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I follow him out of the studio into the fishbowl and grab his hand. “Where are you going?”
“Up to Maine for a few days. I need to see my parents.”
“Will you be at dinner tonight?” I ask, suddenly freaking out.
Ares stares at me for a long beat and then another.
“Good luck with your audition.” And then he’s gone, and I’m left standing alone.
Istand under the hot spray in the shower until the water turns icy cold, and even then, I don’t move.
I can’t.
Fear is my driving force, and it’s crippling.
When my legs finally give out, and my sobs grow quiet in my raw throat, I turn off the water and slide to the shower floor, unable to move or care.
I’m not sure what’s worse.
Knowing you’re fucking up and being unable to stop yourself, or hurting the person who means everything and watching them walk away, knowing it was your fault.
They’re both pretty damn bad.
Brynlee pounds on my bathroom door. “I know you’re alive in there because the water shut off. Now get your ass out here.”
Damn it.
I force myself up and throw on my robe before I open the door and find an incredibly pissed-off Brynn in my bedroom. “Brynn... I can’t do this right now.”
“Well, I don’t actually give a single shit what you think you can and can’t doright now, good twin. How long have we known each other?”
“Brynnie . . .”
“Twenty years. It’s been twenty years since you and Everly walked up to me in ballet class and asked if I liked chocolate milk or strawberry milk. Twenty years. That’s a long time,” she yells, and I cringe, not sure that this is any better than her freezing me out yesterday.
“I know Evie is your sister, but I love you like a sister, and I refuse to stand by and watch you fuck up your life.”
I open my mouth, and she glares. “I need you to hear me out. Because I’m aware that you know your body, but I’m the one who spent five and a half years in school to get my doctorate, and I’ve been working with elite fucking athletes for three years since. And don’t forget the years spent in school, working on the fighters at Dad’s gym. I know an athlete’s body, Grace. And you might be fine for your audition. But you aren’t fine to go back to dancing seven days a week for ten hours a day just yet. You will be. But you need more time.”
I stand there and take it. Every word of it. Until I’m sure she’s gotten it all off her chest.
“I’ve got to take this audition, Brynn.”
She presses her lips together, disappointment hanging thick between us. “I know you think that, Grace. But at some point in your life, you’re going to have to ask yourself if you’re dancing for you or because that’s what everyone expects you to do.”
She shakes her head, frustrated, like it’s so obvious... such an easy thing to change.
“I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”
When I don’t say anything else, she shakes her head. “You’re still going, aren’t you?”
I don’t have to say anything.
She already knows my answer.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
ARES
