Chapter 43 Magic
I t took me over an hour to get to the performing arts center between traffic getting home, packing everything I would need for the competition, and trying not to cry through it all.
I pulled up to the building a half hour later than I told Gabe I would, cramming my car in next to a dumpster towards the back since I couldn’t find any other parking. Honestly, if I got towed, it would fit right in with today’s shitty theme.
My legs pushed as fast as they could, running up to the front of the building, my eyes searching out Gabe. Anxiety and guilt pumped my heart three times faster than normal, and by the time I eventually found Gabe, I was winded of oxygen and of the will to breathe it in.
“You’re late.”
“I know. I’m-I’m so sorry,” I huffed, squeezing my eyes together as a wave of dizziness stalked through me.
“It’s okay.” The weight of his hand rested on the small of my back as I hunched over, trying to catch my breath. “I already checked us in and got your badge for you. We’re slated to go on last in today’s line up.”
“Aw, shit.” I craned my head up at him, squinting my eyes through the glare of the sun. “Last?”
His sun-cast silhouette nodded. “Yeah. You know as well as I do that that’s either the best or the worst thing. Depends on the judges.”
He was right. Going last of the day either meant that the judges were too exhausted from watching dance routines all day long to keep their eyes open during yours or that yours was fresh in their minds when they went into the judge’s deliberation room to decide the winners.
It really was a total toss up which way it went.
“So, you planning on telling me why you’re so late this morning?” The suggestive air in Gabe’s voice relieved a fraction of the guilt sitting in my stomach to know he wasn’t mad at me for being late.
“I got a late start and then got stuck in traffic is all.”
“Oh, and what possibly could have been keeping you busy all morning to make you late?”
Knowing the answer Gabe was fishing for was nothing like the one he was expecting, I tried to veer the conversation as far as I could.
“Can we go inside? I didn’t have time to do my makeup so I need to find a bathroom to get ready in.”
“Uh, I don’t think so. You didn’t come home last night and I think I deserve to know every dirty detail of why not.”
My shoulders sunk as I sighed in front of him and refused to meet his eye.
“Can we please not do this right now?”
Gabe didn’t respond for a moment and in the beat of his silence, my stomach twisted around the dying air between us.
“Oh no. What happened?”
What happened… .
What happened was the best night of my twenty-four years had been stained with fighting words and tearful last comments. What happened was that after everything Ethan and I went through, what we built each other up to be in the other’s eyes was now tarnished by a fight as our final exchange.
The last memory I would ever make with Ethan was ruined.
We were ruined.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.” Blinking my stare up to Gabe’s, his expression fell as I allowed him to see the tears holding still in my eyes. “Please?”
In a quick nod, Gabe agreed. Thankfully, he knew better than to bring me in for a hug.
The last thing I ever wanted when I was sad in public was comfort.
Right now, I was holding it all back and in.
If he so much as gave a sympathetic rub of my arm, I would have shattered on the spot and crumbled into a ball of tears with hundreds of strangers’ eyes watching it all unfold.
Gabe and I parted ways so I could go in search of a bathroom to get ready in.
We had only a few hours until our time slot, and I needed every minute of it to relax and distract myself.
All I could focus on for the next few hours was dance.
Not Ethan. Not my heartbreak. Not what I wished I would have said in place of what I did.
Just the music and how my body moved with it.
For the next few hours, I would go back to the basics of who I was and had been born to be.
Just a dancer looking for a song to move to.
After I finished getting ready and applying heaps of stage makeup, I found Gabe, and he and I stretched in one of the ballrooms designated for dancer’s prep.
All around us were couples and soloists who had come here with the same goal in mind as me—to win.
To prove ourselves worthy of something. To get the validation that every human on Earth sought out that gave us permission to be proud of ourselves.
A few times before we went on stage, I ran into dancers from my old studio. Some of them talked to me. Some of them pretended like they never even knew me. For every one of those pretenders, it reminded me why today was so important and why I couldn’t let my fight with Ethan get the better of me.
Today was my day to show them that they didn’t matter to me or to my success. I was all that mattered to my success and how I got there. Not them, not Jonah, not my old job at the studio.
For all the things in my life that I feared or ran away from, dance was not one of them.
Dance was the one thing in my life that had always supplied me with an inordinate amount of confidence and self-assuredness.
Dance was and always had been the best part of me, and I was proud to let my colors shine through on the stage.
And I could not wait to let Jonah Hart see just how vibrant my colors were without him.
Jonah and Hannah were slated to go five slots ahead of Gabe and I, which meant I got to stand in the wings of the stage and watch their routine.
