Page 20 of With You

“Open your eyes,” he says quietly, and I do.

Steel grey eyes catch on to mine so quickly I barely have time to realise how close his face is to mine. My brain is telling my body to move away, to put distance between us because this is far too close to River than I’ve ever been before and it’s not right. But River’s grasp on me is gentle yet firm, and even if I tried to force my body away from him, I don’t think I could.

“Just give it a minute,” he murmurs, not taking his eyes off mine for a second.

I blink rapidly, anything to avoid looking so closely at him but it’s impossible when he’s taking up my entire view. I start to find details on his face that I’ve never noticed before. Two small dents sit on either side of his nose, the exact place where his glasses rest on the few occasion I see him wearing. I glance back up to his eyes, the faint outline of clear contacts visible only because I’m looking for it. There’s the smallest dusting of stubble across his jaw, barely there but it’s clear now that he must shave every other day at least.

Finally, my eyes drop to his mouth, the lips I’ll have to press mine against if we get this spot in the showcase. They look soft, his bottom lip slightly fuller than the top. I wonder how they’ll feel against mine. As if he can hear my every thought, his tongue peeks out the slightest amount as he runs it across his bottom lip. I look away, my eyes moving back up to his, right as River lets go of me and takes a step back.

“See? A whole minute of me touching you, and nothing bad happened,” he says, clearing his throat after the first word.

That minute felt like a lifetime.

“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” I say, trying to clear my head of whatever feeling has replaced my usual dislike for him.

He scoffs, his arrogance returning as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“You just hate that my idea worked.”

“This whole thing was my idea,” I tell him, trying to take back some control of this situation. His ego is already inflated enough. Any more and he’ll start floating away into the sky, but maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“Whatever you say.” He drops his arms back to his side. “Shall we keep going?”

I shrug my shoulders in response, and River takes it as his sign to step closer to me.

“We’ll move a little lower this time,” he says, bending down on one knee.

I glance down at him but the sight feels so unnatural that I turn to look at the mirror instead. It only makes it worse. River curls his hand around my ankle, his fingertips playing with the ribbons of my pointe shoes before he smooths his hand up my calf, around to my knee, stopping right as he touches the base of my thigh. My heart feels like it’s going to beat its way out of my chest and land on the floor next to him. I stare at the image of us in the mirror, and it’s an unbelievable sight. River Campbell on his knees for me.

“I’ll have to hold you a little higher than here at some points,” he says, his fingers pressing into the skin above my knee. He tilts his head up to look at me, but once he realises I’m looking in the mirror, he does the same. His eyes lock on to mine before he speaks again. “Is that okay?”

I nod, even though my heart feels like it’s about to drop into my stomach. It’s part of the routine. There are so many lifts involved that it’s impossible to avoid his hand moving higher for some of them if we want to be stable. I run through every convincing argument in my mind for why all of this is fine, but it doesn’t make me any less nervous at the thought of River’s hands on my thighs.

He leans back on his heel as he removes his hand from my leg, and it feels as if the studio has transported itself to the surface of the sun. I step away from him to get some water and to clear my head. This was supposed to be simple. We were just meant to dance together so I could pass this audition, and get a spot in the showcase. It never crossed my mind how close we’d actually have to be, how much time his hands would be spent holding on to my body, and it’s all throwing me off balance.

But I need this spot. If I want to prove to myself, and everyone else, that I’ve got what it takes to be a part of the summer intensive, to be a principal ballerina, then I have to be okay with dancing with him.

I steady myself, allowing my heart rate to lower back to normal before I approach him again.

“Let’s try some of the moves,” I tell him, putting on my most confident voice.

There’s no point in delaying it any further. As much as this exercise has helped, it’s only a poor example of what actually dancing together will be like.

“Ready?” he asks.

As I’ll ever be.

Chapter 9

River

We spend the next two days in the studio, sweat dripping off our bodies, pushing through the exhaustion of dancing for so long with barely any breaks, until I finally collapse on the ground after what feels like our millionth run through.

I breathe in short, staccato huffs, desperately trying to flood my lungs with oxygen as I lean back against the hard floor. I’ve pushed myself to limits I didn’t even know I had, the pain slowly setting into my body as I close my eyes and hope for it to pass quickly. Every muscle in my body is screaming for relief, but I can barely string a single thought together let alone work out how to give them that. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, so loudly I wonder if Amelie can feel it reverberating through the floor.

I open my eyes to look for her, to see if she’s as worn out as I am, but she’s just hunched over her phone as she squats on the floor rewatching the videos of us. I don’t think she’d notice if I died right now.

“I’m fine, by the way,” I call out to her, my voice shaky as my body begins to recover from what I’ve put it through since our first practice.