Epilogue
EPILOGUE
BEVERLY, 2002
20 years old
There were three things I never thought I’d say in one sentence:
1. I live in Los Angeles again.
2. My boyfriend is my foster-brother-but-not-really-who-I-left-and-then-ran-back-to.
3. I own a dance studio that doesn’t smell like gym socks.
“Okay, but hear me out,” Blake said, already grinning as if he knew he was about to be annoying. He stole a fry from my plate, all sun-kissed smugness and long legs that somehow stretched across half the studio floor. “What if we install a dance floor in the ChimeIn office lobby?”
I gave him a long, flat stare. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m dead serious.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Not mutually exclusive,” Jamal muttered, flipping a page of the XXL Magazine with the energy of someone who believed he was better than all of us. Which, okay—maybe sometimes.
The studio was bright with late afternoon light, the windows thrown open and a breeze flirting with the sheer curtains. Tiffany stood balanced on a chair in the middle of the room, holding a measuring tape like it was a sword.
“Mannequins should have actual boobs,” she declared. “Or, like, at least a suggestion of boobs. Justice for all bra sizes.”
Jamal, sprawled across the velvet couch in the corner, didn’t look up. “Are you body-shaming mannequins again?”
“I’m body-correcting,” she said, twirling the tape measure like a ribbon dancer. “Blake, if you let Bev dance in the office, I want a fashion show runway in the break room.”
“Approved,” Blake sighed, sipping from my soda. “Also, I may or may not have acquired a controlling interest in that fashion label you’ve been stalking for six months. You’re welcome.”
Tiffany froze mid-twirl. “Wait. Gilted LA ?”
Blake nodded, a bit smug. “They’re launching a couture line. You’re getting a custom capsule collection named after you. I pitched ‘Tiffany’s Tulle-tastrophe,’ but legal said no.”
She stared at him, slack-jawed. “I don’t know whether to hug you or sue you.”
“Hug him,” I said, stealing my soda back. “He bought me six floor-to-ceiling mirrors last week.”
“And ballet barres made of reclaimed oak,” he added proudly.
“You mean stolen from a rich man’s broken fence?”
“Repurposed,” he corrected. Then he leaned over and kissed my cheek, which was infuriating, mostly because I couldn’t stop watching him afterward. Like my body forgot what to do unless it was reacting to him.
This was my life now. Loud. Busy. Stupidly happy.
After the meltdown, the letters, the not-quite-a-kiss in the living room, and the kiss in the ocean—things settled.
We moved back to L.A., and Blake relocated ChimeIn’s main office to a building just down the street from my new dance studio.
He said it was for “logistical reasons,” but we all knew it was because he liked watching me through the window, always pretending he just happened to pass by with a coffee he “accidentally” bought two of. He stocked the studio with my favorite snacks. Replaced all the lightbulbs with the “cozy ones,” because apparently I once said the harsh white ones made me feel like I was “trapped in a Walgreens”. Bought me new slippers after I stepped on a splinter, then claimed it was “an act of self-preservation” because my rage had no off switch. The studio didn’t need new lightbulbs. It didn’t need snacks labeled with my initials, or slippers that cost more than kitchen chairs. But he still did all of it—quiet, relentless acts of apology disguised as affection.
Blake called it operational efficiency. Tiffany called it groveling.
He never stopped. At least once a day, sometimes twice, especially if I so much as seemed mildly annoyed.
He read my rehearsal notes like they were sacred texts. Tried to teach me Excel formulas at 9 p.m. when I was trying to nap on his chest. Held me like he was afraid I’ll vanish in the morning.
I loved the studio the way people love their first real apartment. It was mine. A little messy, full of cracked charm and possibility. I hosted weekly open classes for girls who couldn’t afford formal training—girls who walked in nervous and left laughing. Sometimes Blake showed up and stood in the back, pretending he was just there for the playlist. Once, he tried to demonstrate a plié and nearly pulled his hamstring. I banned him for two weeks.
Then there was the clothing company—the one he founded for Tiffany under the pretense of “building brand synergy” which was Blake-speak for: I owed her, she has terrifyingly good taste, and Beverly wanted new dance clothes . Tiffany nearly fainted when she found out. She called it a life pivot , pulled out a sketchbook, and immediately started making mood boards titled My Vision & My Closet .
Jamal teased her for a week straight, but he also started showing up to meetings in suspiciously well-fitted sweaters.
The four of us had become a unit while ChimeIn exploded into something bigger than any of us had imagined. We worked, we danced, we laughed too hard, and we stayed up too late, too often talking about nothing and everything. The world still sucked in places, but our corner of it had gotten lighter. Warmer.
While Blake was knee-deep in code and Tiffany was stress-ordering platform heels she absolutely didn’t need, I stepped outside for air. The California sun wrapped around me, and I tugged my phone from my bag and hit Mom.
She answered after one ring. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Mom,” I said, tucking my legs up on the bench outside the studio. “You busy?”
“I’m never too busy for my girl,” she said warmly, and just like that, I was eight again—sitting in her lap in the kitchen, crying about scraped knees and burnt pancakes.
“I just…wanted to say thank you,” I told her. “For not being mad when I disappeared.”
“Oh, Beverly,” she murmured. “You were healing, sweetie. Sometimes healing looks like hiding.”
