Chapter 4
912 Words
Florence understood it all at once. Timothy had stayed silent for one simple reason. He trusted that Amelia would never lose.
The word "trust" had always been a stranger between the two of them. A bitter taste rose on her tongue, and she looked away without another word.
Over the next few days, Florence buried herself in the practice room with her partner, moving as if something had clenched tight inside her chest.
Blisters broke open across her hands and feet, yet she drove herself harder still, as though none of it would ever be enough.
On the day of the official taping, Amelia took the stage first.
Her partner's contemporary style wrapped around Amelia's ballet, and the collision of the modern and the classical gave the whole number a fresh edge.
But when Florence looked toward the judges' table, all she could see was Timothy's face darkening at how closely Amelia moved against the other man.
A strange daze settled over her. 'So even a man like him can come undone,' she thought, 'jealous and plain, like anyone else.'
Florence let out a small, self-mocking laugh and pulled her eyes away from him.
When Amelia's dance ended, a smile broke across Timothy's mouth at once, and he praised her freely for the camera. He said, "In technique and in feeling alike, you've put yourself a cut above everyone else..."
Florence stopped listening because the stage manager was already at her side. The man said, "Florence, get ready. You're on in three minutes."
Florence drew in a deep breath and shoved the tangle of thoughts out of her head.
Right then, her partner, Callum Halls, reached a hand toward her, his clear, bright eyes holding nothing but quiet certainty. He said, "Trust me. And trust yourself."
Their hands locked together hard, as if strength itself was born in that grip.
Florence let her breath out heavily and answered with a single, firm "Okay."
The moment Florence stepped onto the stage, she vanished into the role completely.
The number had been adapted from an animated film called "The Way Home," and the two of them danced the story of a wife who waited years for her soldier to return from war, and the husband who finally returned to her as nothing more than a ghost.
In the reunion, Florence wore white, and she moved as though she meant to pour out every year of longing her body had been holding. When word of his death reached her, she stripped the white away and stood in black, the thin fabric lifting and trembling around her, and grief seemed to bleed out of every line she made.
Across those five short minutes, the two of them moved as a single body, as if one soul had been split between them. Whoever sat in that arena felt the c****x land like a physical blow. At the instant the lovers found each other again, the cameras caught the tears standing in Florence's eyes and threw them across the giant screen, and the whole room took the hit at once.
At the judges' table, Timothy realized too late that his own hand had closed into a fist, and his face had gone grim.
The last note faded out, and a full silence dropped over the hall.
The quiet held until Florence took Callum's hand and bowed to the crowd, and then the applause broke loose, deep and genuine and impossible to stop.
Amelia and her partner took the stage after them, and once their music ended, the judges turned to the choice that actually mattered.
Janet looked straight at Florence, her whole face lit with a feeling she could barely keep down. Janet said, "Florence. Callum. Neither of you spoke a single word out there, and the two of you still painted us a picture of pure heartbreak and pure courage. Your bodies were the only language you needed."
The other male judge carried himself more quietly than she did, yet the piece had clearly reached something in him, too.
He said, "He knew every road that led back to her, and still he never came, and in the end the longing she carried burned down to ash."
His voice had barely fallen before both judges pushed their levers toward Florence's name, and neither of them hesitated for even a second.
When Timothy's turn arrived, Florence met his eyes.
That his vote belonged to Amelia was something she'd already accepted, so she sat there calm and unbothered.
What she never saw coming was the long, searching look he gave her before he pushed the lever toward her own name.
The shock held her still for half a second.
A roar of cheers rose from every corner of the room and swallowed her whole.
Amelia's expression curdled, though she lifted her hands and clapped along anyway.
Timothy waited for the noise to thin before he spoke, his voice dropping low. He said, "This round, the dance Florence and Callum gave was the more perfect one."
She had finally heard him say the words she'd wanted, and still some unnamed feeling settled heavily in her chest.
He said, "But a dancer as gifted as Amelia shouldn't be cut from this stage so easily."
His voice climbed without warning, and it pulled every eye in the room straight to him.
He said, with no hesitation at all, "I'm spending my one wildcard on her. She's going through to the next round."
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