Deep Burn (Burned Duet 2)

Epilogue

ELODIE

I stood at the side of the stage, nerves rolling through me as the song playing through the speakers reached its crescendo. Two minutes felt like both a lifetime and the snap of fingers when you were on the stage, dancing your heart out. I’d placed my feet in the same starting position over and over, but the way my stomach churned and excitement took over never changed. Each time my bare feet hit the bouncy floor, a rush like nothing else slammed through me, and today wasn’t any different.

The song ended and then it was time. Time to show the people watching what happened when you poured every single emotion you had into each movement of your body. Time to show them what losing yourself in dance was really like. The crashing beat of the music rang out and a smile drifted onto my face.

“She looks so much like you right now,” Asher whispered in my ear. “Look how much she’s concentrating.” He chuckled, his breath fanning over my neck as he placed a kiss there. “She even gets that little V between her eyes like you—”

“Shhh.” I tapped his arm but couldn’t help grinning as I watched my students on the stage. “She’s trying to do all of her extensions properly.” I lifted up onto my tiptoes at the same time as they did, trying to urge them as high as they could go.

Asher wrapped his arms around me from behind and I leaned back into his chest, relishing in the moment of happiness. He always held me in the exact same way, and it never failed to make me feel safe. Even after all this time, I still craved to be cocooned inside his arms. “Well, someone needs to tell her she’s only three and has tiny arms that can’t extend like the ten-year-old kids' can.”

I huffed out a breath. “Well, I’m not going to tell her.” I raised my brows and turned my head to face Asher. “Have you seen what she does when you tell her she can’t do something?”

“Erm, yeah, she likes to prove you wrong.” Asher pursed his lips “Kinda like her momma, huh?”

“Yeah, right. That’s the Easton genes through and through.”

He snorted. “I’m not gonna argue with that, sweetheart. The Easton women are a breed of their own.”

The music drifted down into a soft melody, the fall before the high at the end of the piece, and I pulled out of Asher’s hold. “Quick, get back out into the audience. If she looks out and you’re not there…” I didn’t need to say anything else

because our daughter, Lilac, was a force to be reckoned with. She may have only been three years old, but she had every single member of the family wrapped around her tiny pinky finger, including her uncle Leo, her favorite. Leo and I had attended the same college, but when I’d left education, he’d continued on, deciding he wanted to get another degree before doing his master's.

Lilac had been a surprise to us the year I’d graduated from college with a major in dance and a minor in teaching, but it had been the best surprise we ever could have asked for. She was the light at the end of a dark tunnel we’d spent years wading through.

I’d thought Knox’s court case would have been a finality in my mind, but it wasn’t. There wasn’t one moment that could stop the way you felt. It took time to truly work through the darkness and pain I’d been dragged through. It didn’t matter than Knox was sentenced to prison time. It didn’t matter that Asher supported me every step of the way, because in the moments of despair, all I wanted was to hide away from the world.

And there were times I did that. I’d lock myself away from the world because it was what I needed to simply make it through another day.

But the day Lilac was born, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to be the best person I could possibly be, so I’d finally gotten professional help. I’d spoken about everything I’d been through, starting right from the beginning and my mom’s addiction up until the night that turned my life around. Because if I were honest, without the trauma that happened that night, I wouldn’t have been where I was today. That was something that took me years to fully comprehend.

Therapy was a process, a process I was still going through, but it was worth it. Every single thing I’d been through was worth it.

When the song came to an end, Lilac held her finishing position, and then ran to the side of the stage and straight into my arms.

“Did you see, Momma? Did you see?”

“I did!” I squeezed her to me and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You were amazing!”

“Daddy!” She squirmed down and rushed around my legs, and I realized Asher hadn’t made it back to the audience in time. “Did you watch me too?”

“Of course I did.” He boosted her up to his shoulder. “I always watch my favorite girls dance.” He glanced over to me and winked. From the moment I’d started dancing in college, he’d never missed one of my performances, just like now. Whether Lilac was dancing or not, he was the backbone of my support.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at the two most important people to me. Lilac was the light I’d never known I’d needed, the hope that life would never be as dark as it once was. But Asher was my strength, a strength I could never live without.

“I love you,” I mouthed to him.

“I love you too,” he mouthed back, and my heart fluttered, just like it had the first time he’d said those words to me. “Forever.”