Chapter 22
Rayne
Dancing on My Own—Calum Scott
The world around me blurs as I dance. I’m aware of nothing but the music and myself.
My heart is pounding, my whole body is working, and for the first time, it all feels right.
Being here. Dancing. I have the steps in my head.
I know how to place my feet and how to move my arms. I spin, and it feels completely natural.
I can breathe properly. My muscles are tight and burning, and I’m exhausted, but in the best way possible, because I know I’m good.
This works. I feel the floor beneath my feet.
I feel the music, this song, and I feel myself.
It’s crazy how easy it is when I’m not trying desperately to be perfect.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about emotion, and I feel so, so much.
Get lost in music
Lost in you
And dance with you ’til midnight.
The words pop into my head so suddenly that I lose my rhythm for a moment and mess up the spin.
But I feel the truth in them, and my heart beats in a new rhythm, one that’s strange and familiar to me at the same time.
Something is happening to me, and it has to do with these words in my head, but I can’t quite define what it is.
The song ends. The studio falls silent, and I come back to reality, where I’m not alone.
“That was excellent, guys,” Melanie says, beaming at us. “Try to let yourselves go a little more. Less control. Try not to focus so much on making every movement perfect. Rayne did that very well just now, for example.”
I blush when Melanie says my name. Her praise takes me so much by surprise that I don’t know what to do with myself or where to look.
I gaze down at the floor, embarrassed. All eyes are on me.
My pulse races because I don’t like being stared at.
It’s uncomfortable too, because I don’t know what I did that was different from everyone else.
Besides, is it really an advantage that I’m good at this class?
It’s the only one where everyone else is struggling.
In all the other classes, I’m the one who struggles. It just doesn’t add up.
“You were really great. You can be proud of yourself,” Zoe whispers, as if she can read my mind. She squeezes my hand, and her touch makes me feel a little better immediately. Still, I can’t bring myself to feel proud, because it feels like I’m even failing at being good.
“Before we’re done, I want to get back to the assignment I mentioned a few weeks ago,” Melanie continues.
“I want each of you to choose a song and choreograph a dance to it using all the elements we’ve covered so far.
One or two minutes is enough. It doesn’t have to be a complete song.
You can work together, but please, no more than three per group.
You have until the end of the semester. We’ll go through your work in the last two weeks.
It will also count toward your grades for this semester.
Of course you can include everything we’re going to be doing in the next few weeks.
I’m always here to help if you have any questions.
And remember, this isn’t about perfection.
I just want you to learn to listen to your feelings and the music, and to move with both.
” She smiles, and someone asks a question, but I don’t hear it properly.
There’s a rushing sound in my ears, and those words are here again.
I won’t turn back
I won’t give up
I’ll make it fucking right
Get lost in music
Lost in you
And dance with you ’til midnight
My hands tingle with excitement as a crazy idea starts to form in my head. Totally crazy. Completely absurd. But very, very right.
“Rayne?” Zoe’s voice breaks me out of my trance.
“Huh?” I say, and an amused smile spreads over her face.
“Are you coming?”
I look around, blinking. The others are already packing their things, and I didn’t even notice that Melanie had ended the lesson.
“Yeah, sure. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“You don’t say.” Jase grins, putting an arm around Zoe’s shoulders. He nods toward the door. “By the way, I think someone’s waiting for you.”
“Who—” I stop as I turn to look and see Easton. He’s standing in the corridor, looking at me. My heart skips a beat. It’s totally unfair that it does that whenever he’s close. I feel a wave of heat go through me, and I hope I’m not blushing again. Or at least that he doesn’t notice if I am.
He doesn’t believe in fate. That’s what he said, and I’ve never believed in it either.
But I think I’ll have to rethink that, because it definitely can’t be a coincidence that he’s standing in front of this studio just after I had the crazy idea that’s stuck in my head now.
I want to go tell him about it, but my legs refuse to move.
We saw each other this morning, but we didn’t have time to talk. I was glad to see him, but at the same time it felt awful, because I immediately had to think about our almost-kiss and the fact that I was the one who shied away from him.
Last night we were able to ignore it, but it was dark and quiet, and we were writing a song.
The song. It was easy to block out everything else.
But now it’s not so simple. We’re back in our everyday reality, where everything’s the same as it’s always been.
But not really. After all, we almost kissed.
It would be better if I could stop thinking about it. Yes, that would be smart.
I pack my things and follow Zoe, Jase, and Skye out of the studio. Easton is still standing there, hands buried in his jeans pockets. His dark hair is flopping over his forehead.
