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Taryn
THIS IS IT. THE DAY of the final assessment. I’m nervous—so nervous—and Jaidev and I cram in another session. The whole cast for the Midsummer tour will perform the ballet from start to finish today—a showcase for academy staff and dancers’ families—and we’ve been told Jaidev and I will be assessed based on our roles as Helena and Demetrius. I’m glad for that. We’re still working on making our understudy routines as smooth as possible—and if we’re selected today, we’ll have another week to perfect those before the fall tour starts. I wonder if it will be easier to train then, without the pressure of knowing it could all end in a heartbeat. Or whether the pressure will be even worse, knowing it’s a certainty. That we will be dancing the Midsummer tour.
“What are your plans now then?” Jaidev asks. “Before the showcase?”
I breathe hard. Teddy. I need to find him. I need to try and sort things out with him. He’s stubborn, of course he is, so he’s not made any move to actually contact me. Not even to see if I’m okay. I’ve barely seen him for the last few week. Just glimpses of him here and there. Walking through a corridor. Leaving a studio. Talking to choreographers. Sibylle says she saw him in the library at one point.
I tell Jaidev I need to talk to him, and he nods.
“Xavier said he was in one of the academy studios earlier.”
We go there. And Teddy is there. He’s dancing. And it doesn’t look like it’s to work out choreographies. It looks intense, like he’s pushing himself. Exactly what he shouldn’t be doing.
“I’ve got to just phone Avril,” Jaidev says. “But if you can get Teddy to walk you back to the costuming, then I’ll meet you there. Don’t go on your own.”
I nod. We’ve got to get fully costumed and made up before the showcase—like it’s a proper performance on one of the tour shows. And that whole process can easily take a few hours in the academy. We’ve been warned that it takes even longer for the company.
I watch Teddy for a few more minutes before I open the door. His movements are strong and precise, calculated, positions held with poise and determination and familiarity and—
It’s one of Demetrius’s solos that he’s dancing. Jaidev’s dance. My eyes widen, and I watch Teddy dance more, knowing the movements that will come. He’s learnt it.
When I open the door, Teddy notices—he must do because the door creaks—but he doesn’t stop dancing. Just keeps pirouetting. I hear him counting as he does. He’s slightly off time, I can tell that because I’m so familiar with the music, but I guess he’s not practiced with music at all. My shoulders tighten. He shouldn’t be doing this.
After a few minutes, when it becomes apparent that he’s not going to stop just because I’m here, I clear my throat. He can’t really just be planning to ignore me, can he?
He stops after a long moment, then makes a few notes in a notebook that he’s got at the side of the room, under one of the barres.
I venture forward. The roof of my mouth feels too dry. Suddenly, and I don’t know what to say. Eventually, I force words out. “How are you?”
“Good.” His voice is monotone, and he doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he goes back to the center of the studio and starts pirouetting again.
I approach him. “Look, Teddy. Can you just stop?”
He does so, but he sighs loudly. “What?”
My stomach roils, and my chest feels all fluttery, too light, like part of me will just drift away. “Um, are you still angry at me? Because I’ve done nothing wrong.”
He lets out a snort. Somehow, the snort sounds sarcastic. “I suppose a liar wouldn’t think that lying is doing anything wrong.”
“Oh my God.” I stare at him, feeling my temper rise, irritation flowing through my blood. “I can’t believe you. After all this, and you’re still het up on that?”
“Yes, because I have things I stand for. Things I believe in. You clearly don’t.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Look, I came here to try and clear the air—not that I have done anything wrong. It’s all you, but here’s me trying to sort things out, being the bigger person and all that.”
“Oh, that’s rich.” He wipes his hands on his shorts.
“What is?”
“Saying you’re the bigger person.”
I sigh. I haven’t got time for this. “I’m not putting up with this, Teddy. I’ve got the most important assessment of my life later today.”
“Lucky you.”
“Look, I know you’re upset about your diagnosis—and I guess that this is probably what all this is about?”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“And whose fault is that? Who’s completely shut me out of their life?”
