Page 58 of Practice Makes Perfect
“It hurt,” she says quietly. “He didn’t use lube, and his finger… it hurt. When I told him, he said we just needed to keep trying.” She shakes her head. “I was torn. I liked him so much, but I wasn’t ready. I figured if he really liked me, he’d wait.”
My jaw tightens. “But he didn’t.”
“No.” Em’s voice has a flatness to it now. “He called me a frigid bitch, broke up with me, and then—because apparently that wasn’t enough—he told everyone at school that I was a slut who’d given him an STD.”
“Jesus,” I breathe. “What a fucking asshole.”
“Small community,” she says with a shrug that’s clearly meant to seem casual, but isn’t. “It got back to my parents, and when I explained what happened, they were livid—not at me, but at Derek. They went to the principal, but…”
“Let me guess,” I say, anger building in my chest. “The principal took his side.”
“He said the son of the town mayor would never act that way. So nothing happened, and I stopped caring after that. My grades tanked, I quit dance. My parents decided to send me to my cousin Louis’s private school in New York.”
I squeeze her hand again, wishing I could go back in time and knock this Derek kid’s teeth out. “So you lived with Louis?”
“Yeah, with him and his mom.” A small, genuine smile appears. “It helped. I started to find myself again. But when it came time for college applications, I just… couldn’t. I begged my parents to let me take a year off. They were hesitant at first, but Louis, his mom, and my grandma made my case, and they agreed.”
“Your gap year,” I say, putting the pieces together. “That’s when you started teaching dance?”
“Yeah. I got a job at this dance studio and another at a diner,” she shrugs. “It kept me busy while I figured things out.”
The weight of what she’s sharing with me isn’t lost. This isn’t just a story—it’s her trust. Which makes me suddenly aware of how absolutely fucking weird it is that we’re having this deeply personal conversation in a dimly lit parking lot outside a Chinese restaurant.
I’m torn between different emotions as I process Em’s story. Rage at this Derek asshole, whose face I want to introduce to my hockey stick. Admiration for Em. Gratitude that she trusts me enough to share this. And a weird, fierce protectiveness that I have no right to feel for someone who isn’t actually mine.
“I don’t know what to say, Em” I admit finally, “except that I think you’re really fucking brave.”
Em’s eyebrows rise. “Brave? For freaking out and running away from you that night? Or for avoiding dating for years?”
“No,” I say. “For deciding to work through this instead of letting it define you. For asking someone you barely knew to help you.”
A slow smile spreads across her face. “I wouldn’t say I barely knew you.”
“We had one statistics class together,” I point out. “And we talked maybe, what, two times?”
“Five, and shared one email,” she corrects me, because of course she knowsexactlyhow many encounters we’ve had. “I’ve had a good feeling about you since then. When you helped that freshman who kept getting confused about probability distributions.”
“You remember that?” I’m genuinely surprised. That was months ago, and I’d barely noticed her watching.
“You were patient,” she says simply. “And you didn’t make him feel stupid. That matters to me, both in general and in regards to our… arrangement. So, when combined with your reputation on campus, you were the obvious choice, although I’ve had to suppress certain… feelings.”
The car suddenly feels very small, very intimate. The donut bag from the Chinese restaurant sits forgotten in my lap. Em looks at me with those wide eyes, and I find myself leaning toward her just slightly, drawn by some invisible force. Her lips part, and for a moment, I think I’m going to kiss her…
Boundaries be damned.
Just as I’m about to close the distance between us, a sharp chirping sound cuts through the moment. Em startles, jerking back and glancing down at her watch. She mutters something I can’t hear, then taps the screen, her forehead creasing with concern.
“Shit,” she says. “I missed a call from Louis. That’s weird—he doesn’t usually call this late unless something’s wrong.”
Just like that, the intimate bubble we’d created pops. Em pulls further back, creating space between us, and I silently curse that watch with every profanity I know.
“I should probably call him back,” she says, already fumbling for her phone. “He’s probably fine, but you know how it is with family…”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Family first.”
Em nods, distracted, then looks back at me with a small smile. “We’re, um, still on for our lesson in a few days, right? Wednesday?”
“Definitely,” I manage to say, though my mind is still replaying how close her lips were to mine just moments ago. I clear my throat. “Same time? Seven?”
