Keeping close to the wall, I edge forward until I can see through the narrow window beside the door. The blinds are open.
A girl stands inside, her back to me. Brown hair coiled into a bun as she ties the last strand into place. The moment she finishes, she begins to move. Stretching and bending, each gesture purposeful, controlled. There’s something hypnotic about the precision of it, the way her body unfurls like she’s dancing for someone unseen.
Then I notice the shoes. Pointe shoes with silk ribbons wrapped tight around her ankles, the toes lightly caressing the floor as she moves.
I don’t know how long I stand there, caught between fascination and dread. But when she begins to turn, spinning gracefully across the room, her profile finally tilts into view.
And my breath catches.
Because I recognise her.
Piper.
Piper Vander is currently unguarded, and I finally have a chance to question her.
My lips quirk as I go through all the things, I want to ask her, but that is wiped off as I watch her fall to the floor. She is on her hands and knees, chest heaving and tears dropping onto the wood beneath her. At first, I think she must have hurt herself, but she doesn’t grab hold ofanywhere, no leg, ankle or foot. She puts her hands over her eyes and continues to cry.
It looks all too familiar, andthatchanges things.
I quietly ease the door open, slipping into the room just as the music swells. The notes climb higher, faster, almost urgent and uncertain. Like the moment in a film when everything is happening at once, yet you still have no idea where it’s all leading.
Even with the music at an almost painful volume, Piper must sense me like I sensed her. She spins around and holds her hands up, eyes wide, almost cowering away from me.
“Wait, wait. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” I quickly explain over the music as I hold my own hands up, showing her, I am no threat.
She starts to take in the room, checking her surrounding for a place to escape.
Shit, what happened to her.
“I wanted to check on you,” I continue. “I was in the gym and saw you crying when I walked past,” I crouch down to her level, and she slightly softens. “Are you okay?”
Her shoulders drop in defeat as she lets her hands rest on her knees. The wide eyes stay as she scans me from head to toe.
I stay silent as I allow her body to come out of the fight or flight it went into as I caught her off guard. She shifts to pull her phone out of her top where it must have been stuffed into her bra and while keeping her attention glued to me, she hits the pause button, throwing us into silence. I use the time to take her in. She is tragically beautiful. With sharp, ethereal eyes that almost glow with how green they are. A slightly upturned nose with a dusting of freckles and high cheekbones. She almost looks like a little fairy. She is the size of one too. I thought I wassmall, but this girl before me is petite in every aspect and oozes an elegance only money can buy.
“Who are you?” The sound comes out as a whisper before she clears her throat. “I don’t remember you,”
I sit down opposite her, keeping the distance to make her more comfortable.
I tilt my head. “Yeah, that’s because I only started this year,”
“Transfer?” She asks as she scans me again, taking in every detail.
“Kind of,”
Her brows furrow. “Where did you go before here?”
“I did online classes for a bit but decided to come here for my final year,”
“Why didn’t you come the first year?” She asks a little more sceptical and for the first time I get a glimpse of the Vander in her.
I decide that if I want her to open up to me, I need to give her something.
I pull my thighs up to my chest and hug them, allowing a little of my mask to slip.
“I went through something. Something I needed to heal from,” I shrug. “School just didn’t seem that important at the time,” Understanding washes over he features and her body leans into me slightly, waiting for me to continue. “But then I realised I had shut myself off from the world and the only real way to heal for me, was to start living again,”
Her gaze shifts away uncomfortably.
