I focus on the dance instead of the feel of his hands against my body with only a thin piece of material separating his palms and my bare skin. I focus on the positioning of my legs and arms instead of the warmth of his breath across my ear and neck. And I focus on the next step instead of the subtle change of fear to something almost unrecognizable to me. Something that makes me want to run away and stay. Something that makes me want to push him away and pull him closer.
But I can’t. I can feel the heat from his hands curving around me and the way his breath flutters across my skin. I can hear the heaviness of his breathing, and I know his heart is beating as fast as mine is. Mine isn’t from the dance. It’s never from the dance when he’s around. It’s always something more, something that tugs at me relentlessly. It tugs me toward him and keeps me in place.
It’s something that scares me, but it thrills me at the same time. Spine-tingling, stomach-fluttering, lip-parting thrills.
We move through the steps of our entrée with ease, and I feel him begin to slow as we come to the end of it.
“Just dance,” I whisper, not ready to stop the freeing feeling flowing through me. I’m not ready for him to let go… Not yet. I want this feeling to last. “Just dance.”
He does. He guides me through step after step, spin after turn, plié after lift. We cover every inch of the garage floor space, kicking up spots of dust from the spots I don’t use.
Blake’s hands leave me for a second, and my body breaks away from his. En pointe, I pirouette, again and again and again, never losing balance, never getting dizzy. I spin on the tips of my toes, dropping for a split second before I rise back up and spin again. I glance up as I spin, and Blake’s stood watching me. His legs parted, one in front of the other, his arms out, and after one final spin, I take his cue.
I grand pas de chat toward him, my legs extended as I fly through the air as if I’m weightless. But I don’t hit the floor. My hands fall on his shoulders, and his hands grip my waist to keep me suspended in the air above him. His hold on me is steady, not even a tremble in his arms.
I open my eyes. Our foreheads are almost touching, our gazes fixed on the other. My breathing is hard and fast, matching his breath for breath, but I’m not even sure if it’s from the dance or from… now.
I don’t know if the adrenaline rushing through my body is from the thrill of the jump or if the pounding of my heart is from the endless pirouettes. In this moment, with nothing between us except a sliver of air, I don’t know what I’m feeling.
I want to believe the goosepimples on the back of my neck are from the ease of us dancing together. I want to believe the tightness in my chest is from being short of breath.
And I want to believe I want Blake to put me down and let me go. I want to believe it so, so badly. But I don’t, at all. Because I can’t believe something that isn’t true.
Right now, with his eyes so intensely focused on me, I don’t want him to let go at all.
Slowly, after I don’t know how long, he lowers me. My toes touch the ground, and I come off pointe, falling into first position before completely relaxing. His hands fall from my waist, and mine from his shoulders. I take a deep breath and step back, dropping my eyes to the ground.
“You know, I don’t think we’re going to need the full time Bianca gave us,” he says after a moment of silence. “Once we have the adagio perfect, that is.”
“I think you could be right.” I glance up at him. “Bianca really does know how pair her dancers off, huh?”
Something flares in his eyes. Something I don’t understand. Something I both want to and don’t want to understand.
Something I wish I hadn’t seen.
“Yeah. Yeah, she does.”
~
“What if I feel things I don’t want to?”
“Do you mean your urges? The flashbacks?”
“No.” I run my thumb across my bottom things. “Things that aren’t really… bad. Not that kind of bad, anyway.”
Dr. Hausen sits forward, peering at me over her glasses. “You’ll have to elaborate, Abbi. I’m not following.”
“What if… What if I was feeling things an eighteen year old girl should be feeling? About… a guy.”
Her lips quirk up. “Is this a hypothetical question?”
I stop rubbing my lip, my eyes going to hers, answering her question silently.
“You’re scared.”
I nod.
“Why?”
“Because he hurt me,” I say matter-of-factly, sinking my hands into my hair and winding it round my fingers. “I gave him every part of me I dared, and Pearce took it and he destroyed it. He tore it up into a million unfixable pieces and then he destroyed even those pieces!”
“But this guy…”
“Blake.”
“Blake isn’t like Pearce, correct?”
I think of his green eyes, his messy brown hair, and his silent confidence. The warmth of his hands, the surety of his step, and the connection we have as dancers.
“No. They’re like the poles, completely opposite.”
“So why are you afraid?”
“I thought I could help Pearce and I got it wrong. I was wrong about everything about him. What if I could be wrong this time? What if I embrace the possible feelings I’m starting to feel and I’m wrong? Pearce nearly killed me. If Maddie hadn’t have turned up and called an ambulance when she did, I’m pretty sure I would be dead now. In fact, I know I would be. I’ve seen the files. I know that if I hadn’t have passed out from the pain and I’d kept cutting I would have died faster. What if that happens again?”
“Do you want it to happen again? Do you want to go back to that day?”
“No,” I say automatically, honestly, and drop my hands to my lap. “Not at all. That’s why I’m so scared.”
“Do you think Blake would hurt you?”
“I didn’t think Pearce would hurt me.”
Dr. Hausen tuts, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. “I didn’t ask you that. Forget Pearce. You know he can’t hurt you anymore. I asked you if you think Blake would hurt you.”
“No. I don’t think he would hurt me.”
“In that case…”
I look at her, finally, and she’s looking intently at me.
“Sometimes you have to take a risk. Anything you decide is going to go one of two ways; you’ll either get it wrong and move on, or you’ll get it right and live in that moment. Both of those outcomes will change your life. Both of them will alter the way you think, and both of them will affect decisions you make for the rest of your life, but that doesn’t mean they should make your future decisions for you.