Page 42 of With You

“I was there. You started copying the dancers, too, and I guess you were just playing around with Evie but there was something about you that I couldn’t figure out. The way you moved, it looked exactly like the people on stage. I couldn’t understand why you were in the audience, when everyone should have been watching you on stage instead.”

“River,” Amelie whispers, putting the pieces together.

“I didn’t know you were in that class when my parents enrolled me.” I drag my thumb across the back of her hand, soothing myself. “It had been weeks since that performance, and I thought I’d never see you again. But there you were, as if I’d dreamed you up.”

“And then I was mean to you,” she says, her shoulders dropping as she thinks back to our first interactions.

“I gave it right back,” I tell her, squeezing her hand in mine, not wanting her to feel bad about something that happened when we were kids. “I hate that it made me like you even more. You were so passionate about dancing, and I wanted to be like that, too. I figured being mean was just part of being a ballerina.”

Amelie laughs, and I hope that she’s looking back on those moments fondly, just like I am.

“I really wanted you to like me,” I confess. “It was lonely sometimes being the only boy in class. I thought maybe we could have become friends.”

“And then I was mean to you,” she repeats, pulling her hand back from mine to cover her face with it.

“Amelie, you’ve been mean to me the whole time we’ve known each other.”

She laughs softly at that, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for my hand again and lacing our fingers together.

“I didn’t tell you that so you’d apologise. I don’t want an apology for any of it,” I tell her. “I just wanted you to know that. Maybe it would have been nice to be friends with you from the start, but I don’t think that would have helped me at all.

Every class, I wanted to get better and better, until I could impress you, have you admire me the same way I do you. I didn’t think it ever happened, until you asked me to dance with you.”

“Have you seen the other dancers at school?” she asks, raising her eyebrows, and I can only laugh. “You were my only option, River.”

“I want to keep being that for you.”

Amelie squeezes my hand in response.

“I love dancing with you, Amelie,” I continue. “Nine-year-old me could only dream of being where we are right now.”

She laughs, tipping her head back just like she did that first time I saw her. Amelie smiles at me, her thumb running across the back of my hand.

“Well, nine-year-old me would be having a heart attack if she knew this was happening,” she jokes, gesturing back and forth between us with her free hand.

“And what about nineteen-year-old you?”

“Not quite a heart attack, but something close to it,” she replies.

“I know you don’t want to take this any further right now,” I tell her, but it’s more of a reminder to myself not to get too carried away. “And if this is the only date I ever get with you, I’m glad we at least had one.”

“Me too,” she says, her smile turning sad for the briefest of moments, her eyebrows furrowing.

I edge out of my seat, leaning over the table so I can finally kiss her for real for the first time, so I can get rid of whatever complicated emotion she’s feeling right now. She moves closer too, our lips almost meeting before a booming voice announces his presence with our food.

“Ah, what a beautiful couple,” he remarks, holding steaming plates of food over us.

I drop back into my seat, pressing my lips together in a thin smile as I look up at him and thank him for the food as he places it on the table.

“Young love is so sweet,” he continues, standing with his hands on his hips. Amelie grins up at him, and he gives her that fatherly smile once again before sighing happily and leaving us to eat.

Amelie knocks her leg against mine beneath the table as I take in the various plates in front of us.

“There’ll be time for that later, mon cœur,” she says, reaching for her fork to grab a bite of pasta.

“Later, ma chérie.”