Just friends, East. You’re just friends. That’s all she wants. Obviously.
My fingers are moving faster, and my stomach tenses up. I can tell myself we’re just friends as many times as I want, but it doesn’t feel that way. I wanted to kiss her last night. I’ve wanted to for weeks. Or to be totally honest, for months. Back when she was still the girl I texted every day. Before I met her in person. I wanted to kiss her when she was still Mockingbird and not Rayne Bellamy, but now I want it so badly it hurts. It really hurts.
It hurts because what I want is so obviously not what shewants. I don’t know where we stand anymore. We’re just friends, but somehow, we’re not.
And then there’s the song. We wrote the best song ever together. I still feel incompetent, just like she does far too often, and I hate that I feel that way about myself. How hypocritical is that? I asked her to help me write a song just a few weeks ago, and now I can’t handle the fact that she did.
I groan in frustration. I have to stop all these thoughts from spinning around in my head. But above all, I have to get my feelings about the kiss that didn’t happen under control. Because it doesn’t matter how much I want to feel her lips on mine. We’re friends. Real friends, and I can’t be selfish enough to take that away from her just because I’m an idiot and forgot that you can be just friends with a girl.
Unfortunately, Rayne isn’t just any girl. She’sthegirl.
And I have a fucking problem.
I close the piano lid harder than necessary and get up. Leaving the ballet studio, I’m about to head to the changing room where I always leave my jacket during class when I spot purple hair in one of the other rooms.
Rayne. I remember that she has contemporary dance class now. I slow down and then stop. She’s not alone, of course. There are about thirty dancers in the room. I spot Skye, Zoe, and Jase. Jase turns around at that very moment and flashes a quick grin at me through the glass before turning back to Melanie, the guest instructor from New York Rayne told me about.
Melanie is standing in front of the mirrored wall and seems to be explaining something to them with sweeping gestures. Then she claps her hands and everyone takes their positions. That’s my cueto leave; I have no right to be here. Mostly, I shouldn’t be standing in the hallway watching Rayne, who’s now throwing her long hair back over her shoulder. Most of the girls still have their hair in the strict buns required for ballet class, but they’ve exchanged their tight leotards for looser shirts.
Rayne is wearing an oversized purple shirt. It falls over the top of her black leggings, which emphasize her long, slender legs. Looking at her, all at once I feel much too warm.
Look away.
I really should stop staring at her and leave, but I’m paralyzed. The music begins, so loud that I recognize the song even through the wall: “Dancing on My Own.” It’s one of the songs Rayne sent me last year.
I can’t move because she starts dancing at the same time as the others, and for the first time that I’ve seen her dancing, it seems to me that she’s totally herself. Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched her every morning as she’s tried day after day to bend the rules of ballet, and I never got the impression she liked what she was doing.
Now it’s different. Her movements are more fluid, more relaxed. Less controlled, less perfect. Just the way she is. I watch her, and I think it’s possible that she was wrong back then. When she said this wasn’t what she wanted, she didn’t mean dancing in general. It was about ballet. The rules and the control, the perfection. None of it suits her. She’s not controlled or perfect.
She’s creative and free. Beautiful. Alive.
I’m just afraid she doesn’t know that.
Chapter 22
Rayne
Dancing on My Own—Calum Scott
The world around me blurs as I dance. I’m aware of nothing but the music and myself. My heart is pounding, my whole body is working, and for the first time, it all feels right. Being here. Dancing. I have the steps in my head. I know how to place my feet and how to move my arms. I spin, and it feels completely natural.
I can breathe properly. My muscles are tight and burning, and I’m exhausted, but in the best way possible, because I know I’m good. This works. I feel the floor beneath my feet. I feel the music, this song, and I feelmyself. It’s crazy how easy it is when I’m not trying desperately to be perfect. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about emotion, and I feel so, so much.
Get lost in music
Lost in you
And dance with you ’til midnight.
The words pop into my head so suddenly that I lose my rhythm for a moment and mess up the spin. But I feel the truth in them, and my heart beats in a new rhythm, one that’s strange and familiar to me at the same time. Something is happening to me, and it has to do with these words in my head, but I can’t quite define what it is. The song ends. The studio falls silent, and I come back to reality, where I’m not alone.
“That was excellent, guys,” Melanie says, beaming at us. “Try to let yourselves go a little more. Less control. Try not to focus so much on making every movement perfect. Rayne did that very well just now, for example.”
I blush when Melanie says my name. Her praise takes me so much by surprise that I don’t know what to do with myself or where to look. I gaze down at the floor, embarrassed. All eyes are on me. My pulse races because I don’t like being stared at. It’s uncomfortable too, because I don’t know what I did that was different from everyone else. Besides, is it really an advantage that I’m good at this class? It’s the only one where everyone else is struggling. In all the other classes, I’m the one who struggles. It just doesn’t add up.
“You were really great. You can be proud of yourself,” Zoe whispers, as if she can read my mind. She squeezes my hand, and her touch makes me feel a little better immediately. Still, I can’t bring myself to feel proud, because it feels like I’m even failing at being good.
“Before we’re done, I want to get back to the assignment I mentioned a few weeks ago,” Melanie continues. “I want each of you to choose a song and choreograph a dance to it using all the elements we’ve covered so far. One or two minutes is enough. It doesn’t have to be a complete song. You can work together, butplease, no more than three per group. You have until the end of the semester. We’ll go through your work in the last two weeks. It will also count toward your grades for this semester. Of course you can include everything we’re going to be doing in the next few weeks. I’m always here to help if you have any questions. And remember, this isn’t about perfection. I just want you to learn to listen to your feelings and the music, and to move with both.” She smiles, and someone asks a question, but I don’t hear it properly. There’s a rushing sound in my ears, and those words are here again.
