Page 65 of Dancing in the Dark

I absolutely reject the idea of telling a child she’s doing it wrong.

Even if, technically, she is.

My supporting leg trembles for every second I remain in position, but then I lower again and relieve my knee of the twist it never much liked anyway.

I wear loose sweatpants today, not the tutu I wore every day of my youth, which means feeling soft cotton on my legs instead of the gentle brush of air. I don’t own a wall of mirrors like my childhood studios did, so I imagine my form instead, and pay no attention to the ankles I obsessed over for too many years.

The waistband of my sweats has been flipped once, twice, three times, to tighten the two-sizes too large pants I enjoy when no one else is around to see them, and the tank top I pulled from my drawer sits snug around my torso, the spaghetti strap not all that dissimilar to those on the gown I wore last night, the lacy fabric kinda like that woman’s underwear today.

Except where she wore black, mine is white.

I draw a deep breath and stretch my lungs as large as I can make them. Rolling my shoulders back and moving into second position, I drape my arms wide. My fingers long. My neck extended.

God. I undo all the slouching and slumping and lazy posture working at a desk all day long leads me to, then I elongate my limbs and drop back into a plié.

“Seraphina?”

A heavy one-two thump slams against my door and brings me around with a startled gasp. My breath comes fast, and the relaxation I fought for vanishes with a single shouted word.

“Seraphina?” Anderson knocks again, louder this time. “I can hear your music, Sera. We need to talk.”

Go away, go away, go away!

“Not about us,” he softens his tone. “About the China deal. Lawrence asked me to come over and brief you on it.”

For fuck’s sake. A headache pounds in the back of my skull, but I stalk back to my phone and switch my music off. Bending and tugging on the ribbon of my pointe shoe, I yank the first one off. Anderson doesn’t deserve to see me like this. Then I repeat on the other side and take the second off. Tossing them into a basket by my couch, I turn toward my front door with a nasty scowl and enough pulsing anger that I’ll probably get myself into trouble if I’m not careful.

“Sera?”

“I’m coming!” I stalk across my living room and swing my door open, yanking my shirt down to cover every inch of my exposed midriff and folding my arms to ensure he doesn’t see much of anything at all. “What’s the problem with the China deal?”

He ducks through the doorway before I can even think to stop him, circling and walking backward with his hands raised in surrender. “Okay. So Lawrence didn’t actually send me, but I knew you wouldn’t let me in unless I said it was about work.”

“I wouldn’t have let you in because I don’t want to talk about us!” I whip my door shut with a booming clatter. Anything to save my neighbors from bearing witness to this bullshit. “Dammit, Anderson! I don’t want to go around and around about all this anymore. I don’t want to talk about us. There is no us.”

“There used to be an us.” He swallows heavily, his Adam’s apple barely visible in the shadows I’ve created for myself. “And after… we could still be professional.”

“That’s because after, you and I hardly ever saw each other!” I stomp across my apartment and sling my blinds up, inviting the lowering sun into my space once more. I refuse to be in the dark with this man ever again. “Back then, I spoke to you once a year. Twice if I was especially unlucky.” I move left and grab the next blind string. “We barely crossed paths, so sure, I could wish you well and hope never to actually see you. Now?” I move left again and work on the last set of blinds. “Six months after I started working for the mayor, you went and got yourself a job that ties heavily with City Hall.”

“The two are not connected,” he groans. “You make it sound like I finagled a promotion hinging desperately on positioning myself closer to you. That’s not the case, Sera.”

“Don’t call me Sera!” Turning from my windows, I bring my fiery ire back to the man who shattered the heart I’d spent years fortifying after my arrival in Copeland City. “Don’t act like we’re friends.”

“What are you⁠—”

“I don’t like you, I don’t want to be near you, I don’t want to talk about us, and if I had it my way, you’d return to the old firm you used to work for back when we were together, because at least then, you were soooo busy, you simply couldn’t make it home in time for dinner six nights out of seven.

“Sera—”

“But you had time to sleep with that firm’s receptionist, right? And Miranda fucking London, television’s bustiest bimbo.”

“Please stop⁠—”

“And then there were the hookers,” I spit out. “Like, you actually took money from our joint account and paid for sex. Life was obviously soooo hard for you, what with the little fiancée at home refusing to put out, so you had to get it elsewhere.”

“I was grieving!”

“No! I was grieving! You were getting blowjobs on company hours and crying about how hard life was to anyone who would listen. I was grieving, and I was healing, and you were the reason for all of it.”