Isla:Luka’s in a mood too. Is there something in the water?
I turn the phone face down.
There’s no way I’m calling back Luka or Scottie, not like this, not until I’m an ocean away and I can’t change my mind.
If I hear Scottie’s voice, I will break. If I see a selfie of the WAGS girls at Oakley’s without me, I might actually start screaming and never stop.
On the second morning, my alarm still goes off at seven.
My body is so used to it, years of training, years of early barre, that even heartbreak can’t override the muscle memory.
I lie there listening to the soft, expensive silence of my grandmother’s apartment and think: You can lose everything else, but you can’t lose this.
She can take Scottie. She can take my freedom. She can put me back in a cage with an engagement contract and a half-million-dollar necklace I never wanted.
But she doesn’t get ballet because it’s all I have left.
I force myself out of bed. My feet hit the cold floor, and I wobble, legs heavy with days of not stretching properly, of lying there curled around my own misery.
The bathroom mirror shows a version of me I’ve never seen before. Not since my mother’s death. And maybe that’s why… because this feels like death. The death of a marriage that, for just a moment, I thought I was going to keep. How stupid was I?
Luka’s intentions were in the right place to try to get me out of my father’s plans, but now, I’m still going to have to live with them, all while knowing what it felt like to truly be loved by someone who I had to let go of. We almost made it, and maybe that’s what stings the most.
My eyes are puffy, rimmed in red. My cheeks are pale. My hair is a disaster. I look like a ballerina in a tragic movie, right before she throws herself off a balcony or dies artistically of consumption.
“Very dramatic,” I mutter at my reflection. “Get it together.”
I splash cold water on my face, pull my hair into a bun that’s more functional than pretty, and shove my leotard and tights into my dance bag.
When I step into the living room, one of my grandmother’s bodyguards is already waiting by the door.
“Miss Popovich,” he nods. “The car is ready.”
I almost correct him that it’s Mrs. Easton, but then I remember that it won’t be soon enough.
Of course, I don’t even get to take the bus like a normal struggling artist. I’m back under surveillance, back to having my whereabouts monitored and logged like I’m evidence in a case file.
I swallow the urge to scream and nod instead. “Perfect.”
The ride to the theater is quiet. Seattle slides by outside. It looks like an entirely different city without Scottie beside me pointing out landmarks, telling me stories about which coffee shop has the best cinnamon rolls and lunch specials.
I hate hearing that he didn’t take Peyton’s sandwich. I’ve never seen him turn down food either, and that’s what tells me he’s hurting, and so am I.
I dig my phone out on impulse.
No new texts from him this morning.
Just the ones from last night.
Scottie:Kat, please call me.
Scottie:I don’t understand why we can’t work this out.
Scottie:If this is really what you want, I'll let you go. Just please, can I see you before you leave town?
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I can’t see him before I go back to Russia because he thinks I’m only going back to New York, and because I still don't know how I had enough strength not to break apart in that hallwaywhen I told him it was over. How I kept it together the way I did. It’s why I ran at the last minute, because I could feel the tears breaking through.
