Page 65 of The Unraveling

I looked closer at the set of pink tools. A label on the outside said:

INCLUDED: TWEEZERS, LASH COMB, LIP SCRUBBER, PORE EXTRACTOR, AND MORE!

My next present was a huge, heavy book. The cover had a black-and-white photo of someone beautiful. It was as big as my whole lap.

“It’s Gelsey Kirkland,” said my mom. “The most beautiful ballerina on the planet.”

I flipped through the pages. She was very pretty, but also very, very thin.

“Okay, last present,” she said. “This one is for both of us.”

Fun.

I opened it, and it was a framed quote from Kate Moss: Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

“It’s a good reminder. She didn’t actually come up with it, but it’s one of her mantras.”

“You got me a lot of stuff about eating,” I said.

She sighed, then took a big swig of her white wine. “I know. It’s because I feel like a shitty mom. I’ve been letting you eat whatever. A bunch of junk food. Your health is more important than that. When you’re a ballerina, you just can’t live like that. It’s so American of me. I’m being such a normal American woman.”

“You are a normal American woman,” I said.

“Yes, but that’s no reason to behave like one.”

Chapter Nineteen

Somehow, I manage to resist Alistair’s offer to see the apartment. Everything in me is begging for him, begging to spend any time with him, in any proximity.

I know it’s a bad idea. Already, every second I spend with Alistair draws me in more. Especially when I already know how good he is in bed.

When I met Jordan, I had an immediate attraction to him, too. An intense drawing-in. But it was like our souls were connected, and they always had been and always would be. This isn’t that. I felt like I was supposed to be with Jordan forever. Partners. Parents together, maybe. Grow old together. But also have gorgeously hot sex with good communication.

I just want to fuck Alistair again. Very, very, very badly.

It’s not just that. With Jordan, I never had to yearn. There was nothing to forbid our lust. We took a few months to get together because we weren’t in the same country, but there was nothing truly stopping us. Just logistics.

The logistics are not the problem with Alistair. With Alistair, it’s about pure desire and the taboo nature of it.

I don’t get the feeling he’s necessarily a good guy. I don’t get the feeling we could stay up all night talking. But I do get the feeling that his teeth clamping down on my nipples would send me straight to climax.

I shake my head. No. He’s right. I will be the one who loses their job if I’m caught in an inappropriate relationship with my donor. Nothing will happen to him.

I can’t risk my job. It’s a risk for only me.

My thoughts briefly go to one of the young dancers I forgot about at NAB who was fired on the spot when the wife of a donor went to the director and accused the dancer of seducing her husband. She accused her of being a sex worker, who set out to manipulate men like her husband.

The dancer was nineteen. And she was a total wreck. I knew the story behind it—she had been pushed by the ballet to be charming and to dance with the man at a gala. It was he who pursued her, sending flowers constantly, and when she tried to stop him, he even threatened to get her in trouble if she wasn’t nice to him.

But none of the facts mattered when his wife found out. He threw the girl under the bus and she got fired.

I shake my head as I think about her. I can’t even remember her name.

I used to feel so lucky, never having any of this donor drama, but now, I am more than making up for it.

We sit in the back of his car on the way back to Arabella’s, and the chasm of space between our knees, though quite vast, feels charged with a hot, pulsing energy. Fuck, this is difficult.

Spanish guitar plays on the speakers, and I stare out the window, trying to distract myself from the heat between my legs.

---