“Hey,” he says when I reach him.
“Hey.” I’m much too aware that my friends are here too, watching us curiously. I wish they’d go away; their glances are making me nervous.
“Rayne, we’re going over to the dorm, okay?” Zoe reads my mind again, and I nod to her gratefully. “See you later.” She gives me a meaningful look, a silent challenge not to skip afternoon classes again.
“Yeah, see you,” I say. I’m extremely relieved Mae isn’t here, because unlike the others, she wouldn’t let me get away so easily.
“What’s up? Weren’t you finished a while ago?” I ask Easton as soon as they’re gone.
He shrugs. “Yeah. I was just playing the piano, and I was about to leave, but then I saw your class . . . so I’m still here.”
“Were you watching us?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light, even though everything about this situation feels strange. Unnatural. Not like us.
“Just a little.” He gives me a crooked smile. “You were good.”
“Do you think so?” I hate how insecure I sound, but I hate how insecure I feel even more. I’m so sick of it; I want it to stop. Why can’t I just feel good about myself? Why can’t I accept praise without feeling like a total failure at the same time?
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” he says gently, and the sound of his voice alone makes something inside me tense with longing.
“Thanks,” I murmur, and continue quickly before he says something else I can’t handle. “Melanie gave us an assignment. We have to pick a song and come up with choreography for it.”
His eyebrows go up. “Sounds complicated.”
“Yeah, it probably won’t be easy. I’ve never done it before.”
“Do you know which song you want to use?”
“Yes.” I take a deep breath, let it out, and can’t help but smile. “I want to use our song.”
I don’t know what I was expecting. Although, no, that’s a lie.
I do know. I expected joy, that excited sparkle in his eyes that was there all last night while we searched for the right lyrics.
It was there as he watched me cross out the wrong words in his notebook and replace them with the right ones as I quietly sang the melody I had in my head.
Slower and a little more melancholy than what the guys usually do. A little gentler, a little less rock.
I was expecting the smile that shows his dimples and makes it clear to me that our friendship has changed far too much in a very short time.
The fluttering in my stomach and chest, the stumbling of my heart when I see him, and the inevitable compulsion to smile when I think of him are pretty clear signs that we’re not just friends, even though that’s what we have to be. It’s what I need right now.
But Easton doesn’t smile. Instead, a shadow I’ve never seen before crosses his face, causing my stomach to cramp painfully.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, suppressing the urge to cross my arms over my chest. “Do you think it’s a stupid idea?”
“No. Not at all. It’s a good idea. It’s just . . .” He shakes his head and breaks off.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just . . . How are you going to do it? We haven’t even recorded the song yet.”
“So what? We’ll just do it. We could go to the studio together and . . .”
“No,” he says sharply. A guilty expression appears on his face as I flinch.
“Why not? The song is good, really good, and—”
“And it’s your song!” he snaps.
Confused, I blink at him. “No. That’s silly. We wrote it together.”
“It’s still your song. You had the idea. You knew what you wanted to write about, and you wrote it.”
“Yes. Together with you,” I say firmly. I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Yes, I helped you. But it’s your song.”
“No it’s not. We wrote it together,” I repeat. I can’t help it; I need him to understand. He has to know. “If anything, it’s our song. And I want you to play it.”
“But what you’re asking . . . Fuck, Rayne! It’s not as easy as you think.” There’s unmistakable despair and anger in his voice. Anger at . . . who? Me? Or himself? I don’t know, and I don’t want to.
“Then explain it to me,” I beg and take a step toward him.
Everything in me urges me to reach out and touch him, but he steps back as if he knows what I’m about to do.
It hurts, right in my heart. I shouldn’t get to be hurt by this, I know.
I did the same thing to him yesterday when I was the one who backed away. But it still hurts.
“We can’t afford to just go into the studio and record a song.”
I don’t think, I just answer—and promptly say exactly the wrong thing. “I can.”
He laughs, and it sounds bitter. “Yeah, I know.”
My ears are ringing. Everything is going terribly wrong. I’m missing something. “Easton, I don’t get it . . .”
“Of course you don’t. How could you? You come from a completely different world than me and .
. . Oh, fuck, forget it. This is stupid, and I have to go now.
” He’s lying, and we both know it. He doesn’t work at the record store on Fridays, and he doesn’t have to be at the Lighthouse for hours.
Stunned, I stare after him as he turns away and hurries down the stairs.
I want to tell him that we promised not to argue again, but I can’t get the words out.