Ashes & Roses

Chapter 15

Wynter Rose Monroe🌹🩰

I woke before the alarm and, for a few seconds, the room was only a room. Thin light at the curtain. Geneviève's bed empty and unmade. The smell of her perfume still in the air from two nights ago. Then I looked at the foot of the bed the pink suitcase had not moved. Only a corner showed, enough to make my stomach drop before I was fully awake. More money than my parents had seen in honest years, sitting three feet from my feet while I pretended I was still a girl with a class schedule. I did not open it. I did not touch it I was scared to even count it. I got up like the floor might give if I stayed still. The spare pointe shoes were on the desk where I had left them. The ribbons I had sewn at two in the morning because I went through a series of tossing and turning sat crooked on one shoe, a puckered stitch I had been too shaky to pick out and do again. The satin was stiff. I packed the stained bag from the bed tights, leotard, the ugly spare shoes and left before the hallway filled I knew I was not ready to face her. I had sent I'm sorry and then slept on top of a crime. That was all I could carry before noon.

The Performing Arts Center was warmer than the quad. Rosin. Hairspray. Coffee. Sweat. On a better morning that mix meant I had arrived somewhere I understood. Today it smelled like a place I was about to be asked to leave. I changed fast and took my spot at the barre before anyone could talk to me. Piano on low. Bodies folding into familiar shapes. Someone laughed at the far end and I hated them for being able to. The wood was cool under my palm. I wrapped my fingers around it and tried to make a list that was not a confession. I should give it back. Find whoever owned a bag full of banded hundreds and tell them I grabbed the wrong duffle in the dark. That was the clean version. The version my mother would have wanted if I could have called her without setting the kitchen on fire. And then what, Whitmore would still have a folder with my name on it. Three hundred thousand. A number large enough to end me and small enough, now, that I had already seen more than that under my own bed. There was no ending where I returned the cash, kept the scholarship, and walked into this room like my body still belonged to me. Bennett's voice pulled the room into a single line.

"From the top."

I lifted my working leg because the count told me to. Tendu. Close. Tendu. Close. My reflection did the work. Pale pink leotard. Hair pinned. Mouth set. I looked like a dancer. That felt like a costume I had put on over something rotting. I almost got through the combination. The studio door opened. I heard it before I understood it the suck of air, the brief flood of hallway cold, the piano going suddenly thin. My hand locked on the barre. Heat climbed the back of my neck in a slow, sick crawl. I told myself it was a late student. A parent. Anyone but it was not anyone. He filled the doorway the way he had filled his office, like the frame had been built around him. Pressed shirt. Dark slacks. Lanyard lying neat against his chest. The smile he wore for other people's hallways, already half-formed before he finished looking the room over. I knew his shape the way you know a sound from a bad dream. For one stupid second I thought if I did not lift my eyes he would not find me. I watched his shoes instead. Polished. Quiet on the marley. Then I watched his hand on the door, the same hand that had rested on my knee, and my stomach dropped so hard I tasted metal. His gaze traveled the barre. Past the girl on my left. Past the boy at the center. And stopped, on me.

It was not hurried. It was recognition. Satisfaction, even, as if he had opened the right door on the first try. Something in my face must have given me away, because the smile deepened a fraction, private, meant only for the space between us. I could not get air all the way down. The room had too many mirrors. I saw myself from three angles at once: white around the mouth, fingers bloodless on the wood, a girl who had been mid-tendu and forgotten how to put her foot back on the floor. Bennett turned toward the door. Her expression changed. Not surprise. Distaste, held still because he still had a title.

He spoke first, pleasant enough that the students nearest him kept stretching.

"Professor Bennett. Sorry to interrupt." A small, apologetic tip of the head. "I need Ms. Monroe for a moment. Administrative stuff. It won't take long."

"We're in the middle of class." Professor Bennett motioned to the obvious class.

He laughed under his breath, the sound of a man inviting the whole room to be reasonable with him.

"Five minutes. I wouldn't pull her if it weren't time-sensitive."

Every head that had not already turned, turned. My name hanging in the air like a stain. I looked at Bennett and tried to put the rest of it in my face because if I opened my mouth I was going to make a sound I could not take back.

Don't. Not him. Please don't make me walk out there.

She held my eyes a second longer than policy required. I saw her take in the lock of my hand on the barre, the way I had not moved my working leg. Then her mouth tightened.

"Five minutes," she said. "Nothing more." A nod at me. Small. Final. Go.

My fingers came off the wood one at a time. The barre left a pale groove across my palm. The floor felt farther away than it should have. I had to think about walking the way I thought about a combination I had not learned yet. Left. Right. Don't look at the mirrors. Don't look at him until I have to. I passed the other dancers. Someone's stretch band snapped. Rosin grit whispered under my spare shoes. The piano had not stopped. Each note hit the back of my teeth. He stepped aside to let me through, courteous, and the courtesy was the worst part. I smelled him as I crossed the threshold. Cologne, sharp and expensive, the kind that clung to upholstery. Coffee. The dry heat of an office. The door shut. Studio warmth cut off. The hallway was thinner, colder, floor polish and old paper from the bulletin board. Music flattened into a thud through the wall, counts I could still feel in my ribs. He waited for the latch. Then he smiled with only his mouth.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be."

