Page 41 of Dancing in the Dark

I wrench the mirrored door open and drag an old, holey shirt from its hanger, then tugging it over my head, I shove my lacy thong down and leave it on the floor. Snatching out my ‘I hate my life and the periods from hell I’m forced to endure every single month’ sweatpants from the shelf, I stab one foot in, then the other. My lungs spasm. But don’t worry, Sera. This is just another day in a long stream of abandonment and rejection. You should be used to that by now.

Pulling the pants over my hips and releasing the stretchy material with a snap, I leave the door open, my undies on the floor, my bra on the bed, and storming out of my room, I cross to my bathroom and blind myself with the bright, unrelenting fluorescent light that does nothing to shield me from the humiliation of puffy cheeks, swollen eyes, and a line of snot escaping my nose. “Ugh.” I rifle through my drawers and find my makeup remover wet wipes, then I tear one from the packet and go to work furiously scrubbing my face clean.

The foundation. The concealer. The blush. I clear away the careful pencil lines I drew around my lips, and the artistic precision of eyeliner I learned how to perfect back when I was six or seven years old.

Gotta be good with your makeup when you’re a competitive dancer.

I swipe the mascara from my lashes and hate how black smears onto the top swells of my cheeks, then I grab a fresh wipe and continue scrubbing away the evidence of yet another ‘ha-ha, Seraphina sucks’ experience I’ll have to tuck away in my psyche with all the others.

Groaning, I clean my face with jerky, methodical swipes and loathe the tears that refuse to stop. I hate the hitching of my breath and the desperation my lungs cling to as they attempt to function within cruel conditions.

I hate myself most of all, and I know, logically, I really shouldn’t.

It wasn’t my fault that my mother detested the child she made. And it isn’t my fault that Charlie can’t seem to find even a single shred of his heart to dedicate purely to me.

I’m not asking for all of his attention. I’m not even asking for most of it.

But I need a small slice to call my own. Somewhere my soul can rest and know it’s safe.

“Sera?”

I wrench my head up and stare, horrified, as my apartment door slams shut.

“Seraphina?” Charlie’s commanding voice ricochets through my home. It travels along my hall, hunting me down the way a noxious gas weaves through nothingness in search of someone to poison. “Please speak to me,” he groans. “This wasn’t like last time, I swear.”

I drop my spent wipes into the small trash can on the floor, then stalking into the hall while my horror remains fresh—which makes anger easier to hold on to before the despair comes—I ride my fury all the way to my living room and stop only when I get an eyeful of Charlie frickn’ Fletcher all dressed up in a fancy black suit, his jacket already folded over the back of my dining chair. A tie hangs around his neck, but the knot was long ago loosened, and the top three buttons have been released.

He looks so handsome. But disheveled.

So striking in his suit. But unimaginably exhausted.

“Please.” Defeat shines bright in his honey-hued eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sera. I was on my way to see you, I swear. I’d already walked out the door, said goodnight to Mia, climbed into a cab…” He swallows the ache of a hard day down. “I haven’t been home since. She has no clue I’m not sitting inside a fancy restaurant across from the world’s most beautiful woman.”

“I need you to leave.” Stay angry, Sera. Please, for the love of your own sanity, end this. “You have to go.”

“I need to explain. I can’t…” Weary, he runs a trembling hand over his face. “I refuse to let tonight go without making you understand that I never meant to stand you up.”

“You already explained!” Angrier, Sera! Meaner. “You were at work. Fabian wouldn’t let you leave. Life sucks. End of story.”

“It’s not the end of the story!” He crosses the room faster than it takes my mind to process or for my legs to carry me away. Grabbing my wrists, he yanks me closer and swallows my explosive exhale. “It’s not the end of the story for us, Sera! It can’t be, because we didn’t get to the happy parts yet.”

“The sex?” I bite out. “You want to come inside a woman, any woman, before you can consider your day done?”

“The good parts,” he snarls. “As in, the parts where I see you across a room and, instead of you rolling your eyes or ignoring me altogether, you fucking smile. The good parts, like that one fucking time we kissed, and you blushed a little. Where you smirked and said it was worth it.”

“I can’t do this, Charlie.” Oh God, oh no. Where’d my anger go? “We tried it, okay? Twice. More than twice. The universe doesn’t want this for us, and if we keep pushing it, each new painful lesson is gonna sting more.”

“The universe does want this for us!” He wrenches me in until our bellies slam together. Wrapping his arm around the small of my back, he stares ferociously down into my eyes. “The universe wants this. I want this. I swear to you,” he moans. “I swear on everything I am and everything I’ll ever be, I was trying to get out of there and come to you. The law made it so I couldn’t, and I know how fucking weak this sounds, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“I need better than fifth or sixth or…” I shake my head and work so damn hard to stuff the devastation back down my throat. “Tenth place in your life.”

“Se—”

“You can’t manage the responsibilities you already have! Work, and Mia, and your friends, and…” I exhale a shattered sigh. “Adding me on top will not help an already precarious juggling act, and I’m not selfless enough to keep giving you a free pass.”

His eyes burn with pain, as if each word I speak is a lash on his back.

“You’re a good man,” I whimper. “An amazing father. A damn good cop. Add them all together, and you’re perfect…” I shake my head. “But not for me.”