Face to Face (On Pointe Book 3)

by Penelope Freed

  Katy: Awwwwwwwwwwww!

  This is followed by a bunch of gifs of cartoons with hearts in their eyes, making me laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Trevor asks, placing two overflowing cups of frozen yogurt on the table in front of me.

  “Katy.” I flash him the screen so he can see the gifs, before telling the girls he’s back and I’ll text them later.

  “What are you going to do in class on Monday? Obviously tomorrow you’re going to rest it some more, but then what happens?”

  I take a bite of the chocolate and vanilla swirl, a piece of Reese’s’ and some strawberry clinging to the spoon as I swirl my tongue around it to catch the drips. Trevor’s eyes are glued to me, it takes a moment for me to realize why, but when I do the blush that creeps up my neck and cheeks is instantaneous. I choke on the bite in my mouth, breaking the tension.

  “Uh. Um.” I cough, trying to dislodge the bit of strawberry that went down the wrong pipe, the sharp cold of the frozen yogurt making it worse. “I’ll do floor barre and PBT.” I manage to choke out.

  “I think I can figure out what floor barre is, but what’s PBT?”

  Clearing my throat, I explain the basics of the program, Progressing Ballet Technique or PBT. We’re the first major summer intensive to offer it, I guess Marco Bethelo spent some time in Australia last year and fell in love with it. He hired someone who learnt it from the woman who developed it down there to teach it here at the intensive. We use large yoga balls to work on pinpointing the specific muscles that ballet dancers need. I’ve been loving doing it three times a week all summer and can tell how much it’s helped, even if my stupid ankle insists on being a problem.

  We talk and eat until the sun sets. Okay, I can’t lie, we kiss a little more too. Not too much though, we are in public. It’s only when the ice that Trevor got for me starts dripping on his shoe through the chair that we look at the time, too wrapped up in each other to look at our phones.

  “Shit. We have to go, T, like right now.” Trevor says after a glance at his screen, worry furrowing the space between his eyebrows. “If I run to get the car, can you walk to the curb and I’ll pick you up? Curfew is in ten minutes.” Cursing some more, he takes off at a sprint. Of all the times to finally see him running, I can’t even appreciate it because I’m walking so slowly.

  Curfew for both our programs means we have to be inside the building by nine thirty. PSB enforces a pretty strict lights out at ten. I don’t know if Trevor’s running camp does the same thing or not, but if we aren’t inside the building in the next ten minutes we’re both in trouble.

  Trevor pulls up to the curb and I speed up my last few steps to wrench the door open and slip inside, ignoring the twinge in my ankle. We’re silent the whole drive back, watching the time tick over, minute by minute. Nine twenty-four. What happens if I’m late? Nine twenty-five. Will I lose my solo? Lose my scholarship? Trevor pulls up to the curb as close to the building as possible. Nine twenty-six. Would they send me home?

  “Hop out. I’ll go park.” Trevor practically pushes me out the car door.

  “But—”

  Nine twenty-seven. I’m already injured, what if this the last straw?

  “Go Hannah. I’ll be fine, I promise.” He takes off again the second I close the door. Nine twenty-eight. My heart is pounding in my chest and I ignore the pain in my ankle as I speed walk to the front door. I can’t stop the worries charging through my head. This isn’t like me, I don’t get in trouble, period. The lobby of our dorm building glows with a soft yellow light in the dusk, the sun slipping below the horizon. Nine twenty-nine. Shafts of dying sunlight compete with the small lamps on the end tables scattered around the space, I can make out a few packs of people sitting around the lobby. Footsteps pound out behind me, moving fast.

  Nine thirty. Oh god.

  Hand on the door I wrench it open to slip inside. Breathing heavily, Trevor takes it from me and slides in behind me. A few heads turn our way, curious, but most people ignore us.

  Breathing hard, I collapse into the nearest easy chair, head in hand while I take a few deep breaths, trying to slow my racing heart. Trevor’s hand drops to my shoulder and squeezes as he perches on the arm of the chair next to me, chuckling between his harsh breaths, heat coming off him. He must have sprinted hard to get to the door behind me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, after a few seconds, amusement lacing his words.

