Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Leaving the festival, Wren ran the short distance to the studio because that was where she found her calm, where she could breathe.
After punching in the electronic code, she plugged the charging cable into her phone, grateful it was habit to keep one wherever she was working.
Powering up the sound system, she synced the playlist on her phone and allowed a haunting ballad to fill the room, seep under skin and into her soul.
Kicking off her sandals, she started to move, the room lit by the light of the full moon and the streetlamps outside.
Here in the dark shadows, in the patches of moonbeams, she could find a little peace.
Wren moved to stand in the center of the floor, barefoot, and pulled her shirt out of her shorts, and twisted her hair into a messy knot that wasn’t, if she did this right, going to last. The wooden boards beneath her were cool, slightly sticky with resin and humidity.
The sound of violins filled the room, the heavy beat of percussive drums kicked in, and she could finally feel the pulse in her fingertips, the anger in her lungs.
At Alex and at herself. At the world. At her father.
The music filled the room and her soul, dark and demanding, and it matched the tight, furious tempo of her thoughts.
She moved without thinking—head snapping, shoulders slicing, chest isolations sharp enough to cut.
Her body hit the beat with surgical precision, each movement a punch, a roundhouse kick that landed with honed accuracy.
Then she spun, a double turn that she should’ve easily nailed, but she wobbled and landed heavily.
She slapped her palm against the floor, the sound sharp.
“Come on,” she hissed. “Do better.”
The music built. Wren launched into a traveling combo—back attitude turn, then a tilt jump that nearly sent her sprawling.
She landed heavily, heart pounding, frustration heating her skin.
She dropped low, swept a hand along the floor, using the motion to pull herself up again, faster this time, so much fiercer, as if she were fighting the music, the world, herself, trying to expel the confusion, to find clarity.
Her system coursed with conflicting emotions, swirling through and heating her blood.
There was, to be expected, shock. A healthy dose of validation—years trumped weeks, Jess! —and worst of all, hope.
On every level, she and Alex made sense.
They were great friends and knew each other inside out.
They had trust—what had been lost could be rebuilt—and, with a little effort, they could move on and have a stable relationship.
They had dance and creativity in common and knew the highs and lows of a career in the performing arts.
It was overwhelming how right it all sounded…
Sounded, but didn’t feel. And that was why she was flinging herself around this studio in the middle of the night.
Coming to a stop, she did a half-twist flip, landing on the balls of her feet, before extending her legs and rolling forward, before coming to her feet. Her movements felt jerky, hesitant, irritable.
That could be because she was feeling jerky, hesitant, and irritable… Dance through it, Dunlop, it’s the only way you are going to get some sleep tonight.
She needed to move, an extension—hold, tremble, breathe—then collapse. Her knees smacked the wood hard. She stayed there a second, gasping, fists pressing into the floor until her knuckles burned.
Her dad and Alex had both left her—one leaving because he always found something or someone more interesting than being with her. The other leaving for someone he thought was better, and then returning when he realized that wasn’t the case. Her world view had been turned upside down.
Damn it, she was thinking too much, trying too hard, and she needed to let go.
Crying wasn’t an option, but dancing was.
This was the only place she could express her emotions, the place where her body could cry instead of her eyes.
A dance studio didn’t judge, and it was where she could be fully, utterly herself. Vulnerable, exposed, anxious.
She launched into a turning leap, legs splitting midair, but when she came down, her weight hit wrong—an inch too far over the outside edge of her foot. The sharp roll of her ankle was immediate, sickening. Pain flared, bright and hot.
“Fuck!” The word was a sharp crack, a bullet out of her mouth.
She caught the barre for balance, eyes squeezed shut as she breathed through the pain.
It throbbed in waves, her pulse beating hard against it, but she refused to stop.
She circled her ankle once, testing, and when it screamed in protest, she snarled back under her breath. It wasn’t bad enough to stop.
“Wren.”
Wren braked at the sound of her name over the violins and slowly turned to see Dane standing in the doorway, arms folded and one ankle resting on the other.
She couldn’t deal with him right now, didn’t want to think about the way he made her feel, didn’t want to face her attraction to him—and how he flipped her world inside out.
