Dewey calls out again. “Clerky! Where the hell are you? Let’s go!”
Chapter Forty-Three
Petra sits in her dressing room, folded into herself. Her elbows dig into her thighs, fingers woven through her hair as if manual pressure might keep her from completely unraveling. The devastation arrives in waves, oscillating between suffocating and crushing.
This was supposed to be her night. The moment justifying every blister that’s become a callus. She’s fought for this stage since arriving in New York, and just as it revealed itself to her, it’s been taken back. Poof—gone.
Her shoulders tremble as tears slip through her fingers. A lifetime of preparation demolished by food poisoning. She doesn’t even get the dignity of failing on her own merits. At least failure gives you something to fix. Bad luck just gives you pain to endure.
Her gaze lifts, blurred by salty tears, to where the Sugar Plum Fairy costume hangs across the room. It sways slightly, mint-green tulle and silver thread catching light. A dream in fabric form, mocking her with its useless perfection.
She can already hear tomorrow’s whispers, the revisionist history being written in real-time.An unfortunate mishap, but perhaps for the best. She wasn’t quite ready for therole anyway.
Kate will wear sympathy like imposter jewelry, cheap and obviously fake, relishing every second of Petra’s devastation while pretending concern.
The nausea arrives next. Sweat breaks across Petra’s forehead, cold and clammy. Her hands shake so badly she can barely wipe her mouth. The injustice of it hits her physically, a punch to the solar plexus that makes her double over. Her stomach heaves, empty but churning.
This is what twenty years of discipline and sacrifice amount to: sitting on a cold floor, make-up streaming down her face, body wrung out, while her most important night forgets to include her.
A knock at the door interrupts her descent into grief.
She stiffens. Probably a stagehand delivering the official news, the formal notification of her erasure from tonight’s program.
Another knock at the door, firmer this time.
“Yes,” she manages to say.
The door opens, and she seeshim: Liam standing in the doorway.
“Your Cavalier has arrived,” he says.
“What—Liam, what’re you doing here?”
“I heard from Zoe,” he says simply, stepping inside like this is perfectly normal, like appearing at Lincoln Center instead of Madison Square Garden on the most important night of his season makes total sense.
Petra wipes at her face. “Liam, you have a game tonight.”
He shrugs. “TheSentinelshave a game tonight.Ihave a performance tonight.”
“But…I don’t understand,” she says.
His gaze holds steady, unwavering. “This is where I belong tonight, Petra.”
“Liam, you can’t just—”
“I can,” he interrupts with confidence. “And I will. If you’ll have me.”
“Liam, you don’t understand—”
“Volkov does though.” His smile carries secrets and solutions. “When I told him I was the guy in that viral video, he was blown away. Didn’t believe me at first—asked me to do double tours to prove it. So, I did. He’s on board for me to perform as the Cavalier.”
Petra blinks, dumbfounded. “I don’t know what to say. I’m—I’m—”
“Then just nod and agree to let me dance with you.” Liam steps closer, taking her hands. “This role? You taught me this role. It only seems fitting we debut together.”
Petra’s tears, the ones that began as tears of sorrow continue to flow but now as tears of joy.
“You’re choosing this over the playoffs?” she whispers, searching his face.
