I tug Hall after me into the living room, but the hope of peace is obliterated when I see what’s happening on the television (105 inches—impossible to miss): theDancing with the Starstitle card sparkles across the screen. Cannons shoot off in my gut.
I should go over and switch it off, but I can’t move.
Athena’s model friend Candy Olship sambas onstage, hips swishing. Instead of a skirt, she’s wearing a few red tassels, and she’sstunning. Athena wanders into the room, followed by the rest of the family. “Oh, look, it’s Candy! We have to watch this.”
I’m all braced for Lucas, but still flinch when he dances out, smiling the same smile I fell in love with. I wonder how many other women are haunted by that smile, and as his dancing partner beams back at him, my body is clinched by a funny, cold feeling. I was once hospitalized for dehydration after a day of sledding on sand dunes with friends. When they stuck the needle into my arm and started pumping me with fluids, the needle slipped out of the vein and I felt this horrible coldness seeping into all the wrong parts. Panic hit the roof. I slammed the call button to bring a nurse back in, wondering what would happen if too much fluid leaked out where it didn’t belong, if I would die. Making one-way eye contact with Lucas feels exactly like that, except everywhere: my temples, behind my ears, double-helixing around my spine. An invasive foreign substance.
“Hall, I’d like for you to send Dani Seeley a gift basket of Godiva chocolates,” I mutter quietly so that only he can hear me. “And some nice wine and cheese.”
“Done.”
The audience claps for the four pairs of dancers. I don’t ordinarily watch this show, so I don’t know who any of the professional dancers are, but I recognize the celebrities. Other than Candy and Lucas, there’s also the well-known daughter of a Republican senator, her claim to fame being the daughter of a Republican senator, and Craig Robinson. The camera pans up to the balcony where past competitors are clapping, past Kimberly J.Brown and Freddie Prinze Jr., to Lacey Chabert, the sight of whom makes Hall spring into the air.
“Iloveher!” he cries. He grabs my father and hugs him. Then sets him down immediately when he notes the look on Dad’s face. “Sorry, I justloveLacey Chabert. Don’t you justloveLacey Chabert?”
Hall cannot believe Lacey Chabert isn’t competing in the finale, since she’s more talented than anyone in the world. I try not to feel jealous. He gets as close to the TV as he’s physically able, threading his hands through his hair as if prepping himself to meet her in person. All throughout Craig’s and Candy’s dances, he’s filling us in on Lacey’s film history like a talking IMDb page. “Doesn’t this show usually air on Mondays?” Kaia asks in her lazy, vaguely interested way, but she’s promptly drowned out by Hall’s play-by-play ofChristmas Waltz.
“It’s one of her best,” he informs us. “Christmas in Romemight be my favorite, but”—he frames his mouth with a curved hand, as if imparting a tremendous secret—“don’t tellWinter in Vail.”
“I won’t,” Felix and Mom say in unison, one of them sarcastic and the other sincere. I glare at my brother.
He crosses his eyes at me.
Hall’s good humor evaporates when it’s Lucas’s time to shine. Strobe lights spangle Lucas’s face as his charismatic essence unrolls from center stage like a fog. Lucas’s most popular single, “Send Tweet,” which he dropped a month after our breakup, begins to play, and I am struck with a very, very bad feeling.
I wish I had a thicker skin. I try to be a steel wall, but a deft jab sends my confidence plummeting. Lucas’s dancing partner emerging from the shadows in a red polka-dotted swing dress is a throat punch, and I feel my mouth curving into a gruesome smile. Sothisis why Lucas posted about me, dragging my name, our relationship, back into the public consciousness.
They dance together, looking so in love, until she pretends to stab him in the heart with a toy knife, and Lucas death-drops to roaring applause. As he rises back to his feet, face twisted with emotion, the song fluidly rolls into a passionate instrumental cover of “Evil Woman.” It’s intolerably cheesy. I can barely see him, my vision is so red and pulsing.
Lucas goading his fans into attacking me anew was for votes on a dance competition show. Using me to stay relevant, to increase his odds of winning. He was in a relationship with Dani for so much longer than he was in a relationship with me, their breakup fresher, but I suppose their split wasn’t sensational enough for a whole dance number. How must Dani feel, watching this?
“Oh, this little twat,” Dad snarls, watching him. He never met Lucas, but he knew we dated, since the media documented every minute of our relationship with almost frightening obsession. My parents came by my house once when the paparazzi were hanging around, snapping pictures of me whenever I opened the door. A six-figure payout would go to whoever got the first clear shot of me wearing an engagement ring, so there were strangers with cameras outside my house day and night. One of their vans backed into Dad’s car when we left to drive to a restaurant, busting his taillight, and he climbed out of the car to holler at them. After our relationship ended, my parents were relieved. I told them Lucas “didn’t treat me right,” so they likely deduced that he cheated. If Dad really knew what Lucas was like, he’d be in jail right now.
“Let’s turn it off,” suggests Mom, but we’re all riveted. Nobody moves, except for Kaia, who turns around on the couch and rests her chin atop it, checking up on me. Worry sparks in her eyes.
You okay?she mouths.
I nod.
She extends an arm, hand squeezing mine. She yanks me closer, then whispers, “I’ve got a hex on him.”
When she turns around again, Hall leans in. “You want to go bake some cookies?”
“No. I want you to have Lucas roll around on the floor like he’s on fire.”
Hall glances from me to the television. Thinks better of asking me if I’m sure. And then Lucas is dropping to his knees, onto his back, rolling around on the floor, just like he’s on fire.
Power surges through my veins, blazing hot overtaking that horrible, eerie cold until it’s burned away, until it’s gone. I am the Goddess of Revenge, masterful, unstoppable.
Athena snorts. “What is hedoing?”
“Interpretive dancing,” her husband mansplains. “Very popular nowadays, on these sorts of shows. I don’t like it.”
Around and around he rolls, for long enough that his dancing partner, Jenna, starts to get concerned. She bends forward, whispering to him. I hear whispering, too—that of my fifth-grade language arts teacher:Your only limit is your imagination!
“Jump up,” I murmur, staring at my weasel of an ex-boyfriend without blinking. Lucas jumps up.
“Macarena.”
