Their bruises faded over the next few months. The money they had saved up plus what they were making at their new jobs was enough for them to pay the month-to-month rent of a small studio apartment. It was only a little bigger than the motel room they had stayed in when they arrived at the city, but it was something.
They both worked at the Lakewood Avenue Diner, Jaryn as a waitress and Kerith as a busboy. Their hair had grown out, the color had faded. Jaryn could look at herself in a mirror without thinking of their father or Gregory. Kerith never found her curled up anymore. He hadn't had to pull her out of an emotional slump in a good few months. She was smiling more. He was smiling more. They their spent free time at the library where Jaryn began flipping through fashion magazines. She and Kerith would sit at one of the tables in the corner sometimes, ragging on some of the latest trends and falling in love with some of the others.
They would pass a dance studio on the way home from the library. Jaryn would always stop and peek inside. Kerith would have to wrap his fingers around her wrist and pull her away from it. He was always disappointed at having to do that. They didn't have the money for her to attend classes though.
"You still have the skill, Jare," he would say to her. "You just need to discover it again."
More months crawled by. The diner was always busy. They were always busy. Jaryn made good tips, which she shared with her brother. Kerith got the flu in the winter and Jaryn took care of him. They both had to take a week off of work. Jaryn twisted her ankle in the spring while bounding down the stairs of the Boggy Gardens subway station. She was on crutches for two weeks. No one ever came to their door asking about Keith and Jane.
It was a huge relief.
The first day of summer came along and Kerith was cleaning a table at the diner when he felt a lock of his hair being tugged. Spinning around, he came face-to-face with his twin sister, who had a smile on her face that was wider than any smile he ever remembered seeing on her.
"Whoa. Okay." Kerith wiped his hands on his apron and moved them to his hips. "Spill."
"I got a second job cleaning that dance studio up the street."
"Huh?"
"They needed someone to clean up the studio every night—"
"You're a janitor?"
Jaryn's lips thinned. "I am. But." She stressed this. "But. They said when I'm done cleaning I can use the space to practice before I close up."
A smile that rivaled his sister's plastered itself across his lips. He had been trying to help her find a way to get back into dancing. They couldn't afford classes, they couldn't afford renting anywhere for her to practice in and their apartment was much too small.
"Well, that seems like something to go out and celebrate," Kerith said, glancing at the overly gaudy chrome clock on the wall of the diner. He knew Jaryn wasn't on the schedule for that night and he was getting off work in twenty minutes. "Wait for me."
…
Summer passed. Every single time Jaryn used the studio, something else would come back to her. Some muscle she forgot she had would get stretched, her breath wouldn't leave her as quickly, she could feel her stamina coming back. Sometimes she would sit in the middle of the room, on the scuffed wooden floor, and think of the studio her and Kerith went to as children. She would think of their mother watching them.
Some nights Kerith would stop by and lean back against the mirror, watching her do what they used to do all the time as kids. Sometimes she would ask him to join her.
He never did.
Part of him was embarrassed. He was sure he had forgotten everything he ever learned. He kept telling her she still had the skill and just needed to discover it again, but he never followed his own advice. There was another part of him that thought that the first dance step he performed would bring his father out of nowhere to scream at him and take his anger out on him like he did almost a year earlier.
Had it been that long?
Their 18th birthday passed. They bought a pack of cigarettes because they were now allowed to by law and went down to the beach, where they sat in the sand and tossed them, one by one, into the ocean. Their father smoked and they hated the stench.
That year flew by, acquaintances came in and out of their lives, Jaryn was still working two jobs, Kerith was taking a free art class at night in the recreation center down the street. They turned nineteen.
Still, no one came searching for Keith and Jane.
Their apartment, which started out as a plain thing with drab off-white walls and gray carpet, had turned into a rainbow of color in the time since they had moved in. Jaryn and Kerith had been taping fashion spreads and ads to the walls, Kerith hung some of his drawings up, Jaryn hung paper lanterns from the ceiling.
They had a lopsided dining room table with one matching chair and a stool. Their coffee table was a piece of painted plywood tied to four branches they picked up from the park. They had no couch, only vinyl beanbags. They only had one bedroom, one queen-sized bed with mismatched sheets and blankets on it. They shared it. Jaryn kicked Kerith in her sleep at least once almost every night. It was what put him to sleep. It was how he knew she was there, how she was safe.
They turned twenty.
On their 20th birthday, they went to their favorite Chinese restaurant. They both wore black with green accents. Kerith in a pair of black pants, a black t-shirt and a green vest. Jaryn in a pair of black leggings and a long, black tank top with a green scarf around her waist. He was wearing the watch she gave him for their 17th birthday. She was wearing the dance shoes he had given her.
Her hair was long enough to be pulled back into a low ponytail that hung over her shoulder, which she was fiddling with as she looked over the menu.
"I don't even know why you're looking at that. You always get the buffet."
