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But her answer is different. She then lightly touches my hand, skin on skin. Her gaze collides with mine, and she looks so terribly lost.

“I don’t know how.”

Chapter 24

Ophelia

“I don’t know how,” I repeat. My voice shakes, and I hate it. I hate all of this.

I hate that we’re here and that we’re talking. I hate that his fingers are brushing against mine. I hate that I’m not even able to pull my hand away, damn it.

I hate that he’s making me feel something. Making me let out these awful feelings. But what did I expect?

This is Phoenix standing in front of me, and I can’t fool him, no matter how much I wish I could. I can fool everyone else, but not him.

“What are you afraid of?” Phoenix whispers, and a shiver runs down my spine.

“I’m not afraid.” His gaze holds mine, and he looks at me so intensely that I find it difficult to remember how to lie.

Why do you want to lie to him anyway?

Yeah, why? I’m afraid that I’m not ready. I’m not ready for him and for our task, for whatever this is supposed to be.

“Liar,” he says so gently that I want to cry. He can see right through me so easily, and that’s what really scares me. “Come on, Ophelia. You can tell me your secrets.”

They’re safe with me.

He doesn’t say it, but I can read what he’s thinking in his eyes. Something inside me urges me to tell him the truth, even though every other part of me is resisting. But maybe Pearson was right after all. Maybe it really is easier to open up and let your feelings show when you’re with someone you haven’t known for years. Someone you haven’t been putting on an act with from the start. It would be easier if I knew I would never see him again, like last time. But that’s not going to happen. We will see each other day after day, and I have to learn to show my feelings, otherwise I’ll never be the dancer I want to be. The dancer I must be. Otherwise, all of this will have been for nothing, and I can’t allow that.

My stomach is rebelling. I have to do this whether I like it or not. And I don’t like it. Not one bit.

But my tongue moves of its own volition, and I blurt out the words I shouldn’t be telling anyone. “Because everyone will hate me if they know what I’m really like.”

“Why should they?” He doesn’t contradict me, doesn’t claim that what I’m saying isn’t true. He just asks why, and that does something to me.

My chest heaves frantically, I breathe too fast, my heart stumbles. My mind isn’t working right anymore. His fingers are still on mine; it’s a gentle caress, not a real touch, and all at once I feel transported back to that night when it was just the two of us.

It was so easy to share my secrets with him that night. Then they were really safe with him. They still are. They could be. God, I don’t know. I only know that I want to tell him more, show him more of myself, but then he might push me away and leave.

Or he might stay.

“Because I’m . . . envious,” I manage to say, choking on the words. The short sentence breaks something inside me. “I hate Susannah for getting the part, even though she didn’t do anything wrong. I have only myself to blame for my failure, not her. I hate that I begrudge her the role, even though she earned it. She’s beautiful and talented, and she deserves it. And I . . . no one really likes me even when I’m nice, and when I do everything I can to make them like me.” I’m not talking about Susannah anymore, or my friends. I’m talking about the people who should love me but don’t care about me at all. “If they knew what I am really like, they’d hate me.”

My eyes burn and overflow. I cry, and it feels wrong and right at the same time for Phoenix to see it. He sees me, and that’s all, but it’s really not okay. He doesn’t interrupt me, just watches me, and that only makes everything worse. Chaos reigns inside me. I can’t think anymore. There’s too much in my head.

I feel too much, and I don’t want to.

Anger flares up inside me, hot and uncontrolled, eating through my body, because I never wanted to say this, never wanted to admit it out loud. I haven’t even admitted it to myself, but he somehow makes it frighteningly easy to get all of this out of me. I don’t understand anything that’s happening here. It just doesn’t make sense.

He doesn’t make sense.

I furiously wipe the tears off my face and take a step back, because I can’t bear his touch anymore, or maybe because I’m longing for more. I don’t know which.

“Are you satisfied now?” I hiss. “Is that real enough for you? Is that enough emotion? Am I showing enough of myself to get better at dancing?” I want to yell at him even though he hasn’t done anything wrong, but something is happening to me. It’s so completely beyond my control that I’m overcome with panic. Fear turns to anger, because I can deal with anger better.

Fear paralyzes, anger burns. It can be overcome. Normally. But right now, nothing is normal.

“No,” he says curtly. I don’t know which of my questions he’s answering. “No, I’m not satisfied.”