Page 166 of Captivated

She told him she was fine.

And she was.

Mostly.

She grinned, and quickly slid the phone back into the bag before turning to face the room again. The strange thing was, she didn’t look forward to this as much as she once used to. She didn’t get a sense of dread or fear now when she put on her pointe shoes—a feat she overcame by talking for hours to a therapist her father called in—but something wasn’t right about this place for her anymore.

Or maybe it wasn’t the place at all.

Maybe it was her.

And ballet.

She could move, and she could still dance like she always had, but it didn’t have that same freeing feeling it used to. She didn’t love it deep in her bones the way she used to. Sometimes, that scared her more than anything.

Sometimes, that made her more determined than anything else could, too. Determined to dance, regardless if Rich Earl had taken it from her. Determined to get on the stage at least one more time and be the ballerina who lived and breathed ballet.

She could do it.

She would do it.

She just didn’t know why she was doing it anymore.

“Let’s start again from the top,” Gordo said when Liliana rejoined the others.

From the top it was …

“Have you just come from the studio?” Cara asked.

Liliana nodded, and took a sip from her to-go cup of coffee. “I did.”

“And how was it today?”

“Same as usual.”

“Try descriptive words,” the therapist urged.

Liliana laughed under her breath, but thought about what she had been told, too. Cara Rossi had walked into her hospital room two days after Liliana arrived, and explained why she was there with a smile that could make anyone feel comforted.

She had a therapist before, but Cara was not the same.

She was entirely different.

A woman like Liliana, in a life like hers, with a husband much like the rest of the men Liliana had grown up in. The woman hailed from Chicago, but lived in Toronto, Canada with her husband, Gian, and their five boys.

She specialized in helping women—addicts, or victims of domestic violence, specifically. She could make Liliana talk for hours, but it only felt like minutes. She never once looked at Liliana with pity, or judgement for anything she said.

Yeah, she was something else.

Something special.

“I guess you could say I just haven’t regained my old love for it, yet,” Liliana said, “or maybe it’s that I haven’t found what I’m looking for in ballet, if you get what I mean. I used to dance and feel like nothing else mattered. It was just me and the stage, but now it’s me and … nothing.”

Cara raised a brow as she took in Liliana’s words. “Why do you think that is?”

“I think ballet took something from me once, and then he used it against me again. So, instead of having this deep love and respect for what ballet gave me, and what I can do with it, I am stuck feeling like it’s a weight I would rather rid myself of before it pulls me back down.”

“Use his name. He doesn’t get the power to make you silent.”