All Lined Up

There is only her body, her lips, the smell of her hair, and the tug of her fingers through my damp hair. Her lips move harder over mine, and I hate the pads that keep her from getting closer to me.

I don’t hear the cleared throat behind me. Dallas waves Stella off when she thumps her shoulder, and I know that everything else has disappeared for her, too.

It takes a hand on my shoulder before I even pull back enough to breathe. Dallas’s eyes are soft and so green, and they widen when they catch sight of the hand on my shoulder.

I look, and then wish I hadn’t.

Coach Cole is at my back, his lips in a firm line, and my arms are still around his daughter’s waist.

He clears his throat again and says to Dallas instead of me, “I need my quarterback, Dallas. I’ll send him back to you when we’re done.”

She unwinds her arms from me to hug him instead, and when I take my first steps toward the locker room, Coach’s eyes are closed, and he’s hugging her back.

Epilogue

Six months later

Dallas

I love the silence before the music starts.

There’s potential in the quiet, an opening for something new and beautiful to enter the world. I close my eyes, relaxing my muscles, and think back to that moment at the beginning of the year when I’d been so sure that this place would only hold misery for me.

I remember the way it had felt when I saw Carson at Dad’s practice. Even then, I think a part of me knew how perfect we would be together. That’s why it hurt so badly.

It’s easy to tap back into that feeling now as the music starts, and I begin the dance I choreographed that night as I sat in my car trying not to cry.

It’s still angry and raw, but there’s softness in it now, too. The happiness I’ve found has crept in, and rather than just being about pain and loss, it’s a story about what can grow out of that.

I’ll always be the girl who grew up without a mom. I’ll never forget what it was like to grow up sharing my dad with football. I’ll remember forever how I almost let my bitterness and my fear keep me from moving on.

Those things will always be in me, but they no longer feel like separate pieces or different versions of myself. Somewhere along the way those things were stitched together, and I no longer need to hold myself together by holding other people at bay.

It wasn’t the prettiest journey.

Sometimes I was stupid, and I let my anger get the better of me too often. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from creating this dance, it’s that sometimes mistakes bloom into the most colorful moments. They’re unexpected and different, and that’s where the character of the dance lives.

I relive the last year through my movements, and I know that every single moment was worth it.

It got me into the summer program in San Francisco, and on the choreography track, too.

And more important, it got me to a point where I’m at peace with the past and a little less scared of the future.

Dance fixed me. As it always does.

I’m the last performance of the end-of-the-year recital, and when the music ends, and I look out at the applauding crowd, I find Dad and Carson standing together, clapping.

Carson winks at me, and Dad’s clapping so hard, you’d think I’d just brought home the Heisman. The season didn’t end up exactly how they both wanted. There were too many other tough teams in the conference, but a solid 6–6 record was still a vast improvement over the years before. But Carson got his scholarship, and Dad’s contract was renewed.

And as Dad told Carson at the end of the season, “We’re just getting started.”

I feel that way, too . . . like my life has just really begun.

I exit the stage, in a hurry to change out of my costume and go meet them. I don’t bother messing with the hair that’s twisted into a tight chignon at the back of my head. Nor do I bother removing the dark eye makeup; I’m too impatient.

I pull on a skirt, a tank top, and some flip-flops, and find Carson waiting for me in the hallway that connects the dressing rooms to the auditorium.

I throw myself into his arms, and he catches me, swinging me around once before letting my toes rest on the floor again.

“You are amazing,” he breathes into my ear. “I love you. So much.”

I’m still breathing heavy from the dance and my mad dash to get changed, but that doesn’t stop me from pulling him down for a kiss.

He cups my neck, kissing me slowly until my breathing settles and it’s my heart’s turn to race out of control.

“Your dad will want to see you,” Carson mumbles against my mouth.

“He can wait. I’m not quite done here.”

He laughs. “We’ve got plenty of time tonight.”

“Shut up and kiss me, quarterback.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It’s another five minutes before I’m willing to part with Carson and our isolated hallway to join the other dancers and the lingering crowd out in the auditorium.

The rumor about Carson’s ill treatment of me hadn’t lasted more than a week or two after we made our relationship public at homecoming. He was too sweet for anybody to believe it for long, and now we’ve traded out that nasty gossip for the unending attention of being the school’s golden couple.

Maybe it’s because most of the athletes don’t stick with one girl long enough for people to know they’re a couple. Or maybe it’s because the quarterback and the coach’s daughter just make a good story. Either way, I cherish every second of alone time we can get before we’re back under the watchful eye of the gossip mongers . . . and my father.