I blinked fast. “I’m not hiding anymore.”
“I know you’re not.” There was a soft pause. “I saw the new photo on your studio website. You look like you own the place.”
“That’s because I do,” I said with a smile.
“I’m coming by next week. Just for a couple days.”
I sat up straighter. “You are?”
“I’d love to see the studio in person, and I was thinking we could visit your father’s grave again. I think he’d be so happy, Bev. About the peace I hear in your and Blake’s voices these days.”
The tears hit quietly, sneaking past my smile.
“Yeah,” I said eventually. “I’d like that. And he would too.”
“He always said life’s too short not to do the thing that keeps your heart beating. And you—” she said, her voice cracking a little, “you sound like you found your rhythm again.”
I pressed my fingers to my lips, blinking toward the sunlight. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I think I did.”
There was a pause before she spoke again, her words coming out like a reminder she needed me to hear. “Life’s really too short, you know. To not love someone. To not let them love you back. People throw around ‘life’s too short’ like it’s just a phrase, but they forget what it really means. So, go all in, okay? On everything.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Good. Now go dance about it, or something.”
I laughed and hung up. Turned toward the chaos and beauty that was now my little studio. Tiffany was now attempting to clean my dance shoes with a lint roller. Jamal tried to moonwalk in socks, arms flailing. Blake was watching me like I was both a hurricane and the shelter from it. I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind.
He leaned back into me without question, without hesitation.
“Mom’s coming next weekend,” I said quietly.
“Ooh,” Tiffany chimed. “You want me to help plan a wardrobe? Something chill but also, like…mildly impressive?”
“Tiff,” I laughed. “She’s not here to rate my outfits.”
“Still,” Blake said, kissing the side of my head. “Maybe wear the pink skirt. The one that makes me lose all sense of time.”
Tiffany gagged audibly. “You two are disgusting.”
“Oh, please,” Jamal said, scoffing as he gave her a side-eye. “You’d cry if nobody flirted with you at least once a day.”
Tiffany looked over at him, eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said, leaning back on the velvet couch like he was reclining on a throne. “Don’t act like you don’t live for the attention and the compliments.”
“I live for honesty,” she shot back, flipping her hair with a scoff. “And people happen to tell me I’m hot because, well, I am hot, Jamal. It’s not the same.”
Blake sighed. “Here we go.”
Jamal took a slow bite of a cold fry, chewed, and then said, “So…you’re saying you don’t miss it when I don’t compliment you?”
Tiffany blinked, clearly thrown off by the question. “What?”
“You said people tell you you’re hot. I’m just wondering if you notice when I don’t say anything.”
The room went quiet for half a second too long.
Tiffany crossed her arms, feigning boredom. “If I were keeping track, which I’m not, I’d say you’re slacking.”
“Noted,” Jamal replied quickly. “I’ll file a formal apology later. In triplicate.”
“With footnotes,” she demanded.
He grinned. “Naturally.”
Blake leaned in close, his voice low as he murmured in my ear, “Are they flirting or just fighting with better vocabulary?”
I smiled, watching her pretend not to smile back at Jamal. “Yes.”
Tiffany adjusted her sweater—completely unnecessarily, considering it was perfectly fitted—and smoothed her hair like she wasn’t suddenly aware of how she looked. Jamal kept stealing glances at her in the way someone pretends they’re not looking.
It was subtle. Almost .
She cleared her throat and turned to me. “Anyway, Beverly, back to your wardrobe, do not let your mother catch you in those sad black leggings again. You own real pants?—”
I smiled at them—at my chaotic, ridiculous, beautiful life. There were still hard days. Still memories that knocked the air out of me sometimes. Still grief that didn’t quite know where to go.
But there was also this. Inside jokes. Laughter. Forgiveness. Love that didn’t need to prove itself anymore. And Blake—sitting beside me, now with his laptop in one hand and his other hand on my thigh—looked at me like I was still that girl sitting under an oak tree with him, only now he had a promise in his eyes.
There was nothing left to chase. No past to run from anymore. No shadow to haunt me. Just soft, certain love in front of me.
That night, we stayed at the studio too long again. Barefoot and sweaty, blasting music and shouting over each other about who got to pick the next track. Jamal was attempting a pirouette and knocking over folding chairs. Tiffany was wearing a pair of designer boots and claiming they absolutely qualified as dance shoes. Blake was sitting in the corner, watching me like he always did—like I was the only thing worth looking at.
I walked over, my arms crossed. “You going to dance,” I asked, “or just lurk like a creep?”
“I’m more of a visual learner,” he said with a lazy grin.
“Come on, Posh ,” I teased. “Let’s see your moves.”
Blake sighed but stood, his fingers curling around mine. “Oh, the things I do for you. You know this ends with a sprained ankle.”
“I’ll kiss it better.”
Later, we decided to walk home barefoot, shoes in hand, the streetlights flickering gold as the city buzzed quietly around us.
“You good?” he asked, brushing his knuckles against mine.
Smiling, I looked up at him. “I’m more than good,” I said, lacing our fingers together. “I’m home.”
He stopped walking, turned to me, and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m going to love you forever, Beverly Price.”
I kissed him under the flicker of a broken lamppost, the air sweet with summer and sweat and the future.
“I know,” I whispered. “I’m going to let you.”