I had to swallow before I could answer. My voice came out wrong, too high, already close to breaking.

"I told you I was trying. I am. I just—I need a little more time."

"Trying." He said it like he was tasting something cheap.

"You've had time, Wynter."

My name in his mouth made my throat close. I had typed it on forms. I had not given him the right to use it like a hand on the back of my neck.

"I'll get it. I swear. I just don't have it today."

"How."

"I don't know yet. I'm working on it. Please." The last word slipped out before I could stop it. I hated how small it sounded in the empty hall. He stepped in. I stepped back and he looked at the space I had just given him, pleased, as if I had confirmed something he already believed.

"You have a three-hundred-thousand-dollar problem," he said, quiet enough that anyone at the far stairwell would have heard only a counselor being kind.”And you're still in there plié-ing like the semester is going to wait for you."

"I know it isn't fine." My eyes were already burning. I kept them open anyway. "I'm not pretending. I just—class is the only place I can still—"

"Then start performing for me. Just for me-" His gaze dropped over the leotard, the tights, the stiff spare shoes, and climbed back without hurry. I felt where it landed, I awkwardly draped an arm over my chest and placed a gentle hand over the private part he wanted the access to.

"There are simpler arrangements. I explained that in my office. You understood me then. Don't insult both of us by acting like you didn't."

I knew what he meant. I had known when his hand first found my knee. I had known again last night, staring at a suitcase I was not supposed to have. Knowing did not make it easier to stand inside the sentence.

"Please don't ask me that." My voice frayed. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth until the ache behind my eyes backed off.

"I'll get you the money. A few more days. That's all I'm asking. Please."

Something in his face loosened. That was worse than the smile. Concern, almost. The version of him that would look good on a complaint form.

"You don't have to work yourself raw over this." He tipped his head. His employee lanyard tapped once against a button. "I'm not a monster, Wynter. I help students who let me help them. That's all this is."

"I don't want that kind of help." It came out wet. I hated it. "I can pay. I just need time. Please don't—please don't make it into something else."

"I don't—"

His hand settled on my waist. Not a brush. Palm on the dip above my hip, skin damp through the thin nylon, thumb resting like he was gentling something he already had on a lead. His hand was larger than I wanted it to be, dry, a little cold. The heat of it went straight in. My body did the same stupid thing it had done in his office. It locked. Breath stuck high in my chest. I stared at the hollow of his throat because his face was too close—pore, pink in the eye, a sliver of filling when he spoke. A sound almost left me. I bit it back. Salt stung the corners of my eyes and spilled anyway, one hot line I could not stop in time. I turned my face toward the bulletin board so he would get my cheek and not the rest. I made myself step sideways. His fingers dragged an inch before they fell. The place they had been stayed printed, hot, wrong.

"Please don't touch me." It was barely a voice. "I'll get you the money. I will. Just—please don't."

He studied the tear track like it was information. The softness drained off. What was left was impatient, and underneath that, insulted. I could hear my own pulse, louder than the piano.

"You don't have to say no," he murmured. His breath touched my hairline, coffee and mint over something sour. "I'm here to take care of you. That's all this is. You say yes, and this whole ugly number goes away. No more shaking in hallways. No more lying to your professor with your eyes."

I shook my head. Another tear went. I wiped it with the back of my wrist and it smeared.

"I can't. I can't do that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I know you're waiting, I know I said I'd figure it out, I just—please give me a few days. Please."

The studio opened. Warm air. Rosin. Bodies. The bright shove of the piano.

"Adrian Whitmore." Bennett's voice had the clean edge she used when a combination was sloppy and she was done repeating herself. "Is there any reason you're taking more than the five minutes you requested?"

He was already moving. Hands into his pockets. Smile back on, empty. The cologne went with him.

"Sorry, Professor Bennett. She's all yours." His shoes were soft on the tile, unhurried, down the stairwell. I watched his back until it turned because I needed to see him gone, and even then the hallway still smelled like him. I could not get my legs to start. The vent kept breathing on my neck. My waist still felt held. I dragged the heel of my hand under my eyes and hoped the redness would pass for heat from class. Bennett's voice dropped.

"Ms. Monroe?"

I blinked. The corridor came back in pieces. Showcase flyer curling at one corner. Black scuff by the baseboard. The studio's narrow window, dancers already moving, and at the far end of the hall a dark shape that might have been a person and might have been a shadow. I did not have room to decide.

"Yeah." It scraped

She tipped her head toward the door. I followed her in. Faces turned and then pretended they had not. The barre was the same piece of wood. It felt cleaner than my own skin. I lifted my arm on the count because I knew how. Because stopping would mean standing in that hallway again with his palm printed on my side, his name still in my mouth, and five minutes that had lasted too long.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

My body arrived. The rest of me stayed outside with the money under my bed, the number I could not pay, and the number I could not give back. My body moved because it had been trained to move long before I understood what the training was for.

