Running Out of Time

Chapter Nine

We'd finished choreographing our duet. After showing it to Lucille, she'd squealed with delight and gushed about how beautiful we were together, and I merely shuffled my feet, uncomfortable, while Lia had looked purposefully away.

The final performance was in a mere couple of weeks. We worked on it, correcting small errors and even rechoreographing a whole section to fit the story better.

I was supposed to be a girl in mourning. Lia, who was supposed to be my dead friend, was trying to tell me to move on, even while I moped and suffered and staggered under the weight of grief. It was supposed to be a haunting piece, something moving and beautiful, but every time I watched our videos, I had eyes only for Lia, and I never saw myself. She was the star of the show—not me, and I was content with that.

Rehearsals became sticky and uncomfortable, and we always tiptoed around each other. Lia's dancing began to be peppered with more mistakes, and she seemed constantly distracted. Once, she forgot the rest of the dance halfway and simply sank down to the floor.

I don't know if anyone else noticed her change in demeanor, but I certainly did. Finally, after another week of stifling rehearsals, I stopped in the middle of the dance after she completely forgot a lift and I shut off the music, leaving us in dreadful silence.

Lia hung her head and looked away from me, and there was a jolt in my chest. Even if I didn't get the Lia that was presented to me underneath the moonlight, I couldn't bear to see her so defeated, so tired. I longed to see some semblance of spark and fire, but there was nothing.

"Lia, we can't go on like this." I said quietly. She wrapped her arms around herself as though to protect herself from what I was going to say next, and I felt a shard of hurt dig into my skin.

"What happened, happened, okay? We need to move on, in one way or another." I told her. "It's up to you. Do you want to ignore what happened and just go back to being friends? Or do you want to take what we have, flip a finger to the haters, and run off into the sunset? Please, I can't go on like this." I was frustrated, but in any other circumstance, a laugh would've accompanied those words. Lia knew that too, and her mouth thinned.

"I'm not gay, Willow." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"That kiss was very clearly not straight!" I exhaled, exasperated.

She pressed her lips into a thin line. "I'm not confident, like you said I was." She said abruptly. I paused.

I only put on a mask, she was saying. I only put on a show for you, and you took it up and ran, she was saying.

It was all a lie, she was saying.

I swallowed hard. "So it really was a mistake, then?"

She'd said that already, in some kind of capacity, but I wanted to hear the words aloud, to make sure I hadn't misunderstood something.

"A mistake." She said, her voice so quiet I could barely hear it. Silence spread throughout the room, pressing on my ears. I flinched. And I didn't press it anymore.

We certainly didn't go back to being friends. Instead, we began coldly and strictly professional partners. Lia's mask went back up, and I reluctantly put one on, too, if only to prove to her that she didn't hurt me, but her bitter smile with every aloof and cool word I spoke told me she knew me too well, that she'd seen through everything. I hated that she knew me so well. I hated that she could see through my fronts. I hated her. She'd taken our little game and squandered it, shoved the pieces off the board and upended the table and ruined the game for everyone else, and I hated her for the fact that I had let her do so so easily.