Chapter 15
DOVE
My dad always insists that his men drive me into Manhattan for ballet. But I always make them drop me off a few blocks away because I hate the idea of being chauffeured in a bullet-proof luxury SUV.
Bag slung over my shoulder, I start to walk the five blocks to the theater. As I do so, I set my guilt aside and open Lark’s diary again.
Dear Boo,
I found three dozen black roses in my locker when I opened it this morning at school. Like legit LOCKED INSIDE.
God, I fucking love him.
My heart wrenches a little as I turn onto Madison Avenue and start down the last two blocks to the Mercury. My eyes drop back to the page.
OMG, he spanked me last night!!! Like a LOT lol.
And it was super fucking hot. Maybe that’s why he got me the roses, like an apology.
But we were both there, and we both know that I didn’t need ANY sort of apology.
He asked if I wanted to try it, and I did, and I got SO FUCKING WET.
Like I was leaving a puddle on his jeans lol.
A nauseous feeling curdles in my stomach for invading her privacy like this and snooping into her sex life.
For imaging the scene as she describes it, but with me over Bane's knee instead, soaking his pants as he spanks my ass.
What's wrong with me? I’m the worst best friend ever.
I think I might disgust myself.
The dark, familiar itch grins to life inside me. The gnawing, clawing, evil within me that whispers in my ear to do terrible things.
You want the needle. You crave that sweet escape.
You want to watch your blood seep out from your open flesh.
You want to jump and end it all.
I inhale sharply and then exhale slowly. Again. Again. Again.
My hands are shaking and my face is colorless as I reach the entrance to the alley that leads from Madison Avenue to the back door of the Mercury Theater and close the diary.
You don’t need those things.
You aren’t that person anymore.
You embrace life now.
I squirrel the book deep in my dance bag and take yet another cleansing breath before I walk down the alley and join the crowd already gathered there.
This is where the dancers tend to congregate before and sometimes after rehearsal.
Brooklyn described it to me once, really well I thought, as an “in-between place”: somewhere to stop, take a moment, and forget about life, bills, heartache, drama, and anything else that isn’t dance before we enter that world.
Because inside that building, whether at the barre, in the practice studio, or on stage, the outside world doesn’t matter.
We’re just vessels for our passion and the mastery of our art.
It sounds flowery and overblown, but it's true. It’s why I fucking love ballet, which has brought me back from the edge—figuratively and literally—so many times.
“Good morning, Giselle,” Evie beams at me as I walk up to where she’s already chatting with Lyra, Naomi, and Val.
I roll my eyes, feeling my cheeks burn. “I don’t know. I think Madame is just testing it out—”
“Dude…” Naomi sighs, grinning. “I used to think this whole clueless thing was a bit.” She shakes her head. “But now I think it might actually be the real you.”
My brows pinch. “Huh?”
Lyra giggles. “She means you’re fucking amazing, lady. You do understand that, right?”
I groan, feeling my face burn even hotter. “We’re all—”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” Val snickers, exhaling heavily and taking a sip from the enormous coffee in his tattooed hand. Ever since he quit cigarettes, his caffeine intake has gone through the fucking roof.
Amusingly, I think it was the same for me for a while, after I left Il Refugio and decided I didn’t want my rehab smoking habit to follow me.
I force myself to smile at them.
To be normal.
To be someone without baggage and with memories of the past, unlike me.
“Thank you,” I finally say to Naomi, because I know that’s what they want to hear, what a person is expected to say to a compliment. Then I grin at her. “But hello, lady who’s going to be rocking Carmen herself in the Habanera?”
Naomi thanks everyone when they congratulate her.
Madame Kuzmina hasn’t announced all the casting for the gala performance yet.
But Naomi excitedly texted us on our “ballet bitches” group chat after we all left last night to tell us that Madame had kept her late to offer her the coveted variation from Carmen.
It’s funny. When I first got back to New York and joined the Zakharova, Naomi was a whole different person from the confident young woman standing in front of me now.
She was shy and wholly unsure of herself.
