Page 14 of Beautiful Lies
With a few strokes of a pencil and markers, he’d captured the feeling I got when I was dancing. Freedom. Joy. Flight.
You have magic in your hands, Connor Vincent. How had he seen so much from outside the window of my dance studio? My bedroom door swung open and my mom stood in the doorway. She still hadn’t grasped the concept of knocking before entering even though I’d asked her to a million times. I folded the sketch and tucked it back in the textbook, safe from her prying eyes before I pulled out my earbuds.
She lowered herself onto the edge of my bed and let out a heavy sigh as she inspected my hair. “Let me at least tidy it up,” she said, resignation in her voice. “I can’t let you walk around like that. What would people think?”
“Why do you care what people think?”
“I own a hair salon. This is no time to argue with me, missy. Let’s go. In the bathroom.”
I followed her into the bathroom where a stool was already set up in front of the mirror. She spritzed my hair with water from a spray bottle and ran the comb through it, her heavy sighs letting me know exactly how she felt. I stared at myself in the mirror. All my life I’d been told by my mom and her friends, from strangers on the street that I was beautiful. Like a porcelain doll with bee-stung lips and gray eyes almost too big for my face. The jagged cut of my hair accentuated my cheekbones, made me look edgier. More like a badass. I liked it.
“Why would you do this?” she asked. “You have such beautiful hair. Girls would kill for this color and it’s so nice and thick.” I met her brown eyes in the mirror.
I’d tried to tell my mom about Jake back in September. “Oh honey, you’re a beautiful girl. Boys do silly things when they have a crush on a girl. Just be nice to him,” she’d said.
“That’s the price you pay for flaunting it in his face and playing games with him,” Lana had said when I’d attempted to confide in her. There had been a time when we’d been close, but that felt like a long time ago.
“I’m not playing any game,” I’d insisted, not sure why I was still talking to her. I’d slammed out of her room and our already strained relationship deteriorated further. It had been the dance classes that drove the wedge between us. I’d shown a natural talent, according to Miss Iverson, our instructor and Lana hadn’t. For me, dancing had come as easily as breathing. I felt the music in my soul, in every cell of my body.
“Why did you cut your hair, Ava?” my mom asked again, a scowl on her face as her scissors flew through my hair, attempting to make it look nice.
I wanted to tell her, but I knew I never would. I’d never tell anyone. My hand went to my cheekbone, surprised the bruise hadn’t been permanent. Surprised that nobody could see the damage. I could still feel the sting, the heat in my cheeks, the gravel digging into the knees of my jeans as I knelt in front of that douchebag on the cold concrete. He’d yanked me to my feet by my hair and tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let him see me cry. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. My mom was talking, but I wasn’t listening to her words.
My thoughts drifted to those bluebirds, to the boy with mesmerizing blue eyes who wore a medal of St. Jude around his neck. “So those dance classes you take…what kind of music is it?” he’d asked over lunch.
“It depends. I take modern dance, jazz, and hip-hop.”
“Cool. So you wanna be a dancer?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, I just like to dance. My mom’s always talking about Juilliard, but it’s not my dream. I don’t want dancing to turn into a competition.”
“I get it.”
“You do?”
“Yup. You dance for yourself because it makes you happy. You don’t wanna be judged.”
“Exactly.”
We’d talked all the way through lunch, about everything and nothing, and it had been fun. I hadn’t laughed or smiled that much in months. Not only that. Talking to him had been so easy and he had the ability to make me feel like I was the only person in the cafeteria. Like everything I said mattered to him.
“What do you think?” my mom asked, dragging me back to the present.
I looked in the mirror at my chin-length bob and mustered a smile for her. “It looks good.”
“Don’t you dare take the scissors to your hair again. You’re still my beautiful girl,” she said, her face softening. She planted a kiss on top of my head, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you too.” I wished she’d find a different adjective for me than beautiful.
“Why don’t you invite Holly for a sleepover this weekend?” she asked, her voice overly bright. “You girls always have so much fun together.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, knowing it would never happen but she smiled, pleased with my answer.
4
Connor
Ihad a routine, something that had been lacking in my life before, but I strictly adhered to it now. At seven a.m. on Monday morning, my phone alarm chimed. I hauled my ass out of bed, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and ate fresh fruit, Greek yogurt, and granola. After guzzling a bottle of water, I refilled it from the tap and grabbed my backpack, already packed with my gym clothes.
