Page 104 of Let’s Be Real

A couple barreled toward us, too caught up in each other to notice where they were going. I caught Samantha around the waist and pivoted us out of their path, earning another surprised laugh.

“My hero!”

“I’m trying.”

She pressed a kiss to my jaw. “You’re doing incredible.”

Were Rosalie’s words rattling around in her brain too? Was she wondering when she’d start wishing the same?

I kept us moving so the doubts couldn’t settle, finding the beat as I tugged her into another spin. The hem of her yellow sundress floated around her thighs, and her cowboy boots kicked up little clouds of dust every time she landed.

She was beautiful like this, pink-cheeked and happy. If I could have bottled this version of her, it would have been the best medicine I’d ever taken. Maybe a cure.

I was determined to keep her laughing, spinning, moving.

Tonight, we were dancing at the fairgrounds. Yesterday, we’d gone to a cat café. Two days before, I’d taken her to the symphony. Last weekend, we’d revisited the alpine slide, and I’d gone fast enough the dread had nearly been left behind.

But it had caught up with me.

Its claws were dug in too deep for me to shrug it off. I should’ve known better by now.

She was never going to see it, though. I couldn’t let her. As long as we kept busy, it’d stay where it was. In the background. At a low level. That meant pushing past the anvil on my chest and getting out of bed each day. I had no choice. If I didn’t, she’d know. She’d see. I couldn’t have that.

Eventually, she needed to rest, and I knew better than to try to cajole her into another dance. We lay down on the blanket I’d spread out for us, our heads together, fingers tangled.

“I don’t think I ever pictured you as a dancer,” she said.

“What I did out there hardly qualified as dancing.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You have moves.” She raised one of her legs, pointing her toe toward the sky. “Did you know I took ballet lessons when I was a kid?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. All the way up until I was twelve.” She pointed and flexed her foot a few times before letting it fall back to the blanket. “My favorite teacher thought I had a lot of potential and talked to my mom about auditioning for a performing arts camp. I guess she thought my mom would be all for it, so she’d had the conversation with her while I’d been standing there.”

I turned toward her, studying her profile. “It didn’t go well?”

“No.” Her mouth tugged into a bitter smile. “My mother asked if Kelly could audition too. When she didn’t get the answer she wanted, she pulled us both out. That was the last time I danced.”

“Holy hell, Sam. I don’t know what to say.”

Why didn’t I know what to say?

She turned to her side, propping herself up on her elbow. “Why would you? It’s such a wild thing for a mom to do. There’s not really anything anyone could say.” Her fingers idly danced over the buttons on my shirt. “At the time, it’d wrecked me, but I’m pretty much over it now. It wasn’t like I was going to become a professional dancer or anything.”

“But you loved it.”

“I did. You know, at the time, the most upsetting part was thinking about my teacher and how guilty she must have felt when I didn’t come back. I really hope she was okay, and she doesn’t still carry that with her.”

“Samantha…” I slipped my fingers through her silky hair, cupping the back of her head. My heart climbed into my throat, lodging itself there.

She smiled down at me, tapping her fingers to the beat of the music the band played. “Don’t yell at me for being so pitiful.”

“Yelling at you is the last thing on my mind.”

“Adrian would.” She chuffed, but it was with affection. “He’s always telling me to stop putting other people’s feelings first.”

“He has a point, but that wasn’t what I was thinking.”