The Hit List (4 page)

Miss Catherine walks to the front of the room. Her eyes scan over students around me. “That’s it for today. Before you leave, I have a quick announcement. This year, the teachers will be making a decision about which student has made the most progress through the semester. That student will spend next semester in London training with an assortment of teachers.”

The classroom erupts into chatter around me. The chance to spend a semester in London is an opportunity most of us will never get again in our lifetime.

There’s no way that dance article has any kind of reach overseas. London could really be my shot at starting over if I can’t get anywhere in L. A. There are so many opportunities there that I could never even dream of getting to experience here. Like a shot to work with some of the best teachers in the world.

“Do you know how many people in this room would kill to go to London?” Brielle whispers beside me.

Adam wipes sweat off his face with a towel. “Get in line.”

“I also wanted to let you know that we’re doing things a little different with Fall Showcase this year. You’ll all be dancing with partners. Partner rehearsal starts next week.” Miss Catherine smiles.

Dancing with a partner was not in the brochure. No one told me it would be expected of me during my interview or my audition. There’s no way in hell I’m dancing with someone else. I can barely rely on my own talent half the time. How am I supposed to rely on someone else’s?

“Did you know anything about this partners shit?” Brielle asks, her whisper coming out more like a hiss.

Partners? They can’t just spring this on us.

Surprise. Let me introduce you to the person who holds your fate in their hands. The person you need to dance well with in order to get anywhere in this business in the next year. Or maybe even the person who will drop you and then walk out of your life when you’re at your weakest point.

I don’t think so.

Adam shrugs. “Nope. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“That’s the worst surprise ever. What if I end up with a terrible partner?”

This can’t be happening to me. I can’t dance with a partner.

“I got a spot at NYBC. I start next week.”

My foundation falls away as Patrick’s words sink in, each stone crashing louder as my heart beats faster. “You’re leaving?”

Someone steps in front of me, trying to get through the crowd to their bag on the other side of the room. Brielle pulls lightly on my arm, but I’m already off balance and I trip over my feet.

Falling. Toward the ground. Toward the end of my career
.

Fire rips through my hip as Patrick tries to save me. But he can’t stop the pain. He can’t stop the falling
.

Hollow sound fills the room, the kind in a movie when a bomb goes off. Except it doesn’t fade after a few seconds. It gets louder as blood roars through my ears. Stars dance across the ceiling.

You can’t see the stars inside the city. That’s why Patrick brought me
.

“It’s simple out here. There’s no pressure to be perfect all the time. The only thing you owe the stars is just to be you. You need to remember that every once in a while.”

“Who needs stars when you have spotlights?”

I try to laugh, but the cold air is a shock to my lungs and my chest tightens. Small gasps are the only thing I can manage until my lungs adjust. Tears freeze at the corner of my eyes, tightening the skin around them. My eyelashes clump together
.

Brielle frowns at me in worry, but no one else seems to notice my current meltdown. People chat around me as they stretch out their muscles in a cool down.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to hyperventilate,” she whispers.

“I’m fine.” I slam the cupboard door, but my mom doesn’t even notice. She’s halfway across the apartment by now. It’s not like she really cares anyway
.

I shove the cake mix back onto the shelf. I don’t feel like making it anymore. The whole point had been for her to notice
.

Happy Sixteenth Birthday to me
.

I’m going to die. I can’t breathe. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. The tears aren’t frozen anymore.

Patrick opens the door, the smile falling from his face. “Why are you here? You know we can’t practice together anymore. I’m not allowed to.”

He acts like he can’t tell I’m dying inside. Like the last two years didn’t mean everything to my career, everything to me. A permanent stutter has taken up residence in my chest, like my heart is being shocked by everything that’s happened between us over and over again. It reminds me how useless I am as a partner and as a friend. I’ll never get it right
.

I’ll never succeed here, so why am I even trying? It’s useless.

Brielle grabs my hand and places it in her lap, wrapping her fingers around my forearm directly above my wrist. Her thumb presses hard against my skin and my hand relaxes.

Patrick’s hand touches mine tentatively, afraid that he’s crossing one of my lines. “You don’t always have to be the strong one.”

I pull my hand back and let it fall into my lap. “One of us has to be.”

Partnerships are never good once feelings get involved. It sucks because it’s so hard to keep feelings out of them when you spend all your free time with the same person. And honestly, Patrick is one of the only people I’m okay spending all my free time with
.

His green eyes sparkle from the dim lighting in my favorite restaurant. “Just this once, let it be me. Let me take care of you.”

“You won’t always be here.” It’s as close as I can get to telling him the real reason
.

People leave all the time without a backward glance
.

“I’ll be here as long as you need me.” He grabs my hand again. This time I don’t pull away
.

“And don’t forget about our fundraiser this Friday. I expect to see you all there. You’re dismissed.” Miss Catherine walks out of the room.

“Mom?”

Silence
.

She isn’t here. Again. I don’t know why I’m surprised
.

I check her bedroom just to be sure. It doesn’t look like she slept here last night. Considering I didn’t even get an angry text when I didn’t come home, I’m willing to bet she stayed out too
.

I turn my iPod on and crank the speakers. The music fills the house with noise and takes away the emptiness for a little while
.

I can’t stand the silence
.

Brielle leans closer to me. “Focus on your breathing. Shut out everything else around you.”

“Breathe through the pain.” Patrick breathes deeply through his nose and out through his mouth
.

Because apparently an injury makes me forget how to breathe
.

“You have no idea what this feels like,” I say through gritted teeth
.

