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"But I don't want comfort. I want poetry. I want danger. I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin."
— Aldous Huxley
The gym was deserted when Tess pushed through the wide double doors. Beyond the entrance, the expansive main room stretched up into vaulted ceilings and pretty skylights—the only source of light at the moment. The sun peaked in, throwing everything into a soft, almost serene shadow. Even the bulky free weights in the corner could not escape the wistful peace that settled over the gym on a Sunday afternoon; on a normal weekend, there might have been a few tourney players or cheerleaders plugging away on the machines, but Tess suspected the previous night's festivities had prompted more than the normal amount of students to have a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Tess shifted her duffel bag to her opposite shoulder as she threaded through the gym, not bothering to flip on the main lights. She headed to the back of the main area, through an unassuming door and into her favorite (indoor) place on campus: the dance studio. Besides the small elective class that met there twice a week, the only regular use the room got was from the even smaller group of advanced classical ballet dancers, most notably Lonnie. Tess herself was a member of the group, but where most of the others had gravitated more towards hip hop as they got older, Tess found herself falling in love with the contemporary style.
She ignored the light-switch here as well, instead opting to open the windows that stretched along two sides of the long room. Once the gauzy curtains were tied out of the way, Tess slid the panes back to let in some fresh air. This mixed with the studio's particular 'perfume'—the scent of old sweat, spandex and nylon, canvas and leather, and rosin from the shallow box at one end of the barre. Tess breathed deeply, slipping off her sweats and exchanging them for the pointe shoes and white athletic tape in her bag. She'd misplaced her gel pads somewhere in the chaos of the dorm room, so taped toes would have to suffice as she ran through a few warm up exercises en pointe.
The silence was only punctuated by the odd birdsong and rustle of breeze outside the windows. After only forty-five minutes on her toes, Tess had welcomed back that familiar buzz of constant pain the pointe shoes always brought. It used to take longer; I've been slacking. As she went through a pirouette progression at the barre, she regretted not grabbing her speakers from the dorm; the gentle thrumming of a classical suite often helped temper the pain. It had been a while since she'd broken out her ballet shoes; the upcoming Festival had all the dancers scrambling to choreograph and practice their own routines for their preferred style competition, and Tess had been too busy rehearsing complicated floor work to worry about keeping up her pointe practice.
"Ow! Shit…" Tess sucked in a breath as she took a tumble, the nagging pain keeping her from concentrating fully. "Stupid fucking pirouettes," she muttered, shucking off the pointe shoes. It still gave her a bit of a thrill to curse in the studio, though she knew she'd only ever get away with it when she practiced alone; the royal dance teacher, Madame Althea, might have been young and friendly, but her inexplicable wrath at anyone who 'sullied her good name' by cursing in her presence was both swift and severe. Tess didn't quite know when she'd become such an accomplished potty mouth, but she assumed it occurred sometime between her short stint on the tourney team freshman year and moving in with Dewey.
"Fuck pointe. If I were still playing tourney, I'd never have to deal with these goddamn things again," she groused, rubbing at her sore feet. A moment later, the shoes went sailing over her shoulder as she tossed them towards her bag. Being part of the team had been fun, but when her grades started to suffer, she'd had to choose between dancing and tourney. Of course I just had to choose dancing…
~X~
"Jay, have you done your English homework yet?" Evie asked, her tone conveying only the slightest irritation. It had been about ten minutes since Jay had slumped onto the opposite bench of the picnic table she was currently using as a study spot. Her chemistry textbook and Mal's spell book lay open in front of her, and there was a persistent crease between her pretty brows as she tried to convert some of the more archaic units of measure in the grimoire. Jay mumbled a reply into his arms, which were currently swaddling his head as he leaned haphazardly onto the table. Evie's eyes darted up to catch his. Yep. Definitely a little irritated.
"We have that reflection assignment remember? Here use my book," she continued, turning to rummage in her backpack.
"Eh, I'll do it later…" Jay said, before flopping down to lay his back on the bench. He had been sporadically searching the AP campus all day, looking for Tess. There was a little twinge in his chest every time he thought of her, and how she couldn't even face giving him his jacket back in person; she was so scared of him that she'd made Carlos the middle man. Jay had been more confused than ever when Carlos had handed him the jacket. He'd never experienced a girl running away from him, after all; he wasn't quite sure what to do.
After walking through the main building for the third time, peeking in every open classroom, Jay had felt like a good plaintive pout might lift his spirits. When he'd run across Evie in the south courtyard, he took his chance to have a sulk in the company of a friend. Evie, on the other hand, was not in the most sympathetic mood.
She gave him a mild glare through narrowed eyes. "Why don't you just do it now? I'm not going to write it for you, you know. Leave it till tomorrow and you'll get zero credit."
"Jeez, obsessed much?" Jay's voice floated up from where he lay on the bench. He could practically feel Evie roll her eyes.
"Ugh, fine, whatever. Do what you want," she said, exasperated.
Jay heaved a sigh and sat up again, just in time to receive the most brilliantly bland, long-suffering look from Evie. He returned with his patented million watt shit-eating grin, before reaching for the English text she'd pushed to his side of the table.
"Relax, Evie. I got this," he assured her, flipping through the book with no real intent. The corner of Evie's mouth twitched, breaking into a small smile.
"I know, I know," she scoffed, returning to her calculations. Jay thumbed through a short story about dancing princesses, then a novel excerpt where the story was based in the jungle.
"I'm sensing a theme here…" he muttered, pout nearly returning.
"A theme in what?" Evie glanced over. "Princesses? Ooh, maybe I'll write my essay on that."
