Spiral (Off the Ice Book 2)
Spiral: Chapter 34

IS PROJECTILE VOMITING on the director of Nova Ballet Theatre considered unprofessional? I hope not, because my stomach twists into a knot when I get to center stage and see three very prominent faces of ballet in the auditorium seats with their eyes on me.

These last few weeks have been more taxing than the time I danced in The Nutcracker for four straight shows. Elias has been recovering from his injuries and watching games from home with a grumpy frown. However, when I come home to more baked goods and he persuades me to try them, the smile on his face is the widest I’ve seen in weeks. It didn’t last, though, because after Thunder beat Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals they lost three out of five games, which means if they lose tomorrow, it’s all over. Since Elias has been given approval to train today, he’ll likely get to play, so the pressure is on. He said I’d make a great nurse because I was very strict about helping him heal. I refused whenever he tried to lure me into his hypnotic embrace with one of his tantalizing touches. That gave Elias time to study game tapes while I rehearsed for my audition.

I’ve made sure everything was perfect: my pointe shoes, my outfit, my hair—which Elias helped me put rhinestones in—and most of all my performance. The piece of both the White and Black Swan that I prepared tirelessly is imprinted in my brain, and not even the anxiety leaking into the pit in my stomach can offset that.

The judges occupy the three center seats in the auditorium. Aubrey Zimmerman, the artistic director of NBT; Sarah Chang, the renowned prima ballerina; and Adrien Kane, the esteemed choreographer. I did extensive research on all three of them, though I’m well aware of their influence on the ballet community.

A flicker of recognition ignites in Aubrey Zimmerman’s gaze, a fleeting acknowledgment, but it’s enough to make me feel on top of the fucking world. He has to remember me from the first open audition I showed up to, and I’m hoping he’s eating his words right now.

When the music starts, I forget about all the rejections that piled into my email, and I let Tchaikovsky take over my body. A surge of adrenaline courses through my veins, drowning out the pounding of my heart and the relentless chatter of doubt in my mind. The soft notes guide my movements with the same resilience and determination I’ve held on to with both hands—because the moment I let it go, I know this will all be over for me.

Every extra work shift, every fight with my parents, and every hour I’ve poured into providing for Sean—they’re all woven into the fabric of each plié. But now I’m done letting the weight of my past dictate my future. This is my opportunity to show exactly that.

As I glide across the stage, I catch glimpses of the judges’ faces—Zimmerman’s piercing gaze is fixed on me, Chang’s expression is inscrutable, and Kane’s keen eyes betray a hint of awe.

For a fleeting moment, doubt threatens to engulf me, but I push it aside, refusing to let it derail me. When the music switches into the faster tempo, signaling the arrival of the black swan, I abandon every reservation in my body and fuel her darkness.

And then, just as the final notes of the music echo through the auditorium, I execute the pièce de résistance—a grand jeté that seems to silence everything. In that fleeting moment of weightlessness, I feel an overwhelming sense of euphoria, and a sort of peace with this role. Whether I secure it or not, I know I gave this my everything.

With a lightness I’ve never felt before, I step into my final rotation. When I look up, all three judges are standing. They don’t say anything. My chest heaves, and my breaths are ragged as I try to find my voice. The nerves kick in, and the anxiety falls right back into my body.

“S-should I go again?” I ask with a shaky voice.

Zimmerman shakes his head. “We’ve seen enough.”

My heart drops to the hardwood floor.

“It’s yours.” The words come from Adrien Kane, and I’m sure that I’m dreaming.

“Sorry?” My voice is squeaky.

Kane leans forward. “Ms. Beaumont, we haven’t seen an emotion-driven audition like this in ages. You are exactly what we picture for the principal role. You are our swan queen.”

I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel any part of my body aside from my heart beating out of my chest. I’m fairly certain I’m having a medical emergency.

“We won’t announce it for a few weeks, but you’ll be hearing from us,” says a scrutinizing Zimmerman.

As the assistants usher me off the stage, I can barely move. But instead of letting me cry in the nearest bathroom, Zimmerman catches me in the hallway.

“Tell that nobody that she knows exactly how to make me eat my words.” He smiles before walking out of the glass doors and to a car, exactly like he did all those months ago.

