A gorgeous transfer student joined our class today, and she had the exact same name as me. Our dance teacher sighed over the attendance sheet, but before she could decide how to tell us apart, my childhood friend raised his hand and gave me a nickname that would nearly cost me my health, my dream, and six years of misplaced loyalty.
Chapter 2
I trained with Julian in secret for the next month.
He never complimented me by saying I looked thinner, because I wasn’t getting thinner. I was getting stronger. My legs stopped shaking, my turns sharpened, and for the first time in weeks, I could finish a rehearsal without feeling as if I might collapse.
Julian cared about placement, timing, breath, and trust.
Whenever I apologized before a lift, he stopped the music.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Making yourself smaller before anyone asks you to.”
That sentence followed me home.
I began noticing how often I did it outside the studio, too. I stepped aside in hallways before people approached. I apologized when someone bumped into me. At dinner, I cut portions in half even when I was hungry.
Zach had not created all my insecurities.
But he had learned exactly where they lived and pressed on them whenever it benefited him.
Meanwhile, he and Chloe Brown became the stars of Ms. Gable’s class. Brown was undeniably talented. Her lines were elegant and her turns were quick, but she had learned Chasing Light as choreography, not as partnership.
Zach did not seem concerned.
Whenever I passed them rehearsing, he made sure I heard him.
“See how easy that lift is with the right partner?”
Sometimes Brown laughed.
I stopped answering.
The showcase arrived on a Saturday night.
Our school auditorium was packed, and three Juilliard representatives sat in the front row beside Dean Rebecca Vance, head of the performing arts department.
I slipped backstage in costume.
Zach saw me and frowned.
“What are you doing here?”
Before I could answer, Dean Vance entered.
Her face brightened.
“Chloe Miller. Good. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
Ms. Gable went pale.
“Dean Vance, Chloe isn’t performing.”
The dean stopped.
“What?”
“Her partnership changed.”
Dean Vance looked from me to Zach.
“You pulled the top dancer in this class from the showcase?”
Zach crossed his arms. “Partnership is a choice. I found someone better suited to me.”
The dean’s eyes narrowed.
Before she could respond, the announcer called Chasing Light.
Zach smirked at me.
“Guess you’re out of time.”
I turned away because my throat was closing.
Then Julian’s voice came from behind us.
“She has a partner.”
Every head turned.
He walked through the backstage crowd and stopped beside me.
Zach laughed.
“You? Hope you’ve got a chiropractor.”
Julian did not react.
“Maybe her weight was never your problem,” he said. “Maybe your strength was.”
Dean Vance stared at him.
“Julian Brooks?”
He nodded.
“You trained with Nathan Aldridge.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You were a national finalist at sixteen.”
Another nod.
Ms. Gable looked suddenly ill.
Julian had been assisting the advanced department as a guest trainee while preparing for professional auditions. I had spent a month assuming he was merely an unusually gifted college student.
Dean Vance turned to Ms. Gable.
“You removed Chloe Miller because her partner changed?”
“There were professional considerations.”
“What considerations?”
Nobody answered.
Then Dean Vance’s gaze landed on the scale near the storage closet.
Her expression changed.
“We’ll discuss that afterward.”
Zach and Brown were allowed to perform as scheduled. Then Dean Vance announced that Julian and I would close the showcase with the same choreography.
From the wings, I watched Zach and Brown dance first.
At a glance, they were beautiful.
But I had spent six years reading Zach’s shoulders.
His timing was off.
During the first lift, his hands arrived half a count late. Brown corrected in midair, and the audience probably never noticed.
I did.
By the second section, they looked like two soloists competing for attention rather than two people telling one story.
They finished to polite applause.
The moment they came backstage, Zach snapped, “You missed the count.”
Brown’s expression changed instantly.
“Maybe you can’t lift anybody unless someone spends six years hiding your mistakes.”
The hallway went silent.
Her words struck me harder than they struck him.
Six years.
Six years of adjusting half a beat early because Zach was late. Six years of shifting my center to make his lifts easier. Six years of absorbing his mistakes so naturally that teachers praised him for partnering skills I was supplying.
Maybe I had never been the burden.
Maybe I had been carrying him.
