Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 69662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Instantly she faced me, but her eyes stayed closed, a small miracle because I didn’t want her to see my face. It was so bruised and bloodied that I’d terrify her.
I squeezed my eyes shut at that thought because it wouldn’t matter. I knew what my father had meant. I knew what they planned on doing, what they planned on taking from me. So I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly, knowing this was going to be the last time I did it.
“You are the only good thing in my life, the only thing that makes sense.” I kept my voice soft, murmuring against the crown of her head.
She mumbled softly but otherwise stayed asleep, her hands on my chest, instinctively knowing I was her protector.
“And not having you guts me, milaya moyna. It’s already the worst pain imaginable.” My throat tightened. “It already hurts so bad and I have you in my arms.”
I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the locket I’d gotten for her. I knew the day would come when I’d have to leave her, when they’d force me further into the underground. I’d been hanging on to the necklace for so long now. I wanted to give her something to remember me by.
I lifted the silver chain up, and the circular locket swung back and forth for a moment before settling. There weren’t any pictures of me aside from one she’d secretly snapped of me last summer. She’d shown it to me a few days later after she got it printed, and as much as I hated the way I looked, all long limbs and oversized height that made me feel like a freak, I didn’t ask her to get rid of it.
I hoped she put it in the locket right next to a picture of herself. That way we would always be together.
For as many times as I’d been beaten, hurt, kicked when I was down, I’d never cried. I’d never shed a tear.
But right now, as I set the locket on her bedside table and pulled her in close, I cried for the first time in my life because this was the last time I’d see her.
NOW
Chapter
Four
Anastasia
Ten years later
I’d heard people say the pain gets better as time passes. It doesn’t disappear, but it does fade. I called that bullshit. I didn’t know who these people were, or what kind of hurt they experienced, but I still felt that hard stab in the center of my chest as if it were ten years ago.
It was funny to be able to feel like you were alone despite being in a room full of people. To feel as if nobody really saw you, heard you, or knew you despite them congratulating you on your accomplishments, and telling you what a beautiful dancer you were.
That’s where I was right now.
And I’d felt like that for the past decade, when my entire world tipped on its axis. When everything I thought was good and right turned out to be rotten and broken.
I kept my faux smile in place, one I had perfected over the years. It was a mask, easily put up as much as I could take it down when I was alone, when I wouldn’t be judged for not keeping appearances.
After the obligatory time I was required to spend bumping shoulders with everyone, I excused myself and went into the dressing room, sealing myself in and finally taking the first real breath of the night.
Costumes were strewn all over the place. The vanity was covered in makeup and brushes, bobby pins and jewels, trinkets to go in your hair to catch the light and sparkle.
All fake. All part of an elaborate act, the illusion of beauty and perfection.
I used to love dancing, as if ballet was ingrained in me, so rooted in my core that without it there was no me. But something shifted in me after Kostya left.
And as the years passed, as I still immersed myself in pointe and rose in the ranks, finally becoming principal dancer—one of the youngest in the world, too—I realized this wasn’t who I was. Not anymore.
After Kostya left I’d used dancing to fill a void in me that just couldn’t be filled. It was this aching hole in my gut that was a never-ending hurt. And dancing gave me an outlet, a distraction—that was, until the quiet moments when I was alone and my thoughts and emotions consumed me.
I thought maybe I felt like this because I was lonely, but the platonic dates I’d forced myself to go on had done nothing to ease anything. Time with friends was a nice bandage, but one that was easily ripped off.
I closed my eyes and thought about Kostya, as I did… all the time. Even a decade later, he was always on my mind.