Page 132 of The First Taste
“Mom, I have to catch my bus,” I say.
Her lips twist with a hint of bitterness. She looks down and shrugs. “Good luck on your audition, sweetheart.”
I suck in a deep breath, my eyes filling with tears again. “Thanks, Mom.”
She waves, looking so desolate and sad. I’ve long since learned that I can’t help her; she loves this life that has her ensnared, keeps her shackled to this godawful house.
Turning, I start walking toward the bus stop, my tears just now beginning to fall.
Calum
“Sir, please. Be still so I can work on this knot.” Hugo, my extremely patient physical therapist, pushes his hands flat against my bare back.
I open my eyes a slit. I can see myself reflected back in the mirrors that line that walls of my private gym. Lying on my stomach, I have a pained expression.
“Go on,” I grunt, closing my eyes once more.
Hugo presses his hands against my flesh, rubbing small circles with his fingers. He comes to the knot again and his massaging only intensifies.
It hurts like a bitch as he works his hands over the knot, trying to loosen it.
“I can tell you’re thinking about the knot,” Hugo chides. “Remember, you should think calming thoughts.”
I sigh and turn my head away. Hugo has been my physical therapist for almost six years, ever since I tore the anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee.
That’s an injury that no dancer ever comes back from; one that saw me, at age twenty two and half, hurt and unsure of my future. With the help of hindsight, I’m glad that I got injured. It spurred me on, made me figure out how I was going to feed myself and keep Lucas in ballet academy.
But at the time, I thought my life was over.
Hugo finally finishes torturing me, patting me on the shoulder. “Okay. You can get up.”
I turn myself over, grimacing and rotating my shoulder in its socket a few times. I glance up and see my reflection again.
Painted across the flesh and muscle of my chest, just to the left of my heart, are two tight white clusters. Once upon a time they were bullet marks, each entering my chest just shy of piercing my heart.
Now they are healed, the skin gone from pink and tinkered to white and shiny.
I hop up off the table and grab a black t-shirt, pulling it over my head. Hugo is already folding the table up and moving it back to its out of the way spot.
I bob my head. “See you on Tuesday, Hugo.”
Hugo smiles. “I look forward to it.”
He vanishes out the swinging doors to my gym. I roll my neck and rotate my shoulder again, still feeling stiff. Then I walk over to a rack of free weights, picking up a twenty pounder.
As I begin doing curls, the doors behind me swing open again. This time it’s not Hugo but my brother Lucas.
And he has a displeased look on his face.
“Where were you?” he asks, annoyed.
I roll my eyes and focus on the weight. “You’ll have to be more specific than that if you actually want an answer.
His fists tighten. “You know what I mean, Calum. You said that you would be at the Indica Tech board meeting this morning. I was counting on your vote.”
Setting the weight down, I turn my head toward him. “Just do whatever you want to do, Lucas. The world isn’t waiting around for you to get approval. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
A muscle flexes in his cheek. “If you were just going to say that, why didn’t you do it earlier? This project has been moving at a fucking snail’s pace for months.”
