Along with the usual exit signs, the scarlet upholstery of one-thousand theatre seats glimmers dully in the auditorium.

I managed to find the industrial panel of light switches and turn on a row of stage lights. Looking at it now, most of the theatre is entirely dark, and the stage is thrown into more shadows than normal, but I hardly came to dance. I've settled myself on the lip of the stage, my hands braced against its steady, unfailing wood. My legs dangle over the edge, kicking against the dropoff every so often.

It's just past eight. Technically, Cal and I should be getting into our lesson. This is the time when we've finished with our questions and gotten to work on lifts, but it's not like any of that's happening tonight.

I came here to think. Last night, when I was in the throes of guilt and tears and could barely blink, I thought of the Academy's stage, of all things. I thought of its shadows and lights, and I saw a different, less deafening sort of darkness.

I came here to remind myself of it, to remember that not all darkness is bad. It's working. I've been here for over an hour, and I've gotten used to the dark. My eyes bounce from one spot in the theatre to another, finding nothing especially threatening about the black swaths. I think of dancing on this stage during my audition and dancing with Cal to the music from his Bluetooth speaker. Though we're never really on count with anything. I kind of hate that.

And yet I have Cal's Epic Playlist humming in my ears through the AirPods that Shade bought me. When I finally looked at it, I rolled my eyes, realizing that it's nearly five-hundred songs long and lasts for thirty hours. He has everything from seventies rock to nineties R&B to today's dance-pop loaded up on it, mixed with some perfect songs for contemporary dancing. It's entirely unorganized, with Cal adding new songs here and there in no particular order. I kind of hate that, too.

But I need something to hear while I gaze around the auditorium, and the playlist that Cal sent me on Wednesday was the only thing that I could think of. And this, I realize, I don't entirely hate.

He has a good taste in music. The songs go along well with staring into the theatre's expanse, but they never carry the same beat or tone. They'll all different, and they keep me guessing what comes next. It's something easy to get lost in.

And because of that, I barely notice the click of stage wing door behind me.

A couple of footsteps, and then a pause, right, where I imagine, the wing curtains give way to open space. Right where I imagine he can see me.

For his sake, so that he doesn't have to worry about surprising me or making me jump, I turn my head over my shoulder.

Cal no longer wears a tuxedo, having changed back into his usual workout pants and an ordinary long-sleeved tee. His black hair still sports slick gel, and he stands near the wing, towering over me. I see something withdrawn in his face. He looks tired, but it isn't the sort of exhaustion that sleep can cure.

I came here for quiet, for peace, not expecting for him to show up at all.

There's a caution to his step as he pads across the stage. He remembers the events of yesterday—and early today—just as well as I. He knows that last night broke me, even if I seem all fine and numb now. He knows that the elevator was only a limbo between one floor of reality and another, and that things only got worse from there.

Farley and Kilorn escaped. I helped them escape.

If only Cal knew. I don't let myself think about what he would do.

"You're here," he says, and it's nothing more than an acknowledgment of time and place.

I blink at him as he settles down next to me, leaving a few feet of air between us. I mute Cal's Epic Playlist. "So are you."

Cal's throat bobs, and his shoulders shift beneath his shirt. His body seems to be taut with tension, which is so unlike Cal. Contemporary teacher and all.

"I just needed somewhere to think," he says after too many empty moments.

If I were to guess, I would guess that at this moment, his father is commandeering every aspect of Cal's life. He probably has to go home to his family's penthouse rather than his apartment, and there's more than likely a security guard or two that's waiting to escort him there. After his face was blasted all over the news for the better part of the day, it'll take some time before Cal can simply go wherever he pleases again.

It's nice and quiet in the theatre, and this place . . . it holds no indication of what happened last night. The stage, the seats, the lights look the same as they always do. It's a very nice place to think if you have nowhere else to go.

"I can leave, if you want," I tell him quietly. It's his father's building, after all.

In my periphery, Cal shakes his head. "It's fine."

But he doesn't move either, apparently intent on staying.

I swallow, bowing my head. My fingers lace together in my lap, my nails still painted this beautiful shade of sapphire. They match the dress that I tossed in a heap at the bottom of my closet.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know." I don't look at Cal as I say it, content to stare at the dark.

