I just also knew he’d get tired of me. Tired of my pain, tired of my limitations.
I knew that becauseIwas tired of them. Exhausted.
He hadn’t done anything to deserve to feel that way. He deserved someone whole.
A nudge from Cooper brought me back to the room just in time to see my kids walking onto the stage. I’d missed the fifth group entirely.
Cooper’s enthusiastic wave and Benji’s answering grin made me smile, despite everything. They were adorable. I was so glad I’d met them both. The other kids, too, but I could admit privately that Benji was my favorite. My experience had been that boys inballet were more likely to claw each other’s eyes out than stick together, but that shouldn’t have been true.
I’d meant it when I told Cooper I’d never been prone to stage fright—not after my first competition, anyway—but I was really learning what it felt like right now.
The kids got into position like I’d taught them, despite the unfamiliar layout of the stage. The music swelled, and I had to bite down on my lip as my stomach lurched.
As the kids swept into motion, I mouthed the sequence under my breath, naming every move with the beat.
My heart rocketed into my throat as Kayla launched into the pirouette she’d madefantasticprogress on, but didn’t nail every time. Time seemed to move in slow motion as she turned—it wasn’t the turn, it was the landing.She didn’t quite have the hang of picking a fixed spot to focus her eyes on and not letting the motion make her dizzy.
When she finished her turn, her eyes locked with mine.
Me. I was her fixed spot.
The smile that spread over my face was so wide it hurt. A wave of proud excitement replaced the nerves crawling up my throat, welling up so hard and fast I had to slap a hand over my mouth—quietly—to stop myself laughing aloud.
They were doing it. They weredoing it.
They were hitting every single move. Every one.
Was their control perfect? No, it wasn’t. But they were five to seven years old. They were amazing. They’d worked so hard.
I glanced at Cooper and saw the hint of tears shining along his lashline, his teeth digging hard into his lower lip.
He broke into the most incredible smile as the music finished. I hadn’t meant to look at him for that long, but seeing him so full of pride in Benji had been enchanting. He’d finally squared his shoulders, standing at his full height with his head held high. His eyes sparkled.
Beautiful.
I looked back at the kids taking their tiny bows and then running off the stage. That wasn’t quite the etiquette of this kind of thing, and maybe it’d affect their score, but I didn’t care.
Yes, this mattered. It mattered to Amelia, and it potentially mattered to the kids’ futures, and it mattered to me.
But they’d done everything I asked of them, and they’d done it with all their hearts, as well as they possibly could. I was proud of them.
They ran over in a stampeding herd once they were told they could. Benji made it first, grinning so wide he’d run out of room on his face. Cooper crouched down, holding his hand up for a high five then catching Benji in his arms as he flung himself into them.
The other kids all gathered around my knees, adorable faces turned up at me.
“You were amazing,” I said, voice catching. They had been. These were my kids, and they’d beenamazing. Better than I could’ve imagined.
“Did you see my pirouette?”
“I almost tripped, but I didn’t!”
“Felix, did you see us?”
“We did good?”
I could barely hear them over the excited chatter of the whole room, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
“I think you guys have earned your juice,” Cooper said, drawing their attention. They followed him like the pied piper back to the area we’d been designated, where there was, as promised, a cooler bag packed with juice boxes and an assortment of snacks their parents had sent.
