FELIX
“Sorry again about being late,”I said, lifting myself up onto the pale-yellow kitchenette counter to perch there while Amelia poured us both a cup of drip coffee from a pot that I thought might have been older than I was. “And for not bringing better coffee.”
Amelia smiled wryly as she poured. Where she was standing in front of the window, the light streaming through the lace curtains reflected off her dark skin, highlighting the sharp planes of her face. She was nearly a decade older than me, but aside from one or two white hairs in her ruthlessly tamed bun, you would never have known it. I’d told Avery she seemedsoft, but now that I’d watched her teach, I didn’t think that was quite the right word. She seemed relaxed, but her strength—career-ending injury aside—was all still there.
“I told you, quit apologizing,” she said, passing me a mug that saidWorld’s Best Dance Teacheron it, complete with cartoon ballerina in a pink tutu. “I’m happy to have you here.”
I clasped the mug close to my chest, letting the warmth soothe my hands. “Well, thanks. I know you’re doing me a favor?—”
“Actually,” Amelia interrupted, leaning against the counter with her ownWorld’s Best Dance Teachermug—this one covered in flowers with a gold rim. “I brought you here to domea favor.”
I paused with my coffee halfway to my mouth. That was news to me.
I’d been surprised to get Amelia’s call after my injury, to be honest. We’d been close once—she’d taken me under her wing, in a way, when I’d joined the company. Acted like the big sister I’d never had for reasons I still didn’t understand. At first, I’d practically worshipped the ground she walked on. She’d been a principle dancer for a handful of months, and my greatest aspiration had been to partner with her one day.
That had never happened on account of her injury, and I’d always regretted it. Once she’d retired, we’d fallen out of contact—she’d fallen out of contact with everyone, and I hadn’t felt like I ought to chase her up. Now that I was in the same position, injured beyond the point of return, I understood why she hadn’t wanted to talk to the rest of us.
I’d thought about her, though. Every single day.
So when I’d gotten her call, I hadn’t thought too hard about grabbing the opportunity to see her again with both hands—and hadn’t asked any questions aboutwhyshe might be offering me sanctuary in her small-town dance studio.
It hadn’t occurred to me that she was doing anything other than offering me the same hand she had before. I couldn’t imagine her needing anything from me—to me, she was still the muchmore accomplished dancer, and I was the lost baby in need of shelter.
“Oh?” I asked warily, eyeing her over the rim of the mug.
Amelia’s lips twitched as she looked down into her coffee. “You saw the class this morning.”
“I did,” I agreed, though I still wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“All four of ‘em.”
I went to agree again, then paused as I realized what she was getting at. “Normal class size?”
Amelia nodded. “We had five, but then Mrs. Kwon broke her hip.”
My thigh twinged in sympathy. I dug the heel of my hand into it, rubbing at the long, ugly scar I knew was under my tights. I wore much thicker tights these days, since it was raised enough to show through the thin company standard ones.
Not that I ever had to worry about company standards again.
“Right,” I said. “And your other classes…?”
“Let’s call them all equally under-attended.” Amelia wet her lips. She took a sip of her coffee, sighing and closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and then turned her dark, piercing eyes on me. “I’m in trouble, Felix. If I can’t increase attendance… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t give this up,” she said, looking into her coffee again. “I could go and get a job doing… just about anything I guess, if I wanted. But I don’t know who I am without dance.”
Right, yeah. Neither did I. That was the thing that scared me down to the marrow of my bones right now. Who was I, if not a dancer?
“So how do I come into this?”
Not that I wanted to refuse anyway—I more than owed Amelia. Without her, I would’ve quit in my second week when Piotr made me cry so hard I threw up. She’d come to me then and told me her director had done the same to her when she’d started her career, more than once, and made me promise that if I stuck out another two weeks, she’d give me a private lesson.
She was an amazing teacher, and I owed her private lessons—she’d offered me one for every month I stuck it out for the first year of my professional career—for my success, as far as I was concerned.
So whatever she needed, I’d do it.
“There’s this competition coming up. It’s for kids, which I know probably sounds silly to you?—”
“Not at all,” I interrupted. I knew how important kids’ dance competitions could be, especially for young dancers. Anyone who didn’t start as a child was never going to make it professionally.
Amelia looked at me, brows rising in surprise. She nodded. “Okay, well, I want you to do the choreography for Rising Up’s entry.”
