Page 128
“Yep, positive.”
Her tired eyes find mine. It doesn’t take much for her to agree.
When I’m finally alone, I take a second to finally inhale. To let myself breathe it all in.
Staring into the mirror that my youth girls just danced their asses off in, I see myself as them. The three-year-old who found her passion at a young age. The twelve-year-old who was here in this very studio every single evening. The eighteen-year-old who got all her biggest opportunities in this very room. Now, the twenty-seven-year-old, who finally got everything she wanted, and doesn’t even want it anymore.
Would little me be proud?
Dreams aside, is it really about the accolades, about the title? About destroying myself just to be a part of something that might not even serve me the way I’d expected it to.
Unmotivated to dance, I sit and stare at myself until my phone pings with a message that pulls me away from this part of my life and into another part that’s just as confusing.
JETT
Talked to Haven about you staying with me. As long as you’re on time, she doesn’t care. You’re all mine, baby.
CHAPTER 38
FIA
Within thirty minutes, a blacked-out Mercedes G-Wagon pulls into the parking lot. Letting him inside, I lock the door behind us and settle myself back in front of the mirror.
“Ready for me to take you home?” Jett’s velvety vibrato tickles its way through the empty dance studio.
“I guess,” I whisper, not in the mood for his humor, but surprisingly in need of his comfort.
Sitting down beside me, we stay silent for a few moments as my mind spirals.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” He finally breaks our silence, his humor now tucked somewhere far away.
“It’s not important.”
“It’s always important,” he insists, tucking a loose hair behind my ear.
His touch calms every uncertainty as his sincere stare remains glued to my face.
“Have you ever planned your life to be a certain way, and then something you weren’t expecting comes in and changes all the ideas you ever saw for yourself?”
The man beside me, who’s usually quick-witted, falls silent.
“That was a stupid question to ask you.” I let out a hollow laugh.
Annoyed at myself, I feel ridiculous for assuming someone as status-driven as Jett Parker would know what internal turmoil feels like.
“I wouldn’t say I planned my life to be a certain way. I kind of lucked out and enjoyed the majority of my life from an early age, but I’m very familiar with unexpected changes. I don’t think they’re bad, though.”
“You are?” I finally turn to him, eyes wide and searching.
“I’m human too, you know?” He smirks
“You are?” I tease, lightening the mood with a shrug. Clearing my throat, I have to ask, “How’d you always know what was good for you and what wasn’t?”
I never thought I’d be asking him for advice about life, but contrary to my actions, Jett seems to have his life pretty put together.
“Sometimes you have to go in the wrong direction to get to the right places.”
I let his honesty sink in as I peel my eyes from his, looking back at myself in the mirror.
