Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ROSALIE
“How was your date?” Daisy shouted as soon as I walked through the dorm doors.
She was snuggled in under her pink blanket and mindlessly binge-watched something on Netflix instead of going out with me.
Not that I blamed her. After everything that went down with her shitty and emotionally abusive ex, I understood her reluctance to date.
And after my disastrous date, I wanted to swear off guys forever, too.
I let out a long groan, a reminder that while Dex managed to calm me and divert my attention, like he always did, the reality of my situation came rushing back to me.
“Yeah, he wanted to get drunk and have sex,” I muttered, dropping onto my carefully made bed and pulling my stuffed reindeer toy into my arms. “He basically called me a stuck-up prude.”
“Wow,” Daisy gaped at me as she paused her show. Her messy blonde hair was up in a bun, and concern shone in her blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged, faking indifference as his words echoed in my mind. Logically, I knew none of the listed adjectives described me; he didn't even know me. Still... it sucked.
“I thought you liked him,” Daisy went on.
“No. I mean, he was okay-looking and smart. We talked about Biology, and he was a bit nerdy. Yet… he had this need to hook up and make sexual comments in a nerdy way.”
Daisy tilted her head, her messy bun tilting with it. “I just always thought love should be easy... just look at Max and Ivy!”
“My therapist always says that the right person wouldn't make you work for it,” she said with a sad smile.
“And come on, Max and my sister had their ups and downs, too.
But what really defines a relationship is who is by your side through it all.
The constant. Someone who doesn't give up when things get hard, but fights for you.”
I let out a groan and turned to cuddle Yudi, my toy reindeer. It was short for Rudolph, but with a ‘Y’. I named him when I was six and had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘R’. “I just want someone to make me believe in love again.”
“Yeah, don't look at me,” Daisy laughed, moving her laptop to the side and making her way over to me. “That's not me.”
Guilt squeezed my chest as she perched at the end of my bed. “You must think I'm horrible. Going out on all these dates, basically asking for something bad to happen.”
“No, you're just searching for something you can't find. I admire your determination. But Rosie... what you're looking for is inside you. No guy's ever going to fill that void. You need to find a way to deal with it on your own.”
I bit my lower lip and averted my gaze. The phantom pain in my hip intensified whenever I thought about it.
“Let's face it, you'll never love a guy as much as you loved ballet and dancing. And you will never find a relationship that will fulfill you unless you accept that you don't need anyone to make you happy.”
Her words hit me straight to my core, and I felt my eyes tear up.
I cried on the phone to Aaron, making him believe something horrible had happened, when I really was just frustrated that I had found yet another guy who just wanted sex from me.
That's all anyone ever wanted. The one thing I couldn't give them.
I was searching for love.
Maybe Daisy was right, and the kind of love I craved, the all-consuming, epic love, was impossible to find. Not until I had healed all the broken parts of me.
But that was the problem, I didn't want to heal. I wanted to get lost in something or someone else and forget about it.
“Why don't you ask Dex to introduce you to some guys?” Daisy offered.
“From the soccer team?” I gaped at her, tears forgotten. “My brother would murder him, then me, and then the guy who dared to date me.”
My roommate chuckled. “Fair point. I always forget how overprotective he is.”
I rolled my eyes. That he was. My brother was my number one fan, and after my accident that ended my career, he became even more protective.
He thought I was a damsel in distress, the girl who grew up in a glass cage of ballet and needed to be protected from the world outside the bubble I had created.
The irony was that ballet ended up breaking me, not the real world.
“Then ask your brother! I'm sure he will find a guy worthy of you,” Daisy offered.
“Not a chance. I spent all last semester hanging out with the soccer team. He took me to every single party and dinner whenever a player’s girlfriend was there. He had his chance to introduce me to the love of my life.”
Daisy leaned back against the wall, glancing at the ballerina pictures above my bed and sighed. “I would offer you online off-campus dating, but I don't think you want to be murdered.”
“Or I could try stealing someone's boyfriend,” I offered with a smile, reminding her of what she’d done to her sister in the past. Ander Sanchez used to date Ivy before he dumped her for Daisy. Ivy asked Max to fake-date her to get revenge, but in the end, they fell in love.
