So I stuck with my initial response and waited for her to speak.
She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut again and I was horrified to see pain in her eyes.
“I saw you, remember?” I gestured toward the dance floor. “You looked perfect.”
“Well, I don’t look like Bianca.” She muttered it under her breath, but I still heard it and the mention of that prissy blonde beanpole made me irrationally angry.
“Why are you so obsessed with her?”
Her eyes widened for a second at the anger in my voice. Then she shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “She’s everything a ballerina is supposed to be—pretty, elegant, thin.”
Her voice was filled with disdain and…something else. Something rueful and disparaging, but not toward Bianca. She was hating onherself.
I took a step closer, needing her to see my sincerity. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead so she was staring at my chest. I reached out andtipped her chin up with one finger so she was forced to look at me. “And you are graceful, unique, and….beautiful.”
Her eyes widened, and I…I was an idiot. I’d said too much. I’d been too earnest.
But I’d meant it.
My heart was thudding painfully in my chest, my blood roaring in my ears as I waited for her to respond. When she didn’t speak right away, my entire body went cold.
Seriously, what was I doing? I barely knew this girl. She was basically astranger. A stranger who now knew that I played guitar, who knew about my dad’s control freak ways, and a stranger who was staring at me like I’d just lost my freakin’ mind.
Maybe I had.
I didn’t even recognize this guy who’d spilled his guts to a girl he didn’t know. And I definitely couldn’t explain why I’d felt the need to touch her, to comfort her, to…freak her out, apparently.
In those big blue eyes all I saw was shock and confusion before she shut down on me, and then I couldn’t read any emotions at all.
I dropped my hand from her chin, breaking the tense moment. She took a step back, looking away from me. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
And then she was walking away from me, hurrying toward the door like I was going to chase after her…again.
I wanted to—we definitely weren’t finished here. But this time I let her go.
When she reached the door to the studio, I called after her. “So? Do we have a deal?”
She didn’t look back but she paused with one hand on the handle. “I’ll think about it.”
SIX
COLLETTE
Olivia knew something was up the next day at lunch. She kept staring at me as I pushed my chicken Alfredo around on my plate. I knew I should have picked up a salad or stuck to a Diet Coke, but I was hungry or depressed or just in need of some warm comfort, so I’d risked the judgy look from the academy’s cafeteria lady and gone with the carb load.
Of course, that had been a dead giveaway to my current state of mind, which was why I was getting sidelong glances from my best friend.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” she asked. She was eating her regular bagel slathered in cream cheese. Like many of the girls at this school, she had the body of a pixie and the metabolism of a horse. Carbs weren’therenemy. She took a bite, all the while eyeing me.
I sighed and pushed my pasta away. I wasn’t in themood to eat. Not after my encounter with Ethan last night. It had left me feeling raw and exposed and I knew I should be used to feeling that way, but what he’d said—no other human had ever uttered to me. This was uncharted territory.
“What would you do if a guy called you…graceful, unique, and beautiful?” The last three words barely made it from my lips. It was like my body was physically stopping me from saying those things about myself.
Olivia dropped her bagel and turned her entire focus on me. “I’m sorry, what?” She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then leaned closer as she stared at me. “Who is the guy and does he have a best friend?”
I squirmed in my seat as I reached out to pick up my tray. “I didn’t say anyone said that to me. I’m just wondering, what would you do?”
Olivia narrowed her eyes, her tight black curls bobbing as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “So this is a ‘you’re stuck on a deserted island, what do you bring,’ type of situation? You’re honestly telling me you’re not talking from experience?”
