Page 28 of Ice Dance

None of the music had talked to me.

I needed something else.

The first few beats of “Roxanne” came on.

No, not this.

But I didn’t cross the floor to turn it off.

The music collected under my skin. Then I moved, slowly at first. One step, then another. A drag of my bare foot across the floor. Not clean, nothing like ballroom. My shoulder rolled to the beat. I lifted my hand, cut the air, dropped it to my chest, as though I could press the weight there back behind my ribs.

I sank my weight lower, hips following the rhythm like they did on the ice. I hadn’t skated this in years before Navarro demanded it of me, and here it was again. Haunting me.

A turn, sharp through the spine. Stop. Breathe. Hand at my throat. I slid it down to my sternum, fingers spread, as though to hold myself together.

The mirror caught my face. Anger.

Yes.

Good.

I let it pull me across the floor, let it carve the old routine my bones knew into something looser. Less polished, less safe. I stepped into a place where an invisible partner should be, felt his hips under my hands, turned the absent body, dragged the ghost close so I could feel the heat of him.

The beat dropped.

My breath hitched.

I corrected the misstep, then broke it again on purpose. Messy.

Dipped low, one knee bending deep, palm skimming the floor before I rose through the music with my body too loose, too open, without restrain but with control. My hips moved again, a slow, deliberate roll that I never would have allowed in front of a panel. I tipped my head back. The studio lights burned hot and white overhead. Sweat slid down my back.

This was undisciplined, it was indulgent.

And exactly what I needed.

I dipped my chin, and blinked, and for one brief second, I wasn’t alone in the dance.

There was no one behind me, of course. No one watching from the side of the room, as though he already knew what my body was trying to tell me. Still, I moved as though he were there.

I hated that. Hated how I’d summoned him.

I moved harder. Faster.

Pivot. Sharp cut of the arm, up. Step forward, close to the ghost in front of me. I imagined a hand at my waist, only because the choreography required it. His resistance, because this dance required opposition. His heat, because the music demanded it.

The thrill lighting me up had nothing to do with Camden Navarro.

Hand on the mirror. Fingers splayed on the cold glass. Breathing hard. My reflection staring back, flushed and glassy, hair fallen across my forehead, mouth open, as though I’d been caught doing something private.

The final beat rolled through me.

I finished too close to the mirror, hand still pressed there, body wrecked.

The music faded, and I went loose.

I didn’t move. Just breathed. And watched the unraveled version of me in the glass rebuild himself. A step back, and I swept my hand over my hair, fixing it, keeping it out of my face. Controlled again. But also alone.

Alone, but safe.