“You look great,” Alec says at last. Which means I’ve won this round.
Will sighs loudly. I sit down hard on the chair, drowning it out. Finally, I wrap one of my feet around Alec’s ankle. He responds by pulling me into him and kissing me on the mouth, hard. He smells like coffee and hard work: he got his extra practice in. Smelling his sweat, I feel a pinch of guilt at being in here snaking my foot up Alec’s calf instead of throwing myself into practice, doing pirouette after pirouette, and using the early rehearsal end to keep working on my variation. I kiss him again to make me forget.
“Okay, enough, you two,” Will says. His voice is tense now, too. Just like his face. He’s saying the same words he always has, but they sound so, so different.
“Can’t you give us some alone time?” I snap. I can’t take any of his little jabs tonight. I press myself even harder against Alec, shrinking that centimeter of space between our bodies. Will looks like he’s about to say something else, but something in him must melt a little, because he nods and gathers up his stuff. The tiny surrender is enough to make me smile his way, but he misses the look and he’d probably misinterpret it anyway. The secret smiles and eyebrow raises we used to share don’t work anymore. He stopped being my surrogate little brother this summer, and now I just don’t know what we are.
“Alec, call me later?” he says. He lands hard on Alec’s name, and even pauses to accommodate the space where my name would have been. Just one more person who hates me. I know it won’t help matters, but I lean my head on Alec’s shoulder and put a territorial hand over his. Will leaves, taking long dancer strides across the coffee shop. I still like watching the way his limbs move, still admire his impenetrable grace. I’d love even half of his passion. I’d tell him so, if we were speaking in anything but clipped, one-syllable words.
“Get your own boyfriend!” I call out, when he is already half out the door. Will’s shoulders slump and everyone in the shop has heard me. He turns bright red, like his hair. He’s not quite out beyond the conservatory walls. Boys from Kentucky aren’t supposed to like other boys. His eyes look sad when they meet mine. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. Not really.
“Harsh, B,” Alec says. “Can’t you guys get over your little spat?” He smirks and puts a huge hand on my thigh. The warmth of his hand travels through my thin tights.
“Not yet.” His hand feels good on me, so I don’t move it away. “So stay out of it,” I say back, so he knows I’m not some weak, delicate flower scared to tell him what to do, like the other ballerinas who would love a chance to be with him. He loves me because I’m fiery, feisty, stronger than anyone else.
Neither Will nor I have told Alec the details about our fight. Because the fight is about Alec. Sometimes the words tickle my lips, and I want to tell Alec the secret Will told me, but the bigness of it keeps me quiet.
“You’re all wound up today. And I’m guessing that’s why you put that message up about Gigi,” Alec says. I put several inches of space between us, losing the warmth of his hand on my legs. I hate that he said her name. That he ever has to say it. Sounds too pretty coming from his mouth.
I think about lying to him. Saying I didn’t write the message. But he keeps talking.
“Look, just because Mr. K didn’t cast you as the Sugar Plum Fairy doesn’t mean what you think it does. Don’t be like those other girls who get all catty and start messing with each other. You’re better than that.”
I’m not better. I am that girl. I’ve just been good at hiding it from him.
“The Snow Queen is an opportunity to show Mr. K—”
“I’m fine,” I say, louder than I’d intended. “Stop looking at me like everyone else is. You know I’m fine. I’m great. Can’t I just come visit you?” I hear the edge in my voice and try to soften it into something sexy, kissing his neck and letting the last few words land on the stubble just below his chin. “We haven’t been able to hang out much.”
“Always happy to see you,” Alec says, but it takes him a moment to reach for my body again. He sounds sad, disappointed in me. It’s a familiar cadence to his voice these days. He grabs the menu from under his coffee mug. He starts making creases and folds in the paper. “You need your congratulatory flower then, if we’re celebrating,” he says. He’s been making me paper flowers since we were little kids. His Japanese nanny taught him origami and it’s a strange hobby that girls tease him about but clearly think is secretly sexy. Which it is. I love watching his hands manipulate the paper. Every crease is careful, gentle. Like him.
He finishes, and it’s a perfect rose, made even more beautiful by the menu’s text on the petals.
“For you,” he says. “And if you want to talk about it . . .” But his voice fades out because we both know that’s not going to happen. “Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with Henri,” he finishes, the smirk firmly back on his face, like it never left. “He’s been asking about you. Tips for partnering you.” Henri and Alec are roommates. “Dancing with him might get you in one of those magazines.” For the first time ever, I hear a small pinch in his voice, and I know he doesn’t like Henri.
“Maybe it will.” I shrug, putting the paper flower behind my ear, where I secure it with a bobby pin. We’ve never danced with other people before. Alec and Bette are always paired. Our names have been listed beside each other so often that it’s burned into my memory. I don’t want his name next to Gigi’s. I don’t want to dance with Henri.
“I guess at some point we’d have to get used to partnering with others. It’ll be weird at first. Gigi’s got a different—” I kiss him to erase her name. It feels good to let go and to have him here with me. Just us. For at least this moment, Giselle Stewart can’t take anything else from me.
I take Alec back to my room. Sneaking him in is as finely choreographed a dance as any we do onstage. We shuffle past the sleeping guard and into the elevator together. We push the fourth-floor button first, to check that the RAs are all still there. Their office spans the entire floor. They continue to answer the phones and dole out meds to several puffy-faced freshman girls who’ve no doubt cried themselves headaches. Not one looks up at us as the doors ping open. Then Alec goes to his floor on the tenth, because the RAs watch the elevator video feed. I go to mine on the eleventh, and let him onto the floor through the staircase exit.
“Out,” I say to Eleanor, but smile to soften it after I open my room door. She’s stretched across the bed, I’m sure doing her “visualizations,” but if she were a real threat, she’d know she’d be better off actually still in the studio dancing instead of lying there thinking about dancing. One of Adele’s performance videos—the ballet La Bayadère from three years ago—is on my flat screen. I click it off and don’t comment. She’s been watching old films of my sister a lot lately. And I wonder what’s next. Will she show up at Adele’s apartment like a fan girl? Will she ask my sister for technique tips?