“You did that all by yourself,” he says. “You’ve had no time for anyone else, it’s just all been about you and Jaidev.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “And you know that. You know what I’ve been going through—that attack, and the police still don’t know who did it. You never once asked me about it.”
He shrugs. “I’m sure your boyfriend’s looking after you plenty. I’ve seen him doing his bodyguard act.”
“Oh my God. Can you just listen to yourself? I’m trying to be nice here. We used to be friends, and for some reason, I still want your support.”
“How nice of you. Now,” he says, turning away from me. “I’ve got somewhere else to be. You’ve completely ruined the vibe of this room. How do you expect someone to do good dance if the air’s all bad?”
I want to scream and scream at him, make him see sense. But I know a lost cause.
“You’ve done that all yourself,” I say. “And you shouldn’t even be dancing.”
“Then tell the world.” He lets out a high-pitched bout of laughter that doesn’t sound anything like him and then gathers his notebook and pencil. He picks up his trainers. And he walks out—just like that. Doesn’t even change out of his flats first.
I stare after him, almost unable to believe it. It’s like he’s a completely different person now. Like I don’t know him at all. And this new Teddy? Well, there’s no way I want to be friends with him.
Tears pierce the corners of my eyes and I try to blink them back. I take deep breaths. I mustn’t be getting upset—I’ve got to keep calm. You can’t cry and be stressed before a big performance. But Teddy’s made me like this.
I gulp and gulp. Then I hear the door opening again. He’s coming back?
I turn, hopeful. But it’s not him. It’s Xavier.
He looks surprised to see me here. “Oh, hi. I thought you’d be in the company buildings? Don’t their make-up sessions take, like, five hours?”
I nod and quickly wipe my eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” He crosses the floor swiftly and reaches me. “Taryn?”
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about it.
Xavier hugs me—he does it so quickly, without warning, and I can’t do anything to stop him. I just tense up.
When the hug’s over, he pulls back and readjusts his hoody.
“I was just coming into practice here,” he says. “I’ve got an audition tomorrow. Last-minute thing. With a classical company, and I wanted to get a session in. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Oh no, I can go,” I say as he pulls his hoody off.
He’s wearing a tank top underneath—and I see a scar on his inner left arm. It looks pretty nasty, only then I see that there are more of them. Scars all up and down both of his arms and around his wrists. Faded red lines. Maybe three weeks old.
Three weeks.
My throat squeezes.
They’re the scars I made.
He was the one who put my head in the toilet.
My mouth dries. Xavier? Xavier? My head spins. Why would he do that?
“Great,” he says, smiling. “You can give me feedback, right? Let me just shut the door properly. This one always sticks a bit, you know, but if it doesn’t fully shut then you get the wind whistling through. Proper distracting it is.”
My head spins as he heads toward the door. It’s Xavier. Xavier!
And I’m in here with him.
Oh, God. I need to get out. Need to get out right away. Now.
I start to move toward the door—after him—getting ready to say how I actually need to go to costumes and makeup. That I can’t be late. Maybe I’ll laugh and say he’s right, it does take five hours.
“Woah,” he says, turning around. He finds me right behind him. “What are you doing?”
“I...” I shift my weight from foot to foot. But all the words I’d planned to say just get stuck. They’re pebbles in my throat, and I can’t get them out.
I scurry backward, turning around. Windows. I can get out the windows—and I run for the other side of the room. Thick curtains have been drawn the full length of the wall, and I lunge for the left one and pull it back. No window. Of course. A lot of the academy studios don’t. Not like the company studios where many back onto courtyards and gardens or have windows overlooking the lake.
“What are you doing?” Xavier’s voice is cold, all signs of the earlier warmth now gone, and his words echo slightly. He knows I know. I feel it like a stab to my gut.
I turn, my feet skidding. He’s still by the door. It’s shut—looks properly shut now. He’s holding a key. Locked it? Already?
My heart sinks.
I raise my hands up. I don’t know if I’m going for a surrender gesture or if I’m getting ready to fight him, as ridiculous as it seems. “Please.” My voice shakes. “Look, I don’t know what you want or why you’re doing this.”
