Page 83 of Swallow Your Sorries

Well, except Gant, but his smiles are mockingly cruel.

Curiosity gets the better of me. “Why not? Isn’t he Beaulieu’s king?”

He snorts. “I haven’t bent the knee. I’m a small independent kingdom.”

My heart soars at that. Finally, someone who isn’t a minion.

Finally, someone with their own brain.

“Plus, I’m not a senior.”

Oh.A baby. Or at least, that’s my way of thinking when it comes to boys even a year younger than I am.

Still, there had to be other, older, decent boys around. Even though ballet is my sole focus and I don’t have room for an entire boyfriend, I could have room for a few kisses. A few sessions like the one Gant just gave me in Stretch class. I just need to find someone who isn’t a minion. Someone who doesn’t think I’m a murderous dove panty blackmailer.

Because now that I’ve felt someone else’s fingers, mine won’t do.

“Good to know. So you’re in advanced ballet?” I ask, though it’s obvious. Everyone else present is inside of senior year.

He nods.

“So you’re a bit of a prodigy?” It’s pretty unheard of for Beaulieu to advance dancers, seeing how fierce the competition already is. There just aren’t as many clear standouts as at my old public school. Everyone’s damn near perfect.

“I guess. My mother was a ballerina.”

So he’s more like Gant than I thought.

Why am I comparing him to Gant at all? As if Gant is some standard to uphold anyone to.

“I’ve been practising since I could walk.”

I smile tightly, but it’s just to hold in the rising bile in my throat as my mind quickly begins the dance comparison game again. Today I would finally see first-hand how much I don’t fit in with the other dancers. But by how much?

I make an excuse and slink off into a corner where I catch sight of myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and cringe.

“Why the fuck are you wearing something so small?”Captain Obvious’ words ring in my mind.

He wasn’t wrong. The leotard had been a loan from Aria, of all people. I’m still surprised she came to my rescue when she noticed me searching the bushes around the dance studio for my duffel bag. It’d gone missing just like my chairs and stools in most classes.

The problem is Aria’s a narrow size two with a ribcage the same width as my thigh. That aside, my torso’s longer so the crotch digs painfully into my pelvis. Maple House was too far to fetch another leotard before class started, and if I didn’t show up in dance attire, I’d be kicked out of class and hit with a brutal detention. Not just one, but a series of them. That’s how strictly the dress code and time management are enforced.

Still, it’s a catch twenty-two. I avoided a bad first impression with the instructors and detention, but I’d still embarrassed myself by wearing something borderline inappropriate.

“She looks like a sausage trying to escape its casing,” Rin says to her gaggle of geese as they all eye me.

“More like a bird,” Kesia says with a laugh. “You know, because she looks so—”

“Cheap, cheap, cheap,” they chirp like the little bird brains they are in unison.

“Does she think that double wedgie will get the boys to pay her any attention?” Another girl with dark wavy hair asks. “Just how desperate is she for someone to like her?”

“Are you really surprised?” Rin asks. “She knows her scholarship is fake, and she still has the audacity to stay. She’s beyond desperate and past shameless. Whatever Gant’s big plan is, I hope he executes it soon so that bitch can return to the other side of town where she belongs. Back in the kennel with all the other bitches that can only get a crumb of attention if they show off their labia.”

Say something witty.

Something as equally bitchy as they are.

“But you know what’s truly sad?” Rin goes on. “I bet she’s trying to get Gant’s attention. Well, she already has it but you know what I mean. She wants his attention down under.”

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