It's my honest response. I feel fine now, but I already told Shade that I want to stay with him for one more night because I don't know if I can handle being alone.

Another blink, and I see those two minutes of fiery Hell and shattered glass all over again.

He continues. "That . . . was a lot. It's okay not to be."

"I know." But I'm not about to have this conversation with Cal. I force myself to look at him, his amber eyes quietly staring back at me. "Are you?"

"I will be," Cal returns. His knuckles turn white against the stage edge, and his eyes go from mine to the theatre seats. He'll ask it, because he cares about me just as much as he would care about anyone else who attended the gala last night, because he saw how I was crying, but he doesn't want to answer the question any more than I do.

And for that reason, Cal and I silently agree to settle into an easy, peaceful silence.

"What are you listening to?" Cal asks a number of quiet minutes later.

I laugh a little, partly because of his graceless attempt to talk about something normal and partly because of the answer to his question. "I thought I'd give Cal's Epic Playlist a try," I mutter, twisting my lips as I say it.

"And?" Cal quirks a brow upward.

"It doesn't suck."

Cal shakes his head, chuckling as he sees right through my act. "You like it. But it would just kill you to give me a compliment, wouldn't it?"

I scoff right back at him. We're falling into our usual rhythm of banter that I always seem to start, that always includes scoffing and eye-rolling on my part and impossibly-quick comebacks on his. Last night was an exception to the usual immunity he has against my words, and even then, he had no trouble pasting on that smirk of his and dipping me low to the ground as we danced. I feel my own knuckles turning white as I grip the stage edge, deciding what retort I should fire back with. When I come up with nothing, a hefty, tired sigh leaves my throat.

My silence isn't because of the stories that Julian told me. It's not because I feel bad about getting into Cal's head and convincing him that he is anything less than perfect. It isn't even because he lent me his mother's handkerchief and requested that a troop of police officers escort me out of Calore Industries.

My silence is because I'm tired.

I can't care about how he lied to me and manipulated me here, how he offered to give me these stupid contemporary lessons so that I could have everything that I have ever wanted.

"Yes, Cal," I agree, "it would kill me to give you a compliment." My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, like it might slip down my throat at a moment's notice. "And it would absolutely ruin me to say thanks, wouldn't it?"

His eyes slide back to mine. After the things that Shade said to him in the elevator, he has a good idea of what's coming. He said he wanted to hear me say it out loud, and now he's getting what he wants.

"My brother's right," I reason, forcing myself to keep on looking at Cal. "I'm too prideful, too stubborn, and too many other things."

"Yes. You are," Cal says.

I can't bring myself to put my walls back up.

And I should've said this a long time ago.

"Nothing Shade said wasn't true. You caught me stealing from you—which few are able to do, by the way, and yes, I'm still very salty about it—and proceeded to manipulate me until I ended up on this stage." I slap a hand on the wood for emphasis. "I'm also not happy about the fact that I spilled my soul to you, you . . . this sketchy weirdo in a black hoodie that I didn't think that I would ever see again—and yes, Cal, a lie by omission is still a lie."

Cal watches me, amused as my words flow out of me as easily as Coriane's story did from Julian.

"But all of that, along with your love of the genre of dance that I hate the most, pales in comparison to what I really, really can't stand about you."

I can't stand how tall he is.

I can't stand how he smiles every time I say something rude to him.

I can't stand how I need his lessons.

"Using the power you hold here, you got me that audition, and then you forced me to dance it." I scoff and then roll my eyes. "In front of a thousand freaking people with an hour to prepare."

Looking at him begins to hurt. "You gave me the chance to be something. You convinced me that I could be something." I think of my parents, who told me to throw out my pointe shoes and get a real job, ironically, just after I got a real job dancing ballet. In the moments before I snuck out my window, I thought of Cal and how he thought that I was a good dancer. "If none of this had happened, eventually, my technique would've begun to fade away," I continue, swallowing against the idea of my fouettés turning sloppy. "And I hate that I owe you that. So I'm only going to say this once, and no recording devices are allowed."

Cal tilts his head, eyes widening as though he intends to take a photograph of this moment so that he might remember it forever.

"Thank you, Cal." It's rather anticlimactic when I say it.

