Chapter One
Chloe
“Five, six,” the instructor counts. “Heels down. Watch those shoulders.”
She moves around the room, adjusting arms and watching each dancer carefully. Isabel’s voice
sings out the choreography and I follow on autopilot.
“Seven, eight. Lift up.”
“Nine, ten,” I whisper to myself. “Where’s your head?”
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.
I’m going through the motions, but I’m not really here. I’m not really anywhere. My mind is
somewhere else. On a rooftop, surrounded by an explosion of colors. I live for those colors. That
secret high.
“And settle back into fifth position.”
The music halts, and my anxiety does too. Around me, the other dancers chatter. I melt into the floor
like the most obedient of soldiers, my drill sergeant’s voice echoing through my mind.
Stretch. Stretch. Stretch.
Always stretching, never moving.
“Chloe Abernathy.”
I glance up from my place on the floor to meet my teacher’s gaze. But she isn’t alone. Beside her
are the familiar brown eyes of disappointment. Always disappointment.
My breath seizes when it dawns on me that he’s been here the whole time. Watching.
“A word, please,” Isabel says.
I stand up on shaky legs and tie the cardigan around my waist, following my father and Isabel to my
doom.
My eyes dart to the windows as we pass through the hallway. The sunlight streams through the
stained glass and dances on the tile floor. I want to disappear into those colors. Into the shadows. Into
anything.
I’d rather be anywhere else right now.
I know it’s coming before I even sit down in Mr. Dacosta’s office. The dean. My father sits beside
me too, crossing his legs and folding his hands in the most pretentious of positions. The fact that he
won’t even look at me makes it painfully obvious that he still thinks this is complete nonsense.