She also wouldn’t in a million years have been given, even with her insane talent, the Habanera solo, which is unapologetically sexy and sensual. That just wasn’t her.
Now, there’s zero doubt in my mind that she’s going to kill it, and leave that stage on fire when she's done.
…I think it’s probably safe to say that Naomi’s newfound confidence in herself, her body, and her femininity is all due to Nico Barone, her boyfriend-who-I’m-guessing-will-be-her-fiancé-soon.
Nico, who also happens to be buddies with a certain dark shadow I keep seeing in my peripheral vision.
The shadow that haunts my dreams and then wakes me from them with his rough touch and vicious brand of pleasure and pain.
He spanked me last night.
I was leaving a puddle on his jeans lol.
God, I fucking love him.
My chest constricts, that sick feeling tightening in my stomach again.
“Hey, where are Brooklyn and Milena?” Evie chirps, glancing at the dainty silver watch on her wrist.
Shit. I forgot.
“Fuck, sorry,” I mumble. “Brooklyn messaged me earlier that she was running late this morning.”
“Right,” Val says wickedly, shoving tattooed fingers through his shaggy dark hair. “That’s one way to say ‘getting fucked bowlegged by BDE while he reads the Wall Street Journal.”
The rest of us crack up as Evie turns bright red and looks like she wants to melt into the ground. At least she also laughs.
“BDE” is Val’s nickname for Kir, Brooklyn’s boyfriend. As in “big dick energy.”
I mean, it's not inaccurate.
The group gabbing, smoking, stretching, and drinking coffee out back breaks up as we realize the time. Someone opens the back door, and everyone’s filing inside just as Milena comes rushing up, hefting her dance bag back onto her shoulder.
“Sorry!” she blurts as she crashes into our little group, a wild grin on her flushed face. “I was on my way out the door and totally forgot I had to—”
“Yeah, whatever bullshit you spent the whole drive here concocting in your pretty head, Ms. Thang,” Val snickers, “you can save it for another day.”
Milena’s brows furrow. “I don’t know what—”
Lyra bursts out laughing. “Girl, those hickeys are fresh.”
The rest of us, even Milena, crack up as we all head inside.
Brooklyn manages to sprint onto stage just in time.
Then it’s immediately into morning class, then into smaller groups.
Madame pulls Naomi and me aside to have us start working on our stuff for the gala.
Naomi skips over to the far side of the stage to start warming up for her Carmen solo, and I move to the other wing to become Giselle, the innocent young peasant girl who goes mad and ultimately dies of a broken heart.
Except, as I start working, a weight settles on my chest.
There’s nothing innocent about me.
I’m fucking around with my dead best friend's great love. That makes me horrible.
I repeat the steps over and over to commit them to muscle memory. When I take a breather, movement near the back of the stage catches my eye. I turn and watch Milena dance for a moment, and then a stabbing sensation sinks into me.
What. The. Fuck.
Milena isn’t just dancing. She’s dancing the very steps from Giselle's Mad Scene that I’ve just been working on.
And she’s doing them for Madame Kuzmina.
I watch her move through one of the transitions flawlessly before she stops facing our director.
Madame beams at her—fucking beams, which believe me is like seeing an actual fucking Martian walking down 5th Avenue with a Saks shopping bag.
She nods at Milena encouragingly as the willowy blonde gets into starting position and begins the scene again.
What the FUCK?!
I know rivalries exist in the ballet world, even between friends. But Madame gave me that part right in front of everyone. And Milena fucking hugged me and told me how glad she was for me.
And here she is, wowing our director with moves she has clearly worked on.
Obviously angling for my fucking spot.
Something unhinged and cold takes hold of me. My eyes narrow murderously. My lips curl. My pulse becomes erratic, and I don’t even realize I’m storming toward Milena and Madame Kuzmina until Brooklyn suddenly materializes in front of me and grabs my upper arm.
“Whoa! Hang on, lady!” she hisses, tightening her grip on my arm and yanking me around, spinning me away from the two of them before she frowns deeply and peers into my face. “Dude, are you okay?”
