Page 35 of Dirty Dancer

“You could blame me for the choices I made that forced your hand. You could have left me there.” The automatic objection filled his expression and I raised a hand to forestall his protests.“I know you couldn’t. No more than I could have left you in a similar place. Before you came…”

Old injuries were often delicate as they healed. But time and patience, could help the tissue to toughen up. The rigid marks in my head were much like the ones on my arms, only invisible to anyone else. Art might dress up my forearms, but it didn’t erase them. Nothing could erase them.

Oddly, I no longer felt the need to remove them or even wipe them away. I could touch the marks and not hate them. Yes, they were from a dark moment in my past but they were also the marks of surviving that moment. They heralded a real beginning of the end for my uncle in more ways than one. An end to his ever being able to hurt me again. An end to his influence and control over my life. And finally, an end to him.

“My uncle always seemed to end people before they could help me. The doctors, the teachers, even the other dancers… Those who would have helped died or disappeared. Before you came to Pinetree, the only person who’d ever come for me again and again was Lainey.” My best friend. She took such risks for me.

“She came for you then too,” Freddie reminded me. “She answered our messages. Came to warn us where you were.”

“I know she did. She risked herself even when I would never have wanted her to.”

“You would do the same,” Freddie said without an ounce of doubt in his eyes.

A smile touched the corners of my lips. “I would. I’d do it for you guys too. You know that, right?”

“I do, Boo-Boo,” he said, his voice tight but fierce as he took a couple of steps toward me. “I don’t think I’m worth near what you are, but I know if I was in trouble—you’d come get me.” His smile turned a bit wistful. “You came that night with Jasper and the guys.”

The night he’d been jonesing. The night he’d killed to save himself.

“We’re not so bad, you know.” I dropped the disc into the player and turned it on.

“You guys are the best,” he countered before raking a hand through his thick blond hair. “I know I’m weak, and there are times when I make the bad calls, but Jasper has always come to find me… The others. Now you… Bodhi… So many people. I don’t know if I’m worth all of this, Boo-Boo.”

I hit play on the music and walked slowly toward him. “I do. When I said ‘we’re not so bad,’ Freddie. I meant you and me.”

The surprise in his eyes would never not slice at me. I knew he didn’t believe in himself. Not the way I did.

“I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” I said, holding a hand out to him as the first bars of Shawn Mendes’ In My Blood began to play. “I can believe in you until you get there. Just like you did for me.”

His sigh held so much wistfulness, yet beneath it all was that element of crippling doubt. He’d fought so many battles to beherein this moment. So this was where I would meet him. The whole time, I kept my hand extended to him because the last steps were his.

The marked hesitation extended leaving us standing there as though in a frozen tableau. I’d wait here forever if he needed it, no matter how it pulled taut all that scar tissue inside of us. When he finally settled his palm against mine, I was torn between wanting to weep and wanting to cheer. The contact was electric, and I could almost feel the tension eddying the air around him.

“Show me?” The simple request buoyed me as he closed his fingers around mine.

“Yes.” The answer was just that simple. I shifted my grip under his hand then reached for his other. His hesitation was farbriefer this time. We were halfway through In Your Blood when he let me put his free hand on my waist.

“Waltzing is easy,” I told him and the surprise that fluttered across his expression almost made me laugh. “It’s a box movement, four steps, and you lead which means I follow your steps.”

“But I don’t know what my steps are supposed to be?” He frowned and looked down at our feet.

“I can follow anything you do, so I’ll show you then you just match me movement for movement.” The Mendes song segued to another, but neither of us were listening. The CD had a lot of instrumental versions of the songs all designed for performance. What I liked about them was that they were quieter and lacked words to distract.

“Okay,” Freddie said, releasing my hand abruptly and taking his hand from my waist. He shook both like he needed to get rid of the jitters. When he reached for me this time, I glided forward and his quick smile was its own reward. “Box step?”

“Box step.”

I didn’t verbalize the four-count step pattern, just moved. Freddie divided his attention between my feet and my face. It took a few tries but he was moving with me. His feet matching mine.

I wiggled his arm as we continued to make the passes around the room. The box step was an easy one and I wasn’t going to rush him. “Tighten up the frame. You don’t need to be rigid, but you want to control the motion.”

“Dirty Dancing,” he commented and I frowned.

“None of this is dirty.”

Freddie halted in mid-step, mouth open as he stared at me.

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