Page 50 of Just Playin'
I cut the tape with aggression, my anger still paramount. I’m not angry at the driver; I’m pissed that no matter what I do to fix my errors, the guilt never fades. The driver forgave me; I call Mr. Beckett every Monday to see how he’s doing, and we even got together last Fourth of July, but the frustration remains heavy on my chest. I was an adult; I knew the consequences of my actions, yet I still got behind the wheel after drinking because I thought I could do no wrong.
“Survivor guilt is horrible, isn’t it?”
After fixing the last piece of tape into place, I stand to my feet to face Willow. She didn’t ask her question like my therapist did numerous times the months following my accident. She asked it as if she has experienced it herself.
My thoughts are proven correct when her quick brush of her cheeks misses the faintest tear slipping off her chin. “My parents died in a housefire when I was nine. It was a bitterly cold winter that required more heat than our little house could handle. My dad got me to safety before he went back for my mom. They both perished in the fire.”
“Oh, Willow.” I don’t know what else I can say. There are a thousand condolences in my head, but none I’m sure she hasn’t heard before. So, instead of offering her words of comfort, I use my body. I grip her head as firmly as I did earlier before drawing her into my chest.
Her tears soak my pecs when she whispers, “I was so sure they were going to be okay, I stood on the footpath, panicked out of my mind that my dancing trophies were melting. I never considered the fact they might not make it out. My dad was so strong, I didn’t think anything would take him away from me.”
Now her bigger-than-life personality makes sense. When you’ve been hurt, you either became a recluse who hates the world and everyone in it, or you bring out the sunshine, certain your worst days are behind you.
Willow is the sunshine, and I was the blackness determined to keep everyone at arm’s length.
That all changed when a ray of sunshine I never knew I wanted shone down on me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Willow
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay another night? I can drop you at school before your first class tomorrow. I’ll even set two alarms to make sure I don’t sleep in.”
I giggle, loving the cheek in Elvis’s voice. If I could explain this weekend in only one word it would be outrageously-fucking-fantastic.
What?When it’s hyphenated, it’s only one word. I found that out the hard way when I submitted my English essay earlier this month. It had to be three thousand words. I delivered an amazing piece of literature that was exactly three thousand words. Supposedly I lost a few points because I didn’t reach the minimum required word count. It’s a crock of shit excuse as far as I’m concerned, but my B+ averaged out my score to a A-, so I pulled up my big girl panties and copped Professor Smith’s disdain on my chin like a nearly graduated student.
I’ll be honest, after our outrageously-fucking-fantastic (still one word) fuck on Elvis’s now buckled dining table, I thought things were going to get awkward very quickly. I cried. I’m not talking a few little tears I could blame on a lash in my eye. I’m talkingcry me a river, I just watchedMy Girlfor the hundredth timecry. It wasn’t pretty. Not in the slightest. But do you know what? Elvis handled it like a pro. He just held me, then when I stopped slobbering over him like a kid eyeing the latest electronic game, he wiped away my tears and proceeded to cook us dinner.
No, I’m not joking.
He knew I didn’t want to break down in front of him just as much as I believed my dad was coming back the night he perished. It took a crumbled house, seven firefighters, and a social worker ripping a pair of ballet shoes I had grabbed in haste out of my hands before I realized what was happening all those years ago. If it weren’t for the social worker trying to remove the last piece of my parents I had, I would have never left the footpath.
I haven’t been back to Melbourne since that night. I was shipped to Bundaberg, Queensland to live with my Aunt, grew an unhealthy obsession with dance, then the instant I was old enough, I moved to another country to pursue my dreams.
I didn’t realize how far I had strayed from my dreams until last night. It wasn’t the smiles on my students’ faces when they performed at the recital causing my turmoil. It was Elvis’s face when I danced for him. Last night was the first time I’ve danced for pleasure in a very long time. The moves came from inside of me, from a place I didn’t think I’d ever have relit again. I was dancing purely because I loved it, and not for what it could give me.
That’s why as much as Elvis’s invitation is tempting, I can’t accept it. With me finally gaining a work placement, and Elvis’s schedule keeping him on this side of the country the next six weeks, this afternoon is my last chance to enter and prepare for a competition I’ve been eyeing the past four months. Every time I was about to sign up, I convinced myself not to be stupid, that I am only a danceinstructor, not a dancer. Last night proved I was wrong. I am a dancer before anything; my passion was just a little misguided the past two years. But it’s back now, stronger than ever.
I stop curling out of Elvis’s flashy ride halfway when he says, “Hey, Willow?”
My chances of peeling out of his car uninjured are cut in half when I peer at him over my shoulder. My god, he’s gorgeous. He’s got the casual,I’m made of money, but I won’t flash it in your facelook going on. Designer jeans, nicely fitted shirt, recently showered hair, and a smirk that reveals he is the devil his eyes portray.
“One, can you wait for me to come to a full stop before exiting my car? You’re giving me a complex.” His smile doesn’t convey that. He loves my eagerness, as I’m reasonably sure he knows what it centers around. “Two, you’re never to leave my side without your lips first touching mine.” I grin when he taps his puckered lips.
“And three?” I murmur over his mouth after kissing him with much more feeling than a newly formed relationship should have.
He doesn’t seem bothered. He lashes my kiss-swollen lips with his tongue, enhancing their wetness before muttering, “Take it easy on your knee.” I pull a face like a child being reprimanded by a parent. “If your kneecap pops out under the strain, you’ll spend the next six weeks on the sidelines in crutches. Which would you prefer? Crutches or slowly easing back into competitive dancing?”
I hide my excitement that he already knows me so well. “I’d prefer neither.”
“And I’d rather have your backside heating my couch instead of Danny’s, but we all have to make sacrifices.”
I kiss him some more. “Don’t act upset. Danny could have arrived twenty minutes earlier, thus not only ruining your breakfast, but he would have also seen my kitty.”
I giggle against his mouth when he replies, “He would have died, and not just by my fists. He’s a platinum gay. He’s never been with a woman.” He runs his hand down my heated cheeks, doubling the energy teeming between us. “But I’m sure one look at your pretty pink pussy would have had him jumping the fence.”
After rolling my eyes, I kiss him some more. His compliment was delivered in a roundabout way, but at the end of the day, it was still a compliment.
