The Rhythm of Our Feelings novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Strike the Set

The last chord faded into a silence so complete I could hear the stagehands breathing.

Sutton and I held the final pose, her arm across my back and my head on her shoulder.

Then the whole theater came apart.

Twelve hundred people rose at once.

I had danced in that building for four years and never heard a sound like it.

It was not only applause.

It was a roar, with the gasps still in it.

Sutton took my hand and we bowed, and she did not let go.

Behind us, in the wing, something crashed.

Lydia broke out of the stagehands' grip.

She ran onto the stage in her black stagehand's clothes, with her copper hair torn loose and her face wet.

She stopped in the middle of the light.

She stood three feet from the box cutter.

The applause died raggedly.

"Stop looking at me," Lydia said.

Nobody did.

"I didn't do it for me."

Her voice cracked and carried.

The house lights had come up halfway.

I could see Wallace on his feet in the fourth row, and my mother's hand around his sleeve.

"Philippa told me to," Lydia said, and now she was weeping openly. "She promised me the Aurora if I took care of it."

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