“You have to remember,” Tori had said, “to relax. Let yourself fall into the dance, Blake. No, no. Your shoulders are too tight!”

She batted my hands away and walked behind me. She smacked me between my shoulder blades. Hard.

“Ouch! What did you do that for?” I awkwardly tried to reach for the spot.

“Have your shoulders relaxed?”

I rolled them. “Yes.”

“Then I did it to relax your shoulders,” she huffed. “You won’t be able to do it right if you’re tensed up. It’ll be like dancing with a plank of wood!”

“I don’t even have to know this yet!”

“But I do, Blake. I have to get this routine right or I won’t be able to dance in the Christmas production. Please help me. Please,” she whined, dragging the last word out. Her green eyes blinked at me innocently, and I sighed helplessly.

Of course I would help her. I would learn dance steps four years above my level because she needed me to. She knew I’d do anything for her.

“Fine,” I grumbled in the way only an eleven year old could. “But you owe me, Tori. Again.”

“I know, I know.” She kissed the top of my head. “You’re the best.”

“Just don’t slap me again.”

“I won’t. I promise – but you have to relax, okay?”

“I get it!”

“No, really, Blake. You can’t dance if you’re tense, not ballet.”

“Your keeping on is making me tense,” I said pointedly, folding my arms across my chest.

Tori just smiled. “Only because you’re not listening to me!”

“Al-right!” I moaned. “I’m listening.”

She ruffled my hair. “You have to dance the way you fall in love; effortlessly, unrelentingly, and with everything you have.”

“I’m never going to fall in love,” I protested. “Girls are annoying.”

“You say that now, but one day you will.”

“No, I won’t. Ever.”

“Everyone falls in love, little brother. At some point in your life, you’ll fall in love with someone and when you do, you’ll be unable to distinguish the feelings between dance and love. And if you’re really lucky, she’ll be the dance you fall in love with.”

 

 

My eyes snap open. I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears and echoing around the small log cabin. That dream was real, all too real, even after all these years.

Ten years have passed since that conversation and I’ve been waiting since then to prove her right or wrong. I threw myself into dance the way she said – I gave it my all and then some. I planned for the future and I dreamed bigger than anyone I know. I never stopped or gave up on dancing no matter what was thrown my way. Even through my parent’s disappointment, I never pushed it to the side. I kept on fighting to dance although it seemed impossible at times.

It seems silly now to look back and think those words came from a fifteen year old girl. What did Tori know about love? She was still a child, whose only true happiness came from the same place mine did – holding onto a barre.

But she was right. She was so, completely right.

Love and dance are one and the same. They’re easy, like breathing, and if it’s for you then it’s natural. There’s no second thoughts, no doubts. You don’t think it’s not for you, not even for a second. In fact you know. You just know it’s all you’re ever going to need.

Abbi shifts slightly in her sleep, and I hold her closer to me. She tucks her head under my chin, snuggling in.

Abbi is it. She’s my dance. I fell in love with her the way Tori always said I would, and it was so effortless I didn’t even notice. It’s grown slowly, building and transforming each time she’s smiled at me or laughed with me. It means I can’t walk away, no matter what she tells me, because of the sheer, unrelenting force of it inside. It keeps me tied to her and everything she’d rather hide. It keeps me living, because she’s filled a part of me that’s been missing for a long time.

She can never replace my sister. I’m not stupid enough to think that, but just because she can’t replace her doesn’t mean she can’t stand alongside her in my heart, and it doesn’t mean I love Tori any less for loving Abbi.

I can love them both the same in entirely different ways, all the while thanking the shit out of whoever is in the sky that Abbi didn’t follow in Tori’s footsteps.

 

~

 

“You have to be freaking kidding me,” Abbi deadpans, staring at the canoe.

“Would it be funny if I said no?”

“No. No, it wouldn’t be. There is no way in hell that …” She looks at me and points accusingly at the canoe. “… Is funny. In any way. At all.”

“I guess you don’t really feel up to going in it then, huh?”

“Do I look like a girl who goes canoeing? Honestly?”

I say nothing, trying to control the twitching of my lips. She picks up the bright orange life jacket.

“And this. I’m not wearing it. I’m not going on that boat. I hate boats.”

“There’s nothing wrong with boats.”

“If it’s not on dry land, there damn well is something wrong with it.” She folds her arms across her chest defiantly.

“Well, you do have two options, actually,” I say slowly.

“And they are?”

“You put this on …” I take the jacket from her. “… And get in the boat …”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Or you put the jacket on and get in the water. Either way, you’re putting the jacket on.”

Her mouth drops open. “You dare throw me in that water, Blake Smith, and I swear to God …”

I grin. “What?”

She pauses. “I don’t know. I haven’t come up with anything yet.”

I laugh and touch her face. “Abbi, please. Just put the jacket on and get on the boat. I promise it’ll be okay.”

She narrows her eyes. “Hmmm.”

“Please,” I beg. “Don’t make me do the pouting and puppy-dog-eyes thing again. You know you have no chance then.”

“Why is it so important that I get on the damn boat?”

“It just is. It’s part of your birthday surprise, okay?”

