The Rhythm of Our Feelings novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Five in the Morning

Margo sneaks into the basement studio at dawn, Sutton catches her, and the mirror fight turns into a near kiss. Philippa pairs them as partners.

I did not sleep.

My new bedroom was bigger than our whole apartment, and the bed was so soft it felt like falling.

At 4:40 in the morning I gave up and went hunting for a floor.

Probation meant extra hours, and the academy studios did not unlock until seven.

On the ground floor, behind the kitchen, a door stood half open onto a staircase going down.

There was light at the bottom of it.

I followed the light.

The basement was one long room with a sprung wood floor, a barre along each wall and mirrors from end to end.

Someone had built it for exactly one dancer.

I knew whose it was.

I did not care.

I took off my sweater, laced my shoes and started at the barre.

I worked through pliés and tendus, slow and quiet, with my own face watching me from six angles.

For twenty minutes it was the best I had felt in weeks.

"That's my floor."

I did not stop the tendu.

Sutton stood on the bottom stair in a long grey sweater with her hair down and her feet bare.

"Your father said the house was ours," I said.

"He said the house."

"Basement's in the house."

"It's mine."

She crossed the floor and took the barre beside my hand.

Close up she looked as though she hadn't slept either.

There were faint purple shadows under her eyes, and her mouth was set so hard it had gone pale.

"You think you can walk into my home and take the place I earned," she said.

"I think the floor is wood," I said. "I'm not taking it. I'm standing on it."

Her hand closed around my wrist.

It was not a slap, and she did not squeeze.

She turned me, quick and neat, the way she'd turn a partner in a pas de deux, and my back met the mirror.

The cold glass pressed against my spine.

Her face was six inches from mine.

I could count her eyelashes.

"Say it," she said.

"Say what?"

"Say you're sorry."

"For what?"

Something crossed her face then, fast.

I had expected rage.

What I saw looked more like pain, and it threw me.

"Don't," she said. "Don't you dare play that with me."

"Sutton, I honestly do not know what you think I did."

"You know."

"Then say it out loud."

Her thumb was resting on the inside of my wrist, right on my pulse.

It was going like a drum.

She had to feel it.

I watched her feel it.

Her eyes dropped to my mouth.

It was one second, maybe less.

Then she let go and stepped back.

"Stay out of my basement," she said. Her voice shook. "I mean it."

"Or what?"

"Or I stop being polite."

"That was polite?"

I swear she almost laughed.

Her mouth twitched, and she hid it by turning toward the stairs.

"Breakfast is at seven," she said over her shoulder. "Father likes everyone at the table."

"Tell your father I'll come when I've danced."

She stopped on the third stair.

"You are impossible."

"You started it."

She went up without another word.

I put my back to the mirror and slid down it until I was sitting on her floor, and I stayed there with my heart hammering until I could stand.

At breakfast Wallace made toast.

My mother ate eggs with her hand resting on his sleeve.

Sutton sat opposite me and did not look up from her coffee even once.

I counted it as a win.

At the academy at nine, the company stood in a half circle in Studio A, and Philippa Lowrie walked in with her cane.

"Lydia has a strain in her left hip," she said. "A week of rest, doctor's orders."

I glanced at Lydia in the back row.

She was sitting on the floor, ice pack in place, smiling at nobody.

She looked entirely too pleased for a woman in pain.

"Tidewater cannot lose a week," Philippa went on. "Miss Fenner."

My head came up.

"Understudy is partner until Lydia returns. You will rehearse with Miss Rennard from today."

Nobody breathed.

Across the studio, Sutton went rigid, and her eyes met mine for the first time in two years.

"Philippa," she said. "With respect, no."

"With respect, yes. Your father signed the schedule himself."

She turned to me.

"You two live in the same house now," Philippa said, almost pleasantly. "You can rehearse at home too."

Sutton's mouth opened and shut.

Then she smiled at me, a slow, beautiful, terrifying smile.

"Of course," she said. "We'll start tonight."

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