I doubt he’s ever been dropped only to have someone catch him by his leg at the last moment. He doesn’t have a clue
.

I pound my fist into the ground to offset the pain. No one else is in the studio to help. Our teacher went home a long time ago when we first started fighting. I wish she had stayed
.

He grabs my face and I’m forced to look at him. “Focus. You’ll get through this.”

Brielle’s grip is solid on my arm and I can feel my body begin to relax.

“I’ve got you. Trust me.”

Famous last words. I’d believed them before I ended up on the ground. Patrick’s never dropped me before, not even when we first started dancing together two years ago
.

What does that say about him?

He can’t be bothered to make sure I’m safe anymore. It doesn’t matter as long as we pull off the moves. But we aren’t pulling them off. We haven’t in weeks
.

What does that say about us?

I count my breathing, inhaling and exhaling to the count of four, and start to name the objects in the room to ground myself in the moment.

A chair. The barre. Five panels of mirrors. The stereo. Two windows overlook the courtyard. A pigeon sits on the window ledge.

There’s no place I’d rather spend my last night in New York than in the windowsill of the dance studio. This is my home, more so than the empty apartment I’d rather not go back to
.

The traffic below inches along. Horns honk as cab drivers get impatient. Bikers weave in and out of the cars on the edge of the street
.

I’ll miss the life of the city the most
.

I pull myself off the ledge and walk to my bag on the other side of the room. It rests against a wall filled with colorful handprints. Earlier in the year, every student at the studio had a chance to add their handprint. It was a chance to add a piece of ourselves to the studio
.

I press my hand against Patrick’s handprint. The cold cement is rough beneath my palm. The handprint stretches up past my fingertips
.

“Bye.”

I’m not dying.

My heart rate slows as my breathing normalizes. The pressure recedes on my arm as Brielle loosens her grip. I open my eyes. Most of the students gather their things. Some have already left. Brielle lifts my arm and places it back in my lap. Sympathy clouds her eyes, though I’m not sure why.

She stands up and offers me her hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the room.”

I let her help me up and follow her out of the studio. When we reach the dorm room, I flop down on my bed and cover my head with my pillow.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Brielle says, pulling the pillow off my head. She stretches her body out on her bed and props herself up on her elbow on top of her pillow. “Spill.”

“What?” I know exactly what she’s referring to, but I don’t want to talk about it.

She sits up and crosses her arms over her chest. “You know what. You freaked the fuck out in the middle of the dance studio. What happened?”

“I was just really nervous about the first day of class. That’s all.” I refuse to break eye contact with her.

She sighs. “You’re a terrible liar.”

I stare back at her. “I’m not lying.” I don’t understand why she cares so much about this. It’s none of her business.

She leans back against her pillows. Her arms uncross and she grips the edge of one of the pillows. “Fine. Don’t talk about it.”

I stare at the ceiling above my bed. I don’t owe Brielle anything. She’s nothing more than my roommate for the next year. I was serious when I promised myself I wouldn’t put anyone before myself ever again. Brielle could easily end up just like all my other friends who moved on without me.

“I used to get panic attacks when I was younger. My shrink said it was from separation anxiety. Which is probably true. I was in therapy for years.”

I frown, turning to look at her, but she stares down at her comforter instead. She looks younger, like she’s just a scared kid.

I really shouldn’t get into this conversation with her. We’re bordering on friend territory. But I feel like I have to ask. “What were you separated from?”

She shrugs. “My parents were never around. My dad’s a CEO for a Fortune 500 company and my mom’s involved with real estate. When they weren’t traveling for business, they were too busy screwing other people to stay at home and spend any time with me. I used to have a panic attack every time one of them left because I was afraid I wouldn’t see them again.”

It’s sad to know someone else lived through what I did with my mom. Somehow it almost seems worse that Brielle has two parents. Knowing they would rather spend time with their affairs than with their child is heartbreaking.

I frown, watching the ceiling again. “That’s terrible.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I guess. I’m not really sure why I cared so much that they were leaving. When they were around, they’d make it a point to let me know how much of a disappointment I was. Why do you have to be a dancer, Brielle? No one ever made money dancing. Why can’t you be a doctor? Why do you have to waste your time on a useless talent?”

I wince at her words. My mom never told me I was a disappointment, but she was usually too busy with other things to pay attention to me. For a while, she’d been grieving my dad’s death. I was only a reminder of him so she made sure to stay away. Then she got promoted at her job and traveled a lot for that. I guess it didn’t really matter. I was never home anyway. I spent every free second I had with my real family at the studio, even though most of that family moved on when they had the chance.

Brielle rolls over onto her stomach. “You know, they don’t live that far from here. Maybe ten minutes, thirty in traffic. I haven’t seen them in over six months. They couldn’t even be bothered to come home when I was on break.”

That’s awful. What’s the point of having a kid if you’re not willing to spend any time with them?

I turn to look at her. “Who took care of you if they were never home?”

“I had a nanny. She was the one who used to take me to my dance classes, the first person who ever saw the potential in me. She’s the reason I’m here.” She smiles sadly.

“At least you had someone there.” I meant for it to sound encouraging, but instead the words are filled with resentment. When my mom was gone, there was no one else.

She watches me. “Look, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. No judgments.”

“Thanks.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever take her up on that offer, but it’s nice to have. As much as I want to tell Brielle that I know exactly how she feels, I can’t. It almost makes me feel guilty. It’s not her fault that I’ve been screwed over so many times in my past. If things were different, maybe I’d give her a chance and let her in.

But things aren’t different. And people always leave when given the chance.