Tiny Pretty Things (40 page)

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, but she’s too far gone. “Give me the letters,” I
say through clenched teeth. She’s holding them up, and screaming about all I’ve done.

“She’s harassing me! She’s trying to hurt me!” Gigi shouts to people passing by the door. All of them stand frozen by her accusations. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors. All upper ballet levels. I’m lucky the seniors are away on auditions. Level 8 girls don’t need to see this.

Girls from the hallway pour in now.

They make sympathetic sounds. Gigi’s muscles are flexing and trembling; no one wants to get anywhere near her.

“Enough!” An RA pops into the room. The girls stick to the walls, their asses glued to the mirrors so they can watch like we’re some silly TV drama and not actual people.

“She—she did everything,” Gigi says. Her hand is over her heart and she closes her eyes, taking a few wonky breaths. She looks like she is working damn hard to get herself under control, but I don’t have to try. For once, perfect Gigi is showing all her messy parts, and I am in a perfect first position with an unflinching face. Who looks crazy now?

“I’m just trying to do my
pas
practice with Henri. She’s acting all crazy,” I say, my voice pitch-perfect, without a hint of distress. “And she’s stolen things from my room.”

I feel the blood rising to my head with the fear that her accusations will stick, and I will get the blame for everything. Besides, I didn’t do all of it. There are other girls in this room with just as much to hide. With just as much reason to mess with her.

The RA tries to usher Gigi out.

“NO!” Gigi yells. The noise is a howl, an animal sound, a tortured crack of vocal cords more than an actual word. Her hands tremble, and she stumbles and looks like she might just fall over. “I’m not done yet.”

“Yes, you are,” the RA says.

Gigi throws the letters all over the floor. “You can have these, too.” She pulls out the rest of the naked photos of Alec and me, and adds them to the pile on the floor.

I scramble to pick them up as others look on. That’s when Henri finally gets up, and he must catch sight of the pictures, because he raises one side of his mouth in the world’s most beautiful and terrible smirk. Then he grabs three pictures right off the floor.

“
Oh là là
,” he says, putting his own French accent on extra thick, like he thinks that will somehow drive me crazy. Or drive Gigi crazy, since she’s the one he’s looking at. He has naked pictures of me in his hands. “Very pretty, Bette. Can I keep them?”

“Gross,” I say.

“You’re a true
belle
, Bette,” Henri says then, in a lower voice. The smirk is gone from his face and for a glorious moment I feel wanted again. Wanted and pretty and better than Gigi.

“Do what you want with those, but I don’t ever want to see them again,” Gigi says, readying herself to leave. “Please just leave me alone, okay?” She rubs the tears away, and has the defeated look of someone who just lost the big game.

“I’m keeping my ears open,” I say. “We’ll figure out who’s bothering you.” I don’t mean it as an
offer in kindness, of course, but a reminder to her that I’m not the criminal, I’m not the one they’re all looking for. And to make sure that RA doesn’t think anything or go report anything about me.

Gigi just shakes her head. And anyway, I meant what I said. I don’t want her injured and fragile, I just want her gone. The RA ushers her away like she’s just learned her dog got run over by a car.

And then she is gone, at least from the studio. The others follow. The show is over. The star has left. I exhale for the first time in too long. A loud sigh of a breath through my mouth.

“You two really hate each other, eh? It’s kind of sexy.” Henri raises his eyebrows and I remember he still has my photos.

“Give those back,” I say. He holds them above my head, out of reach. A girl like Gigi would jump up and down trying to reach them, but I am not that girl. Instead I cross my arms over my chest and wait for his arm to get tired. Look up at him with a look Alec used to like: wide eyes and a tilted head and a little pout. Henri laughs and lowers his arm. Flips through the pictures one more time before pocketing them. I make a sound in protest, but he cuts me off.

“I mean it, Bette. You’re gorgeous. Not my type, really. Too icy. But objectively hot regardless.”

