Page 4 of Darkest Obsession

I don’t like that kind of attention. I work hard, I dance hard, but I don’t like taking away attention that we all should share. If I did a great job, so did Kola and Sylvia. I’m surprised Sylvia doesn’t want to dance the lead, but she completely refused when I tried to push the job over to her.

Sylvia swings her hips and does a little victory dance. “We threw the word diversity and initiative into our proposal and we have ourselves a dance team. We’re going to make this school so much fun.”

Sylvia’s sister went to college here before the name change. The Fox Academy. It makes this spooky gothic place seem that much scarier. But my new friends are right. If we can pull a dance team together, we don’t have to do one of these British sports for our physical education requirement, and we can spend time doing something we actually love.

“Let’s take it from the top,” I suggest the minute I catch my breath. I don’t want to lose the moves before I nail them down. If we’re going to teach a bunch of white kids with no experience how to shake their ass, we need to be in peak form.

“I need some more water first,” Sylvia says, taking a sip from her water bottle and adjusting one of my dreadlocks back into place. “But let’s do this!”

I’m so lucky my first friend here was Sylvia. She literally hugged me the first time we met and squealed with excitement about finally meeting another black girl. I knew the school would be primarily white, but I didn’t know it would be this isolating. Anything is better than being at home right now. I just need to remember that.

Kola glances down at her phone and pumps her fist excitedly. She manages the recruits along with the choreography.

“Yes! We got new recruits. Look, they’re coming to rehearsal.”

Kola tilts her phone so we can all stand around her and admire her skills at recruitment.

“Who?” Sylvia says, crowding around Kola’s phone with me to look at whatever has her swiping excitedly. Kola pops her hips and does a little dance as she points to our new recruits. I am definitely not in the South anymore. The people on the screen look like they have about as much rhythm as bread pudding.

“We’re making them audition, right?” I mumble.

Teaching a few newbies won’t be a problem, but everyone on Kola’s list looks disastrously free of rhythm.

“Um, yeah, I guess. But girl, we have to take everyone if we want the dance team to succeed,” Kola points out.

I scroll down the list and find one of the only boys to join the team.

“Do you really think a guy named Roger can bust a move?” I grumble, putting my forefinger underneath his name. Roger doesn’t seem like he has rhythm but at least he’s good looking. If his looks help us recruit more dancers, I can keep quiet.

Sylvia snickers in what I think counts as agreement.

“We can train them,” Kola reassures me. “Mold them into rhythm-having dancers and maybe even entrepreneurs.”

Sylvia rolls her eyes. “Slow down. First, we’re going to have to teach them about clapping on the two and the four instead of the one and the five or whatever it is they do.”

Sylvia laughs at her own joke along with me and Kola. Her bubbly spirit is so different from the energy of people back home. It’s not that she doesn’t care what people think or she’s above it all. She’s just… genuine.

We have to stop giggling over Sylvia’s joke when a tall guy pushes the door to the dance studio open, completely shirtless and scraping some obnoxious contraption across the ground as he drags it behind him. The sound immediately causes me to wince. Annoying.

The three of us turn to look at him and… I recognize him. Apparently, so does Sylvia.

“Thomas? What are you doing here?” She says, contorting her face in confusion and putting her hands on his hips. I can’t bring myself to look him in the eye but before I dart my gaze away from him, I notice how grey his eyes are.

Thomas. Yeah, that was definitely his name. Ugh. The only thing that could make my awkward meltdown with Jude Fox any worse is running into one of the witnesses of my public shame. I don’t even know why I hooked up with Jude. I mean, he looks good. But looks aren’t everything, you know? If I hadn’t been so drunk and stoned, I probably wouldn’t have said yes to him. And Thomas knows.

“We’re taking over,” Thomas says, dropping his contraption on the ground with a loud thud.

“Hey, this is a dance studio you can’t just drop metal on the floor,” I snap.

Thomas snickers, stopping himself from slouching to make his body taller as he intones condescendingly, “It’s not metal. It’s an ergometer.”

His accent sounds so ridiculously rich.

“A what?” Sylvia asks, putting her hands on her hips, about as unimpressed with Thomas’ contraption as I am.

“A rowing machine,” Thomas replies snidely. “For the crew team. Now scurry. We’re using this room.”

“No. You’re not. We’re the dance team and we’re using this room,” I snap.