Not when she was still working through her conversation with Alex.
She was bad at men, horrible at relationships, and it was better to avoid the species altogether.
So instead of acknowledging his presence, she went again.
She stopped counting and became motion. Somehow managing to ignore her throbbing ankle, she moved on instinct, spinning, contracting, rolling through her spine, arms and legs flying.
Her movements became jagged, sometimes violent, before sliding back into fluidity.
Waves crashing and retreating. She hit an aerial, barely stuck the landing, and fell into a deep backbend, hair spilling loose, chest heaving.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t clean. But it felt real, almost a cleansing ritual. As the music faded, she dropped to the floor and lay on her back, her breath coming in sharp, harsh waves, her ankle pulsing.
“Right, that’s it,” Dane said, raising his voice to be heard over the music.
He strode across the room, punched the power button on the stereo, and silence, only punctuated by her heavy breathing, filled the room.
Moving again, he switched on the lights, and Wren lifted her hand to her eyes, the sharp light piercing her eyeballs.
“Jeez, give a girl some warning,” she muttered, blinking.
Dane dropped to his haunches next to her foot and lifted it, his big hands gently holding her calf.
He looked at her ankle, prodded a little, and then slowly rotated the joint.
It was sore, sure, but not serious, and not bad enough to make her stop dancing.
She’d had enough injuries to know when something was career-threatening or not.
His eyes met hers, and he lowered her foot to the floor. “A little ice, some elevation, and it’ll be fine in the morning. Maybe a little stiff.”
“Thanks, doc,” Wren quipped. The tension in the room was butter-thick, and when he didn’t smile at her quip, she knew he had to be gearing up to ask a bunch of questions or to give her a lecture.
Instead, he stood up and held out his hand. When Wren put her hand in his, he easily lifted her to her feet.
“Are you done punishing yourself?” he calmly asked.
She wanted to bat his words away, to make a joke, but his eyes demanded honesty, and she found herself unable to lie to him.
“I could carry on a little longer,” she admitted. Because this is what she did: when her emotions became bigger than she could handle, she retreated into the music and danced her frustrations away. Most of the time it worked, but some days needed more time and energy expenditure.
He looked down at her ankle and shook his head. “I wouldn’t recommend testing that anymore tonight.”
She rotated her foot and felt the sharp pain, the twinge that said she’d done enough. Pulling a face, she lifted her shirt and wiped her sweaty forehead. Raking her hands through her hair, she pulled it into a ponytail, happy to have it off her hot neck.
She looked at Dane and took in his calm demeanor, his relaxed stance. “How did you know I was here?” she asked, placing her foot on her calf.
“I saw your friend leaving, then watched you head out like your ass was on fire. Followed you here,” he stated, his tone holding neither curiosity nor judgment.
Just calm, steady, and unwavering. She waited for his question, certain it was coming, but Dane walked to the bench and picked up her shoes and phone.
When he reached her again, he crouched and slipped her foot into her sandal, then gently eased the hurt one in, too, loosening the straps to accommodate the slight swelling.
His simple, sweet gesture tightened her throat, and she blinked away the moisture in her eyes.
Quiet support, no harsh intrusion, just steady acceptance.
Whenever Alex’d caught her trying to dance away her pain, he’d read her the riot act about trying such risky moves on her own, demanding to know what she’d do if she was hurt, if she knocked herself out, who would know?
Dane didn’t comment on what could’ve happened…
She liked that he didn’t question her being alone in a studio late on a Saturday night, didn’t judge her need to fling her body around like a contestant on World of Dance.
He stood and looked around. “Are you done?”
Wren rolled her shoulders, felt the tightness within them, and nodded. She hadn’t pushed herself like that for a while now and knew she’d feel it in her muscles in the morning. Her stiffness wouldn’t last, but her body would remind her that she wasn’t eighteen anymore.
“Yeah, I’m done.”
Dane placed his hand on her back, lightly, and she walked to the door. He flipped off the lights and pulled the door shut behind him.
“So, did you manage to dance away some of your demons, Wren?”