Tendu. Plié. Relevé.

The names arrived without me asking for them. The counts did too. Five, six, seven, eight, and my working leg went because it always had. The rest of me was still in the hallway. I could still feel his hand. I had wiped my waist with my palm once I was back at the barre, a stupid, furtive swipe like I could lift a print off nylon. The fabric was damp with sweat now. It did not help. Under the studio lights the place he had touched stayed hot, a coin of attention I could not spend. I hated that more than the fear. He had not left a mark. He had left the feeling of being handled. So I danced harder. I threw the extension past where it was clean. I forced the relevé higher than the combination asked. When Bennett called a turn, I took it like I could spin the last five minutes off my skin and leave it on the marley. Rosin bit the soles of the spare shoes. My crooked ribbons whispered. The piano was too bright. I chased it anyway. It was not good dancing. I knew that before I saw it in the mirror. A fraction behind. Spot late. Supporting knee locked on a balance and I had to hop to save it, ugly, the kind of correction Bennett did not even waste a name on when a room was watching. She said my name once, low, and I reset, and still my body kept arriving a breath after the music. I did not notice the class end. The piano cut. The silence was sudden enough to make my ears ring. Around me bags unzipped, shoes slapped down, someone laughed near the door about lunch. I was still marking the next phrase with my arms, chin lifted to a count that was no longer there. A shoulder bumped mine.

"Sorry—"

I startled hard enough that my standing foot slipped. The girl from the end of the barre put a hand out, winced an apology, and kept going. I watched her ponytail disappear into the hall and only then understood the room. Almost empty. Sun in long rectangles on the floor. Dust turning in it. My own breathing too loud.

Whitmore. The suitcase. Geneviève's unanswered sorry.

I walked to my bag like the floor had thickened. Packed the way I packed when I was trying not to cry in a public bathroom: wrap skirt folded, water bottle in the side pocket, spare shoes set in with the ribbons tucked so they would not knot. Hairpins in the tin. The same objects I had touched a hundred mornings. Today they felt like they belonged to a girl who still had a scholarship she had earned. I lifted the strap.

"Ms. Monroe."

Bennett had not packed. She sat on the edge of her desk with her folder closed under one hand, watching me the way she watched a combination she already knew was wrong.

"Stay a moment."

I waited until the last of them were gone and the door had settled. The strap cut into my palm. I crossed to her and stopped an arm's length from the desk, close enough to smell her coffee, gone cold. She looked at me long enough that I had to fight the urge to fill the quiet.

"You're not dancing the way you were the first week," she said. Not unkind. Not soft either. "You're behind the phrase. You're muscling what should be placed. That is not fatigue from one late night."

I looked at the floor between us.

"If something is happening outside this room, I have already told you what I expect. You leave it at the door. But I am not interested in watching you come apart at the barre and calling it artistry." A pause. "You can come to me. I want that to be clear in language you will actually hear. This faculty does not get to use my dancers."

That was the sentence that nearly undid me. I wanted to put the hallway on her desk. His hand. The folder. The number. The suitcase under my bed that would make me look like the problem instead of the girl in the leotard. I wanted to say his name and watch her face change into something that could stop him. I swallowed until my throat hurt.

"I'm fine," I said. It came out thin. "It's just—I'm adjusting. Everything is okay."

Bennett's mouth flattened. She did not believe me. She let me see that she did not.

"Your dancing says otherwise." She leaned back on her hands. "And I will not carry you on potential. If this continues, I will fail you for the term. I would hate that. I will still do it."

The word fail landed in the same place Whitmore's number had. I nodded. I did not trust another sentence. She looked away from me, toward the mirrors, the empty barres, the scuffs.

"I'm locking the building at night," she said, almost as an afterthought. "Dancers were treating after-hours like a club. Everything in here except work." A crease between her brows. "Ungodly, some of it."

A breath left me that wanted to be a laugh and did not quite make it. She heard it. She did not smile, but something at the corner of her eyes eased. She reached into the pocket of her wrap and took out a key. Small. Unmarked. Ordinary brass.

"You have work in you that you have not spent yet," she said. "I do not hand this to students who think the studio is a hiding place. I am handing it to you because when you are actually here, you are a dancer, and I would rather you be in this room than wherever you go when your face looks like that. The studio is yours after hours. You do not bring anyone. You do not lose this. You do not make me explain to the department why I was wrong about you."

I hesitated long enough to feel rude, then took it. The metal was cold. It warmed too fast in my hand. Something in my chest gave without permission. The first tear went before I could blink it back. Then another, hot, humiliating, tracking the same path as the ones in the hall. I wiped them with the side of my wrist and nodded too many times.

"Thank you." My voice would not stay level. "I won't—I won't make you regret it."

"See that you don't." She had already turned toward the folder, which was how I knew she was giving me the dignity of not watching me cry.

"You're dismissed."

I stood there one more breath with the key in my palm. It was nothing. It opened a door and a set of lights and a floor I already knew. It was also the first thing since his office that had been given to me without a price attached. I put it in the inner pocket of the bag, against the tin of pins, and walked out while I could still do it on my own feet.