Chapter 31 #2
Suddenly, the scenery changed, and beautiful, big sugar plums lined the stage, held by dancers.
Olivia slowly and elegantly walked out to center stage.
His heartbeat thundered outside of his body as he realized she was wearing the tutu from Bookish.
The one she’d worn when he knew she was going to be his.
A brutal ache almost made him laugh out loud at how right he’d been.
And here she was on a stage in front of three thousand people. Miraculously, everyone around him looked at her expectantly, instead of leaping to their feet and applauding at the mere sight of her like he wanted to.
He sat on his hands, just to make sure.
Martha clutched a tissue to her lips. Bright tear tracks of pride shone down her cheeks, and she clutched Pop’s hand, both of them looking nervous.
Luca snuck out his phone and took a quick photo of them watching the performance. Olivia would want it.
Familiar music started to play that he’d heard in every TV commercial during Christmas.
Olivia was impossibly beautiful. Achingly breathtaking. She had such joy in her dancing. The audience had started smiling at the sight of her.
People lined the stage, acting as part of the scenery.
Olivia had to do this for eight years? Watch while somebody else danced the solo she’d never gotten to perform? Torture.
His brain tried to take it all in. Her hand gestures, her foot that flounced sometimes, her legs stretching up so her calf was by her ears by some miracle of gravity while she stood on a single fucking tiptoe.
Why weren’t people screaming? Cheering? Wearing face paint and jerseys with Olivia’s name on them?
The sheer athleticism was brain-scrambling.
Then, just as it was over and he almost clapped like an idiot, she kept dancing and did what looked like turn after turn after turn.
Five, ten, twenty—it had to be thirty turns around the stage, like a snowflake dancing on a spinning top.
Halfway around the stage, the audience broke into applause as she was still spinning. Ten more turns, then ten more.
Those perfect cheeks broke into a genuine, blinding smile that was reflected back to her three thousand times.
The applause grew as the tempo got faster and faster. She was still spinning until suddenly she stopped on a dime, her head angled just so, to thunderous applause and shouts.
Pop whistled, and he saw Olivia blink in recognition but not move a muscle at the sound as her stage smile widened into a laughing, joyful one.
AB was on her knees on her chair, clapping as hard as she could. “THAT’S MY—” Luca covered AB’s mouth as he dragged her onto his lap with a laugh.
More random dances came through, then a while later Olivia was back on stage.
A handsome, prince-like dancer was escorting her. Their warm, intimate smiles with each other made Luca’s teeth grind.
The music started, and they danced together as if they had known each other all their lives.
The music—a familiar, romantic, aching melody—hit him in the heart and squeezed, twisting it.
It was the perfect encapsulation of what he’d felt when he’d first seen her—inevitable longing.
Olivia was this music.
Beautiful, devastating. Sweeping out the sadness and emptiness in his bones and filling them with an insatiable yearning for her.
Like he’d never fully live without her.
His eyes devoured every move, trying to remember it all. Trying to live in the moment with her.
At least he could always be with her in this music. Pretending he was the one basking in her smile on stage, holding her waist as she spun like pink cotton candy.
Radiance beamed from her as she elegantly, yet with military precision, did the complex choreography.
As the music gained steam, she leapt into the man’s arms. They danced together as if they were birds in flight, joyful, carefree, miraculous.
Grand.
That was the only word he could think of to describe her.
She was so much bigger than the small life he led.
As big as this three-thousand-person auditorium. As grand as a sparkling tutu in a million-dollar production.
So much bigger than the small life he could give her.
Years of work in every pose, in every movement, the sureness, athleticism, and grace, and all while standing on the edge of a few toes.
He shook his head back and forth, unable to comprehend it. The bright, bubbling woman who snorted when she laughed and danced with his kid in the kitchen was also the work of art capturing the hearts of the other two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine people in the room.
The music approached the end. Luca sat on the edge of his seat, holding his breath during the drumroll. They hit pose after pose after pose, finally landing on the last beat with Olivia in the air, wearing a blindingly bright, happy smile.
Applause shattered the short silence in the room, and people in the front row stood up. He whistled along with Pop and Wells’s shouts. Annabelle shouted too. They could be as raucous as they wanted now that Olivia wouldn’t be distracted.
She held her pose on stage, drinking it in. He could see the happiness of it running through her veins.
His heart broke for himself and the little girl beside him, knowing they’d never keep her in their lives now.
She brought so much joy into everyone’s life. Even if it meant his life would be dimmer and hollower without her, it was a sacrifice he would happily make if it made her happy.
He only wanted the absolute best for her. She was finally living her dream, as she should.
It was a consolation, though, that she was so fucking good at it.