“Favorite ballet.” A furrow dug between her brows again. “That’s hard. For choreography, probably Petite Mort. For a classic, Giselle. That was the first show my mother took me to, so I guess there’s sentimental value.”
“Did you know you wanted to dance professionally since you were young?”
“Yeah.” Scarlett’s face softened. “My mother put me in pre-ballet classes when I was four. Some of my classmates were only there because they were forced to be there, but I looked forward to the lessons every week. It was…I don’t know. It was nice being part of something so structured. I get anxious when there’s too much uncertainty. Also…” A small smile peeked out. “The costumes were pretty.”
That smile shouldn’t have snuck through me the way it did, like a burglar breaking into a vault at night.
Dangerous, a voice whispered. Stay away.
“I was good at it too, which helped. I think I have too much pride to love something that doesn’t love me back.” Scarlett let out a small laugh.
If her smile was a burglar, her laugh was a fucking thief because I was pretty sure she just stole a piece of my heart from right out under me.
Stop being dramatic. No one stole anything. It’s a laugh. Get over it.
Except it wasn’t just her laugh. This was the first time she’d opened up to me. Sure, her childhood dance lessons weren’t exactly deep, dark secrets, but they were something.
She was letting her guard down, and I’d be damned if I did anything to ruin that.
“What about you?” she asked. “When did you know you wanted to be a footballer?”
“Probably around the same time you knew you wanted to be a ballerina.” I settled deeper into my seat. “I told you earlier my father bought me my first Holchester kit when I was five, but he’d been prepping me since I was in the womb. My mother said that instead of music, he’d play his favorite post-match analyses for me. I think he hoped Fetus Me would soak up all that strategy and pop out ready for the Premier League.”
Scarlett laughed again. “Your mother must’ve loved that.”
“Oh, she let him get away with it for a week before she threatened to toss all his Holchester memorabilia if he so much as uttered the word ‘football’ near her again during the pregnancy.” I smiled, imagining my mother’s ire and my father’s protests. “He wasn’t stupid enough to call her bluff, but the minute I was old enough to kick a ball, that was it. My future was set.”
That was hyperbole, to an extent. No one could guarantee a career in professional football. There’d been aspiring players who’d worked equally as hard but never made it close to the big leagues. Luck and timing mattered.
I’d benefited from both. Teddy hadn’t.
A rock lodged in my throat. I forced myself to swallow past it. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on the past.
“What would you want to be if you hadn’t gone into football?” Scarlett asked, unknowingly throwing me a lifeline before I drowned in a sea of what-ifs.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Football is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
I’d hated school. I’d spent my classes daydreaming about football, which was probably why my grades had been abysmal. My teachers hadn’t known what to do with me. Most eventually gave up, and some had outright laughed when I said I’d be the next Beckham or Armstrong.
I’d proved them wrong, but a small part of me had held on to their words. Their dismissals had etched deep into my psyche, fueling me with spite but also agonizing me with fears that they’d been telling the truth.
That I was where I was merely because I’d gotten lucky, and that the luck could be snatched from me at any second.
“Maybe I’d be a race car driver,” I said as an afterthought. “Or another sport.”
It was a lie. There was no other sport. There was only football. However, that was too sad to admit, so I made something up.
“Barring that, I’d go off the rails with something wild, like a dog surfing instructor or professional cuddler or something.”
“Professional cuddler is not a thing.”
“It most definitely is. Google it.” I waved my phone in the air. “Not to brag, but I’m great at cuddling. I can demonstrate.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes, but a small smile peeked through. “No, thanks. I’ll take your word for it.”
We lapsed into a comfortable silence. It seemed Scarlett wanted to stay as much as I did, despite the yawns she tried to hide.
Guilt pressed on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have pushed her to play earlier. I’d read that intense exercise could aggravate chronic pain symptoms, but the weather had been so beautiful, and I hadn’t been thinking. I’d enjoyed seeing her let loose too much, and she moved with a dancer’s grace that was apparent even to an untrained eye.
“Would you want to dance again?” I asked. “If you had the opportunity.”
Scarlett stilled for a second before she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she said, her face devoid of emotion. “I can’t. I’ve had surgeries, physical therapy, you name it. I’m much better now, but I lost a lot of mobility and flexibility because of my hip injuries. I’ll never perform at the level I used to.”
“But you miss dancing,” I said gently.
There was a long pause before she answered. “Yeah.” The word contained a world of wistfulness. “I do.”
An answering ball of emotion knotted in my chest. I couldn’t imagine waking up one day and losing the ability to play football. The end of her career was all the more devastating because it’d been so unexpected. I’d looked up the accident after she told me about it. She’d been on her way to a performance when the other car hit them.
The universe could be fucking cruel, and I hated seeing the sadness in her eyes.
“Not all dances have to be at the Royal Opera House or Westbury.” I thought I saw her flinch at the mention of Westbury, but I might’ve imagined it. “Can you do it for fun instead? Maybe there are roles that are less physically taxing.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried.” Scarlett’s curt response suggested she wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible.
I didn’t want to push her too far, nor did I want to judge, but I couldn’t stop a jolt of shock at the fact that she hadn’t tried to dance since her accident.
I would’ve understood if she’d left that world behind, but she was still teaching ballet and she said herself that she missed it.
