As Jack frequently reminded her.
“Perfect or not, you deserve someone who’s kind to you, Heather,” Carly said, repeating the words she’d said dozens of times in the seven years since Heather and Jack got together. “Kind to you in publicandin private.”
“Jack is kind to me! He just wants me to be the best version of myself, okay? Which is what I want, too. And the best version of myself would at least try to see his point of view. Maybe there’s another explanation.” She gestured at Carly’s phone. Knowing Jack, there would be an explanation.And knowing you, that icy voice whispered again,you’ll let yourself believe it.
“Another explanation for why he’s putting his hands all over a nineteen-year-old when he’s engaged to you?” Carly’s eyes were wide, her forehead creased in disbelief.
“I—maybe—I don’t know, okay, but I love him, and when you love someone, you forgive their mistakes.”
“Heather, he didn’t, like, dent your car—he cheated! I know you love him, and I know you’re scared—”
“I’m not scared!” Heather shot back. “Relationships are complicated! Not everything is black and white!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Carly said with a grim laugh, her red curls bobbing at the movement. “That picture is in color! God, I can’t believe you’re making excuses for him again.”
“I’m not making excuses!” Heather shouted back. “You’re just looking for the worst in him, like you always do. You’regladhe cheated, because you’ve never liked us together.”
For a moment, Carly looked speechless, something Heather had never witnessed in their two decades of friendship. She stared at Heather, her mouth slightly open, apparently too shocked to yell back.
Heather glanced away so she wouldn’t have to see Carly’s face, her eyes landing back on theVoguephoto. They’d posed for somegorgeous shots that day, and Heather still thought longingly of how her delicate gown had clung to her skin and swirled around her ankles. Somehow only Jack’s photo had ended up framed and hung on their wall.
Carly exhaled slowly, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and steady. But it sounded almost pleading. “Of course I’m not glad. I don’t want him to have cheated, but he did. And you deserve someone who’s going to be kind and faithful to you, always.”
When Heather didn’t reply, Carly took a step toward her and reached for her hand. “Please, just listen to me. You can’t stay with him. You can’tmarryhim. Please, don’t make excuses for him this time. You deserve better than this. You have always deserved better than this.”
She doesn’t understand, she’s never understood,that ice-cold voice whispered.She doesn’t know what it feels like to be chosen by someone as dazzling as Jack. She just stands on the sidelines and snipes, throwing bombs and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.
“I know what I deserve, and I know what I want,” Heather said, looking her best friend square in the face. “I want to have a mature, adult relationship—one that actually lasts. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
At Carly’s sharp intake of breath, Heather instantly regretted her words. She looked to the coffee table, fixing her eyes on the two cups of iced coffee Carly had brought with her. They were pale and watery with melted ice now and sweating in a pool of condensation.
Carly shook her head, looking defeated.
“Fine,” she said dully. She yanked her bag off the floor and tossed her phone inside. “Enjoy your mature, adult relationship with the man who’s fucking a teenager.”
Carly turned sharply and strode to the apartment door, shaking her head. A moment later, the door snapped shut, and Heather was alone.
**
Heather stared at the door, her heart hammering under her pajama shirt. A hot wave of shame crept up the back of her neck as the seconds ticked by.
She and Carly almost never fought, except about Jack: Jack asking her to move in so quickly after they started dating, Jack being jealous of the time she spent with her best friend. But despite Carly’s repeated criticisms of him, they’d been soul sisters since they were tweens, when Heather had been new to the company’s school.
Carly had taken a spot next to her at the barre on that first, nerve-racking day in the imposing gray building that towered over Sixty-Sixth Street. During one of the very first exercises, Heather had looked anxiously at her reflection in the mirror and caught a glimpse of Carly, standing behind her, doing tendus with her eyes crossed and her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. Heather had giggled, and the knot in her stomach started to loosen.Maybe this place isn’t so scary after all, she remembered thinking. They had been best friends ever since.
They made for an odd pair sometimes, the rebel and the rule-follower, and she sometimes wished Carly would grow up a little. But Heather had always wanted a little sister, and Carly was like a little sister and a cool aunt, all in a best friend’s body.
Like all the other girls in their class, she and Carly had both had crushes on Jack. Boys in ballet were generally treated like golden children, because there were so few of them and it was so hard to keep them enrolled. But Jack really was a golden child. In his youth he’d been blond and freckled, with big blue eyes, an impish smile, and obvious natural talent. He had grown up surrounded by ballet, and even as a boy he’d carried himself with the easy assurance of someone who had never questioned that he belonged in this world. Not just in it, but at the top of it. Teachers praised him constantly. He was always surrounded by admiring boys, and the whispers of smitten girls chased him wherever he went.
Carly’s crush had faded—once, when they were fifteen, she’d told Jack he had his head so far up his own ass it was a miracle hecould dance at all—but Heather’s had persisted. By the time they both graduated from the school and were made apprentices in the company together, he was already a standout in the corps de ballet. The year he spent as a soloist felt like a mere formality, a short stop on the way to stardom. Everyone knew Jack Andersen was born and bred to be a principal dancer at New York Ballet, just like his parents before him.
Heather had spent those first few years in the company trying to stay afloat, spending almost every night on stage with the corps before trudging home to the Chinatown apartment she shared with Carly. Usually Carly would nod off on the subway and Heather would pinch herself to stay awake, watching over her friend and rousing her just in time to stagger off the 1 train at Canal Street. Once home, they’d take turns showering in the tiny, dingy bathroom and then spend an hour breaking in and sewing their pointe shoes for the next day’s class, rehearsals, and show.
When Heather thought about those years now, most of it was a blur of exhaustion, but one night was preserved in her mind in ultra-high-def clarity: the night of the fall gala, her third year in the corps. Jack had found her on the edge of the dance floor and asked her to dance with him. She’d ignored the jealous whispers of the other young dancers around her—and Carly’s raised, skeptical eyebrows—and said yes.
She still got goosebumps thinking about that night. Jack had looked so handsome in his designer tux. He had held her with such firm assurance, his arm wrapped securely around her back and his cold cufflinks pressing thrillingly into the flesh revealed by the backless dress she’d bought at TJ Maxx on a break between rehearsals. She remembered thinking it was like something out of a teenage fantasy. But they weren’t teenagers anymore, and it was real: he really wanted to kiss her at the end of the night, really wanted to keep kissing her the following morning, really wanted to sling his chiseled arm possessively over her shoulder as they walked the shaded green streets around his apartment on West Seventy-FourthStreet. Heather had never had a boyfriend before, had never really had the time or the energy, but she threw herself into being Jack’s girlfriend, knowing that even on his moody, mean days, he loved her just as much as she loved him.
And once it was clear they were an item, Jack and the company had been eager to capitalize on their story: The superstar and the scholarship kid, the son of ballet royalty and the daughter of a single mom. The principal dancer and the girl who, the coverage always seemed to imply, he plucked from corps de ballet obscurity and transformed into a rising star. Even if it wasn’t strictly true—as Carly always reminded her, Heather worked her butt off to get into the company and to keep her place there—the coverage still made her feel like she’d won the lottery when Jack chose her. He could have had anyone in the world, but he lovedher.
