Page 48 of Sapphire Tears

But I know who Iwantto believe.

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I wake up with a gasp that sounds a lot like the wind outside.

It was clear when I fell asleep with the curtains pulled wide open. Now, the frames of the balcony doors shiver in place, sending wobbly echoes around the room that sound like ghosts passing secrets back and forth.

I check the time on the clock on my bedside table. 3:15 AM. Nothing should be awake at this time, but it feels like everything is. As if there’s a whole world raging outside my doors, trying to get in at me.

I wonder if Kolya is sleeping through this, or if I’m the only one with unsettled thoughts and a stock of old nightmares running through my mind.

I lie still in bed with the sheets pulled up to my neck, watching the wind rage against the glass. Rain comes soon after, torrential and angry. Then lightning. Then thunder.

When it becomes clear that the storm isn’t going to let up anytime soon, I push off my covers and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress.

Walking over to the windows, I press my nose against the glass to peer outside. A tall tree stands sentinel just outside my balcony, and it’s dancing around haplessly, looking like the contorted body of a ballerina.

There are moments when I feel the loss of my art like a death that I’m still grieving. The absence of what I used to love sits heavy on my chest.

I watch the tree moving with the rhythm of the wind. I sway in place, my legs itching for the stage again.

I’m so wide awake now that I abandon the idea of sleep altogether. Instead, I pull on the silk robe that matches the powder blue slip I’m wearing. Then I leave my room and wander aimlessly down the broad, empty corridors.

I keep seeing shapes in the walls, hearing footsteps following me through the halls. I keep feeling like someone is watching me.

I didn’t think I believed in ghosts. But if you don’t believe in something, you can’t possibly be scared of it, right? And right now, I’m absolutely on edge. So the math doesn’t add up.

I didn’t think it was possible for Adrian to come back from the dead. But he did. If that’s possible, then ghosts seem like the obvious next step.

The door of the ballroom is ajar when I approach it. It takes some effort to push it all the way open, but when it finally yields, it swings in without a sound and I slip through.

The mirrors greet me with a thousand versions of myself. I’m glowing in the darkness, what little light there is hitting my blue slip and making it shine. I run a hand over my growing baby bump, then twirl on the spot.

Halfway through my pirouette, I could swear I catch a shadow in the corner of my eye. I jerk to a halt and twist back around, but by the time I orient myself, the shadow has moved on.

“Maybe this place really is haunted,” I mutter under my breath.

I shake my head and tell myself to get it together. Ghosts aren’t real and Adrian was never actually dead. Right now, I have a ballroom to myself and music in my ears that only I can hear.

I start to sway, then to spin, then to let my arms go liquid and flowing. It takes me a moment to realize that the song I’m humming on my breath is the same sad tune that Kolya was playing one note at a time when we talked in his study the other day. The realization makes me shiver.

But I don’t question it. I just let it pick me up and carry me away. Before long, my muscles start to warm and my body starts to remember. Within minutes, I’ve fallen back into my old headspace. When dance was my language, and I could tell whole stories in the arch of my leg.

It feels good to do this. I can arabesque and ballonné; I can chaseé and echappé; I can be free and wild and beautiful.

I spy movement again in the corner and turn quickly. But this time, I’m not met with a shadow or a ghost.

This time, I’m met with over six feet of flesh and blood. And burning blue eyes that are as beautiful as they’re haunting.

“Jesus!” I gasp, stumbling back. I trip over my own feet and land on my ass on the hard marble floor.

Kolya moves swiftly towards me and crouches down beside me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Then why were you lurking in the shadows like a boogeyman?!”

He smiles sadly. “You were dancing. I didn’t want to interrupt.” He doesn’t offer me a hand. Instead, he sits down on the floor opposite me, so that we’re facing each other. “You can hardly blame me.”

“Watch me try.”

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