He sighs and rubs his eyes. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I shake my head. “That’s nice of you, but you’re already doing enough.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re here.”
“It feels like I’m not doing anything.”
“Caleb—”
“It’s all right,” he says, interrupting me. “I know what you’re going to say now. That I’m talking shit and I should stop.” He rolls his eyes, and I take a deep breath, because I don’t really want to talk about Jase to Caleb. But I should.
“There’s something else...” I say slowly, giving myself a chance to gather my courage, and then I spit it out. It doesn’t matter; he has to know. “Jase is my dance partner.”
Caleb freezes next to me. His face is blank, but I can see something in his eyes. He’s trying not to let me notice that he cares, but I know my brother.
“Caleb?” I tap his shoulder carefully.
He shakes his head and then comes back to himself. “Sorry, that was unexpected. How do you feel about it?”
I shrug and bite my lower lip. I might as well spit it out while I’m at it. “In the first class, everything went wrong. I panicked, and since then...” I stop and shrug again, but then it all comes out. About the first pas de deux class, and the second and third, until the moment that Jase suggested we practice together outside of class. And that our practice wasn’t ballet but touching.
A deep crease of worry forms between his eyebrows. “Have you talked to Dr.Somers about it?”
“No. If she knows, she’ll tell me to stop, and I can’t do that. I’ll figure this out, I promise.”
Caleb sighs. “You don’t have to promise me. This isn’t about me.”
“Well, yes, it kind of is,” I remind him. And hate myself for it, but I can’t just ignore it. “He was your best friend.”
“And then he wasn’t. For me, it’s over.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods, but I don’t believe him. I know that he misses Jase.
“Caleb—”
“Let it go. So Jase is your dance partner. You’re practicing touching. What does your heart say about it?”
My heart... all at once, my heart hops around in my chest, like it was waiting for this question. Involuntarily, my thoughts wander back to Jase’s fingers interlaced with mine and his gaze meeting mine in the mirror.
“My heart has nothing to do with it.”
“Zoe, come on.”
I make a face and sigh. “Honestly, it’s not like that.”
“But it could be again.” Caleb looks at me searchingly, and I squirm uncomfortably because I know exactly what he’s getting at. He knows what Jase meant to me. But I put the thought out of my mind because it feels much too likely that it could happen again. Much too fast. And then I wonder if it ever really stopped or if all the chaos of the last year just covered it up.
I shake my head. “It can’t. We rejected him, Caleb. Both of us. And he has no idea why.”
“Are you going to talk to him about it?”
“No,” I say. And at the same time, I’m thinkingyes.
“Liar.”