Cal doesn't seem to mind. "So you lash out at me because you think that you owe me, yet you can't repay me. And you hate that."

"I think that 'lash out' is a rather dramatic description for what I do, but yes."

Cal just chuckles again. "That's kind of backward." He raises a brow. "We could've had this conversation weeks ago and been done with it. You could've just . . . bought me a pack of gum or something. Then we'd be even. But instead, you've . . ." Cal trails off, not exactly sure how to describe the way that I act towards him.

"Lashed out. But I'm too prideful and too stubborn for anything less," I finish for him, and I can't help but snort. "A pack of gum? Is that all it'll take to set us even?"

But in a strange way, a stupid pack of gum is as good as anything else. Cal has the world at his fingertips, and there's nothing in this life that I could offer him that would compensate for what he did. Someday, he'll own Calore Industries along with everything else that his father has ever owned, and if he's a good businessman, he'll own more. I saw that much last night, among opulent chandeliers, beautiful marble, and the most cultured citizens of Manhattan.

"Yeah," Cal says, confidence in his voice. "I like bubblegum, by the way."

Sighing, I balance one of my elbows on my knee and rest my chin on my fist. I hardly have a response to that, and finished with my little speech, I decide that we can descend back into silence together. Bubblegum. Oh God.

"Because that's all it was," Cal adds softly. "Getting you three minutes on this stage didn't take any more effort than walking across the street and buying a pack of gum from a store checkout. You did the rest."

Unfortunately, he's not wrong. In fact, it might take a little more effort to buy a pack of gum in Times Square, between wading through the crowds and waiting in a checkout line.

I hate that he has that kind of power. But I've always known that what Cal did for me took no effort at all. "I know," I tell him. "But it doesn't feel like it."

"I know," he returns, pausing. "I guess if you're really looking to make it up to me, you could try being nice to me."

I consider the strange, foreign idea. Me being nice to Cal.

"You're thinking about it," Cal comments, tapping his fingers upon the stage in anticipation.

"It won't work"

"Why not?"

"Because on Wednesday, when we have our first real lesson, you're going to realize how deep my hatred of contemporary dancing runs. I'll be civil, because you've told me several times now that if I'm not, you'll kick me in the shins. But I won't be nice. I don't have it in me to be nice to you when it comes to that."

Cal braces his hands behind him so that he can lean back a little. He looks up towards the stage rafters. "I'm going to make you love it. And then I'm going to be a ten."

I open my mouth to tell him that there's no chance in hell that I'll ever love contemporary.

Then I make the mistake of hesitating, as I remember the dance he choreographed for the gala. The dancers moved like snakes, partners falling apart and then coming together in the candlelight. They were fire and they were nothing, and I didn't understand it at all.

How little I understood it, how little I still understand it, scares me. My eyes widen with stupid, stupid recognition of that emotion.

And dammit, he sees that small flicker of hesitation in me. Then he smiles. "You might be too stubborn, but I'm too relentless. I guess we'll have to wait and see how our lessons play out, but in the end, I'll win. And when I ask you again, you'll tell me that I'm a ten."

I give Cal a weak sneer. "I didn't realize that there was a win or lose to this."

"You didn't deny that I could be a ten someday."

I'm ready to hiss at him. Or kick him in the shins. Or just get up off this stage and walk out altogether. But tonight, I'm too tired for it. "You need to get over that, Cal. There's nothing wrong with being a nine."

Cal just laughs. "Yes, there is."

Both of us either too tired or too relentless to leave, Cal and I still sit on the stage a half an hour later.

A stolen AirPod in one ear—he leaned over and plucked it right out of mine—Cal lies on his stomach with a fist propping up his chin. Contentedly, he stares out to the theatre seats, his eyes glazed over as he listens to his playlist.

When I hit the pause button on my phone, Cal's attention shifts towards me.

"You said you wanted to know about where I danced," I say. "I'm willing to tell you the story."

Cal eyes me. I know that it's something he wants to hear all about, and intrigue rushes into his eyes. "In exchange for?"

I smile, glad to see that he doesn't miss a beat. "I want you to tell me something about yourself that you don't really want me to know."