  My mouth still dry from the fear of being caught, all I can do is shake my head. What am I doing? I don’t go out late and break, okay bend, the rules. Trevor tries wrapping his arm around my shoulder to pull me close, but I hold my spine rigid. Olivia doesn’t call me a goody two-shoes for nothing. I’m a rule-follower, I don’t do things that might get me in trouble. He tugs a little harder, trying to pull me close, but I stay rooted to the chair.

  “Hannah?” Any hint of amusement is gone from his voice now. He slides off the arm of the chair to squat in front of me, peering at my face, worry written all over his. “Beautiful, what’s wrong? We made it, it’s fine.”

  “Barely,” I manage to whisper. “We barely made it. Trevor, I…” I trail off, not knowing what I was going to say, but knowing I would have regretted it the moment I did.

  “What? Talk to me T.” His hands on my knees are so warm. Funny how fifteen minutes ago I thought I might wither away if we weren’t touching in some way. Now I just want him to go away for a minute so I can think. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay. Look.” He nods his head toward the front door where one of the chaperones from my program is locking the door. “See, we made it with a whole minute to spare,” he adds with a grin.

  Disappointment in myself, and a touch of anger at Trevor, bubbles up in my gut. “We made it because they were late. I can’t believe that happened. What if we had hit one more red light? What if there had been traffic? What if being late meant they sent me home? We were already breaking the rules by not having anyone over eighteen with us. Being late guarantees they would have found out.” My fears spill over, the word vomit impossible to stop. “I came here to dance, not flirt.”

  The second the words leave my mouth I want to take them back. Hurt fills Trevor’s eyes before he looks away from me, biting his lips for a moment before exhaling heavily. “Trevor, I…I didn’t mean it like that.” I stumble over the words, not sure what I meant to say.

  “Stop, Hannah. I get it. Ballet is the most important thing to you. I knew that already. I’m going to go to bed, before you say something else you might regret in the morning.”

  Pushing to his feet, Trevor stands in front of me for a moment, those normally warm brown eyes holding my gaze. I hate that the light has dimmed from them. Tears prick at the corner of my own, a lone tear spilling down my cheek. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, not bothering to wipe it away.

  “I know you are. I’m sorry too, I should have kept a better eye on the time. But I’m still going to bed now.” With that he drops a kiss to the top of my head and walks away.

  What have I done? Was that our first real fight? How could one of the best nights of my life suddenly taste like ashes in my mouth?

  It’s only when I walk towards the elevator myself that I notice who else is still in the lobby. That pretty brunette from the running camp is sitting on one of the couches, headphones in, scrolling through her phone. She doesn’t say anything as I walk past her, just smirks. At me? At her phone? I have no idea. But it adds yet another thing to my never-ending list of things to worry about.

  Getting in trouble for being late.

  My reputation.

  Will I keep my solo?

  The glares and catty remarks.

  The fight with Trevor.

  My ankle.

  So much for a summer of ballet and nothing else.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Katy

  “You want to tell me why you’re c
hanneling your inner Cersei today?” JJ drops off the monkey bars next to me, arms crossed over her chest, glaring. I hang from my arms a moment longer, glaring back, enjoying the burn in my shoulders. Swinging my legs up, I wrap my feet around the edge of the monkey bars and pull myself up to straddle them. “Seriously Katy, why are you being such a bitch?”

  “I’m not being a bitch, JJ. I’m concentrating.” I grind out between my teeth. “I have a lot on my mind, that’s all.” It’s the truth, what else does she want from me? I scramble on hands and feet across the top of the monkey bars to drop down on the other side and sprint my way over to the mini rock-climbing wall going up the side of the play structure. “Shouldn’t you be doing this too? The race is this weekend you know.”

  “Katy.”

  I ignore her, concentrating on finding the next grip and pushing myself up the wall.

  “Katy,” JJ calls again.

