“But—”
“No buts, Eva. Trust me: I know men. And this one is starving without you. He’s probably planning on how to steal you from your room and take you to his sex cave where he’ll fuck you through all the positions in the Kama Sutra!”
Heat crept up my neck. “Mia.”
“I’m serious. And second—” She glanced toward the door, then leaned in again. “Your brother taking your phone? Keeping you in this house? That’s a problem.”
I sighed. “I know. But he thinks he’s protecting me.”
“Yeah. Fromjoy.”
“And anyway, it never hurts to reduce my screen time,” I said, ignoring her frown, my hands fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “I know Jules’s methods are unconventional?—”
“They’rebarbaric.”
“—but he’s my brother, and you know I can’t stay mad at him. Maybe one day, things will go back to normal.”
My normal before Alek.
The thought made me feel small.
Mia shook her head. “Don’t worry. I already chewed him out for potentially ruining your dreams. That’s what he gets for waiting weeks to call me and tell me you’re sitting in this pit of sadness. He said you can go back to rehearsals on Monday.”
Everything inside of me shot to attention, my heart picking up speed and my eyes widening. “He did?”
“Yup. I don’t know how much you’ll be able to dance without your arm, but he said you can at least come and watch. Madame Germaine has been letting the understudy train, but I think she still wants you if you’re able to come back soon. So the good news is there’s at least that. All you’ve gotta do is rest that arm up, and you’ll be on the stage before you know it!”
“Yeah,” I sighed, testing my arm. I could lift it a little—about shoulder height—but that wasn’t enough to dance. My stitches had been removed a few days ago, so there was no worry there, but the tenderness of the area was my biggest concern.
Still, I could do it. Ballet was pain, after all.
I’d lived my life in a love-hate relationship with ballet. Many nights, my toes bled until I couldn’t walk, and my feet were covered by calluses. Leaps and turns had the potential to ache me for days… yet I loved it. I would kill myself over and over for the dance. I would shove the knife in my own heart if it meant standing on the stage.
I was pretty sure most ballerinas felt like that.
Mia and I spent the rest of the day sprawled across the bed, whispering like teenagers to each other. She repainted my nails a soft ballet pink and fed me lots of candy and diet sodas she had delivered to the entrance, much to Jules’s chagrin. We watched a terrible rom-com with the volume high, laughing so loud my brother came in four times to ask us to stop “cackling like witches.” And when we finally heard his footsteps disappear down the hall, Mia would turn to me and ask me for more details about Alek. Like a lovestruck teenager, I happily handed them over, both of us squealing with every remembrance.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been focusing on him, but to be honest, I was so happy to feel normal again that I let myself bask in the moment.
“What’s the name he calls you? Sol-what?” she murmured.
“Solnyshka. It means little sun.”
“Oh, like what the card had!” At my nod, she sighed dreamily. “That’s so romantic. I hate him.”
“Youhatehim?”
“Duh. I know he’s going to end up stealing you away and whisking you off into the sunset with sex so mind-blowing that you completely forget about me.”
I coughed on my drink. “I- I-... um… I mean…”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me so tight that I could barely breathe. “I would say I’m kidding, but I’m not. That man is hot as hell.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You’re so innocent. It’s adorable.” Mia pinched my cheeks. “It means he’s going to break you on his dick. Split you apart like a pomegranate and feast on your forbidden fruit. But from the way you’re blushing, I’d say he has already.”
“Oh myGod.”
