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“Good luck with telling Ford!” I shouted, getting into my car.
“Good luck with being a douche face!”
“Love you!” I waved, grinning like a madman at her.
“Love you too.”
I waited until she closed the door and chuckled to myself. Belle and I had the kind of relationship people were jealous of, but what they didn’t understand was the pain each of us had been through. We’d had so much shit happen in our lives, that when we got together, we liked to reminisce about the good times and laugh and banter as much as we could, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell her things about my time on tour, and that she couldn’t tell me about the nightmares she still had. We knew how to balance the good with the bad, but most of all, we knew we always had each other, no matter what.
So, as I reversed off her driveway, I felt a sadness come over me. Seeing Belle was the only time I truly felt something other than the monotonous daily drag, apart from when I’d been at the club with Jax, Al, and the MC members. Lotus had me feeling something I hadn’t in a long time…
As soon as that thought entered my head, I flung it away, not even willing to entertain it.
Chapter Four
ELODIE
I stretched my arms over my head, extending my fingers as much as I could, and then I slowly moved to the left, letting my body flow naturally to the music. The rhythm and dance beats were drummed into me so much, I didn’t need to count or really listen—I just felt. Felt the emotion behind each movement and felt the raw passion of the story I was telling while the entire time encompassing the loneliness from the lyrics in the song.
Dancing didn’t come as easy to me as some people. I had to work hard at it, but most of all, I had to repeat each move over and over and over again. Repetition was key to getting the technique just right, but it was the emotion I let burst out of me that couldn’t be taught. So, as I dropped back to the floor and then curled my body up and back out, I let myself bleed to the music. I laid myself bare, not leaving one tiny piece of me inside.
Consciously, I knew my dance teacher, Aleste, was watching me, but it was as if she wasn’t even in the room with me. Dance competitions were coming up, and although I was desperate to compete in as many as I could, I couldn’t swing it. Each competition cost money and time away from my job, things I couldn’t do every few weeks during the competition season, so I’d settled for two, one of which was next weekend.
The crescendo of the beat got louder, and I flew into the air, doing the splits and bowing my back while pointing my toes, ready to feel the floor on the sole of my foot. As soon as the cold wood connected with my foot, I stretched my arms up and slowly brought them down into my finishing pose as the last beats of the music drifted softly through the studio.
“Yes!” Aleste shouted, clapping so loud it echoed in the room, which had three walls of mirrors. “You were so close to nailing it.”
I pulled in several deep breaths and concentrated on locking away every bit of emotion I’d exposed. I didn’t care about doing it on stage because everyone thought I was telling a fictional story, but more times than not, I was showing them me—the real me. The me riddled with emotions I kept under control any other time.
“You need to make sure you’re extending your leg and arm in this section,” Aleste continued, and I watched her as she showed me the two eight counts toward the middle of the routine. “Apart from that, it was damn near perfection.”
I kept my lips in a straight line because unless it was perfect, there was no point in praising me. I only had two chances to show people what I could do, and once they were over, I had no idea where I could go from there if I wasn’t offered something. I wasn’t the kind of person who had a definite plan and knew each step for me to get there. All I knew was that I wanted to dance, and I wanted to be able to do what I loved, and however I could do that was okay with me. A scholarship, a dance contract—anything.
“I’m gonna go again,” I told Aleste, moving to the center of the studio.
“No,” Aleste said, her tone firm. “You’ve done it four times today.”
I didn’t even think about it as I replied, “I can go another time.”
Aleste shook her head. “You have to know when to stop, Elodie,” she admonished. “That’s the battle you face. Because if you don’t know when to stop, your risk of injury increases, which means time away from dancing.” She took four steps to me and halted a couple of feet away. “That’s enough for today. Let your muscles rest for a while.”
“I—”
“No arguments.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “Go and get something to eat, and then do something a normal teenager would.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I wasn’t a normal teenager. I may have been eighteen, but I was fighting to survive each day like I was in my mid-twenties, afraid my youth was getting away from me.
I was working extra hours because one of the girls from work had quit suddenly, which meant I was picking up her shift in a couple of hours—a shift I usually wouldn’t take because it was a weekday and my private-dance-lesson day. But the extra money would come in handy, especially after paying Tony the rent my mom owed him, so if that meant doing more work and cramming in study time when I could, I’d do it. I was thinking long term, and my goal was to have enough money at the end of the school year so I’d have options.
“Fine,” I finally huffed out. “But can I use the studio on Friday straight after school and before your lessons?”
Aleste smiled gently. “You know you can. You don’t have to ask.” She stepped away and let her hands slide off my shoulders. “That reminds me…” She moved her lips side to side as if she were contemplating what she was about to say. The wrinkles around her eyes told a story of her laughing and smiling, and not of age.
She’d been teaching me for ten years after opening this studio, something she’d done after her own injury she’d had when on tour with a dance company. She was only twenty-four when it had happened, and she was constantly telling me how short this career could be, which was why I needed my backup plan and to graduate high school. At least then I would have something to fall back on—I hoped.
“How do you feel about starting to teach a couple of the younger kids’ classes?”
My eyes widened, and my stomach fluttered at the thought. “Seriously?”
