29. Lily
LILY
“Iwas going to dance,” she said, surprising herself. Her secret room, having the upper hand for once, was making her bold.
“You’re not tired?”
She shrugged. “Sure, but it’s dance or stare at my phone for the next ninety minutes. If I look at another one of those letters I’ll start weeping blood.”
“Noted.”
Swinging her arms, she kicked off her shoes and began stretching to undo the hunch of studying.
Out of the corner of her eye, in the glow of his phone, she saw him half-watching her.
A few weeks ago, his gaze would have sent cold anxiety rushing through her, but now it flooded her with secret warmth.
Already, spending time with him had left its prints on her, subtly nudging her in a different direction. She didn’t hate it.
He respected her. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, wasn’t sure what he saw in her, but she thought soon she might even be able to see it too. When she was with him, she felt known, all the way through to her core, and she was pretty sure that feeling might be friendship.
“Want to join me?” He had dropped the pretense of his phone and now openly studied her, his profile sharp and hawk-like in the night.
“I’ll keep working on the letters. I feel like I’m close.”
She closed her eyes, drifting to the music.
Then she started to dance, trying to bring a phrase that had been burning in her mind, her joints, for days now, into the light.
Her sock feet whispered across the cement floor, raising dust as she spun, dipped.
Sometimes dance felt like this when she had an idea—like if she couldn’t get it out of her and into an eight-count, it would consume her from the inside out.
“What are you working on?” Sebastian asked her from the couch.
Lily jolted. Sometimes when she danced, time slipped away as she found her center. How long had she been working? What time was it?
“Oh.” She blinked, reacclimatizing to reality. “It’s nothing, just an idea I had.”
“Are you in Rep?” He meant the Windermere Repertory Dance Program. She wasn’t. She’d never auditioned.
“It’s not for anything, just for me.”
“It’s good.” He unearthed himself from the couch and shucked off his sweater, revealing a white T-shirt and toned biceps as he joined her in the middle of the vast room.
“What if you did this here, instead?” he said, offering a transition that was somehow exactly what her subconscious had been looking for.
She knew she was frowning at him, but she couldn’t help it.
She tried it. It fit. “Thanks.”
“You should submit it for the Midsummer Revue.”
“I can’t submit a piece for the Revue!” She couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it.
His brow wrinkled. “Why not? You’re good enough.”
“Do you know how many people at this school literally hate me just for existing? Why would I give them anything they can use as ammo?”
Sebastian looked genuinely surprised, like he’d forgotten he was hanging out with a pariah. Then he looked resolute.
“I’ll do it with you.”
“What! You will not.”
“We could. We could do it together—if you want. If you think I’d be good enough by then.” In the blue night and golden lamplight, his eyes were dark and vivid. It was hard to believe that he was the same person she’d thought she’d seen outside the dueling club.
“What are you doing?”
“What?” It was his turn to frown.
“Why would you do that?”
“Do what?”
She stared at him. “I know you don’t want to tell people about this, and that’s fine.
I get it, I really do, trust me.” Her voice caught and she had to pause, face reddening.
“You care what people think about you, so why would you offer to get on stage with someone who would destroy your reputation when you can’t even tell your roommates that we’re working on the Elumnara together?
” It all came out in a desperate rush, more than she had meant to say.
He fixed his gaze on the ground, and his normally soft hair—sweat-stiffened and standing up at odd angles—cast spiked shadows on the floor. “I don’t know what to say.” He sounded ashamed. “I’m not trying to hide this, I swear. It just feels so…”
She understood his silence then, if not his words. “Private,” she finished.
“Yeah.” His lips, which usually looked imperious, were pressed together in an unsure line. “I do care what people think,” he admitted, hugging his arms.
“I know—”
“No.” His interruption shocked both of them, eyes sparking as they caught the light. “I care about what people think, but…” He glanced at her, making sure she was really listening. “I think I care more about what you think.”
Lily’s heart stuttered to a stop. “W-hat? Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I feel like myself around you. Like, my actual self.”
She considered. “You don’t have to be the person people expect you to be.”
“That and, I think it’s because we’re friends. At least I think we’re friends.”
Something inside her fractured then, in the best possible way. “We’re friends. If you want.”
Friends.
“I do want.”
She wanted to laugh. How many hundreds of nights had she lain awake, imagining what it would be like to have real friends, who took her as she was and liked that Lily best of all? Now she had her first actual best friend ever, and it was Sebastian Fucking Allsaires.
Laughter overtook her so hard she almost choked, and tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her sleeve, laughing some more, until Sebastian joined in and their fit became circular.