Page 7 of The Perfect Mistake

For a second, I consider not answering her. Pretending I’m not in.

But then her voice rings out again. “Isabel? I’ve got beignets!”

“Coming!” I push myself off the couch and open my door. Connie is a glowing vision in the outside hallway. Her auburn hair is up in a ponytail, and her cheeks are flushed.

Her smile dies when she sees me. “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“Shit,” she says and holds up a paper bag. “Should I get more beignets?”

“How many did you bring?”

“Three. I had four, but I ate one on the way.”

I push the door further ajar, letting her in. “It’ll do.”

It’s a Sunday, but she looks just as put together as she does when heading to work. Trenchcoat and boots, and a winking emerald on her ring finger. “I figured something was up when you canceled yoga yesterday. I had to come by anyway, to look over the final details about my old apartment, and… Isabel?”

I sigh. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s… it’s just been a really long week.”

“I can see that,” she says cautiously and puts the bag of beignets down in front of me. “So. What can I do to help?”

“I’m not dancing anymore.”

Her expression goes slack. “Your hip? I thought it was getting better.”

“Not fast enough for my artistic director or the head of the Company, though.”

She sits down at my kitchen table, her eyes serious. “Tell me what happened.”

So I do, curled up on the chair across from her. I’m still in my workout leggings. I’ve lived in them for days, spending every morning going through my hour-and-a-half-long stretching routine. Some habits die hard.

Halfway through my tale, I start to cry. I don’t mean to. I haven’t all week, not since I lost my composure in front of Alec. But telling someone about it, having to hear my own voice out loud… It hits me differently.

“Oh Isa, I’m so sorry,” Connie says. “You know what? Screw the people in charge at the Company. If they can’t see what an asset you are to the team and just give you some time to recuperate, then it’s their loss.”

That makes me chuckle through the tears, because it’s so blatantly inaccurate. At any moment, at least three prospects are waiting to take a single dancer’s place. It’s cutthroat and competitive. I’m not an asset. They’re the asset.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I have no other marketable skills. None. I’ve dedicated my entire life to this. Every waking moment.” I grab the letter, and it crumples in my hand. “And now I have to move out.”

Connie’s eyes widen. “What?”

After I explain it to her, she looks thoughtful. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t sold my apartment when I did. You’d have been more than welcome to stay there.”

“Thanks,” I say. It would have helped, but I’m glad it’s not an option. Connie and I are great friends, but we come from different worlds. As a Connovan, she grew up in a radically different part of New York than I did. Same city, a whole other world. Being homeless is not a problem any Connovan will ever face. And unless one of them makes a disastrous financial decision, that will be true for all future Connovans, too.

“We have spare bedrooms,” Connie says earnestly. “You can always stay with me and Gabriel.”

“Thank you,” I murmur.

“Honestly. It wouldn’t be a problem at all. The opposite, really.”

I wipe my cheeks. “Thanks.”

Her slight smile turns into a frown. “Alec mentioned that he saw you last week. That your hip was… that you were in pain. Maybe it’s a good thi—”

“He mentioned it?” I ask. That’s surprising. I hadn’t thought he would… Then again, I know almost nothing about Alec Connovan. Nothing more than there’s something about him that has always intrigued me… made me want to impress him, somehow. Understand him. But he has never struck me as the talkative kind.

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