Anger was so much better than hurt.
“You don’t know anything about me, Bianca.” My voice was little more than a growl.
She didn’t look phased. If anything, she seemed amused as she studied me. “Oh please. We’ve been going to school together for years. I know you.” She glancedmeaningfully toward the area where Ethan had been standing just moments ago. “I also know you’re an idiot if you let that guy go.”
I narrowed my eyes, clutching my bookbag strap as I tried to keep my cool. “Don’t talk about Ethan,” I said. “You have no idea?—”
“That you two have been dancing together?” she finished. “Uh, yeah, that was pretty clear from that little Dirty Dancing routine I just caught.”
I scowled. “It wasn’t?—”
“Whatever.” She waved away my protest like it was an irritating gnat. “I don’t really care what you two have been getting up to after dark, but don’t insult my intelligence. There was enough steam in this room to open a spa.”
I stared at her open-mouthed for a minute because…she was serious. She honestly thought there’d been something there.
Because there was.
I gave my head a little shake, blocking out the image of his head dipping down toward mine, his hands on my waist, that look in his eyes…
“Ugh, you people are the worst.”
Bianca’s words, muttered under her breath, had my focus back on her. She looked prissy as ever with her lips pursed and her perfect blonde hair gleaming in a long ponytail.
“You people?” I repeated.
She rolled her eyes, shovingaway from the door frame to drop her own bag on the floor. “Non-dancers. Normal people. Muggles. Teenagers.” She waved a hand. “Whatever you want to call yourself.”
My anger was only briefly interrupted by surprise. “Youknow what muggles are?”
Her even gaze told me clearly that she thought I was an idiot. Or possibly that I was missing the point.
Everything else she said came to me in a rush and I found myself scowling in indignation. “I’m not anon-dancer.”
Even when I’d stopped taking the advanced classes I’d still thought of myself as a dancer. I mean, I still went to the academy, and I still danced on my own time, and I still loved it with all my heart. That counted for something, right? “Iama dancer,” I said, a little more forcefully.
She arched a brow in disbelief.
“I dance,” I said. “Just…” I gestured around the room. “After hours.”
“Mm-hmm.” She turned away, and I got the feeling I’d been dismissed.
“Hey, I love dance just as much as you?—”
“No.” She whipped around so quickly I jerked back. She jabbed a finger in my direction. “There is no comparison to my training and whatever it is you’re doing here with that guy when no one is watching.”
I blinked in surprise at the rare show of emotion. Her normally icy eyes flashed withanger and pink tinged her high cheekbones as she glared at me. “You were told byoneteacher that you didn’t have what it took?—”
“That teacher was my mother,” I felt compelled to point out.
She ignored that. “One teacher told you that you should quit…and youdid.” Her pretty face turned ugly with a sneer. “Some of us deal with criticism and rejection on a daily basis and we don’t quit. Some of us arekilling ourselvestrying to prove that?—”
She cut herself off so abruptly, the silence seemed to echo with her unspoken rage.
I could only stare in disbelief, because of all the many faces of Bianca I’d seen—the brown-noser, the spoiled brat, the determined dancer—I’d never once seen her lose her cool like that.
But that glimpse of genuine emotions was over in the blink of an eye. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and—just like that—the angry teenage girl was gone, and she was once again in full control as she eyed me from head to toe with that judgmental smirk I knew way too well. “You might dance for fun,” she said coolly. “But you’ll never be a dancer.”
I sucked in air to try and buffer the blow. I should be used to this already. For years I’d been hearing comments like this from her, and it was time to face it head on. “Right,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I was able. “Because I look like this and you look like…you.”
