Page 130 of Facing Off
“Touch me somewhere else.”
His nostrils flare. Slowly his hand moves down my silhouette, ghosting along my arm. “Where?”
“You pick.”
His face contracts as though he’s in physical pain. “First, agree to a deal. For as long as you keep talking, I’ll touch you. Once you stop, I stop.”
The audacity of this ridiculous, devious, brilliant,annoying, caring manbargainingso I do this therapy successfully.
Why is it your problem whether I get better?is what I’d normally snipe. The problem is that I don’t feel any of that snappy anger or, frankly, any bleak hopelessness. Out there in the world, I might. Or in my dance studio alone, I will. But here? With him right now? I don’t.
“Fine,” I mutter.
He lifts his hand, waiting.
“Even though, I could?—”
He taps the line of my cheekbone with this thumb.
“—permanently damage my career by falling on camera as Bob Pepita live-streams us, I accept myself.” A pause. “Deeply and fully,” I amend, not wanting to get it wrong for some reason.
His thumb drags along the boundary of my lip, tracing as if it’s meant to be drawn from memory later. Then suddenly he starts tapping, a bit abruptly like he’d forgotten why we’re doing this and was touching me before…to touch me.
“Say something more, darling.”
I sigh. “Even though…I’m scared all I’ve worked for becomes nothing because ballet means everything to me…I deeply and fully accept myself.”
“Go on,” says Adrian, “you’re doing so well, Sonya.”
He finds the nape of my neck.
I shiver. “I—even if I don’t know who I am without ballet because it’s all that’s ever given me purpose—” My words pick up speed. “Because how could it not? It’s not like I have anything—ordidhave anything else to shape me. My foster parents never cared.”
His touch hiccups.
“Even on my birthdays, they’d hand me a card.” The memory hooks me harder than I expected it to as I remember. “There was no cake. No party. Only a card with two words pre-written inside. Happy birthday. I thought maybe—maybe the images on front might mean something more. That there was a secret deeper meaning why one card had a bunny with a birthday hat, and another year had a tortoise, and another year had a walrus—” I take a deep breath. “…but one day I found the stack. A whole bunch of cards with different animals in the front. They’d gotten a value pack in advance.”
“Fuck,” Adrian whispers. His fingers brush the hair back from my temples, palms holding onto my face, his heat all around me.
“I wished I hadn’t tried for so long. That’s what embarrasses me. How much I wanted them to love me, and the shapes I’d turn myself into trying to make it happen, testing out different smiles and different chores to help out with, and bringing up different accomplishments from school just to be seen. Thankfully, I got smarter eventually. I don’t remember the exact day it happened. Maybe it’s when I stopped talking for a week and they didn’t notice, but something snapped inside me. I stopped caring. I stopped smiling. Letting someone have power over how you feel is foolish?—”
“You deserve?—“
“To make them regret their choice is what I thought.” I lean into his hands, my chin finding refuge in the cradle of them. “I spent all my time at the dance studio. By then, I didn’t care about birthdays. I would be the very best without any help, and for that, I didn’t need to be coddled or cared for, but evaluated and seen. My instructors gave orders. They knew my head position was off but could be trained, that when I hesitated with jumps that locked my knees that I could learn to fix that, and how my extensions could be straighter than anyoneelse’s if I practiced an hour earlier and later than the rest.”
“Every June fourteenth, I’m throwing you a birthday party.”
I pull back. “Wait, how do you know my birthday?”
“That’s not relevant. Keep going, darling. You’re absolutely ripping apart my heart, but let it out, baby. I’ve got you, I promise.”
“Keep touching me. Don’t stop.” I need his hands back on me. These statements I’m saying… There’s a cumulative effect. The more I admit, the more flung out I become, lost in an emotional sea I haven’t swam in for years. For good reason. I’m starting to feel this deep ache after each word.
But his hands are my anchor.
They slide down the line of my neck and weigh down my shoulders, reminding me he’s here. With me.
“Go on,” he encourages again.