She softens a little. “Blake, you’ve already given me enough.”

“No, I haven’t.” I put her arms in the jacket and do it up at the front. My hands hover over the zip as I look down at her. “When I think about what you give me every single day, I have a lot of things to make up for.”

I spin her around and nudge her toward the boat. I grab my own jacket and put it on while steadying the boat for her. She steps in and sits down tentatively, looking completely out of her comfort zone.

“I cannot believe I’m doing this,” she mutters. “I really can’t.”

“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to do it.” I push the oar into the water and move us off into the center of the river.

Abbi’s silent for a moment. “So, where are we going?”

“Oh, just down the river a ways.”

“That’s a vague answer.”

“Yes …”

“Blake,” she says sternly. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Of course I know where we’re going. I always know where we’re going.”

“Oh no …”

“I just don’t necessarily know exactly how to get there.”

She hits the boat. “Blake!”

“What? Don’t blame me.” I glance over my shoulder into her narrowed yet slightly amused eyes. “Blame Google. They’re the ones who haven’t developed maps that work in the mountains.”

“You … I don’t even know what to say.” I catch her shaking her head. “We’re in a boat on a river in the middle of the Poconos, and we could end up anywhere. I feel so reassured right now.”

“As long as we don’t end up in the Atlantic, I figure we’re okay.”

Abbi sighs heavily. “So you say. So you say.”

 

~

 

I smile smugly at the look on her face.

“You did this?”

I nod. “I told you it would be okay, didn’t I?”

“Okay? Okay?” Abbi stares at me like I’m insane. “Blake, you’ve organized a goddamn picnic in the middle of the Poconos, shadowed by the mountains and overlooking the most incredible lake I’ve ever seen, just for my birthday. And you say it’s ‘okay’?”

“What would you say it is?”

“I don’t think I know,” she whispers, her eyes filling with softness. “But I do know it’s the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me.”

She wraps her arms around my neck, squeezing me. I slide my arms around her waist, smiling.

“In that case, this whole getaway thing was totally my idea. Maddie had no say in it at all.”

She laughs into my shoulder. “Nice try.”

I shrug, leading her to the blanket and sitting her down. “The getaway was Maddie’s idea. The Poconos was mine. Like I said last night, it reminded me of a giant Prospect Park.”

Abbi looks around, taking in the varying shades of green on the trees and bushes, the wild flowers dotted around the bottom of them, and the crystal clear blue of the lake. “It is exactly like that.” She touches the blanket. “I think I have a new favorite place.”

“I’m not coming here every time you need to hide,” I mutter playfully.

Her lips curve into a gentle smile. “You won’t need to. I think I’ll just hide under my covers from now on. It doesn’t matter where I go, my past will still find me. I can’t fight against it, I just have to go with it. That’s the only way I’ll ever beat this. Acceptance is key to moving on.”

I shake my head slowly, just looking at her – from the curve of her eyebrows to the pink of her cheeks and the tiny curl in her hair to the slight upturn of her nose.

“What?”

“Ever think that the really bad shit always happens to the best people?” I think out loud. “The people that always deserve it the least get hit with the biggest piles of crap.”

“I guess,” she replies slowly. “But I’d like to think the best people get hit with the bad stuff because they can handle it. What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger and all that. I think I’m stronger for all my bad stuff. At least, I should be since it didn’t kill me. No one knows why stuff happens, good or bad, but there’s always a reason.”

I think about that for a moment. “I guess you’re right.”

“Well, if I hadn’t been through what I have, then we wouldn’t have met, would we?”

“I suppose not.” I smile. “Good things have to fall apart sometimes, if only to make way for the even better things to fall together.”

“Exactly. And as corny as it is, I think I’ll choose to believe I had to deal with all Pearce’s crap so I could be here today.” She looks at me and smiles softly, her eyes wide. “I know it hasn’t been easy to be around me sometimes, and that might not change any time soon, but I’m really glad you stuck it out.”

“Yeah, well, you are a bit of a pain in the arse.”

She raises an eyebrow, amused.

“I mean, you’re a total nuisance, and I can never get anything done when you’re around because you just distract me, but–”

She grabs the collar of my top and pulls my face toward hers, covering my mouth with hers. I blink, taken aback for a second, before I sink my fingers into her hair and follow her lead. Her teeth graze across my bottom lip, tugging on it gently, and it’s not the only part of my body it’s tugging.

I move forward and push into her until she lies back. One of my hands supports me as we lower and the other is wrapped around her, holding our bodies together. My body covers hers and my knee slips between hers. She runs her tongue along my lip and fucking hell. This is driving me insane. Her fingers entwine in my hair, holding me to her, and I kiss her with everything I have. I take the kiss deeper until everything else has disappeared. Everything except her soft but strong body lying beneath mine, her tongue stroking mine, and her fingers wrapped in my hair.

“But,” I whisper against her lips, kissing her once more. “I can’t imagine not sticking it out with you. I’d be crazy if I didn’t. In fact, I think I might be a little crazy anyway.”

She giggles, my forehead resting against hers. “Then we can be a little crazy together.”

I smile widely, a small laugh escaping me. “Always.”