The three of them laughed, then fell silent. For a moment, the awkward question ofwhat now?hung in the air. Melissa wasn’t their sworn enemy anymore, but she wasn’t exactly their friend, either.
Melissa looked across the plaza at the theater, where some of their colleagues were likely warming up already in the largest studio. “I’m going to skip company class today. It might be a bit uncomfortable. I think I’ll go uptown to Moves and take an open class.” She hesitated, then added in a rush, “Do you guys wanna come with me?”
Heather smiled, surprised to find herself touched by the invitation. “Maybe some other time. I’m so jet-lagged.”
“And I haven’t slept properly in days,” Carly added.
“Okay,” Melissa said. She twisted her fingers together and took a shaky breath before she spoke again. “Heather, I truly am so sorry for everything. I hope one day you can forgive me. And I hope one day I can be as brave as you were up there.”
Heather glanced at Carly, then pulled Melissa into a quick hug. “You’re already brave. And you’re already enough, okay? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Melissa nodded into her shoulder, then pulled away, headed toward Broadway. Together, Heather and Carly walked to the 1 train and went home.
A few hours later, their stomachs full of dumplings from their favorite place around the corner, Heather and Carly sat on the couch. For the fifth time in as many minutes, Carly leaned toward the coffee table and checked her phone.
“He’ll call,” Heather said, reassuringly. “And remember, if this doesn’t work, we have a backup plan. If Mr. K calls our bluff, he’ll regret it. For once, the ballet gossip machine might actually do some good in the world. But hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Carly flipped her phone over, then leaned back and swung her legs over Heather’s lap.
“Thank you for doing this for me.”
“You’d do the same for me. You saved me from marrying Jack; it’s only fair that I save you right back.”
Carly sighed. “I missed you. But I’m glad you went down there and showed the world what you could do.”
“I wish I hadn’t shown theentireworld, but thanks.”
“I wish I’d been there. And I wish I’d met Campsite Guy.”
Heather bit her lip. “Marcus,” she said softly. She’d missed the shape of his name in her mouth.
“Marcus. Are you going to tell me what happened with him?”
Heather didn’t know where to start. She knew where it ended, though, so she told Carly the whole story: from walking in on Marcus to their wrenching, ultimately pointless decision to end it, to their awful fight, to Marcus’s headshot vanishing from the company’s “Meet Our Dancers” page.
“How was the sex?” Carly interrupted at one point.
Heather grinned despite herself.
“The sex was good.” She thought about that final night with Marcus in her bed. About the sound of her name in his broad accent, and his fingers digging gently into her hips as he pulled her against him and pushed her inevitably over the edge into orgasm. “Really, really good.”
“Better than with Jack?” Carly’s own smile was eager and vaguely evil.
“Well, yeah, because he wasn’t having it with anyone else.” For the first time since Heather arrived home, Carly laughed, and the sound of it flooded Heather with relief.
“It must have been good for you to break the company’s cardinal rule,” Carly said when her cackle subsided. “For you to do something that naughty? I didn’t think sex of that caliber existed.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t work out. I’m not very good at breaking the rules, apparently.”
“I’ve been telling you for years, it takes practice,” Carly said. “So...that’s it?”
“That’s it. I haven’t heard from him, and I don’t think I will. At least the video isn’t everywhere anymore. Everyone’s moved on to the next piece of ballet gossip.”
Carly shook her head and smiled at Heather with a mix of pity and awe. “That must have been some damn good sex.” Heather managed a weak smile, her mind still on what she and Marcus said to each other the day he was fired and she wasn’t. Carly’s smile drooped.
“Hey, I know you,” she said in a suddenly solemn voice. “You didn’t just sneak around for the sex. Right?”
Heather’s throat tightened, and she shook her head, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling as she felt them fill with tears.
