Because that makes it real, Cooper’s voice echoed in my ears.
He’d been through this, too. Not the same way, but he knew the broad strokes of the feeling.
Maybe…
“And you know, the act always ends when there’s a big change,” she went on. “And then we all run off to switch costumes and Avery pulls us aside to smudge our eyeliner and then weget back on stage. Because there’s another act. Things are different, but we’re still there, and the rest of the performance is ahead of us. You’ve hit the end of an act,” she said, looking me straight in the eyes. “And you can’t ever go back. But you can go forward, and unlike in a ballet,youget to decide what the next act looks like. You get to decide what you want. So, what is it?”
I licked sugar off my fingers as images of breakfast on Saturday played through my head, a wave of something that threatened to drag me under and drown me rising up in my chest.
I shoved it aside. No. What I wanted was to get back as much of what I’d had as I could sink my fingers into.
Wasn’t it?
“You don’t have to tell me,” Amelia continued. “But you’ve gotta be honest with yourself, and it has to be movingforward. If you keep trying to swim against the tide, you’ll eventually drown.”
“Are we dancing, or swimming in this metaphor?” I asked.
Amelia gave me exactly the unimpressed look I deserved for being a smartass while she was trying to help me.
It was just…
“I’m winning this competition for you,” I said. I wasn’t sure I believed I could, but I was going to try my hardest. I owed Amelia that. Iwantedthat.
And the change of subject saved me thinking about the way Cooper smiled at me when I kissed him, or the way his fingers felt when they were curled around mine.
Amelia turned another wry smile on me. “Anyone ever told you you’re bad at talking about your feelings?”
“Uh… no, actually,” I said, blinking at her.
“That’s because you don’t do it,” she said, hopping off the counter and offering me the doughnuts again. “Eat another one of these and come show me the choreography. But you should think about what you want after the weekend, ‘cause it’s coming up fast.”
When I openedmy door to find Cooper standing on the other side of it, I didn’t know what to say.
It was Friday night, and I hadn’t seen him since Saturday. But there he was, wearing a nicer-than-usual t-shirt, a less faded plaid over it, holding two paper bags and looking shyly at me from under his lashes.
“Hi,” I managed, swallowing down the twist in my stomach.
“Hi,” he responded, raising the bag in his left hand. “Mrs. Sharma’s lamb balti, garlic and cheese naan, enough pakoras to feed a small army, and the fluffiest basmati rice you’ll ever have in your life,” he said, pausing before raising the other bag. “Yuzu-chili sorbet. Wanna share?”
I blinked at him.
“I thought you were mad at me,” I said without really meaning to. It made me feel like a three-year-old, but it was the only thing that’d come to mind. Ihadthought he was mad at me.
“I was never mad at you,” Cooper said.
He said something else after that, but the rush of relief at hearing that deafened me. He was never mad at me.
I’d snapped at him, and he was never mad at me.
I believed that. Cooper had never lied to me yet. He’d never had reason to, and he had no reason to now. If he was mad, he could’ve stayed that way.
But he was here. With food.
Which I was starting to understandmeantsomething to him. He fed people he…
Cared about.
Of which I was clearly one.