I hadn’t seen Hannah since she helped run me out of the city, and I surprised myself with how okay I felt watching her saunter onto the stage to the notes of the song Jonah and I had danced to years back.
There was no accompanying burst of fiery anger or bitterness that I might have expected.
Right before their routine began, Jonah’s eyes found mine offstage and the smug look that he gave me normally would have curdled my blood with fury.
This time, it just made me laugh.
He had no power over me anymore past providing me with a fire to do and be better than them. Which, as it turned out, wouldn’t be that difficult. Not even a minute into their routine, Hannah went for a leap I knew was coming, and Jonah’s hand slipped beneath her leg.
The audience gasped at the same time I did as Hannah hit the ground, her shoulder catching her fall. Second hand embarrassment washed hot across my skin as I watched her fumble to get back up and Jonah try to help.
The rest of their performance went by okay, but you could tell on their faces they knew they would never recover from that drop.
They had lost.
The next forty minutes flew by shockingly fast and before I knew it, Gabe and I were up.
The pounding of my heart escalated with every step we took on stage, and a smile twitched along my lips.
I loved this feeling. The wash of warm stage lights on my face and knowing my every action was being watched by a crowd of no less than a thousand.
Dance companies from all around the world had their eyes on me as well as little boys and girls who were watching me, hoping that one day, they would be up on this stage just like I was.
Gabe and I got into our starting positions and just before the swell of the first note hit, Gabe pecked a kiss on the tip of my nose and said, “I love you.” and I whispered it right back.
And then we began.
The next four minutes of my life passed by in the most enigmatic blur.
Those four minutes on that stage with Gabe felt like something spiritual.
The emotions involved with the song poured out of me like the tears that fell wet across my cheeks during it.
The heartbreak in the words brimmed in my heart as I danced, and so did the realization of who I was dancing for now.
The realization cracked right across my chest mid-dance, deepening the pain that had been under its surface all day.
This song and this dance started off for Jonah as a way to work through the betrayal and my heartache. Now…
Now I danced for Ethan.
I danced for the love we lost, for the time we never had. Every movement in my body was dedicated to the loss of him and our love and what could have been. My heart cried along with me as Gabe held me and grabbed me and lifted me, and all I could think about was Ethan.
Holding me, grabbing me, lifting me up with his tender and absolute love.
By the time we finished, I was nearly sobbing. The music drifted to a stop and left the air alone, the only noises packing the entire theater being my soft and lonely cries.
The crowd’s eruption into applause choked back the next of my cries.
I raised my head, looking out into the blinding lights, seeing only flickers of hands slapping together in rapid cheers. Around my waist slid a pair of arms that squeezed me in a hug so tight, it forced out a laugh.
Gabe held me as we both stood there, soaking up the love and applause the crowd was throwing at us, and in the next few seconds, more laughter bubbled up my throat and I let it out.
I laughed and wept and just sat in the moment that was sewn together with pure euphoria.
Happiness. True happiness vibrated inside of me through every limb as I turned around to Gabe without thinking and jumped onto him.
The crowd cheered louder as we embraced and more tears streamed down my face, but these were happy tears. They were so happy I had no idea how to stop them or what to do with them, so I just let them fall. I let them cover my face with joy, and I hugged Gabe into me as hard as I could.
We had done it.
Gabe carried us offstage before the applause died out and right past all the hanging jaws of jealous dancers standing in the wings.
“Oh my fucking god. We did it,” Gabe said in my ear, bliss dangling on his every word.
“I know. I know. You were incredible.”
“Me?” Gabe set me down, pushing my body from his with his hands on my shoulders. “No, you , Alice,” he emphasised. “You were magic out there. Pure, glowing, unadulterated magic .”
The word ‘no’ went to spill out of my mouth, but something stopped it. For once, I didn’t feel like I had to cut myself and my accomplishment down. For once, I actually agreed. That dance was like making my own magic.
“Okay,” I laughed, wiping my fingers beneath my eyes. “Oh no, is my make up all messed up?”
Gabe didn’t even pause to think to lie to me. “Yeah, it totally is.”
His truthfulness bolstered yet another laugh from me, and I thanked him before running off to the bathroom to fix my makeup before the judge’s results were announced.
God, I felt good . Gabe said I was glowing and I felt it.
I felt the radiance in my skin shining out for everyone to see, and I couldn’t wipe that massive grin off of my face the entire way to the bathroom.
I felt like a diamond, glittering and shining, pulling everyone’s attention as I ran through the hallways.
My wide, giddy smile beamed just as bright too.
That grin was equally as indestructible as a diamond.
That was, until I stepped into the bathroom and saw her .