KOEN
Now
Briar’s at it again. Another late night spent in that run-down dance studio over the diner.
She’s dancing again. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to stay off that ankle. Just like I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to leave her alone.
I’ve got a front-row seat for tonight’s performance. I blurred the invisible line between us when I climbed in her window the other night. It’s messy now, so tonight—tonight I climb the stairs to watch her from inside.
Briar hasn’t seen me yet, too caught up in her routine to notice the man, concealed by the dark shadows of the hallway, watching her. She’s too focused, lost in the music and emotions, to see anything right now.
I recognize the routine. It’s one I’ve only ever seen her practice here, alone, never at the Conservatory. I believe it’s her senior piece, a solo, the one she’s choreographing and performing herself. I don’t know the criteria she’s supposedto adhere to, but the dance Briar has put together is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
It’s the opposite of the dance she’s performing for the showcase… in every way. Instead of a stiff white tutu, she’s wearing a simple black leotard with a short, tattered skirt.
Her hair falls loose down her back, free from the neat bun she typically keeps it in when she dances. The movement of her hair is every bit as choreographed as the rest of her body. It whips around, wild and untamed, even tangling into her face, highlighting all the sudden changes in direction the choreography calls for.
She’s barefoot, no ballet slippers in sight, and her movements aren’t pretty or perfected; rather, they’re chaotic and desperate.
Briar’s pretty painted smile is gone, too, pain and sadness taking it’s place. The raw, unfiltered emotions are a shock to see on Briar’s usual carefully schooled face.
Her music, too, is sad and slow, haunted even, the song slowly building into something grander, angrier, with big sweeping cinematic crescendos. Her movements grow more frantic, and instead of landing her jumps, she falls or tumbles out of them. She breaks and doesn’t polish her spins, and she doesn’t even bother to point her toes. Once she hits the bridge, it looks like she’s being torn apart, her body pulled in too many directions at once. The constant change in direction wears on her, and the choreography becomes more and more disjointed, growing in its chaos until she’s near desperate to escape it. But each time she tries, she keeps getting knocked down, over and over again, until it’s harder to get up, until, eventually, the music stops and she’s lying still, alone, in the middle of the room, her eyes closed.
Silence fills the space when the song ends, and Briar sits up, her knees curled into her chest, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
She looks so lost.
I still don’t know what she’s been through, but I hate it. I hate that anything, or anyone, made her feel this way, and I want to fix it; I want to make it better. I want to scoop her into my arms right now and promise her that nothing, and no one, will ever hurt her again, because she’s mine.
And I can just about feel the cut of the blade in my skin when I’m forced to remind myself…
She’s not.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“What?” Briar flinches at the sound of my voice, scrambling up off the floor as I step out of the shadows. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Answer the question.”
She narrows her eyes, wariness in her expression as she takes in the look on my face. “Not that it’s any of your business?—”
It is.
“—but, no. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
She doesn’t have a boyfriend?I’m faintly aware of something deep inside of me snapping, every muscle in my body tightening, as my reasons for holding myself back from Briar begin to unravel.
I take another step closer. “Then who do you talk to at night? On the phone?”Who are you saying “I love you’” to?
“Are you spying on me?” Her eyes narrow with the accusation.
Yes.
“No.”
Fury flares in her eyes, but I cut her off before she can say anything else.
“You’re hiding something from me,” I tell her.