Vindication tastes so damn sweet, I’m not sure I’ll ever get enough of it.

My first thought as I’m inside the bathroom changing, and sobbing, and gulping for air on the stall floor, is to call Elias. That scares me because I’ve only ever wanted to share good news with Sean. But this time there’s one more person who reminds me of how much he believes in me, and I want him to know it was worth it.

The silence between each bout of rings feels like hours, but finally he picks up. “Sage? Is everything okay?”

His voice grounds me, and takes me back to everything I have done to get here. Everything we have done. It takes me back to the other night. Allowing Elias to see every inch of me without a sliver of doubt skating between us was scary and vulnerable and so open that I couldn’t imagine I’d feel this way. It’s what I’ve wanted, and now that I have it, it terrifies me.

“Elias,” I manage to say through a broken sob.

There’s muffled commotion in the background before a door bangs and it’s silent again. “Where are you? I’ll come get you.” He sounds out of breath, and when I check the time, I know he’s still at practice.

“N-no, I’m fine,” I say. “I just wanted to call to tell you I finished my audition.”

“Yeah?” He blows out a breath. “I’m so proud of you, Sage.” The smile in his voice makes me cry. “Don’t cry, baby. I know you killed it, and the decision will tell you exactly that.”

“I got the part, Elias.”

“What?”

I’m not sure if he didn’t hear me, because the voices in the background resume, so I wait till I can control my shaky voice and speak louder. I’m wiping tears when I say it again. “I got the part. I’m going to be the principal ballerina for Swan Lake.”

He repeats my words loudly, and all I hear next is a surge of excitement that reverberates through the phone, and Elias’s voice, now almost drowned in the uproar, exclaims, “Hell yeah! Of course you did, baby. Didn’t doubt it for a second.”

“Let’s fucking go!” I hear Aiden’s voice through the phone, and I hiccup a laugh. I lean against the bathroom wall and stare at my reddened face and puffy eyes in the mirror. The guys are probably running on adrenaline before their game tomorrow, so their excitement is intense.

“You’re the first person I called,” I admit.

Elias responds with a booming laugh. “From the look on Marcus’s face, I can tell.”

My uncle’s voice comes through the receiver. “I’m so damn proud of you, kid.”

Whooping and hollering escalate around Elias.

“I love you.” My words spill out so fast I don’t bother stopping them because they have never been more true. There’s a long pause, and I have to check if he hung up.

But then I hear Elias. “She says she loves you.”

My confusion morphs into realization. He thought I was talking to my uncle.

I consider correcting him, but before I can, Elias’s voice returns, filled with pride. “You hear that? You’ve got a whole cheering squad here. Are you happy, Sage?”

His question makes the beam of light in my chest even brighter. “So happy,” I say, a little watery and broken. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“No? You always seemed pretty confident.” He chuckles.

I’m smiling like an idiot now. “It’s called faking it.”

Then there’s a tense pause that chokes the line, and the word fake sits heavily in the silence between us.

“I guess we’re both pretty good at that, huh?” he says softly.

My brain refuses to come up with a response.

I love him. I’m bursting with so many emotions right now, I’m not sure how to say it in a way where he’ll know that I mean it. I need Elias to believe that I want him for real. Not the famous hockey player, but the boy who cooks for me and doesn’t complain when we do my self-care routines. Elias has been hurt before, and I never want him to feel that again.

“Congrats, Sage,” he says, and the somberness in his voice feels wrong. Then his name is called and he’s quiet for a moment. “I’ve gotta go, but you should celebrate, okay? There’s no one who deserves it more.”

And then the line drops, and somehow I keep my heart from doing the same. Because just like I secured the role, I’m going to secure the boy too.

IT’S LATE WHEN the guys come home. I can hear their hushed voices down the hall, and when Elias steps into his room, my stomach squeezes tightly and so do my eyes.

Suddenly, all the confidence I built up this afternoon evaporates into thin air. Elias heads to the bathroom, and while he’s in there I’m clutching my pillow, hoping to fall asleep before he comes back. Before I blurt out I love you again and freak him out.

Everything we did—this entire fake relationship—was for the sake of our dreams, and now that we have them, we’re seconds from puffing away like dust on a windowsill.

The bathroom door opens again, and I can’t remember if I ever learned how to speak. Even in the dark I know he’s only in his boxers.