  Okay, it’s about five feet off the ground, but I’m using my imagination that it’s the twenty feet it’ll be this weekend. If I’ve learned one thing from Hannah it’s how to visualize the scene I’m going to perform in. I pull myself over the top of the wall, landing feet first on the platform behind it.

  “KATY!”

  This time JJ is right in my face, her hand on my upper arm, forcing me to look at her. “What the hell? You’ve been ignoring me all morning, what’s wrong? Did I do something?” Her eyes bore into mine, anger and hurt written all over her face. Normally, right now I would tease her about the halo of curls around her face, or the sweat gathering in her temples and dripping down the sides of her neck.

  On a normal day, I wouldn’t be wondering what it would be like to trace the path that drop of sweat is taking with my nose, to see if it would give her goosebumps.

  I also wouldn’t be thinking about Cole and his broken heart and why he’s been such a grouch all summer. I wouldn’t be worried about Hannah’s ankle or Lisa’s reaction when she finds out I haven’t taken a ballet class all summer.

  But mostly, if everything was normal, I wouldn’t be sweating my ass off, running next to JJ, working out next to JJ, trying to keep up with JJ, while simultaneously being at total ease and painfully self-conscious about every move I make. All this second-guessing myself has me biting my tongue and silent, instead of my usual chatty self.

  “It’s not you JJ. I guess I have a lot on my mind.” I lie, it is her. It’s one hundred percent her, but not in the way she thinks, JJ hasn’t done anything wrong, I’m the one who needs to figure myself out.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  No. Nope. No, I do not, thank you ma’am. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable being attracted to her. But…I didn’t know how attracted to her I was until Jack pointed out that she wants to be my friend, or maybe more than a friend. And how the heck do I be just friends with someone when I kind of want to kiss her? But also, do I want to kiss her? I do. I totally do.

  It’s like when you’re performing a lame skit in class and you don’t know what to do with your hands, except instead of my hands I don’t know what to do with my heart. Now that I’ve realized it, I can’t un-feel it and I don’t know how to act normal around her anymore.

  God, I’m a mess.

  “Katy?” JJ pokes me in the shoulder and my stomach flutters. “Seriously, what’s going on with you? Are you nervous for this weekend? You’re gonna be awesome. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

  I go with a half-truth. “Yeah, I guess I am nervous. Last workout nerves, maybe?” We have five days until the terrain race, today is our last real training session so we can be rested and ready on Saturday morning. Hunter and Jack had some top-secret twin business to attend to this morning, so it’s just me and JJ. I’m pretty sure they’re buying themselves matching outfits for this weekend.

  “Are you going to dance today? Or do you want to hang out? We could go catch a movie or something? I need to go back to school shopping, want to come with me?”

  “Um, sure, I guess?” After we settle a time for her to pick me up, JJ sprints off to her car, leaving me to walk home alone. Panicking, I text the one person I think may be able to help me.

  Me: Help?!

  Olivia: Do I need to bring a shovel, money, or Starbucks?

  Me: JJ wants to go shopping, what do I do?????????

  Olivia: Um…you go shopping? Why the crisis?

  Do I tell her? This is Olivia, she’s been my friend for years. This doesn’t change anything. Right?

  Me: Because Jack pointed out that she might like me. And then I realized that I like her and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I act normal? Do I flirt? HOW DO I FLIRT?!?!?!?!?!?

  I toss my phone from hand to hand while I walk home from the park to shower, waiting for Olivia to answer. The fact that no answer is coming makes me more nervous with each step. It never occurred to me that she would judge, hell, she’s the one who openly admits to having a crush on Zendaya.

  As I round the corner to my street the reason she hasn’t answered is obvious. Olivia’s sitting on my front step, waiting for me.

  “Hey. It sounded like maybe this emergency needed more than a text.” She waves her hand down the street to Tyler’s house. “I was at Tyler’s anyway.”

  I can’t even fake being cool about any of this anymore. A glance at the driveway reassures me that Jack and Hunter are still out, both of their cars gone. “What do I do?” It’s the only question I can ask.

