27. Logan
Chapter twenty-seven
Logan
Julie is sprawled out on my chest, breathing softly. I’m slowly rubbing her back, my fingers trailing up and down. This feels like a bubble of calm, and everything leading up to it was overwhelmingly perfect.
I want to lay here forever; I want to jump up and dance with her.
“When I first walked into a dance studio,” I say quietly, “I instantly felt like I was where I was meant to be. Like I was absolutely in the right place. You ever feel that?”
“Once,” she answers. “I was eight. I watched her dance for the first time.”
“That must have been wonderful to see.”
“It was life-changing,” she whispers.
“It doesn’t happen often, at least not for me anyway. Life is always a series of too many questions, and never knowing the answer. ‘Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?’ You know?”
“I know.” She nods.
“I feel it now, though,” I tell her. “I feel it here. With you.”
Her heartbeat speeds up when I say it.
“There was another time,” she swallows, looking at me. “When you blindfolded me. Remember that?”
“I do. Remember the very first time we danced? When I paired you up with Ethan?”
“I do,” she laughs.
“I felt it then.”
“Felt what?” she asks.
“A weird sort of calm. Like all my frustrating thoughts and complicated feelings about the dance sort of settled.”
She doesn’t say anything, just kisses me softly and snuggles closer.
Maybe this is working out just like it was meant to. A piece of my heart that had been healed by Celestina’s mentorship and then broken when she passed has now come back to me.
And it’s come back tenfold.
“Tell me about her,” I say.
“Oh God, where do I even start? You could probably tell me more than I could.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When my family decided to move here, she stayed behind and continued to compete and travel. I didn’t see her much. I would talk to her on the phone occasionally, but a lot of times it was surface level stuff. She loved to dance. She was so good at it, too, you know. It’s hard not to be completely mesmerized watching her.”
Celestina Rossi was an idol when I got into dance, and the magic of her never faded, especially when I was in Buenos Aires in workshops and her name was spoken frequently in adoration.
“I miss her,” she says. “Some days it feels like I let her down, like I didn’t do enough. I didn’t spend enough time or do enough with her. Or see her enough or talk to her enough. I didn’t do enough . Maybe it would have never been enough.”
I tuck her hair behind her ear, holding her close to me, listening.
“I’m just trying to be close to her again. I’m trying to make her proud.”
“I think you’re doing it, Julie. You’re trying your best, and isn’t that all anybody could ask for?”
“You haven’t met my parents.” She cocks an eyebrow.
“Not yet.”
“No, not yet.” She laughs for a moment, snuggling closer to me, then she lets out a sigh. “It was hard for everybody, but she had such a difficult time towards the end. She had severe arthritis; her body had been really struggling. The doctors would want to blame her instead of help her. They’d complain, ‘you dancers mess up your bodies and then expect us to just fix you.’ Nobody knew she struggled in the end, unable to do what she loved.”
“That must have been so hard for her.” I speak quietly, my fingers lightly running up and down her arm.
“It was so, so hard. Tango was such a big part of her life. Imagine not being able to do it ever again, the one thing that was pivotal in your life. That was as necessary as breathing.”
Faced with the thought of it now, I realize it would probably break me, too. Competing is one thing, but quitting dance altogether? Forever? I don’t think I ever could.
“She had your grandfather, though.”
“She did,” she agrees.
“I think about that sometimes. When my body hurts, when I feel lonely. When all of this is gone, what do I have left?”
She reaches out to touch my cheek, and I lean into her palm, turning to kiss it softly.
“Do you know the story of how they met?” she asks.
“Tell me.”
“They met at the tango clubs. She would sneak out to go dance, and when he saw her, it was love at first sight. They would dance together, but eventually he wanted to see her outside of it, too. He used to ride his bike ten miles just to see her.”
“That’s dedication,” I smile.
“That’s love,” she clarifies.
With all this talk of Celestina, her plans make much more sense.
“So … San Diego.” I realize why she said it was personal reasons.
“San Deigo,” she repeats with a sigh.
“You don’t know about what happened, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to San Diego last year. Tara and I fell apart, and we didn’t even place.”
She looks at me, quiet for a moment. “I had no idea.”
“I figured you didn’t. Anyway, I had been having a hard time. I was starting to look for other things then; I was feeling burnt out. And when we didn’t even place, it definitely humbled me, but it also made me decide that I wasn’t going to be doing it again. I was done competing, I was done with workshops. Tara and I talked it over shortly after—Silas was going to be heading into residency soon anyway—so we decided not to compete together anymore. We would teach locally, maybe host some milongas, but that was it.” I breathe softly. “And then I met you.”
