could still feel his watchful gaze upon me.
I was tempted to skip first period, I was more tempted to skip the whole day, but I didn’t. I picked myself up by my bootstraps and reminded myself I wasn’t going to let two boys, mainly one boy, reduce me to one of those girls who flushed her life down the toilet. I was strong, I knew how to overcome, and damn it, I was better than that. However, for where my mind was, I might as well have skipped first period. By the time the bomb siren bell went off, I hadn’t scratched down a single line of notes on Oliver Twist. Oh well, I’d read it two years ago and gotten an A on my synopsis then.
As I gathered up my books, I noticed every other student glancing back at me as they headed out the door. It was enough to put me on alert and more than enough to not want to find out what waited for me on the other side of that doorway.
The classroom had emptied, even Mrs. Peters had left, before I’d worked up the courage to shoulder my bag.
“Hey, Luce.” Jude took a couple steps inside the room, closing the door behind him.
I hated myself for wanting him to come wrap his arms around me and tell me everything was fine, that there was nothing we couldn’t overcome, and that last weekend had been some terrible misunderstanding.
I was a dreamer.
“I’m not talking to you,” I said, trying to walk by him, but he stepped in front of the door.
“And why’s that?”
Glaring up at him, I crossed my arms. “Don’t you pretend like nothing happened. You know why I’m not talking to you now or why I won’t talk to you ever again.”
“Eh, Luce,” he said, leaning against the door, “you’re kind of talking to me right now.”
I wasn’t in the mood to be trifled with, not even by Jude. “I’m not talking, I’m a note below screaming, and I’m only not-quite-shouting at you long enough to let you know I’m finished with whatever that thing was we had,” I said, having no designation to assign what had been ours. “I’m finished.”
Looking down, he searched the ground, stalling. “You’re finished?”
“Yep,” I said, trying to sound like I couldn’t care less.
“Does this have something to do with Diamond?” Fury etched its way into his face.
“No,” I said, trying to shove him away from the door. “It has to do with you.”
“Let me explain,” he said, gripping my arms.
I snapped away from him. “You could explain yourself until you’re blue in the face and there’s nothing you could say that would make me change my mind.”
The muscles in his neck clenched and unclenched. “So you’ve finally decided to take my advice and keep the hell away from me?”
“Finally,” I said, my throat clenching around the word.
He nodded his head, sliding his beanie down over his eyebrows. “Good,” he said. “It’s for the best anyways.”
Just as I was starting to believe my hurt couldn’t ache any more.
“Then I guess there’s nothing else to say,” I said, waving him away from the door.
He didn’t budge. “Yes. Yes, there is,” he said, looking up at me, his eyes the color of pewter. “I still owe you an explanation.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said, trying to slide past him. “I’ll be on my merry way.”
Jude’s hand flexed over the door handle. “Not before I explain what happened on Saturday.”
I was close to breaking, close to letting him back in. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with the way his eyes looked lost or the way I felt lost, but I was sure I couldn’t let him back in.
“I don’t need an explanation, Jude!” I said, shouting up at him. “I was there. I got to see the whole thing first hand. As far as I’m concerned, whatever our relationship was is over, and I’m done talking, screaming, and listening to you, so save your breath because I’m done wasting mine on you.” This time when I shoved past him, he didn’t stop me. And still, some part of me wished he would.
Jude shadowed me all day, which meant everyone stared like I was some circus freak and everyone steered clear of me and my six foot two, two hundred pound shadow. He didn’t say anything else, but it was clear he wanted to and it was also clear he was waiting for me to make the first move. I hoped he enjoyed waiting a lifetime.
I snuck out of sixth a few minutes early, racing to my car, exhaling only once I was out of the parking lot and no towering shadow appeared in my rearview mirror. An impossible mountain of things needed to be sorted out, requiring my attention so I could wake up tomorrow with a plan, but I couldn’t sort through that yet.
Only one thing was capable of drowning everything from my mind and, lucky for me, the dance studio was empty when I arrived. It was the same place I’d learned to dance. I’d gone from a tutu twirling toddler to a competent dancer with her sights set on Juilliard all thanks to the work ethic I’d picked up from my father, the grace my mom swore I got from her side of the family, and the saint-like patience of Madame Fontaine.
