Chapter 39 Brawls and Ballet
I woke up the next morning without Ethan next to me, just like I would every morning after for the rest of my life.
When I got downstairs, Ethan and Monica were already there, packed and ready to leave. We all said goodbye to my parents and as my mom took me in for a hug, she whispered something that stuck with me the whole ride home.
“Whatever you’re going through, you’ll get through it.”
And for the first time in my adult life, I was sure my mother was wrong.
There was no way I was getting through this. There was no getting through or over this sort of heartbreak. There was just finding out how to live with it.
When we pulled up to Monica’s house, I jumped out as fast as my feet could take me and beelined it for my car. A quick goodbye to Monica after making sure she was all right to be left alone was all I managed. Saying goodbye to Ethan a second time wasn’t something I could physically endure.
I made a short stop back at my apartment, grabbing some dance clothes and my pointe ballet shoes before I was back in my car and on my way to the studio. I called Gabe on the way there, double checking that he was meeting me as we had planned.
The dance competition was a week from today, and Gabe had driven up this morning to stay with me throughout the week so we could practice as much as we needed.
To be perfectly honest, nothing in the entire world sounded better than throwing myself into dance and as many distractions as I could find for an entire week with Gabe.
As I pulled up and parked across the street from the studio, I spotted Gabe standing with his back to me in front of the studio’s entrance. A smile went to tug onto my lips. Even just the sight of Gabe rested a blanket of comfort over my mangled heart.
Just then, Gabe flung his arms out in front of him in a jerking, sort of angry motion. The rising smile slipped from my mouth, confusion settling a frown in its place as I watched Gabe through my drivers side window.
Was he yelling?
If he was, I couldn’t see who he was yelling at.
Curiosity pulled me out of my car and into the empty street.
As I moved across the road, the cold air from sneaking in between my thin layers made me yank my jacket around me tighter.
The wind whipped in my eyes as I walked, forcing me to squint as I closed the space between me and Gabe.
“Why the fuck would you think this would be a good idea? You need to leave .” Gabe’s voice grew angrier and louder the closer I got. Gabe wasn’t someone who was easy to anger. He was kind and gentle, maybe a little too candid voicing his thoughts at times, but overall he was a mild-tempered man.
If he was angry, it must have taken something drastic to set him off.
“Gabe?” I called out to him, quickening my pace. “Are you okay?”
Gabe whipped around, his eyes finding mine and widening just a hair. “Alice, go wait in your car.”
“Why? Are you o—”
The next word on my lips blew away with the wind, the breeze carrying them away to leave me speechless and frankly, I was jealous of my now distant words.
I wanted to blow away with them somewhere far, far from here and far from him.
Him being here, him standing right there, him staring at me like he wasn’t the one who tore my universe down.
Why was he here? Why was he here in front of my studio, in my town?
“No,” I breathed, mostly to myself.
“Alice, just go back to your car. I’ll handle him.”
“Don’t tell her what to do,” the familiar voice scoffed, proving that he wasn’t a mirage of my past. He was here.
Jonah was really here.
His eyes fixed on mine and felt so wrong—felt dirty. I used to love how it felt to be caught up in Jonah’s gaze and now, all I felt was rage and a lot of it.
“ What are you doing here?”
Jonah had the gull to appear offended at my question, ticking his eyes up to the sky in a quick roll.
“Don’t act so dramatic. I just wanted to talk to you before the competition.”
“Why?”
“To see how you are? We haven’t talked in a while.”
“That’s sort of how break ups work,” Gabe interjected.
“You know, I don’t think we need your help to talk . So how about you go inside and Alice will meet you in there.”
Without missing a beat, Gabe stepped in front of me. “Not a fucking chance.”
Over Gabe’s shoulder, cruel and mocking laughter started off slow from Jonah. “God, it’s always a show with you two. Nothing can ever be easy.”
“If that’s true, then how about you leave?” I leaned to see around Gabe’s body to see the moment my comment hit Jonah’s ears.
“Because I came here with the intention of having a mature fucking conversation with you, Alice. Do you think we could do that?”
I wanted to shout back the cliche saying that I had nothing to say to him, but that wasn’t true.
I had a lot of things I’d imagined saying to him, a lot of furious, justice-seeking comments that I’d come up with when I played out in my head what I would say to Jonah the next time I saw him.
