Chapter 2
Gravity is usually my friend. As a dancer, I have an intimate, contractual relationship with it. I know how to defy it, how to lean into it, how to use it to make my body look like it’s made of water instead of bone and gristle.
But for the last twenty-four hours, gravity had been trying to kill me.
I lay on my back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling tiles of the Arts Annex. My chest heaved, my lungs burning with the familiar, metallic taste of exhaustion. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I counted the beats of silence, trying to slow my heart rate.
"You look like a crime scene," a voice deadpanned from the doorway.
I didn't turn my head. I didn't have the energy. "I feel like a crime scene, Mila. I feel like the chalk outline."
Mila walked into my peripheral vision. She was wearing her usual combat boots and a tutu, a combination that only she could pull off without looking like she was having a mental breakdown. She nudged my ribs with the toe of her boot.
"Get up. You’ve been in here for four hours. You’re going to tear a hamstring, and then I’ll have to do the duet with Sarah, and you know Sarah smells like soup."
I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and pushing myself up. My muscles screamed in protest—a good pain. A cleansing pain. It was the only thing loud enough to drown out the replay of The Incident that had been playing on a loop in my brain since last night.
"I can't go back to the dorm," I mumbled, grabbing my water bottle and draining half of it in one gulp. "Gary sent me another text. If I don't have the rent by tomorrow, he’s changing the locks."
Mila sat down on the bench, pulling a cigarette out from behind her ear. She didn't light it—smoking was banned in the building—but she liked to hold it as a threat.
"So pay him," she said, as if it were that simple. "Use the catering money from the gala."
I froze. The water bottle crushed in my grip, plastic crackling loudly in the quiet studio.
"About that," I said, my voice rising an octave. "I kind of... didn't get paid."
Mila’s eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because I was fired."
"Why?"
"Because I spilled wine."
"On who, Jess?" Mila’s voice dropped. She knew me. She knew my brand of luck. "Who did you spill wine on?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. "Nick Vance."
The silence in the room was heavy. It was the kind of silence that usually precedes a bomb detonation.
"You spilled red wine," Mila said slowly, articulating every syllable, "on Nicklas Vance. The Captain? The guy whose dad basically built this wing of the campus? The guy who looks like he murders puppies for cardio?"
"He doesn't look like he murders puppies," I defended weakly, opening my eyes. "He looks like he murders people. Professionally. With a silencer."
I stood up and walked to the mirror, pulling my hair out of its messy bun and shaking it out. The copper curls were frizzy from the humidity of the room. I looked wild. I looked desperate. My leotard was old, the elastic fraying at the hip. My leggings had a hole in the knee.
I was the antithesis of Nick Vance.
"He fired me, Mila," I said to my reflection.
"He didn't even raise his voice. He just looked at me with those... dead shark eyes and told me to get out. And then he blacklisted me. I called the staffing agency this morning to pick up a shift for the Dean’s brunch? They told me I’m 'Do Not Hire' status pending a review. "
"He can do that?"
"He’s a Vance," I spat, echoing his own arrogant words from last night. "He can do whatever he wants. He treats the world like it's his personal dollhouse and if he doesn't like how you’re dressed, he just throws you in the trash."
I grabbed my towel and wiped the sweat from my neck, scrubbing hard, trying to erase the phantom sensation of his stare.
That was the worst part. It wasn't the fear. It was the awareness.
When I had touched him—when my hands had panicked and grabbed onto his rock-hard thigh—I hadn't felt disgusted.
I had felt... electrified. Like sticking a fork in a socket.
His body was heat and steel, and for a split second, before he looked at me like I was a cockroach, I had wondered what that control would feel like if it wasn't directed at destroying me.
I shook my head violently. No. Absolutely not.
"I’m screwed," I said, shoving my jazz shoes into my bag.
"I have seventy-four dollars. Rent is six hundred. I have no job. And if I get evicted, I lose my mailing address, which means the University puts my scholarship on hold because I’m technically 'not in residence.
' It’s a domino effect, Mila. One glass of wine, and my entire life collapses. "
Mila sighed, finally putting the unlit cigarette back in her pack. "You could ask your dad?"
I shot her a look that could have peeled paint.
"Right. Sorry. Stupid suggestion," she muttered. "Okay. Plan B. You crash on my floor."
"Your RA checks rooms every night because of the weed incident," I reminded her. "And your roommate hates me."
"True. Plan C. You sell a kidney."
