"You're the one who brought up ballet."
Flames of pain and regret and brokenness and anger burn in Florence's emerald eyes. Freddie stills, stunned, and Florence takes the moment to jerk her wrist away. She takes off across the roof, halfway to the stairs by the time Freddie scrambles to his feet.
"Florence, wait!" He calls as he chases after her, but she's too quick. How was he to know he was bringing up a subject so raw? Freddie stands and knocks on her apartment door for what feels like ages. A few neighbors come out and stare, but Florence refuses to answer the door. Eventually he gives up, purely for the sake of getting to work on time. When he arrives, Florence is already there, early as usual. She sits at her desk, a brick wall of emotions hidden behind the polite mask. He refuses to make eye contact with Freddie for the entire day, let alone meet him for their stolen kisses in the break room under the premise of getting coffee. Shortly before time to leave, Freddie returns from the break room to find a note on his desk. We need to talk. 7pm. My place. Florence's handwriting flows across the page. She didn't sign it because she knew she didn't need to. Even if he didn't recognize her handwriting, hers is the only one's in the office that's entirely legible. He looks over at her desk, but her head is down, bent over pages of game notes she analyzes so well. He sighs and returns to his work. Only two and a half hours.
The clock crawls by until it finally reaches seven o clock. Florence opens the door before Freddie is even finished knocking. She steps back to permit him entrance to her apartment, greeting him with formality rather than a usual kiss. "I'm sorry. I overreacted this morning. You stepped on a nerve you didn't know was there. I was unfair to you and I apologize." Her thin arms hug her narrow waist. She's obviously uncomfortable. She hates this talk but knows it's necessary. Through the hurt, Freddie sees that she still trust him, still loves him. Otherwise he wouldn't be standing in her apartment now.
"It's okay, Florence. I should have known to stop. I shouldn't have pushed you to talk." Florence shakes her head and motions for him to follow her into the living area.
"No. You were fine. I was...I don't know what I was. Dancing was, and to some extent still is, a huge part of my life. I began dance lessons when I was staying with my very first foster family. They thought it would help with social integration, seeing as how I was five and coming clear across the ocean. I didn't understand English, but I understood dance, and I understood music. I was good too. I was lean from captivity and worked as hard as I could to do as well as I could. A lot of the other girls hated me for it." She sits on the floor, tugging a scrapbook into her lap with pictures to match her stories. At seven years old, Florence appears to have had more poise than Freddie has today. "I got older, I moved families. It was the same story at each school. New girl comes in and shows up all the others. It's not like I tried to be better than them. I just tried to be better than myself." Freddie stays silent, listening to the story and he learns about the woman he loves. "Middle school. I didn't hit puberty until high school. The other girls hated me for that too. I stayed little girl thin longer than they did. Ah. Here we go. The second half of my sophomore year. I began to dance again as rehab, real simple stuff. I put on weight in the hospital. They said I was healthy. I hated it. I tried to lose weight, ended up gaining weight. In the mean time I'm also struggling with severe depression, not to be unexpected, considering what all happened, but that didn't make it any easier. Junior and senior year were hell. The teacher hated me. I hated me. It was a mess. A year after I graduated, I saw a dance performance, and something inside of me ached to be dancing again, and so I did. Never with a school like I did before, but on my own, I learned to love it again." Florence flips the last page in the scrapbook and turns to look at Freddie. He pushes her hair back from her beautiful face and catches her hand, squeezing it in a silent thank you. He hesitates, opening his mouth, then shutting it, wrestling with his next question.
"Will you ever tell me what did happen after that afternoon?"