Page 35 of With You

When her breathing evens out, I realise she’s fallen asleep, and not in the most comfortable of positions. I stand, curving one arm around her back, and the other underneath her legs so I can lift her. She makes a small noise but doesn’t wake, even when I carry her to her bed. The covers are already half pulled back so I place her down as gently as I can, careful not to jolt her awake. I cover her up, but when I pull back to retreat to the living room, her hand reaches out for mine.

Amelie’s fingers close around mine as she nuzzles into her pillow, and I don’t have the heart to try and take them away from her. I drop to the floor, resting my head on the side of the bed right before I fall asleep with my hand in hers.

Chapter 14

Amelie

Staying true to his word, River has a studio reserved for us as soon as we get back to university. After leaving our bags in our rooms and getting changed, we meet there to start practicing. It’s the first time we’re going to attempt more than just the first minute of the performance, and I spent the short plane ride back to Paris looking over my notes.

When I woke up this morning, River was slumped next to my bed, and it took me a few minutes to remember that he’d gotten locked out of his own room. Grayson apologised at breakfast, but from the way River kept twisting his neck on the flight back, it was obvious that sleeping on the floor hadn’t been the most comfortable. I must have offered to let him sleep on the sofa, but after watching the performance for the millionth time, I can’t recall much that happened after that. I don’t even remember getting up and going to bed.

River’s already at the studio when I get there, warming up at the barre, grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips, and a white T-shirt stretching across his torso. I take a spot a few feet away from him to start my own warm-up, loosening my muscles so I’m ready to dance.

Once I’ve gone through my usual routine, I check my notes again, figuring out the best way to approach this. I haven’t performed many pas de deux before, and I hadn’t realised just how intertwined each dancers’ role is in them. There are so many parts that I can’t perform alone, reliant on River carrying me in some way.

The first time we practiced, I could barely stand to have his hands on me. It didn’t feel right to have someone touching me like that, especially someone who I hardly tolerate on a good day. The last time we practiced together ended in an argument, but I’m confident it won’t happen this time. We seem to understand each other a lot more now, and with the air between us cleared, it can only mean we dance better as a pair.

“You ready?” River asks as he comes closer.

I show him my notebook, detailing what I want us to practice first. I expect River to say more or give some input, but he seems fine with going along with whatever I want to do. He sets up his phone to record us, and starts the music on mine before we move into the centre of the room, taking up our first position.

River’s hands close around my waist as he stands behind me, but I don’t feel any discomfort this time. The weight of them settles me, makes me feel like I have something tethering me close to him. We find our pace as the music loops, running through the first minute a few times as we get our bearings. Once we’re comfortable with that, we move on to the next sequences, going slowly into each move as we try to learn it.

Our practice is less hurried this time. Without the added stress of having such a short timeframe to learn everything in, it’s a lot easier to figure out what we have to do. That’s not to say I’m not constantly overthinking every single move and how much time we have left. Even though we’re both great dancers, we’re so used to being alone that it’s a learning curve.

There’s times River gets ahead of himself, lifting me before I’ve even started to raise myself off the ground. Or sometimes I jump into a movement before River is ready, and his hands have to grab on to me quickly to stop me from falling. Although the actual moves aren’t that difficult to learn, the hardest part is learning River.

I’ve seen him dance a lot during classes; his moves are always powerful yet elegant. But it’s clear he enjoys dancing alone, keeping to himself at all times, even when a handful of ballerinas want to dance with him.

It’s harder to read him when we’re so close. From a distance, I can break apart his moves, figure out what he’s about to do before he does it, and understand his dancing more. But being so close to him, having to be guided by him, it’s a lot to get used to.

We spend the next few hours breaking down the routine, repeating moves we’re struggling with as we try to transition seamlessly into the full dance. The only breaks we take are for water or to catch our breath, both of us ignoring the outside world and acting as if we’re the only two people in existence.

In all honesty, I didn’t expect River to put so much effort into this. I figured he agreed to dance with me because he felt bad for me, but now I think he’s enjoying it, too. Every time we mess up a move, he stops to figure out where it went wrong, encouraging me to try again with him so we can get it right. Whenever we perfect a move, he’s overly enthusiastic, smiling brightly at me as if we’ve won a competition together.

At first, I couldn’t imagine dancing with River, but now I can’t imagine doing it with anyone but him. There’s never been another dancer that I thought had the same determination as I do, the same raw talent and skill, but River has surprised me in more ways than one.

I don’t want to think too deeply about everything that’s been happening between us. I find myself being a lot nicer to him than I used to. Every time I want to say something sarcastic or dry to him, he looks at me and it gets completely lost. I think it’s the same for him, too.

He’s had multiple chances and reasons to back out of this—he never even had to agree to it in the first place. I can count on my fingers the amount of times I’ve been kind to him in the entire time we’ve known each other, only showing him the bare minimum of politeness when we’re with our friends because I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable. But River agreed without a second thought, and has been nothing but supportive the whole time.

It’s disarming to go from thinking you hate someone to realising that was never the case. Looking back now, I think I just hated how good he was, that everything felt like it was handed to him. But now I can see he’s worked just as hard as I have to get to where he is.

“Toward the end,” River pants, water bottle in hand, as he takes a sip. “The kiss.”

The kiss.

We’ve avoided mentioning it so far, but it’s a pivotal part of the routine. The climax of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony pas de deux that everyone looks forward to.

“The kiss,” I echo back to him.

“I won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with,” he says, breathing evening out, but his chest still rising and falling rapidly. There’s a soft blush on his cheeks, the tips of his ears tinged pink, and I don’t know if it’s from the heat of the room or the topic of conversation.

I chew on the inside of my cheek. I know it’s something we’ll have to do. We can’t perform the routine without it, or I’ll risk losing out because I can't commit to a performance properly. But the idea of kissing River—having my first kiss with him—it’s too much to think about.

“We have to do it,” I tell him, averting my gaze to the window so I don’t have to look at him.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “We don’t have to do it today, though, if you don’t want to.”