“We are. It’s just… a lot.”
“I’m going to get a glass of water. Would you like one?” he asked, glancing at me over his shoulder. I wrapped the blanket around my body again, and when he noticed, he shook his head in the slightest way.
As he stepped away, I closed my eyes and began telling him the sordid story.
“There is a reason why I gave up dancing, and it wasn’t the right one. It started when I was in high school.”
I went on to tell him I’d been a late bloomer, and until that point, I could still fit in children-sized clothing, which worked really well for a ballet dancer. Once the hormones surged, so did my breasts and ass. Not to mention the difficulty of keeping the ballerina-slim figure.
I’d work out for hours to maintain the figure I needed to fit in my leotard. It was around that time my dance teacher recommended me for more advanced classes that were offered in bigger cities like Knoxville.
Mom carted me back and forth every day after school and every morning and night during the summer, the days I wasn’t at dance camp. I didn’t notice the toll it took on her, but I loved it. My family supported me 100 percent.
Until Stephen St. James took note of me.
Once I started filling out, the boys of Ashfield started to notice me more. None more so than Stephen. He was relentless in his pursuit. And as the hottest and most popular boy in our school, I didn’t take much convincing.
He immediately began resenting all the time I spent dancing and practicing. I didn’t notice it at first, but he’d nitpick the way my chest looked in the leotard or how my thighs looked like sausages in the tights.
I grew more and more insecure every day. I’d skip practice or give my mom some excuse about why I didn’t want to go.
Nate murmured, “Oh, the ways I want to kill Stephen and bury him in a field where no one can find him….”
I ignored him and continued. “The worst part wasn’t just Stephen. It was that on the days he would drive me to practice in Knoxville when we were seniors in high school, he’d make the same comments in front of my dance teacher. She’d agree with him. She said if I wanted to make it in the dance world, I needed to stick to a strict diet, one she provided, and I needed to see a special kind of doctor to learn the ways I could fix myself.
“But I was happy with my body. I liked my curves and the fact that I filled out my jeans. It wasn’t until someone I looked up to pointed out those parts of me that I became insecure.”
“You didn’t… you know…?”
“No. I told my mom what was going on, and she put a stop to it. We came back to the dance studio here. But Stephen and I were still a thing.”
As Nate sneered at the fact that I didn’t dump the asshole along with the big-city dance teacher, I went on to tell him that we planned to stay together while I danced for a professional company. I had scholarships for college if I wanted to go and auditions set up across the east coast. But he said he could never be with someone who thought dancing was an actual profession. He said I was no better than a stripper.
So I did the foolish, naïve thing and gave it all up. The auditions. The scholarships. All of it. For him. And then he left the day after graduation.
“I spent years in therapy learning he was a manipulator and fed off the abuse. He used to make me stand in front of the mirror with no clothes on, and he’d point out all my flaws. It’s why I’m not a fan of being naked.”
“I hate him. I didn’t think I could hate someone as much as I hate Sasha. But I do.”
“Nate, you don’t need to hate him. I don’t.” When his head jerked toward me, I added, “He didn’t force me to make any of those decisions. I did that all on my own. And I’m happy with where I am. Who knows if I would have ever made it as a professional dancer? I love what I do, and I’m so excited about starting this new chapter of my life. I worked so hard to get here. Just, sometimes I forget I’m not that young seventeen-year-old anymore.”
His masculine hand cradled my face as he twisted toward me on the bed. I hadn’t realized I was crying, but Nate gently brushed aside the tears with his thumbs. Reliving the story took its toll on me.
“You’re the strongest woman I know. Thank you.”
“I just… wanted you to understand. Your reasons for not being in a relationship aren’t so different from mine. We’ve both been burned, and neither of us came out without scars. And that’s okay.”
“One day, I’m going to stand you in front of a mirror, and I’m going to lick and kiss every part of you that I find so fucking sexy,” he said as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against my shoulder, repeating a trail up to my neck.
“Mmm. That sounds nice.”
“I could do it now if you want.”
“I think I’d rather just feel your cock inside me.”
“Slow and steady this time.”
“Whatever you say.”