I just never thought that would be now, hours after having my heart gutted open by the true love of my life.
“Gabe and I have to rehearse so no. You can talk to me next Saturday.”
“I need to talk to you before next Saturday.”
“And why is that?”
Jonah stalled for a moment, fastening his greenish-brown eyes to mine in a look I knew all too well. “Mrs. Maria said you danced here.” He nodded in reference to AIM behind him. “Is it nice?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Maybe I was being too paranoid, but I trusted literally nothing about Jonah, and that included his intentions. Jonah sighed and took a step closer to me, Gabe’s body stiffening as he did.
“Because I want to know how you’re liking it, what the classes are like, if they’re treating you how you deserve to be treated.”
Dead panned, I responded, “You know nothing of how I deserve to be treated.”
“Wow.” Jonah chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head. “Can’t even have a conversation with you without you turning it into something it’s not.”
“I think it’s time that you go.” Gabe was getting antsier the longer Jonah stayed. I could feel it in him, emanating out like a buzzing that vibrated the immediate air around him.
“Alice and I aren’t done talking.”
“I think we are.”
Gabe’s antsiness was getting to me too. After last night, I still felt like I hadn’t quite caught my breath yet, and seeing Jonah made that sensation so much worse.
My chest was tight, my heart was racing, and my limbs felt like they were electric with too much energy tingling on the surface of my skin.
“Alice, we spent five years together. I think you can handle another five minutes.”
“No, we wasted five years together and I’m not wasting another minute, Jonah.”
“Oh my god.” His tone sounded the visual equivalent of an eye roll.
He ran his hands back through his hair, which was shorter than the last time I saw it.
I always hated his hair short. “Fine, okay. We’ll rip the bandaid right off!
We need somewhere to rehearse, but we’re saving up money for the wedding so we can’t rent out any spaces and I was hoping you would be adult enough to let us use your rehearsal space a few hours a day. Happy?”
“ Excuse me ?”
Jonah had always been the ballsy type, but never had he let his arrogance talk him into asking something so outstanding. “Did you just ask me for a favor but also insult me at the same time?”
“Please don’t do that,” Jonah groaned.
“Do what? Call you on your gaslighting bullshit?” Jonah’s eyes jumped wider as I cursed and a swell of courage surged in me.
“You used to do it all the time, and you’re doing it again now.
Making me think I’m not ‘adult enough’ to let you have my rehearsal space or ‘mature enough’ to hand over the video to our old routine so you could use it with Hannah.
You always make me feel like I’m doing something wrong by saying no to you, and that’s how our entire relationship worked. ”
“Okay.” Jonah brushed me off with a laugh that sung through the air with its insincerity. For the first time face to face with him, I told him something genuine about how he treated me during our relationship and in return, he laughed at me.
“Why did you ever even think I would do you a favor and let you use my dance space?”
Jonah flung his hands up in the air, shrugging on the dramatic coat that he accused Gabe and I of wearing.
“I don’t know, because you’re nice? And nice people do nice things for others.”
“People need to stop confusing me being nice with me being dumb.”
What Ethan said last night rang true in this perfect example of a moment.
I was a pushover and people knew it and took advantage of it, and none more than Jonah.
Though, if there was one good thing about seeing Jonah less than 24 hours after having the heart he broke in the first place broken all over again, it was the fire that he lit in my belly by being here.
Seeing his face, hearing his smug voice all ignited a fire to fight for something I always put on the back-burner.
Myself.
He had five years to treat me however he pleased, to manipulate me into feeling however he wanted me to feel, and I let him do it. I let him hurt me, use me, and ultimately break me. Yet, that fire in my belly fused those broken pieces of myself together for just a moment. This moment.
My moment to take myself back from Jonah fucking Hart.
“No, Jonah. I will not let you use our rehearsal space to help you save up for a wedding to a woman you cheated on me with. I’m also not going to let you use our rehearsal space to rehearse a piece you tried to steal from me, hoping you could beat us with it.
Like you said, I’m nice. But I don’t have to be nice to you. ”
Jonah scoffed in response. “Jesus fucking Christ, you act like I abused you.”
“You did!”
To that, Jonah’s stare sliced through mine and for the first time during this conversation, he looked deadly serious.
“I never laid a hand on you, and I never would.”