"True." Jaryn shut the menu and snapped her head towards the buffet, staring it down like a vulture watching its prey.
"It's calling you." Kerith shut his own menu and followed her gaze to it. "Jaryn. Jaaaaarynnnn." His view of the buffet was blocked suddenly by three bodies that moved closer to his table. He recognized them instantly.
"Hey Kerith!" The one in the front said, holding his hand out in front of him.
"Hey!" Kerith stood up and grabbed the guy's hand.
Jaryn's eyes had moved from the buffet, straight to the guy in the front, then back to the one hovering behind him and the female on his left.
"How are you guys?" Kerith asked, greeting them all with a grin.
"Doing good. Good. How about you?" The guy in the front said. "I take it this is the lovely sister we always hear about?"
Jaryn shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Something was off about these three but she wasn't sure what.
"It is." Kerith turned to look at her. "Jaryn, this is Steve, Elya and Tommy. I met them in that art class I took awhile back."
She forced a smile. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise!" The guy in the back said as Steve eyed Kerith.
"Listen, you guys should chill with us sometime. I think you'd fit right in."
Jaryn watched as her brother talked to the three for a few minutes. Maybe it was because she and Kerith didn't really associate with other people on a normal basis unless it was for work. Maybe it was because it was their birthday and these three were suddenly a part of it. Maybe it was because they were standing in between her and the buffet. But something was off. She forced another smile and a half-hearted wave as they walked off and then stared her brother down once he seated himself again.
"I don't like them."
"What?"
"There's something… I don't know…"
"You just never liked making friends. I know."
Jaryn dropped the subject, knowing she wasn't going to get anywhere with it now and stood from her seat, weaving through tables and dodging waiters to get to the buffet. She wasn't going to wait for her never-ending birthday meal any longer.
…
As they strolled down the street, leaning against each other shoulder-to-shoulder for support and complaining about how full they were, Kerith and Jaryn planned to plant themselves in their beanbags when they arrived back at their apartment. They planned to watch game shows on their old television and eat chocolate cupcakes once they had room in their stomachs.
That wasn't going to happen as soon as they thought it would though.
Between their favorite Chinese restaurant and the streets that led back to their apartment, there was a bridge that spanned a river. There was a large walking path down the center, between the streets. It was the same walking path they took on the way to the restaurant and it was blocked now by a huge crowd. Kerith and Jaryn could hear the crowd cheering and snaking in and out between the cheers, they could hear music.
"We could take the subway and get around this mess," Kerith suggested, tugging her elbow, which was locked with his.
Jaryn didn't respond. She was meandering towards the crowd, dragging Kerith along when he didn't manage to pull his arm from hers in time.
The crowd appeared to be forming a circle around something, or someone, Jaryn realized as they got closer. Peeking over the heads and hands of the crowd, she spotted a man who had to have been somewhere around their age. He had on a fedora and a matching suit, the brilliant white shade of the clothing almost glowing against his skin.
He was dancing.
Jaryn's eyes widened and she instantly began to bob her head up and down as she caught the beat of the music. Kerith tightened his arm in hers and watched the man in the center.
When he was done dancing (and done bowing to all the screams and claps the erupted when the song ended), a redheaded female passed him, smirked and rolled her eyes at him and then stopped in the center of the circle. She straightened a pair of red suspenders out, cracked her neck from side to side and another song started.
She danced too.
Kerith's gaze moved from the redhead to his sister, who was practically mesmerized. Jaryn looked like a kid again; excited and hopeful. He knew she was still dancing in the studio more than a few nights a week. He still watched her sometimes. She was elegant and graceful. She had a gift that Kerith knew she wanted to share somehow.
Turning back to the center of the circle, Kerith asked himself: Is this the way she should do it?
He then wondered exactly what "this" was. Were they all just here dancing for fun? Was it some sort of street competition? In the few years they had spent in the city, this was the first they had ever come across something of this sort.
The redhead finished and a blonde guy in giant goggles took her place. Kerith could hear his voice over the yells and claps. He let his eyes sweep around the circle as the blonde started dancing. Everyone was smiling and watching the blonde guy move with the beat. Everyone except one person. This person wasn't looking at the dancer in the center, he was looking towards Kerith. He was looking next to Kerith, he was looking at the girl beaming beside Kerith.
Leaning against her, he whispered into her ear, "Come on, Janey. We need to go."
Her smile vanished, but she followed him out of the crowd and towards the subway station.
Kerith had memorized the face that was staring at his sister. The man didn't look too dangerous. He was tall and lithe, with pair of white Wayfarers on top of a head of blue hair. His face looked solemn, peaceful in a way. But the way he had been staring made Kerith want to get Jaryn far away from him. She never had good luck with the males of their species.
They'd probably never seen the guy again, but Kerith had taken a mental picture of that face and filed it away, just in case.
