Crash

There were a lot of things I could go without—shampoo, candy corns, red toe nail polish, sleep . . . hell, boys—before I could go without dance. Ballet to be specific, but not inclusive. Any and every opportunity I got, I was dancing. I’d been breaking, hip-hopping, waltzing, tangoing, and pirouetting my way through life since age three.

When it was announced we’d be simplifying—AKA downsizing because we were running out of money—our lives, I had one request.

Actually, it was more like a demand.

My dance lessons at Madame Fontaine’s Dance Academy go on uninterrupted. Or cancelled due to insufficient funds.

I didn’t care if I no longer got to wear the name brand clothes and had to shop at half price day at the local thrift store, or if my car was replaced for public transportation, or even if we had a roof over our heads. I had to keep dancing.

It was the only thing that kept my head above water when I felt I was drowning. The only thing that got me through the dark days. The only thing that seemed to still welcome me with warm arms and a mutual love. The only thing that hadn’t changed in my life.

Throwing my pointe shoes over one shoulder and my purse over the other, I opened my bedroom door a crack. The cabin was a rickety old place, with lots of character as my parents put it when they bought the place a decade ago, which had just been a nice way of saying it was a hunk of junk that was lucky to still be standing, but I’d learned two summers ago how to oil the hinges and apply just the right amount of upward pressure on the door handle to get the half century old door to open noiselessly.

I waited, listening for the sounds and noises apart from the “Come Together” chorus. Only when a solid minute had gone by without a click-clack of heels or a trio of sighs being emitted did I give myself the green light.

Mom was either on her way or already at work, so the coast was clear. After last night’s dinner, actually, after the last five years of dinners, avoiding my mom was a top priority, right below dancing.

Leaping down the stairs, an image surged to mind. An image I’d tried to erase from it. An image my best intentions had been useless against.

Jude Ryder, crouching in the sand a breath away from me, grinning at me like he knew every last dark secret of mine and it didn’t phase him one bit. Jude Ryder, golden from a summer in the sand, liquid silver eyes, stacked muscles pulling through his shirt . . .

My toe caught on the second to last step and, had I not been bequeathed with a fair amount of grace from years of dancing, I’m certain I would have face planted into the ancient, lord knows what’s hiding in between the cracks, plank floor.

Righting myself, ensuring shoes, purse, and pride were still intact, I forced myself to make a sacred vow that I would never allow myself to daydream, think of, ponder, wonder, or lust after Jude Ryder again.

I didn’t need a signed petition from the countless girls he’d seduced and left high and dry to know he was a one way ticket to an unwanted pregnancy at worst or a broken heart at best.

“See ya, Dad,” I called out, snatching an apple from the fruit bowl. “I’m off to dance practice and I’ll be home sometime before dinner.” Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I was out the door two heartbeats later.

It didn’t matter how long I hung around, there would be no response from my dad. Not even a nod of acknowledgement. He could have been a mannequin in his chair, staring absently out the window at nothing.

I could have been screwing half the world’s population on the kitchen counter and he wouldn’t have cared. Or even noticed.

Reminding myself that dwelling on the screwedupedness that was my family wouldn’t fix a thing, I turned my thoughts to something else, anything else, that wasn’t family related.

And where did my mind lead my thoughts to?

Jude Ryder.

I was on some sort of sick, self-destruction thought stream.

Heading towards the Mazda, something caught my eye. Something that stood out because of the way it caught the early morning sun. Something that had not been there yesterday.

Turning towards the beach, I saw what was responsible for stopping me in my tracks at seven oh two in the morning.

It was cyclone fencing, a rectangle of it, containing a miniature house, two plastic bowls, and a knotted rope inside of it. A dog kennel.

A solution to one of the endless problems that riddled my life.

An answer to a silent prayer.

Striding down the beach, biting my lip to keep the phantom tears from even thinking about forming, I noticed there was a red bow tied across the padlock door, a folded note hanging beneath it.

I suppose to ninety-nine point nine percent of teenage girls, a dog kennel as a present ranked just above a bad hair day on prom night, but to me—a girl who couldn’t have fit the mold of normal if she tried every day of forever—it was like finding the latest Hollywood heartthrob wrapped beneath the Christmas Tree with a tag that read, Enjoy.

Grinning like the schoolgirls I rolled my eyes at, I ripped the note from the bow, not even caring who had built the kennel. This meant mini Cujo could stay with me until I’d rehabbed him so he could be adopted into another family.

My smile that felt like it wouldn’t end did just that rather abruptly as soon as I read the words.

So. How about that date?

It was signed with nothing other than a J, but I didn’t need the perfect punctuation or the following three letters to know who’d left it. Just the man I needed to, yet couldn’t, stop thinking about.

Just the man I never needed to see again. Just the man I wanted to see right now.