Finding Center (23 page)
Authors: Katherine Locke
What daughter leaves behind her dream that comes complete with fan mail?
I open the envelope and take out a small pink envelope. Inside is a card with a sparkly ballerina on the cover.
Dear Alyona
,
you were really pretty in
The Nutcracker
.
I
liked when you jumped.
I
want to be a dancer like you.
Love
,
Nicole
,
age 6.
A green card with shaky handwriting.
Dear Alyona
,
when you dance
,
I
remember the first time I sat in the Bolshoi and watched Giselle.
You bring tears to my eyes.
You are beautiful.
Keep dancing.
Love
,
Greta Asmovia.
A blue card with a daffodil on the cover.
Alyona
,
I
heard you were out of treatment and home with your parents.
I
hope you are recovering well.
Please let me know how you’re doing.
Sincerely
,
Jonathan Calsan.
I hit Jonathan and my limit at the same time during rehearsal, sparking my leave of absence. We weren’t particularly friends before that, and I can’t imagine anything’s changed. But still, he’s the only one from the company who has bothered to reach out to me. I slip the cards back into their envelopes and put them back in her purse. She looks sideways at me but doesn’t push it. In the driveway, she turns the car off and neither of us moves to get out.
She stares out the window to where her boyfriend, Will, sits on the front step with their two Corgis. “Zed was your best friend for seven years.”
He was more than my friend. She knows that. She’s just being kind right now. I lean my head against the window. “It’ll never be the way it was.”
“No, it won’t,” she agrees. She sighs, and opens the door. “It can be something though, Alyona. Something could be better than nothing. Think about it?”
I promise her to think about it.
I don’t break promises. It’s probably my greatest flaw, after all the other ones.
* * * * *
Don’t miss
SECOND POSITION
by Katherine Locke
Available now wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.
Copyright ©2015 by Katherine Locke
Acknowledgments
Another Zaly book, free into the world!
Once again, all my gratitude to my editrix extraordinaire Kerri Buckley, whom I trust implicitly with Zed and Aly and every other member of this growing cast. I couldn’t have asked for my books to land in better hands. I only meander in my acknowledgments now!
My agent Louise Fury is the absolute Queen of reading between the lines of my emails and their multiple exclamation points. She always knows when I need a pep talk or to be talked off the cliff edge. I’m grateful for her wisdom, expertise and kindness each day.
Some books come easily. Some books pull you apart as you’re writing them. Some books feel like cutting out your heart and offering it to the world.
Second Position
was intense and personal, but
Finding Center
... For this book, I cut out my heart and offered it to the world. Of course, that’s a messy process, isn’t it? And there are side effects to cutting out your heart, you know. You feel a little empty afterward. You have to build a new one.
I wouldn’t have been able to cut out my heart and clean up the mess without the help of some incredible writer types in my life.
BC, LS, CZ, thank you for reading multiple drafts (sometimes on short notice!) and never giving up on me or this book. Thank you to RP for answering emails and crazy questions even when you were under your own crazy deadlines. MTWBWY, and ever in our favor. You ladies have changed my life.
Steve Mazzeo, thank you for being my sounding board and my plot guru.
Paul Krueger, thanks for letting nothing be an overshare in our friendship. Thank you for daily Gchats. Thanks for being my optimism proxy. You’re so borscht.
Dahlia Adler, Sara Taylor Woods and Marieke Nijkamp, what would I do without you three? I want to say write more books because I wouldn’t be on Gchat/Twitter so much but honestly, I’d be nowhere. Thank you for the advice, the cupcakes, the pep talks, your friendship.
Nita Tyndall, Meghan Harker, Paula Garner, you are magical, wonderful lights in my life. Thank you for your ears, shoulders, hugs and brains.
To my family, for your support, your love, your belief in me. For making my book the first romance book you picked up. For your wild and crazy antics. I feel like the luckiest daughter and sister every single day.
To the bloggers who supported and loved
Second Position
, thank you, from the bottom of my messy little heart.
In the midst of revisions for this book, my computer (along with edits) was stolen. The writing community plus some of my animal rescue volunteer friends came together and helped me replace my computer so I could do my work. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, and I’m so grateful for everyone.
Zed’s new leg in this book, which plays a pivotal role (get it?), is modeled after Ottobock USA’s C-Leg. Ottobock USA answered all of my technical questions with enthusiasm. And thank you to Kati Gardner who read many of Zed’s new leg scenes and movement scenes for authenticity.
If you’ve lost a child, this book is for you.
If you’ve suffered from addiction, this book is for you.
If you or your partner suffers from mental illness, this book is for you.
If you’ve ever wondered if you will come out the other side, this book is for you. You can. You will.
Zed and Aly, my hearts, thank you.
Also available from Katherine Locke and Carina Press
About the Author
Katherine Locke lives and writes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she’s ruled by her feline overlords and her addiction to chai lattes. Her day jobs always vary, but in the past she’s worked in nuclear weapons abolition activism, lead poisoning prevention and education, and food safety at a mushroom farm. She secretly believes most stories are fairy tales in disguise. She likes her heroes with boyish charm and her heroines with dirty mouths. She can be found online at
katherinelockebooks.com
and on Twitter:
@bibliogato
.
Prepare for an emotional encore from Katherine Locke’s
District Ballet Company
series!
SECOND POSITION
District Ballet Company,
book one
“SECOND POSITION is a beautifully rendered story of grief, hope, identity and love.”
—Cora Carmack,
New York Times
and
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Four years ago, a car accident ended Zedekiah Harrow’s ballet career and sent Philadelphia Ballet principal dancer Alyona Miller spinning toward the breakdown that suspended her own career. What they lost on the side of the road that day can never be replaced, and grief is always harshest under a spotlight.
Now twenty-three, Zed teaches music and theater at a private school in Washington, DC, and regularly attends AA meetings to keep the pain at bay. Aly has returned to DC to live with her mother while trying to recover from the mental and physical breakdown that forced her to take a leave of absence from the ballet world and her adoring fans.
When Zed and Aly run into each other in a coffee shop, it’s as if no time has passed at all. But without the buffer and escape of dance—and with so much lust, anger and heartbreak hanging between them—their renewed connection will either allow them to build the together they never had...or destroy the fragile recoveries they’ve only started to make.
Don’t miss the prequel to Aly and Zed’s story,
TURNING POINTE
, available now as a free read from ebook retailers.
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ISBN-13: 9781459290105
Finding Center
Copyright © 2015 by Katherine Locke
Edited by: Kerri Buckley
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.