The request is strangely-worded, strange in general, and not exactly something that Cal has reason to be interested in. Maybe what I ask is cruel. Considering all that I've seen, all that I've learned in the last twenty-four hours, it seems wrong to ask Cal what I do. But Julian told me that he wouldn't want anything to change between us. And part of me just wants to see a weakness in him, so that after telling him everything that I just did, I don't feel so incredibly weak.

Cal narrows his eyes. "Something that I don't really want you to know," he murmurs back, pondering.

I blink, awaiting my answer.

He knows what I'm looking for. I want something that makes him less aggravatingly perfect, and if what he gives me isn't good enough, I won't him the story.

"You'll laugh," he says suddenly, eyes lighting up like an ember meeting a match before glazing over again. As though he found the perfect answer to my request, only to realize that it's too embarrassing, too personal to share with me.

"I won't," I say too fast, half-surprising myself.

He stares at me, trying to discern if I'm lying or not.

I start to say it again. "I wo—"

"I can't swim," Cal says plainly, eyes straying from mine.

Something in the theatre seems to still. I wasn't expecting that. Not from Cal, six-foot-two, all muscle and physical perfection. But I also don't know what I was expecting.

And I suppose it makes him less aggravatingly perfect.

There's no good reason why he wouldn't be able to . . . swim. I pause at the very idea of Cal not being able to do something so basic when he is what he is. He's a ballet dancer and a choreographer. Those movements are hardly easier than the simple, repetitive motions of swimming.

Which means, I realize with a jolt, is that he must be debilitatingly afraid of the water.

A guilt starts to build in me.

"There was this . . . thing that happened when I was little. Maven was four, I was six," Cal starts. "We were at our house in the Hamptons, and my dad had just started teaching me how to swim earlier that week. Elara was sitting with Maven by the poolside."

I shift, angling my body towards him. I guess that Cal's telling a story before I tell mine.

"When we were done practicing, Maven and I ended up playing in the grass right by the pool. Our dad headed up for the house where his friends were, and Elara was watching us." Cal laughs a little at some far-gone memory. "Maven was jealous that our dad was just teaching me at the time. Because when Elara wasn't looking, he just kind of made this . . . mad-dash right over to the deep end, yelling back at me to watch how he was going swim and to go get Dad.

"He jumped right into the deep end, and I went in right after him. But my feet hit the water, and I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I hadn't gone in that deep before. I wasn't used to jumping in, and my dad wasn't right there to grab onto me if I needed him. I ended up doing somersaults around myself, swallowing a bunch of water while I tried to figure out how to move my arms or kick my legs the right direction."

Cal maintains a measured tone, careful to keep this a story and not a reality.

"Elara was in the water in a matter of seconds. She pulled Maven out and got him onto the grass so that she could slap him across the back and get the water out of his lungs. For a moment, she completely forgot about me while she was trying to get Maven breathing again. In the end, my dad ended up pulling me out, because he had heard Maven from across the courtyard."

A house with a courtyard. Cal spares me from hearing the word estate.

"It wasn't Elara's fault, but Dad was really, really mad. I was about to pass out when he got me out of the water."

I don't need the implications. When he was six, Cal struggled against his own body for God knows how long in the water because he was trying to be brave and save Maven from himself. Helping her own son, Elara forgot about him. Cal almost drowned, and thirteen years later, he still hates the water because of a memory that's probably one of his first.

Tiberias Calore's wife drowned in a bathtub, and then his son almost drowned in a pool.

And now I just feel like a bitch for asking Cal what I did.

I nod, though I have nothing to agree with. "That's okay that you can't swim," I find myself saying. I don't know how we descended down this path, why he chose to tell me that he can't swim when he could've chosen a dozen other things that he probably doesn't want me to know. I tear through my memories, looking for something, anything similar to the story that Cal's just told, but when I again find nothing, I take a deep swallow.

"Well don't act like that," Cal says, almost cringing as he tries to play down a story that he now probably regrets telling me. "I would hate for you to be anything less than a bitch to me."

That. That makes me laugh.

For some reason, I laugh a little.

Cal's mouth melts into its usual amused smirk.

"Now. Your turn."

I'm still laughing when I try to speak again.

"And I would never want to be anything less than a bitch to you," I agree, realizing that I now owe Cal a hell of a story. I shift again, signifying the beginning of a new story as I cross my ankles together.

