The car pulls up to the stage door. The bodyguard steps out first, scanning the alley before opening my door like someone expects a sniper to be hiding behind the dumpsters.
Inside, the theater is blessedly familiar.
The echo of voices in the wings. The muted thump of other dancers’ landings as morning rehearsal is about to begin.
I change in the dressing room quicfold,kly, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might ask questions. I’m not ready to talk. I’m not ready to be the center of gossip in a building full of people trained to notice every waver in your balance, every crack in your facade.
Onstage, I sink into my first forward fold, and my hamstrings scream at me.
“Good, I hope it hurts,” I whisper under my breath to myself. “You deserve it.”
The familiar burn in my muscles gives me something else to focus on besides the ache in my chest.
Halfway through warm-ups, my phone buzzes in my bag.
Normally I’d ignore it. But the vibration doesn’t stop.
Another one, then another.
I exhale sharply, step off to the side of the studio, and check the screen.
IRINA CALLING:
“Katerina.” Her voice is sharp, breathless, like she’s been pacing. “Your brother has been calling me non-stop. He’s blowing up my phone like he’s auditioning for a soap opera. ‘Have you talked to Kat? Is she with you? Did she go back to New York?’ What is going on?”
My throat tightens. I stare at my reflection in the wall of mirrors. I look… fine. Composed. Like a woman stretching before rehearsal, not one whose life is currently on fire.
“I’m not in New York,” I say quietly. “I’m still in Seattle.”
“Obviously because you’re not with me,” she says. “So then why is Luka acting like you’ve been kidnapped and no one can find you?”
I swallow. “Because I… broke up with Scottie.”
Silence.
Then: “I’m sorry, I must have heard you wrong. What did you just say?”
“We… ended it.”
"You did no such thing,” she shrieks. “Katerina, did he cheat? Did he lie? Did he—”
“No,” I cut in quickly. “No. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“So you just woke up and decided to leave the hot, golden retriever hockey husband who looks at you like you hung the moon… why?” she demands. “And don’t tell me it’s because of his eating schedule.”
God, I even miss his eating schedule, but I shove that longing for him down because it doesn’t help anything.
“My grandmother gave me a choice,” I say instead. “If I stayed with him, she’d tell my father to leave me alone. I could keep my life here, keep dancing, keep him. But his father would never get into the trial. He’d never walk again.”
Irina goes silent. I can almost picture her sitting down hard on her couch in Brooklyn, hand pressed to her forehead.
“And if you left him?” she asks quietly.
“She would call in a favor with the neurologist. Get his father into the trial. Pay for it. All I had to do was…” My voice cracks. “Divorce him. Go back. Marry Maxim.”
She swears under her breath in three languages.
“I couldn’t let them take his last chance,” I whisper. “I love him, Irina. I couldn’t look at him knowing I turned that down for him… for his family.”