Anger curls inside me as I struggle to form words.
“I—she—” I swallow, shaking my head. “What the fuck is she doing?!” I finally snarl, my chest rising and falling. Sweat sheens my back and my forehead as my brows knit tightly.
Brooklyn looks puzzled as she glances past me.
“Madame asked Milena to be your understudy. She…has to know the steps?” She peers at me again, her eyes narrowing in concern.
I purse my lips. “When? When the hell did this happen?!”
“Dove, she announced it at the start of rehearsal today.“ She looks at me, concern written all over her face. “You were literally standing next to me.”
I blink, then blink again. Wordlessly, I turn, my chest still heaving quickly as I glance back to where Milena is working one of the transitions again. She stops, sees me watching her, and beams as she waves.
“Hey, don’t get sick or anything!” she shouts over the cacophony of the studio. “There’s no way I would nail this like you're going to!”
What the fuck is happening.
I feel numb as I manage to smile weakly back at Milena and then turn to face Brooklyn. She’s frowning at me again, looking very worried.
“Hey… Is everything okay?” Brooklyn says gently, still peering at me. “I mean, I get that there’s a lot of pressure right now, with the whole Bane thing. You want to like, sit for a sec? You look kinda—”
“I’m fine,” I mumble, forcing a wry smile. “I just…didn’t sleep great last night.” I force the fake smile on my face a little wider. “Should have had a second coffee this morning, I guess.”
“Ugh, I hate when I don’t sleep enough,” Brooklyn sighs. “Makes me all crazy feeling.” She glances at me again. “You’re okay, then?”
“Yeah, for sure.” I smile again, tapping my head. “Just going nuts. No biggie.”
She giggles. “Well, at least you'll be in character, Giselle.”
I swallow uncomfortably as she walks away.
What the fuck?
I do manage to keep it together enough to finish rehearsal. But after I’ve showered and changed, I pull the diary back out of my bag and read it as I walk to where I usually meet Dad’s guys in the Escalade.
Dear Boo,
I’m scared.
My brow furrows as I re-read the opening line, threading my way up Madison Avenue through the thick crowd of people around me.
Scared? Of what? I glance at the top of the page and realize the entry is dated just a few weeks before she died.
I can’t tell anyone. Let’s be real, who’s going to believe me? Not Grandma, of course. I'd tell Dove, but we’re so distant these days.
My heart sinks. We were distant? When the fuck were Lark and I ever anything except glued at the hip?
Maybe once upon a time, she’d have believed me, but not now. I think part of it is the Bane thing. I wish I could talk to her about that, too. But it’s too weird to ask her that to her face. I think she’d take it the wrong way or get angry.
I know, I know. I should just say it. She’s my best friend. Or WAS. I hope she still is. I miss how we were. I really miss having someone to talk to about all this.
I think something bad is going to happen to me. I can feel it, like when the birds go quiet right before a storm.
I figured out his secret.
I think he knows.
I blink away tears, my breath turning ragged as my heart hammers in my chest. I swallow a lump in my throat, navigating the thick crowd of rush hour pedestrians around me as my eyes return to the words on the page.
I think he might try to hurt me.
I think he’s going to kill me, Boo.
Reality itself screeches to a stop around me. My throat closes off, my pulse thumping an off-kilter, staccato beat as a whining roar fills my ears.
I think he’s going to kill me, Boo.
My hands are shaking as I slam the diary shut and jam it into the side pocket of my dance bag. Numb, cold, and trembling, I stutter to a stop at the curb, waiting for the walk light as evening traffic zooms by.
I figured out his secret.
I think he knows.
I think he might try to hurt me.
I think he’s going to kill me, Boo.
The crossing light is still an orange hand so I reach for the diary again, wanting to re-read whatever the fuck that was so I can wrap my head around it all.
I never get the chance.
Strong hands slam into me from behind, shoving me forward. The scream catches in my throat, my eyes wide with horror as I find myself lurching off the curb and right into East 52nd Street.
I don't see the bus until it's two feet away.