Leaps & Lies

Chapter Eleven

W ith a sickening noise and a broken scream, disaster rains down on a Thursday afternoon.

It starts with an overhead lift that Julian has been drilling into them for what feels like years. Despite countless repetitions, Alex and Vivian still look “worse than dying fish wriggling for water,” according to Julian.

Rehearsal began hours ago. They paused for lunch almost an hour ago and despite the respite, Vivian doesn’t feel particularly rejuvenated. Alex’s strawberry-blond curls are in a matted, sweaty disarray, and Vivian doesn’t appear much better. She can hear Julian click his tongue or adjust his hat whenever she tightens her ponytail or fixes her leotard. Easy for him to complain when he’s lounging in the corner and snapping at them with long, impatient fingers. He’s easily the hottest drill sergeant Vivian has ever met.

Kelsey has been restricted to the corner of Studio C after Julian saw her almost trip Vivian while shadowing her too closely. He placated the younger girl with the promise that she would get to practice the lifts with Alex once he and Vivian had a few more tries. Vivian can practically hear her fuming with rage. At least she won’t trip on Kelsey now, even if she may fall victim to the other girl’s glares later.

“One last time. Sugar Plum, you need to keep your core tight when Timmer rolls you down. No more floppy fish!” Julian barks.

Vivian can’t repress the eye roll. It’s practically instinct. “We’re not even doing The Nutcracker . I’m not the Sugar Plum Fairy,” she grumbles under her breath.

“What was that, Sugar Plum? You want to go from the top again?” The devilish smirk on Julian’s face says that he knows exactly what she mumbled.

“No, Mr. Julian. From the glissade is fine with me,” she responds quickly. Vivian has absolutely no interest in going from the top.

“Alright. From the glissade and stay tight when you roll,” Julian reiterates. “Ready, Timmer?”

Alex’s flushed and fatigued head nods, and Vivian prepares for Julian’s snapping fingers to count them in.

5, 6, 7, 8.

Vivian glides across the hardwood, limbs heavy with fatigue. Her serene ballerina face is long gone, replaced with a sharp grimace of determination and pain. She’s never trained this way before. Partner work is new to her and partner lifts while tired down to the bone is an even scarier beast.

The instant her knees bend and her feet extend to push her body off the ground—the very instant she leaves the floor—she knows the lift is off. Her body is hardening concrete, fighting a losing battle against gravity. Alex’s hands are clammy when they catch her body, fingers digging into sensitive tissue when he times the catch too late.

When he presses her up, heaving her weight above his head with an effortful huff, she thinks they’ve pulled it off. It isn’t pretty, but it isn’t a catastrophe. They executed the lift, at least. Vivian tightens her core and extends her leg as Alex holds her above him. They’re both trembling with the effort and Vivian knows Julian can see it from his stool. After a beat that might have lasted a century, she initiates the dismount, tucking her chest toward Alex’s so she can roll down his body.

And then it happens.

Inexplicably, the before happens so slowly that she can feel every molecule, every atom, of her body that Alex’s sweaty grip is no longer holding. He isn’t holding her. Her body plummets freely toward the hardwood.

Then her perception catches up with reality to form now . Alex’s fingers catch and tighten on her bicep, slowing her perilous descent. But her body misses the memo and continues to fall while her arm stays right where it’s gripped by his slick fingers.

There’s an audible pop. Then nauseating pain and a pervasive sensation of wrongness.

Alex lowers her to the floor, still tightly clutching her throbbing arm. He follows her down to kneel next to her. Vivian thinks he’s saying something—hopefully, an apology for his terrible grip—but she’s preoccupied with the limp dangle of her right arm. Julian is yelling—maybe at Alex or even her—but the pain and shock are overriding everything else.

Fuck.

Then Julian is next to her, careful fingers cool on her wrist.

“You’re okay, sweetheart. Let me see,” he whispers from near her hair.

Vivian cradles her arm against her chest, instinctively protective of the injury. In the time that can only be titled after , Julian inspects her hand, wrist, forearm, and as much of her bicep and shoulder as she’ll allow.

“I don’t think you broke anything, but we’ll need an ER trip for X-rays and to get your shoulder reset,” he says while helping her from her heap on the floor.

Julian’s hands are noticeably less clammy than Alex’s, and she doesn’t mind when he settles one on her back to usher her through the studio toward the exit. Kelsey comes to stand near the doorway, a maniacal gleam in her eye. Vivian knows that Kelsey wasn’t involved in the fall at all—no, Alex gets all the credit for this one—but she can’t help wondering if Kelsey threw together a quick voodoo doll while she was sulking.

“Timmer, Moore, go home. I’ll be in touch.” Julian’s voice is rougher than she remembers ever hearing. And she’s heard him yell many times over the past three weeks.

“Wait, I need my stuff,” Vivian interrupts. “And honestly, I can take myself to the ER. It’s only a dislocated shoulder.”

Zaps of electric pain and a wrongness that manifest as a churning nausea plague her, even as she tries to downplay the injury. But stabs and nausea aside, her pain isn’t that bad. It can’t be that bad .

She’s never dislocated a joint before. Vivian has no idea whether that’s her only injury, but pain and shock are sending millions of pins and needles through her body. Then there are also the consequences of her injury to worry about. How many rehearsals will she have to miss? What if it’s not just a dislocation? What if there’s soft tissue damage? What if . . . ? Anxiety heightens the dancing electric current in her limp arm and veins. She doesn’t need a chaperone or a chauffeur to the hospital. She’d prefer not to be within three square miles of Julian when her tears start falling.

Julian simply hefts her bag onto his shoulder and continues urging her toward the parking lot.

“Nice try, Sugar Plum, but I’m required to ensure my dancers receive adequate and timely medical attention when they’re under my care.”

My dancers , under my care, and Sugar Plum bounce through Vivian’s addled brain until they’ve warped into a nonsensical chant that fills her head for the duration of the ride to Saltland County Regional Hospital.