But instead of heading to his side of the bed, Elias sits beside me, by the curve of my body. The mattress dips under his weight, but I keep my eyes closed. Then, I feel his lips press against my forehead, his fingers threading through my hair, and his thumb moving back and forth in a soothing motion.

“Sage,” he whispers. “You have insomnia, I know you’re awake.”

My whole face flushes, and I’m grateful the lights are off. I pretend to sound groggy when I open my eyes. “I was trying to sleep.”

“Is that why you were breathing so hard?”

“Maybe I was having a really good dream.”

“Yeah? Who was in it?”

“Same guy who’s always in my dreams. He’s got these big hands, and he runs them all over—ah!” Elias’s finger jabs at my waist. “Did you just poke me?”

He chuckles. His hands on my waist create a tingling sensation. “Why dream if you can have the real thing?”

We sink into a silence that I can’t help but break.

“Can I have the real thing?” I whisper.

He breaks eye contact, but his hands are still under my palms. I can’t let him leave without giving me an answer, but I don’t have it in me to repeat myself.

“Did you tell Sean you got the part?”

The redirect shatters my hope. This time when I try to silently urge his gaze to mine, it doesn’t work. “I did. He wants to celebrate when he finally comes to visit.”

Elias looks at our hands. “So, that’s it, huh? You’ll be busy with rehearsing and then traveling with NBT?”

The pit in my stomach deepens to an abyss. “Yeah, rehearsals start soon, and after the first month, we’re booked for shows in different cities. I’ll probably have to look for a place.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps. “And have you? Been looking, I mean.”

“Not yet.”

Because it’s true. I can’t look at those dingy one-bedroom apartments and imagine being there all alone. Staying here with Elias and having his friends visit has corrupted my mind. Somehow, I’ve made the terrible discovery that I like having friends, and I can’t go back to living in an empty place.

“But I’ve seen a few places available for rent by the theater.”

“That’s good.”

Is it? There are so many things left unspoken that I can’t hold back anymore. I sit up on the bed and turn on the bedside lamp. “What are we doing, Elias?”

He blinks, adjusting to the light before his gaze roams my face. “What do you mean?”

I stare up at the ceiling and then look at him again. “I mean that I need to know what this is. Because this—us—is coming to an end, and I can’t bear it if I don’t even know what’s real.”

Four beats of silence pass. I know because I count every single one of them.

“You want to know what’s real, Sage?” he says. “What’s real is what I told you in that hotel room. That I can’t look at you sometimes because I like it too much. And I don’t want to stand next to you and touch you like you’re mine when that’s never been the truth.”

The knot in my throat feels like barbed wire.

“This is temporary. You’re going to leave, live out your dream, and become the star that you deserve to be. And I’ll be here, because we both know this was never going to work beyond what we agreed on.”

“But things are different now. You know they are.” I hold back the emotion in my throat.

“Sage.” My name is broken on his lips. “I won’t let myself need you more than everyone else already does.”

“But I want you to need me,” I say.

Elias’s expression softens. “Because that’s all you’ve ever known. You care about everyone else so much that you don’t realize you’re depleting yourself in the process.”

His words peel the makeshift patchwork over my past like paint off an old wall.

“I will never be the one to wear you down or keep you from what you deserve. You might not see it now, but a few weeks, a month, a year from now you will, and it would pain me to watch that disappointment take over. I know what that’s like, and I can’t watch you go through that because of me.”

I hate every word. Only because they slam against my ribcage harder than my heart.

When his palm brushes my face in a coaxing touch, I pull away from the confusing feeling.

“So, this is it? We’re not going to try?” The last word cracks in two. “You’re okay with leaving us like this?”

Elias’s exhale is long and heavy. “That’s not fair, Sage. We both made those rules.”

“I don’t care about the rules!” I exclaim.

His brows raise at my outburst, and words seem to stick to his throat.

“Because I’m sitting here trying to tell you that I love you.”

It’s like every atom in the air settles, and Elias pulls back like I’ve pushed him. There’s a ticking time bomb that sits in my chest when our gazes lock, and he freezes.

“I’m in love with you, Elias. And I’m pretty sure I have been for a while now,” I admit. “So, what are you going to do about it?”