“Let’s go down to the office.”
My body shudders with a cry. “No.” I’m done.
He pulls me closer. “Let’s tell them the truth.”
“Give up on me,” I beg. “Please.”
His bloodshot eyes bore into me. “Let’s tell them how you should be in Amour. How you know the aerial silk routine.”
My face contorts in confusion and hurt. “I don’t…” I don’t know that routine. “I don’t know that routine.”
“You’ve never seen it performed. So how would you know if you do or don’t?” He wipes some of my tears while my brows knot, processing, but not understanding…
“Thora,” he says lowly, “I taught you that routine. For months, I’ve been teaching it to you.”
No…
“Every trick,” he explains, “is one that you needed for Amour.”
It hits me like a forty-foot wave. I sway back, and he holds my hips so I don’t drift too far. I barely whisper, “The death drop.”
“The modified straddle slide,” he rephrases.
I digest our months of time together. I never saw the aerial silk routine. It was removed from the show before I even arrived in Vegas. And I never watched Elena and Nikolai practice together. I remember that Nikolai was incessant I drop closer to the ground for the straddle slide. He wouldn’t let me leave it at seven feet.
He wanted it to be perfect, I realize. To the choreographer’s standards.
“No…” My voice cracks again. “No, you didn’t do that.” I shake my head again and again and again.
“I did,” he refutes, his emotions welling to the surface, his features as brutal as mine.
“Why would you…?” It doesn’t make sense.
“Because I wanted you to be my partner.”
“Elena—”
“Never had chemistry with me. And the entire piece is about passion.” The way he says passion, it’s with his entire soul. “And you—we had it. From the first audition, it was there.”
I point at him accusingly, tear-streaked and still overwhelmed. He taught you the entire routine, Thora. He wanted you to be his partner. “You tricked me.” I don’t know why I land on this statement, of all statements. But it’s what comes out.
“Because you wouldn’t have wanted me to teach it to you,” he explains. “You would’ve thought I was screwing over another girl.”
My stomach drops. “Did you?” Elena was fired. She was let go because she couldn’t “cut it”—was he resigned with her since he had a backup plan? He had me.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t screw her over.”
“But she was fired—”
“For not showing enough emotion on stage,” he clarifies. “There was a point, Thora, where I needed Elena. I thought you’d be going to Somnio.”
I shut my eyes tightly as I recall the timeframe of all these events. Elena was fired after we learned that Somnio was being revived. So he was genuinely upset when she was let go. He truly thought his act would be retired. Because I wouldn’t be in it.
“I was prepared to lose you,” he suddenly says.
My chest rises in a sharp inhale. He was prepared to let me go to Somnio. “Why?”
Beads of water still roll down his temple. “You worked hard to land a contract on your own, and I wasn’t going to take that from you.”
We’re closer. We’ve drawn together somehow. I’m clutching onto his arms. And he’s holding me around the waist, his body warm.
“Even if it benefited you to have me stay?” I ask. If I left, then there was a greater chance they’d retire his act. After months of training me for that role—he’d give it all up.
His eyes dance over my features, reading me well. “I knew what I was losing. But you would’ve been more proud of earning a spot in Somnio than feeling like I pulled strings for you in Amour.”
I wish he was wrong. But this isn’t the purest avenue. It’s cutting corners. I will cut corners if I go down to that office and tell them what I can do in Amour. You know the routine. God—how did I not realize? He had to have taught me it in fragments, trick by trick.
He adds, “If you landed a role in another show, I wouldn’t have offered Amour as a choice.” He’s saying that I would’ve never known he taught me the routine.
My eyes sear, scald. Burn. “Why?”
“You know why.”
I do. There’s a stigma attached to this role: you slept your way to the top. You’re only in Amour because Nikolai is your boyfriend. You cheated. “…so the only way I could ever be in the circus is by being with a guy,” I say aloud. I feel ashamed by it. Every time I think of myself in this role, I will hear my conscience say you didn’t do this right. You don’t deserve this. You’re not good enough to be here. I don’t want to feel that. Not even a little bit.
I just want to be happy and proud. That I finally made it.
“You’re wrong,” he says, holding me tighter. He looks at me like he so desperately wishes I could see his view. Where it’s better. And brighter. I wonder if that’s usually where I stand.
“Don’t you see it?” I breathe, tears dripping. “Had I not met you, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Had you not met me, you wouldn’t have the skills to try out at all.” He removes the pillow from my chest, so there are no more barriers between us. “If you think for a second that you haven’t succeeded, you need to look at my little sister.” His voice softens.
And I notice more redness in his eyes, from stifling tears.
“You inspired her. Not because you were with me, but because you tried. You never gave up on the things you wanted. So she tried harder, she became better, and she accomplished her goal.”
“She made Noctis?” I’m happy. And proud. I’m proud of Katya.
He nods. “She made it.”
“I’m glad,” I whisper. “I’m happy.”
He’s too perceptive to take faith in my words. “You’re in pain,” he states.
“I’m trying not to be.” I exhale, but my chest is still tight. You can still be in the circus. It’s not over. I’m searching for my lost optimism.
“I know this still feels like failure to you, but there are two things you need to always remember.”
I listen intently, letting him rope me into his gunmetal eyes. He lifts my chin, our lips close, aligned as much as we can be.
“Regardless of what anyone else thinks, you earned this spot. You trained seven months for it. If you couldn’t land those tricks, they’d never even consider you.”
I nod, letting this sink in. He’s certain that it’ll only take a run to the office to land the role. And maybe a small demonstration. If I know the routine—if Aerial Ethereal doesn’t have to spend money to train someone else—I can see how it’d be easier to hire me.
“What’s the second thing?” I ask.
“Every day you’re on stage, prove them wrong.”
I nod again, tears rolling. Prove them wrong.
“That you deserved to be here from the start. That they made a mistake, that you and only you, Thora James, my little mouse…my demon—were meant for this role.”