“I feel like I’ve caused more trouble than I meant to.”
“No.” I move a piece of hair from her face, looking at her so she hears me. “You gave me back everything.”
“I don’t know what happens after this, Logan. I don’t know what you want to do, but I want you to know that when all of this is done, you’ll still have me,” she confesses.
It’s a bold promise, one that digs deep. One that tethers her to me, to my life. I want it desperately. “You’ll have me, too,” I say, clearly, definitively.
I grab her and bring her to me, kissing her deeply.
We make it to the kitchen sometime later, late enough that Gavin walks through the door and catches us eating sandwiches out of the box.
“Uh. Hi.”
“Oh,” Julie says, mid chew. “Hi.”
I clear my throat, as we all look like deer in headlights. “This is Julie. You’ve met right?”
“Uh-huh.” He smirks.
Thank God we’re dressed. What time is it anyway?
“Nice to see you again.” She waves, but she’s blushing.
“We were just going back to my room,” I say, grabbing the box of sandwiches.
“Not so fast.” He comes over, reaches in, and pulls out a stack of them. “Thanks.” And with that he walks to his room, some lightness in his step, and I think … whistling?
“Shit, I lost track of time. Roommates.” I roll my eyes.
She just laughs quietly, and says, “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”
I follow her down the hall, mesmerized by her, and watch her climb into my bed. Comfortably taking up space here again. Stay here forever, I want to beg. Don't ever go.
“So, how long have you and Gavin lived together?” she asks.
“About five years. His previous job included a lot of travel and he felt like he was paying rent for nothing, so we moved in together.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it? I can’t even have you over without having to sidestep or figure out his schedule.” I might sound frustrated, but maybe I’m just embarrassed.
She just takes it in stride, laughing like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“But really, since he got laid off, it has been kind of nice,” I tell her.
“Yeah?”
“Our parents divorced when I was fourteen. It was hard on the both of us, and Gavin helped me get into dance to give me something to focus on. He saw how much I loved it, and so when I was sixteen and I had been priced out of the youth dance program, Gavin went to work full time to help me pay for it, while he went to school full time too. Imagine that.”
“What a wonderful thing to do.”
“It made fucking up in San Diego really hard. You and I didn’t have the same childhood, no, but I understand wanting to do well for your family. I didn’t want to let him down, either.”
“Was he upset?”
I sigh. “No, he was so supportive.”
“Just what you deserve.”
“You deserve that, too.”
“It feels like secrets have become the only way for me to get peace. As fucked as that sounds. When I was about fourteen, I joined my school volleyball team,” she says quietly, lying next to me. “I loved it. I loved everything about it, and I couldn’t wait to share with everybody else how much fun I was having, how much I was learning. And so, I did.”
“I sense a but coming.”
“ But eventually it turned into a judgement. They would come to my games and watch me and offer unsolicited advice. I would get unnecessary comments. All I wanted was their approval, their support, but this one thing I had chosen for myself was being tarnished by everybody’s input and opinions. In the end, my one happy thing became pressure and frustration until I eventually quit.”
I can’t imagine such a burden that I would opt to quit something I loved. But the opposite was parents that didn’t care enough, and maybe that’s its own burden to bear.
“And then I had to hear about how I was a quitter, too.”
“So, they give you shit when you’re doing it, and they give you shit when you stop. You ever think maybe they’re gonna give you shit no matter what, so you should just do what you want anyway?”
“You make it sound so easy.” She smirks.
“Healthy boundaries are a thing. Stop feeling guilty for setting them.”
“Boundaries are the worst,” she jokes.
“And now that your cousins know?”
“Now that they know, I worry about how long I can keep it from everybody else. And when it gets to everybody else, will they support it? Or will they tear it apart, too?”
“Sometimes, people surprise you,” I say.
“And sometimes they respond just how you think they will.”
I look at her for a moment, considering what I’m about to offer. “You should call Tara and go shopping for the milonga together.”
“What?”
“I think you would like it. I think she would, too.”
“She’s not busy?”
I shrug. “Call her and find out. She’ll be happy to hear from you.”
“Why?” she asks, confused.
“Why will she be happy to hear from you?” I laugh. “She likes you.”
“No. Why should I call her?” she clarifies.
“Because,” I sigh. “I don’t want you to get negative feelings about anything that we’re doing here. Especially with the dance. I want you surrounded by supportive people that will root for you and whatever it is that you’re doing.”
She almost smiles, a small twist of her lips like she’s fighting it. “Fine. I’ll call her.”
I kiss her forehead softly as her eyes start to close, and I push down any more words that are prone to spilling out. I’ve said enough tonight.