  Olivia opens my front door, dragging me inside. “First, you shower. You stink.”

  An hour later I find myself walking into Target with JJ, freshly showered, boosted by Olivia’s pep talk and less frantic about the whole thing. Olivia’s advice, shouted through the door as I showered, to “calm the fuck down and go for it,” while not exactly on par with Ms. Parker’s advice helped more than I would have thought. Or maybe it was the fact that Olivia didn’t seem surprised.

  I follow JJ to the aisle with all the school supplies, assessing my feelings as she charges through the crowd, intent on finding the exact right set of highlighters. I let her tell me all about the AP Physics class she’s taking next year. I’m sure Hunter and Lisa will be in the class with her too, but I’m not ready to think about school starting again. It’s the beginning of August, I have a few more weeks until I have to think about it, and I’m determined to enjoy it. I can’t help my gut feeling that everything is going to change after this summer.

  I don’t know how, but I’m sure everything is going to be different.

  Squatting down to paw through the bin of highlighter packs at our feet, JJ pokes my butt with her phone. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m distracted today.”

  “These highlighters? Or those ones?” JJ points to a different rack.

  “I have no idea, aren’t they all highlighters?”

  JJ eyes me critically, raising goosebumps all over my skin. “Haven’t you ever looked at Hunter’s notes? I snuck a peak at some of his notes in Chem and I want to do that color thing he does.”

  I snort, hoping to hide my momentary panic at JJ’s admiration for Hunter. She’s talking about his notes, quit being an idiot. “Hunter doesn’t share his notes. Only with Lisa,” I add. Inside, I wince at how possessive I sound. This is JJ, she knows how besotted Hunter is with my best friend, why am I being so defensive? But Lisa doesn’t need to put up with any more drama at school next year. Maybe JJ can help me head off the mean girls I know are going to have something to say.

  “I know he doesn’t. I snuck a peek in class one day. You know, the day Lisa was trying to hide from him by sitting next to me?”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, I wasn’t exactly gracious about the idea of Hunter and Lisa dating at the time. Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. JJ tells me the whole story while we shop, recounting all the flirting they’d done in class. She must have k
nown Hunter was taken long before I knew there was anything going on. I don’t know why that hurts my feelings, but it does.

  We bump along through Target, grabbing a bunch of clothes to try on as well. I can’t help it, there are dresses with pockets. It’s a rule, if you find a dress with pockets you have to try it on to see if you can fit a baby dragon in it. Doesn’t everyone have that rule? Just me?

  Emerging from my dressing room to model the romper I found, I stick my hands in the giant pockets and lean back, striking a pose for JJ’s approval. “You look gorgeous.” She claps her hands and grins. “I’m so jealous. I can never find a romper that fits—I’m too tall.” JJ steps up next to me, her hip bumping my waist as we look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of the narrow hallway. I meet her eyes in the mirror and for a second, the world fades. My lungs freeze, my heart stops, there’s just us, looking into each other’s eyes in the mirror.

  “You should get it, you look hot,” JJ breaks the spell with a grin.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah

  This sucks. Min does the final developpé in second, her leg so high it almost touches her ear. I can never get my leg that high. At this rate I never will. I let myself wallow in the depressing thought while Min and Noah relax and listen to the notes Mr. Bethelo gives them.

  “Hannah?” I snap to attention at my name. “Will you come try this part?” Marco indicates I should come join in. Rolling to my feet from my position on the floor, I make my way across the studio to Noah. “Stay flat, but can you do that last developpé for me please?”

  I take my position next to Noah, gripping his hand as I draw my left foot from the floor, past my knee and unfold it to my side, my arm mimicking the line it makes. I keep my leg there and undulate my arm, like the flap of a swan’s wings.

  “Hold it for a moment, please.” Marco calls out. “See Min? See how Hannah is matching the line of her leg to her arm? Not whacking it up to her ear, it’s two parallel lines.” Oh. I guess I won’t tell him that I’m getting my leg as high as I can right now. “Now, Min. You try it again.”