“I learned from my mistakes,” she nudged me. “I think you need to learn, too.”
“Are you saying I'm the problem?” I gasped. “You're supposed to be my best friend.”
“I'm just honest... not that I have seen you flirt, but how's your flirting game?”
“What do you mean?” I sat up, my forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Everyone knows how to flirt. You just smile and make small talk. It's not that hard.”
Daisy shot me a doubtful look. “Maybe we need to work on your game.”
“You want to teach me?” I asked, wiggling my brows.
She laughed. “God, no. But I'm sure we can find someone willing.”
“Fine,” I let out a long sigh. “Can we order some comfort fries? And watch a movie?”
“Yes!” Daisy grinned. “I'll get the fries; you pick a movie.”
The next day, I was still quite moody and irritated.
As expected, my phone only had messages from Nova and my brother, both asking if I was feeling all right, while the asshole who had invited me to the party was radio silent.
Not that I was expecting an apology after his Instagram stories were full of random girls.
I was sure he was entertaining his bruised ego after I left.
“What a dumbass,” I muttered, deciding to block him as I hurried to the studio.
The phantom pain in my hip ached as I remembered the way he had tugged on my leg to pull me closer once my back hit the bed. I shook my head, trying to push the images away. I had kicked him hard enough, which meant my old injury was aching from the impact.
With a sigh, I entered the Pilates studio I used as my new sanctuary. Ever since I couldn't dance and was forced to do Pilates as part of my recovery, I had fallen in love with the dance-like, fluid motion I could execute safely and get a taste of the thing I loved so much.
Rolling out my pink mat, I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach.
It was a reminder that my parents spent a lot of money on my education, since I didn't attend on a scholarship, unlike Aaron.
Yet there I was, skipping class and stretching into a slow pace of sun salutation to wake up my aching muscles.
The playlist called Slow Morning, full of acoustic covers of my favorite songs, played in the background as I lost myself in the yoga flow before activating my core.
Pilates, yoga, and ballet all had similarities, and I enjoyed mixing them. I could do a downward dog into a plank, then move into a side plank, extending my top leg to the side in a beautiful développé, creating my own flow of movement and playing with my body.
Everyone was pressuring me to pick a major and work toward a degree, but I was never really interested in anything other than sports.
Aaron suggested I major in business with a minor in entrepreneurship so I could open my own business, but I found it stupid.
Did I really need a degree and three more years of my life wasted to open a business?
It couldn't be that hard, but it might have been.
Flex and Flow, the studio I used in San Matjo, was thriving, and the owner, Sam, didn't have a business degree, just pure passion. I could do the same. Use my passion and drive to create a space where people can come and recreate themselves.
It has been my ultimate dream since last year. Before that, all I felt was desperation and pain whenever I thought about my future. But now, I had a vision.
It was unrealistic, and some even said childish, but it was mine. And it helped me push through the worst of the days when the pain in my hip was unbearable.
After all, getting a hip replacement at the age of seventeen wasn't something that usually happened with teens, especially when it numbed my career from the start.
Sweat trailed down my back, and I discarded my sweater, staying in my pink sports bra and matching leggings as I reached for the wrist weights after finishing with my core sequence.
I moved into hip flexor stretching and strengthening before working my inner thighs and bum to keep them as rounded and lifted as I liked.
After all, I hadn’t trained since I was four to lose all that because of an injury.
The wrist weights made sure my arms got a workout as well, without me working them, as I hated arm exercises.
I rather used inversion for strengthening them, along with wrist weights.
Occasionally, when I was using the reformer, I would work on them too, but it wasn't my favorite.
My sweat drew shapes on my rubber mat as I closed out my workout with some deep stretches, mindful of the lost range of motion in my left hip, while my right one was still extra flexible. The unevenness of my two sides was laughable.
Indulging myself in a full body stretch before collapsing on my mat and staring at the ceiling, my phone pinged, the relaxing covers interrupted by a text message.
Rude.
I rolled onto my stomach and checked my phone, my eyes skimming through the unanswered ones from yesterday before settling on a new one from my brother.