“You don’t know?” He stares at me. His lips curl. “You don’t know? Are you having a laugh or something?”
My heart pounds. Should I scream? “I... Well, you want to be in the company.” I mean, it has to be that. “But it’s not my fault,” I say. “I didn’t stop you.”
He laughs. “You didn’t stop me? Is that really what you think?”
“Xavier, I didn’t.”
“If you weren’t so goody-two-shoes and utterly perfect at dancing, they’d have let me in. They’d have paired us together. Or maybe even have admitted me and Sibylle. But it’s you. You stopped both of those happening.”
He’s angry because I’m better than him?
“No,” I say. My breaths come in short, sharp bursts. I need help. He’s already physically attacked me once. I don’t know what he’s capable of. My phone is in my pocket, and I turn so my side-profile is to him, and so my phone should be hidden from his sight. I try to slide it out of the pocket of my leggings. “I didn’t stop you.”
“You did!” he roars. “That was my place and you’re not even the male dancer, but you took it away from me and gave it to a dancer who didn’t even train here.”
“Xavier, please.” I take a deep breath. My phone is in my hand now, and I try to keep it angled away behind him. From memory, I try to unlock it, typing in my passcode. My heart pounds. “Look, I wasn’t taking anything from you. It’s a fair audition.”
“It’s not fair when they bend their rules to suit you. They’d never do that for anyone else. But they do it for you.”
But it’s because I’m really good, I want to say. But I don’t. That won’t help, and I need to be careful.
He moves closer to me. Two steps. “They do it for you, thinking they know you, thinking you’re this amazing dancer, but they don’t know you at all. No one knows you, do they?”
I take a step back as he advances toward me. Then another step. My fingers are frantic, tapping on my phone. Have I opened contacts now? I can’t tell without looking, but I can’t risk looking away from Xavier.
“I know what you did,” he says. “I know you murdered your sister.”
“I didn’t.”
He laughs. “Of course a murderer would deny it. And for some reason, I thought you wouldn’t want that getting out. I thought you’d take the message and go. But you didn’t.”
“Because I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill her. She fell off that balcony.”
“Fell off or was pushed off?”
“She fell off.” My voice is hard.
“There should’ve been a whole investigation done into you,” he says. “But of course no one suspects the pretty little ballerina is actually a murderous little ballerina. I mean, I didn’t either. I knew you’d lost a sibling, too. I felt close to you before, because of that. It never occurred to me to actually look up how your sister died. And when I did, it all became clear. Good thing some journalists tell the truth, eh?” He steps right up to me. So close I can see every pore on his skin. “It’s disgusting, how some people think they can just take the life of another and get away with it?”
My chest rises and falls too quickly. He’s right in front of me, inches away. His breath is hot on my face. I need to look at my phone. My head pounds.
I lift my hand with the phone up and around him, holding it behind his shoulder so I can see the screen. I try to focus on him, look at his face, into his eyes, so he doesn’t realize what I’m doing, but I’m shaking, and my vision is blurring. I glance at the screen. Jaidev’s contact. There.
“Good things shouldn’t happen to bad people.” He says the word slowly. He hasn’t cleaned his teeth, and I see food caught in them. I can smell his breath. Slightly bad.
“Xavier, look. I know about your brother, okay?” I click onto Jaidev’s contact. “I know what happened to him was terrible and unfair and it was murder.” I click the call button. “But this isn’t that. Helena wasn’t—”
He spits at my face. I scream and recoil back. My phone clatters down somewhere, but then Xavier’s right in front of me. He shoves me, and I fall back. The back of my head hits the floor. Pain. Dark spots in my eyes, but then he’s on top of me.
I shriek and scream, trying to throw him off me.
“Help! Help me!” I scream as I claw at his arms, drawing more blood. I try to swipe at his head. My phone. The call to Jaidev. Did it connect? But I can’t see my phone and—
“I’m going to make sure you get what you deserve,” Xavier says. “I don’t like liars. And I don’t like murderers. And Taryn Foster, I don’t like you.”
He moves his arm suddenly, and then there’s a knife in his hand. The blade glistens.
I scream.