Distracted, Jay handed her back the book. "Hey, do you know Tess Porter?" He thrummed his fingers on the table, handsome face contorting into a nearly troubled expression.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, the cute brown haired girl" Evie answered, not looking up from her sudden interest in the English text. "She takes dance class with Lonnie." Jay stilled. Dance class…
"Where do they have it?" He asked, but Evie was immersed in the story she was reading. "Evie. Yo, E!"
Evie glanced up, a delicate frown on her lips. "What?"
It was Jay's turn to roll his eyes. "The dance class, E. Where do they have it?" Evie straightened her posture, looking thoughtful.
"In the fitness center," she said. "Wait, why do you want to know?"
"No reason!" Jay was up and off towards the fitness center before Evie could even register his answer.
Man, I'm so awesome at finding people. I could do this for a living. Jay congratulated himself as he crossed the main quad, jogging down the stone steps towards the athletic fields and gymnasium. The few students he passed on the way there waved and smiled at him; it took Jay till the third one to remember he should smile and wave back. He didn't even pick pocket any of them. Making some damn good progress, if I do say so myself. Though that one guy's watch was pretty cool looking…
He arrived at the fitness center before he could decide on whether to go back for the watch. No one stopped him as he walked through the main doors and into the huge gym, not even when he snooped around the machines for forgotten valuables. As he checked the treadmills for loot, Jay noticed the quiet. It didn't seem like anyone was around at all. Now, if I were a dance classroom, where would I be… There was only a few doors off the main room: one he knew was a janitor's closet (thanks to that flirty sophomore from two weeks ago) and two of the others were marked as locker rooms. That only left the door at the far end of the back wall.
Beyond the door, he found Tess. She was doing those twirly things in front of a long mirror, eyes closed in concentration. Jay held back for a moment, uncertain of whether he should interrupt her. He tilted his head as he watched her, trying to mentally catalogue her movements so he could repeat them himself. Every twist and turn she made was sleek and precise; he got the feeling she'd been doing this a long time. After a moment, he began to notice other things about her. The way some wispy bits of hair escaped from her bun and stuck to her neck, the compact curves and leanly muscled lines that made up her body…
"Ow, shit!" Tess tripped up suddenly, falling on her butt. Jay made a move to help her up, but then she started cursing, and he had to hold back a laugh. "Stupid fucking pirouettes," she muttered, untie-ing the weirdly shaped pink shoes on her feet. "Fuck pointe. If I were still playing tourney, I'd never have to deal with these goddamn things again." She tossed the shoes unceremoniously over her shoulder.
"You'd just have to deal with getting tackled," Jay said. Tess gave a strangled cry and whipped around to look at him.
Shit, I did it again.
"Fuck man, seriously?!" Tess fell onto the floor, hand over her heart, almost gasping for air. Jay wanted to laugh at the dramatics, but something told him that was a bad idea.
"Uh, heh, sorry," he said instead, working a little to turn his smirk into a guilty smile. She tossed him a withering glare.
"How long were you even standing there?" She was wearing these tiny spandex shorts and a long sleeve sweater, the sleeves of which she had begun to push up in what could be called a threatening display. Jay tried to focus more on the sweater than the shorts.
"Not long. I saw you do some of those twirly things last night, you know," he said. At the mention of last night, Tess sobered visibly, going from rage to tensed in point three seconds flat. Jay proceeded carefully. "I'd wanted to ask you to teach me, but you left before I could…" He kept his voice mild, and began walking the perimeter of the room, pretending to take interest in the box of chalky dust while glancing at Tess out of the corner of his eye.
"Oh. Right. Yeah. Sorry? About that?" Tess's cheeks grew a little pink. Same color as her shoes were, Jay thought, still determined to avoid thinking about how her legs looked in those shorts. "I uh, I gave your jacket to Carlos this morning. Did he, um, did you get it?"
"The jacket, right. Yeah I did," he said, perusing the windows. The agitation rolling off her was palpable. Jay felt disappointed; he'd hoped last night had been a one-off, that she really wasn't scared of him.
"Ah. Good," she said. He noticed her inching towards her bag.
"Yeah." Jay swung around to fully face her. "Tess, are you scared of me?"
Tess went a little pale. Jay thought that was as good as a confession, but then her eyes got all big, and her head started to shake. "What?! Oh, oh no Jay, I'm not—why would you think I was scared of you? I'm not, I promise, you're not even the least bit frightening!"
Jay cocked his head as she fretted. There was truth in her voice; she seemed genuinely concerned at the thought… but there was something in her eyes. Something strained. "Then why'd you run?" he asked, stepping closer and watching to see if she stepped away from him. Tess wilted, but moved closer too. Jay let himself hope.
Tess opened her mouth, seemed to think better of it, then cringed a little as she said, "Look, it wasn't your fault at all, okay? I just have some social anxiety issues… got a little overwhelmed, made a dick move. It was all me. Please don't think that you did anything to make me uncomfortable, because you didn't, I swear." It all came out in a bit of a jumble, but from what Jay could sense, it was the truth.
"Oh. Okay," he smiled. "I'm sorry about your anxiety. Carlos gets that way too. I know it can be a bitch sometimes."
The nervous energy slowly drained from Tess's posture. Her face took on an open quality that he'd yet to see on her. "Very true," she paused, sighing. "If you want to let him know, the counselor's here are really good. It's free for all students, the therapy sessions I mean."
Jay rubbed the back of his neck, surprised. "I didn't know that. Thanks." If Jay were being honest, all four of them probably needed therapy, not just Carlos. He moved to join her at her duffel bag in the corner. "So, about those twirly things…"
