Page 58 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Look, Gant,” she begins, her lip already quivering, bullshit lies already on the tip of her tongue.

“I’m looking,” I say, circling her. “All I’ve been doing is looking. All I see is you.”

Her lip trembles again as she sits back on her knees before standing with a wince. “You have everything all wrong—”

“Do I? So you didn’t steal my phone and email everyone on my list a copy of our parents’ sex tape?”

She swallows. “Well, yes, I—”

I step closer and she steps back. “And you didn’t frame me as the one who exposed my mother’s affair?”

“That was an accident—”

“You didn’t make my mother think that I’d betrayed her until her dying breath? Or cause my father to blame me for humiliating our family for weeks until I got the CCTV footage of you inside the studio? Of you sending the email? Of you running away like the pathetic little cowardice cunt you are?”

She shifts back again and I press forward.

“Gant—”

“Even with the footage to prove it was you, it still wasn’t enough. My father made me issue an apology at my own mother’s funeral. I should have been grieving. Instead, I was explaining to over three thousand guests I didn’t know from a glory hole in the wall why I let some stupid bitch into my phone.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Her voice climbs to a shrill pitch.

Another step back.

Another step forward.

“Yet you sent it to Beaussip?” I ask. “Are you that much of a fucking idiot, or do you think I am?”

“I’m telling you the truth, honest. Look, my old email was BarbieOO7—”

“I don’t care if it was Cunt101.”

“It was my proof!”

“To blackmail my mother into helping with your Beaulieu audition,” I snort. “There’s nothing she could’ve done to help you. I had to hire a body double to replace your original submission tape.”

Something I can’t quite place at first blooms in her irises. But once it settles, and her expression flattens, I know what it is.

Acceptance.

My little ballerina has finally accepted what’s been plaguing her.

She doesn’t deserve to be at Beaulieu on her dancing talents.

But I could fix that. I could fix her so that when she breaks, it’s just that much more satisfying.

I run my eyes down her body now, wishing I could see more of it. “It was difficult to find someone with just the right proportions, but I remember every curve from when I held you. You remember that too, don’t you?”

Her eyes snap to mine, and I search for the memory in them. I can’t be the only one replaying the first time I’ve ever touched her in my head on a loop.

The bob of her throat tells me that she does remember.

“Of course you do. It was right before you ruined me.”

“Look—”

“Looking,” I sing-song, eyeing the button on her blazer.

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