It’s not like I need reassurance from Henri. It’s not like I need anything from the strange, mysterious French boy. Who is nothing.

“Well, you weren’t acting like that when we were in the PT room or the last time we were out,” I say, not necessarily wanting to remember those two past moments, but I can’t let him win.

“Hmm, maybe that was a mistake,” he teases. “Now Gigi—”

“I know. Luminous. Amazing. I don’t need to hear it.” I turn to leave. I can’t possibly dance now. I prepare myself for a night in the dorms with the unfamiliar aloneness that is seeping into my life.

“And if you’ve forgotten, you kissed me at the restaurant,” Henri says. “And you
let
me touch you in the water.”

I want to say
in order to shut you up
. Instead, I sit down and undo my pointe shoes. “Whatever you think is happening here isn’t happening,” I say. Then he sits down next to me and takes hold of my foot in his hand. I fight him at first, but he doesn’t let go.

I give him a kick. He takes it and doesn’t let go of my foot. He unwraps the tape circling my toes. My foot is bruised and damp and there’s nothing alluring about that part of my body right now—it only looks delicate when it’s wrapped in the pink fabric of a ballet slipper. Naked, it looks like it belongs to an ogre. He examines my toes, and for a second, I flinch, thinking he could snap one if he wanted.

“Relax.” Henri kneads his knuckles into the aching flesh, and something in me gives in. It’s not just the expert way his fingers find the pressure points on the sole of my foot, the soft spots between each toe, the callouses on my heel. I also surrender to the way he looks at me while he massages my toes, the endlessness of his stare, and the fact that he isn’t scared to break me.

I wait for him to bring up Cassie. I listen for her name, feeling it lurk beneath his every word.

“You still want Alec.” There’s an echo in the now super silent studio, and his words reverberate, hitting me hard, over and over. I wiggle away. He grabs my foot harder. I don’t want to be stopped
by him but doesn’t the truth always paralyze you? It does me. I can’t breathe because of how real those words feel.

“I want to be on top. To be back in dance magazines, to get another endorsement deal,” he goes on. I barely hear. I haven’t even said those exact words in my own head, and I’m surprised to feel a give of relief in my chest. He releases my foot. I stand, trying not to let the ache in my knee show. I should run as fast as I can away from him.

He follows close behind me, and I whip around before his hips press up against mine. I put a hand out until he walks directly into it. My hand presses into his chest. His eyes go narrow and his knuckles white and I can feel his thoughts racing around in his head.

“Wouldn’t Alec just hate seeing you with me?” he says, the whisper of his voice hitting my throat, feeling too cramped. He takes another step, my elbow bends against his weight, and I don’t think he can get any closer to me.

“Alec is pretty distracted these days,” I say. But of course I know he’s right. Even if Alec “really likes” Gigi like he says he does, he still doesn’t really like Henri. They’ve never gotten close despite being roommates. He would still be the worst person for Alec to see me with.

“We can get his attention,” Henri says. His body touches mine at all the parts where I blossom: my chest, my hips, my thighs. He puts his forehead to mine. “Don’t give up, pretty girl. When I get set on something, I get it. My mother says, ‘Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.’”

I hate him even more for calling me
pretty girl
. I don’t know what his quote means, but I let his hands find my back, and it’s impossible not to give in to them. They are huge and strong and wrap around so much of my waist that it seems they could hold me up. And I haven’t been touched in so long, it feels good to let the warmth of his palms seep through my tights and to my skin. I could stop trying so hard. I could just give in.

“It wouldn’t be so terrible, being with me. Driving them crazy. It might even be fun.” He speaks directly into my ear. “And we could dance so well together that we become the next It ballet couple.” He drums on the small of my back. “I could forget everything I know, if you help me.”

I hate my body for going so weak at the combination of his accent and his hands and his warm breath. I breathe heavily. The world feels suddenly small and cramped. I’m so tired, I actually consider just letting him do what he wants. For once, couldn’t I just do the easiest thing?