"I'm considering it."
I slung my bag over my shoulder, the strap digging into my tired muscles. "I’m going to go to the Housing Office. Maybe if I cry—like, really ugly cry—they’ll give me an extension on the dorm hold."
"Good luck," Mila said, saluting me with two fingers. "Don't let the bastards grind you down."
"Too late," I whispered, pushing open the heavy studio door. "They're already making flour out of my bones."
The campus of Blackwood University was beautiful in a way that felt hostile. The Gothic architecture, the ivy-covered stone, the pristine walkways shovelled free of snow by an army of invisible workers—it was all designed to intimidate. It whispered, You don't belong here.
I kept my head down, walking fast against the wind. My coat was a thrift store find, a wool blend that had seen better days, and the wind cut right through it. I could feel the dampness of the snow seeping into my sneakers.
Layer 2: The Ghost.
Every step was a calculation. If I skip lunch for the next week, that saves forty dollars. If I sell my textbooks and just use the library copies, that’s another hundred.
I was twenty-one years old, and my entire mental bandwidth was consumed by math. I was exhausted. I wanted, just for once, to be able to walk into a coffee shop and order a latte without mentally subtracting the cost from my "Emergency Tampon Fund."
My mother used to live like this. Juggling bills, hiding eviction notices in the junk drawer, smiling too brightly when the landlord came knocking.
I remembered the way she would shrink when men raised their voices.
I remembered promising myself, when I was twelve and we were eating cereal for dinner for the fifth night in a row, that I would never be that small. I would be iron.
But iron costs money. And right now, I was tin foil.
I reached the Housing Office, shaking the snow off my hair before pushing through the glass doors. The heat inside was blasting, a wall of dry, recycled air that made my cheeks sting.
I walked up to the front desk. Mrs. Gable was there. She was a woman who looked like she had been born behind a desk, wearing a cardigan that smelled like mothballs and judgment.
"Name?" she asked, not looking up from her computer.
"Jessica Monroe. Student ID 89404."
She typed slowly, using two fingers. Clack. Clack. Clack. The sound grated on my nerves.
"Ah. Miss Monroe." She finally looked up, adjusting her glasses. "I see a flag on your account."
"Yes, that's what I wanted to talk about," I said, summoning my best 'responsible adult' voice. It was hard when my hands were shaking. "I know the payment is overdue, but I had a job lined up this weekend that would have covered it. There was... a complication. I just need forty-eight more hours."
Mrs. Gable sighed. It was a long, rattling sound. "Honey, the flag isn't for late payment. Well, not just for late payment."
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"The status of your off-campus residency waiver has been revoked.
The landlord, a Mr. Gary Wilson, contacted the university this morning.
He stated that the lease is being terminated due to non-payment, which means you are no longer in compliance with the 'Safe Housing' requirement for your scholarship. "
The world tilted on its axis.
"He... he called you?" I gripped the edge of the desk. "He said I had until Tuesday."
"Apparently, he changed his mind," she said, turning the screen so I could see it. "He listed the unit as 'Vacant' as of 9:00 AM this morning."
9:00 AM. I had been in the studio.
"So..." I swallowed, my throat clicking dry. "So what does that mean?"
"It means," Mrs. Gable said, not unkindly, but with the crushing weight of bureaucracy, "that your scholarship is suspended until you can provide proof of valid residence. And since you are no longer a student in good standing financially, you cannot access the dorms."
"I'm homeless?" The words came out as a squeak. "You're telling me I'm homeless and my scholarship is gone?"
"Until you fix the housing situation, yes. You have until Monday morning to update your file, or you will be administratively withdrawn from your classes."
Monday morning. Today was Saturday.
I stared at her. I waited for the punchline. I waited for someone to jump out and say this was a cruel hazing ritual.
"Monday," I repeated dull.
"Next!" Mrs. Gable called out, looking over my shoulder.
I stumbled away from the desk. I walked blindly toward the door, bumping into a student wearing a Canada Goose jacket that cost more than my car. I didn't apologize. I couldn't speak.
I walked back out into the cold.
The snow was falling harder now. A whiteout.
I stood on the steps of the admin building, the wind whipping my hair into my face.
Monday.
I had nothing. No job. No home. No scholarship.
And it all traced back to one moment. One spill. One man.
If Nick hadn't fired me, I would have had the cash to pay Gary. If I had paid Gary, he wouldn't have called the school.