"So I started ballet when I was three, and I loved it then as much as I do now."

Cal opens his mouth yet again.

We're nearly at the end of the story. In it, I'm now seventeen, spending entire weekends at the studio practicing ballet in private lessons, teaching younger girls technique after school—only because my teachers paid me for it, and I needed the money—and working on my dances so late into the night that one of my brothers would have to pick me up and bring me home.

Cal's taken every opportunity to ask questions. He takes it upon himself to analyze and dissect things.

"So your parents destroyed your sense of confidence," he states matter-of-factly. "That's why you didn't just walk down to the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, or the Academy, and demand an audition. Because that's what you could've done, Mare."

I pause, eyebrows furrowing.

I haven't exactly painted the rosiest picture of my parents throughout the hour-and-a-half I've been talking, Cal listening.

Against better judgment, I told Cal that Dad hasn't seen me dance since I was twelve and has no idea how good I am. I told him about how Mom has been subtly trying to get me to quit for years, swallowing as she pulled out her checkbook each month.

There was never talk in the Barrow household of anything coming from my education in ballet. I remember the talk I had with them this July, that final manifestation of a dozen overheard conversations about me and dance, a hundred secret glances over the dinner table. It was always all about Gee, when what she did cost nothing and what I did cost everything.

"I guess so," I admit.

It was what made leaving East Harlem so easy. Even if sometimes all I want is to go back.

"But that doesn't matter anymore," I say quietly. "Because I know what I am now."

Cal nods. "Good."

"Mare Barrow. Did we just have an actual, normal-people conversation?" Cal's grinning, pleased to see that we managed to fall into a two-hour discussion on ordinary, random topics.

I check the time on my phone again.

The clock reads just past midnight, and the only reason I checked it in the first place was because Shade called me, wondering if I was still spending the night at his apartment.

When I finished the story, Cal and I began talking about random things, like the Mets and his still-confusingly elaborate plan to become the choreographer for the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Then our conversation evolved to include stranger subjects, like my love of my brother's five-cheese grilled cheese and Cal's love of The Office, that one TV show that I've seen bits and pieces of in Kilorn's apartment.

I make a frustrated noise, not at all pleased to see where this went. "This doesn't mean we're friends," I argue before pushing through the Academy's revolving door that spits me out onto Forty-Second.

"Of course not. I'm your contemporary teacher. We can't be friends," he agrees when he emerges from the door himself. Still, Cal smiles. "It was nice, however, to see that you have an actual personality that extends beyond ballet dancing and snarky comments."

Meanwhile, I can't decide if it was nice to see that Cal has an actual personality that extends beyond his status as heir to Calore Industries, Principal dancer, and contemporary enthusiast. It's like he's a normal person with normal interests, and that idea shocks me more than it should.

For a moment in the theatre, I forgot about everything as we talked, all of my pretenses stripped away. Only when Shade called did I realize what I had fallen into. I'm not happy about it.

Forty-Second glistens with all of the lights in the world. Cal and I stop under the marquee, finding the foot traffic of Manhattan light enough to warrant a pause. Silent words linger between us, Mare and Cal, who both desperately needed whatever it was that came of tonight's conversations. We teared each apart for reasons that I no longer understand, and then we proceeded to talk about normal, ordinary people things. I may have hated parts, but I also needed the distraction like I've never needed a distraction before.

And finally, I force myself to do what I've been dreading all night.

There's no real way to ease myself into what I have to do.

I draw Coriane Jacos's handkerchief from my pants pocket to extend it towards Cal. In the light of street lamps and neon billboards, the butter-yellow color is more than distorted, but Cal recognizes it all the same. He raises his brows, but doesn't look surprised as I hold it out before him. He was hoping that I would return it. But like Julian said, he'll never admit that, so I school my features to stay bored and indifferent. "I didn't know if you wanted this back," I tell him, making it sound like I don't know the significance of the piece of fabric. "But thanks. I needed it last night."

His fingers brush against mine as he wordlessly takes the handkerchief and deposits it in his own pocket. He looks at me, but I'm not quite sure if he's really seeing me. "Oh," he says, trying to keep that casualness about him. "No problem."

And before he or I might say something that he or I regret, I give him a little wave, and turning my back, I head for the street to hail a taxi.