Page 53 of Tension
My phone rings and I look down at the screen, my father’s name stabbing through me. I hesitate, my hand hovering over the phone. It’s always like this, me wondering which version of him I’m going to get.
I swipe to answer. “Hey.”
“Mateo.” His voice is brisk, deep, and all business. “We need to talk.”
I sit up straighter. “Is everything okay?”
“I got your mother’s message,” he states perfunctorily. “About Paris.”
My stomach knots instantly. “Okay…”
“She said you’re competing again. At an international level.”
“I am.” Silence stretches across the line. I don’t fill it. I know better.
“I’ve booked a flight,” he informs me. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
The textbook slides off my lap and onto the floor. “You—you’re flying in?”
“I want to see all of it for myself. The studio, the instructors, and the environment.”
I run a hand down my face. “Dad, I’m fine. You don’t need—”
“I do need to.” His voice sharpens. “You know why.”
I swallow hard, throat tightening. “It’s not like before. I’m not the same—”
“Don’t lie to yourself,” he snaps, then catches himself. A pause. “I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong, but I have to make sure. Your mother says you’re stable and you’re happy, but happiness doesn’t protect you from temptation.”
I press my fingertips to my temples. “So what, you’re coming to the studio to interrogate everyone?”
“I’m coming to speak with your instructors. I want them to know what they’re dealing with. You may not like it, but if they’re responsible for you, then they should understand what relapse looks like. What stress does to you.”
My heart drops into my stomach. “They already know about what happened, and I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’re not invincible either,” he says, quieter now. “You’re my son, and I almost lost you once.” That makes something fracture inside me.
He doesn’t say it often, about what my overdose did to him, how close he came to losing me. Usually he buries it in anger or silence, but I hear it now—the fear buried beneath the control.
“There’s something else,” he continues. “Roger may be going to Paris with you, depending on how I feel about these instructors.”
“What?”
“You’ll need someone there. You’ll be too far from your family. You’ll be under pressure, in a foreign country, surrounded by God knows what. Roger can keep an eye on you.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him he’s overreacting, but deep down, a part of me is grateful. The part that’s still scared of who I was. The part that knows how easy it would be to fall again.
“Alright,” I agree quietly. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Be ready to take me to the studio.” He hangs up before I can say anything else.
I stare at the phone in my hand, the silence in my apartment pressing in like a vise. Tomorrow, my father will walk into theonly part of my life that’s felt like just mine in a long time, and I don’t know if that will burst the comfortable bubble I’ve built around it.
VAEDA
The Paso Doble rhythm pounds through the studio, each beat snapping like a whip across the floor. My footwork is exact and confident, every sweep of my arm calculated. My back is arched, chin high, chest forward, exactly as it should be, but nothing about this feels right.
Yvonne mirrors my every movement, her eyes locked on mine through the mirror’s reflection. There’s tension in her posture, not just the usual sharp, deliberate style of the Paso, but something more venomous beneath it. Her jaw clenches as she steps into me with the next pass, our shoulders nearly brushing, her arm cutting a fraction closer than necessary. She’s trying to dominate the space.