His touch is so different from Alec’s. Eager and aggressive. Like he doesn’t care what I did or did not do to his ex. He railroads straight through all the thoughts in my head of how this is a bad, bad idea. His lips find my earlobe and there’s the nip of his teeth on that soft centimeter of skin. I well up, not at the pain, which is tiny and a little sweet, but because having Henri touch me just makes me miss Alec’s touch. The controlled danger. The mutual, aching desire. I used to get lost in Alec’s touch, but Henri is pointed. Goal oriented.

“You’re ridiculous,” I say, but it comes out with a hint of a pant behind it, and I know I’ve shown my cards. I’m turned on: not just from Henri being against me, muscles and dimples and all, but also at the idea of getting Alec back, taking control of my life, hurting Gigi, getting a photo shoot in a
dance magazine that’s not bought by my mother’s money or my sister’s acclaim.

“You know I’m right. And even if I’m not—what do you have to lose, right?” I hear a gaggle of girls pass by the open studio door and glass wall, but don’t jerk away from Henri. Eleanor’s voice is in the group, but I pretend not to notice. I let Henri lean forward just a half inch more and kiss me. His tongue is rough and thick as it forces its way into my mouth, exploring without consent. His hands wander, and even though I’m half repulsed, I can’t help but respond. I feel small and scared, but at the same time, safe.

It feels like a kiss and like a contract. It feels not good, but not bad either. But it feels like I’m back in control. Like I’m Bette again.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

AFTER REHEARSAL I GO TO
the café and pick up a bowl of the
congee
porridge the chefs make for the Asian students for dinner. Everyone is grabbing full plates. With actual food on them. They’re serving tacos tonight for Cinco de Mayo. There are little sombreros on the tables. I flick one off and watch it tumble to the floor. I head to my usual corner, but Will’s sitting in it. In my corner. Alone. Without thinking, I sit across from him.

“You’re good at keeping secrets, right?” I say in my smallest voice, just to get his attention. I don’t know him well, but he seems safe, kind. Like he could keep a secret.

Will jumps. He didn’t know I sat down at all, I guess.

“Damn it, June, you scared me,” he says, smoothing his hair.

Maybe I am truly invisible.

He gives me a long look before answering, like he must take in each facial feature one at a time: my mouth, my nose, each eye, each ear, the slope of my chin. I don’t know what he concludes, but he nods and shrugs. We’ve never really talked like this before.

He crosses his arms over his chest and clears his throat like it’s a request for a subject change. “Do you have a secret? Something to share?”

“No, just thought it would get your attention is all,” I say with a smirk. Part of me wants to tell Sei-Jin’s secret, Gigi’s secret, my own secret. I wonder if I really could tell Will. Right now. In the half-empty café. In one long sentence, not stopping for air or advice. I wonder if I could just push out
the words:
Sei-Jin might be a lesbian. Gigi has a heart condition. I’ve been messing around with Jayhe. Someone finds me beautiful. Maybe even loves me. Even if it’s not my father. Or my mom.

“Well, secret keeping is one of my best qualities,” Will says, still pondering my face. “But you should hold on to your secrets. That’s one thing I’ve learned here. Don’t trust anyone with them. Not even your friends. Not even me. When push comes to shove, no one is that good at keeping secrets.” His eyes fill with tears, the sudden, gushing kind that I would never allow myself. I don’t understand why, and I’m too weirded out to ask. He uses the backs of his hands to wipe them away, and keeps a smile grimacing on his face the whole time.

I don’t know that I really believed I would tell Will anything, but I had a momentary pinch of hope that I might not have the weight of these secrets on my shoulders, and now they have squarely sunk back onto me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He shakes his head, and tears well up in his green eyes again. “I thought I had something with somebody. But it’s, like, so confusing. I don’t even know why I’m talking to you about this. No offense.”