She opened the studio thirty years ago, turning a condemned building in the historic district into the most celebrated studio in the area. It wasn’t anything fancy, nor did she take on a lot of students, but Madame Fontaine had turned out more prima donnas than all of eastern Europe. She was a legend in the dance world, well known for her chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out attitude, but to me, she was a saint.
She was the only person I could talk to during a time in my life when no one else was capable of talking. She helped me find the light in any dark and threatened me with life and limb when I told her I was contemplating quitting dance. Only because I feared she was serious, I stuck with it, working through the pain, and soon found dance was not only masking the pain, but healing it. Dance saved me in ways my parents, doctors, and even I couldn’t.
Since dance became my heaven, Madame Fontaine became my angel.
Sticking my head in the office, I found it, like the rest of the studio, dark and empty. A tray of oatmeal cookies was Saran wrapped on her desk, topped off by a pale pink note teepee’ed over it that read Lucy.
Sliding a cookie under the wrap, I grabbed the note. Since I know you forget to eat, here’s an attempt at nutrition. Don’t tell anyone I’ve gone soft in my old age. Work hard and dance harder.
And there was the Matilda Fontaine who was the legend. Cookies topped by a work your toes ‘til they’re raw threat.
Working my toes, feet, legs, and mind until they were raw was exactly what I needed. I didn’t bother to change out of my leggings and cashmere tunic; I just bobbypinned my hair back and tied on my pointes. Sliding Tchaikovsky into the stereo, I cranked up the volume and was mid grand jete before the first note vibrated the mirrors in the studio.
As a rule you didn’t screw with, dancers always warm up pre setting-the-dance-floor-on-fire, but my heart had been doing double time since nine o’clock this morning. I wasn’t only warmed up, I was warmed out.
I danced until the sun set and the sky grew dark. I danced until I tore through the same CD three times. I danced until I’d chugged down two liters of water. But no matter how hard I danced, or how intensely I concentrated on perfecting each and every movement, I never stopped thinking about Jude.
The room went sile
nt for the fourth time as Tchaikovsky’s finale to Swan Lake drew to a close. I was drenched, out of breath, and sore from my neck to my toes. It was a good day of dancing.
Reaching for another liter of water, a low whistle echoed across the room. Even in a whistle, I knew his voice.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said as I turned to face him. “A man could live a full life watching you dance like that.”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to find me,” I said as Jude came out of the shadows of the office. He’d aged a decade in six hours. The hollows under his eyes were a shade shy of black, his olive skin had gone sallow, but it was his eyes that had aged the most.
“Only about as long as it took me to walk from school to here,” he answered, straddling the doorway.
“I’ve been here for a good six hours.” I took a long drink, then let myself collapse on the floor, settling my back against the mirror wall.
“I’ve been here almost as long,” he said, motioning behind him where Madame Fontaine’s office looked out into the parking lot. “But I didn’t want to interrupt you, so I just made like a good peeping tom and checked you out through the window.” He grinned, scuffing his boot into the door jam. “Plus I was a little frightened of what you might say or do if I did interrupt you.”
“Ah,” I said, folding my upper half across my legs to stretch muscles that were about to snap. “There’s the truth. Finally,” I muttered just loud enough that he could hear me.
“I need to tell you a lot more truth, Luce,” he said, looking the most lost I’d seen him. That look appealed to my already Jude friendly heartstrings, and before I knew what I was doing, I patted the patch of wood beside me.
“I need to stretch, and it sounds like you need to talk,” I said, forcing myself to stretch so far it felt like I was about to break. “Let’s get this over with.”
He crossed the room, his body looking relieved, but his face looked wary. “I meant what I said. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, sliding down beside me. “I didn’t know you were so damn talented. You’re going to be the star of some big-wig ballet production where millionaires pay like a thousand bucks for a front row seat,” he said, while I tried not to smile at his obvious ignorance for ballet lingo, “or some crazy shit like that.”