Turning Pointe Read Free Page B

floor with a sigh and stretches out his legs, using his toes to overturn the tiny trash can. I roll my eyes at him and he grins at me. Sometimes I forget that we’re both still teenagers.
    He scoots closer and leans against me, his bare arm warm against mine. I’m hyperaware of the way my tank top clings to my damp skin and how short my pajama shorts are. It’s silly. We spend all day together in tights and leotards, but right here, it feels different. I press the word for it away from the front of my mind.
    Tomorrow, when we fly to Amsterdam, we’ll be rooming with other dancers who might not be interested in putting up with our platonic cuddling late into the night. Not to mention, we’ll be exhausted from the dance schedule ahead of us. Neither of us have mastered the entire choreography to our pas de deux from Forsythe’s brilliant In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. We haven’t performed professionally together since school. This feels big, in ways I can’t entirely understand.
    He elbows me a little. “You’re thinking so loud you’re giving me a headache.”
    “What if I can’t dance In the Middle?” I turn my face into him, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply. He’s warm and smells of aftershave and snow still, a crispness that clings to his clothes and hair.
    His fingers walk slowly up my leg, from my knee to my thigh. I shiver and his arm shifts against my nose and mouth when he laughs. “Ticklish, Alyona?”
    I love my nickname, because it is his alone, but when he uses my full name, my breath pirouettes in my chest, spinning me higher and higher. My skin hums everywhere he touches me. This is why I do not—cannot—let myself think this is anything but platonic. There’s too much at stake. Friendship. Careers. Hearts.
    “We’re going to learn it in time,” he reassures me, and for a second, I can’t figure out what he’s talking about. His hand flattens on my arm. Right. The ballet. “We always do. We’ve never not learned choreography.”
    “First time for everything,” I say and I can practically feel my skin turn bright pink. Oh, God. I want to crawl into a hole and die, but instead, I’m sitting on the floor with him and I keep saying stupid things.
    All the muscles south of my ribs seize up tightly at the quiet, thoughtful noise he makes. He presses his lips against my forehead abruptly and says, his voice a low hum that turns me inside out, “Breathe, Aly.”
    “I’m breathing,” I whisper. And maybe I let my lips brush against his arm a little more than I should. He swallows.
    “Look at me,” and his voice makes it a command, not a request. I lift my face free from its safe spot and force myself to meet Zed’s eyes, not to run around his face, or touch his body, or think about anything other than the ballet.
    I make the effort. He doesn’t.
    He runs an inquisitive finger from the corner of my eye, across my cheek to the corner of my mouth, and then down my jaw to my collarbone, then to my shoulder. His finger takes my breath, my heartbeat, the heat from my body with it as it runs down to the delicate skin on the inside of my elbow, to the blue veins in my wrists. I’m afraid he’s going to ask why my pulse is hammering.
    “Pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone and taking risks,” he whispers, his voice low and husky. “That’s what we do. We’re artists.”
    Is that what we are? Right here, half-naked and exchanging curious touches? Staring at each other’s mouths? Artists.
    I have to slide away from him before I do something crazy. I push myself a few inches away, inhale deeply and sink against the bathtub wall. Zed’s cheeks turn red and he frowns at his feet, pointing them at the overturned trash can again. I stretch and curl my toes around his shin.
    He glances up at me and I say softly, “That ballet. It’s like asking me to change who I am out there.”
    Zed’s eyes dart away from mine and settle on my blistered, misshapen, bloody feet. “I know. No