Break

Shareen and I hold eye contact silently and I burst into giggles when Mother is out of earshot.

“See what I mean? Would you ever tell Marshall not to relax on the goddamned family couch? See how I have to live? Perpetually treated like a bull in a fine china shop. Am I dirty? Am I disgusting? She doesn’t want me on her furniture, Shareen. Her own daughter!”

“She’ll never change.” Shareen waves Mother away with a flick of her wrist. “Don’t let her bother you, Natayla. You won the Grand Prix. You’ve got your own place. Now go make a life to fill it and leave this nonsense behind. I’m only here for my generous paycheck, but the minute I hit sixty, I’m on a boat in turquoise waters, and Katerina can get her own freaking coffee, my sweet child.”

“Will Marshall stay when you move away?”

“This is his home, Taye. But like you, he’ll have to follow his team and bloom where they plant him.”

“You know, over the last few days—” I lower my voice “—I keep thinking about quitting dancing.”

Shareen stands up straight from the magazines she’s arranged on the glass coffee table. She’s been taking all the outdated editions to a nearby assisted living facility for years.

She ponders my statement carefully, mulling it over. “Natayla, listen to me when I say this. You need to connect with your love of dancing. Not dancing for Katerina, or Dashiell Cunningham, or any of these big-league choreographers. Find that love inside yourself again and dance for Natayla Koslova. Nobody else.”

Shareen pulls me into a hug and I do everything I can not to break down in tears. I want to ask her if I can visit her in Grenada and tag along on holidays with Marshall because I’ll miss her so much when she leaves.

“Mother might be a force to reckon with, but I learned how to be a strong woman from you, Shareen,” I say into her ear.

It’s the truth. Katerina wields a bunch of power on the outside, but Shareen is my rock, and I know Mother would also collapse without her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dashiell

The rehearsal is supposed to be for the leads, and since Natayla’s avoiding me, this is the first time I’ll be anywhere near alone with her in a couple of weeks. I’ve knocked on her door more than once, but either she wasn’t home or was refusing to see me.

Either way, we need to talk and cannot keep doing this bizarre dance with our personal lives. The stress alone might take Natayla down, and once upon a time, I thought my goal was to sabotage her and get back at Katerina by destroying her precious creation—the little clone she trained to starve and crush the competition. But more and more, Natayla reminds me of myself. A survivor who clung to dance as their only way out.

I stand in the doorway to the studio, watching her warm up, unaware of my presence. She’s still got her warm-ups on, including down booties on her feet as she stretches a leg in a la second at the barre. Until this day, I still don’t understand how Sam can make a simple stretch captivate like a performance. She moves like liquid silver, an otherworldly energy flowing through her and connecting her to that universal source every dancer strives for.

“What’s up, Sam?” I break the silence.

She turns her head abruptly and takes out her earpods. “I didn’t see you come in.” She gives me a weak smile to test the waters.

“Where you been? I’ve stopped by your place a dozen times. Or are you just not opening the door for me?”

“I’ve been staying at my parents, hanging out with Shareen. It’s Mother’s birthday week and Dad’s away.”

“Good for him. You want to run through the piece before the rest of the crew gets here?”

“Sure,” she says, looking anything but.

I might be able to temper my emotions in daily life, but while dancing, I never hold back. I can’t. It’s not in my blood.

What starts out easy enough soon becomes an impassioned argument with our bodies, pushing and pulling, our body heat rising along with our rapid heartbeats, the rush of oxygen in and out of our chests. Natayla heads downstage right in a series of arabesques that rise in height as she moves. I pull her out of one, dragging her standing pointe shoe until she lifts both feet and we crash into a dramatic swan dive. She is feather-light, and the lack of weight in my arms startles me. I partner a lot, and it boggles the mind how Natayla can dance as powerfully as she does with no meat on her bones.

I lower her and she closes her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. She walks in small circles, waving me off, motioning a clear ‘no’ with her hand.