Chapter Six
No matter how tired my body had been, I hadn't had a good night's sleep by any stretch of the imagination and I'd been paying for it all day. Liliana had had to poke me out of my sleep-deprived trances every five minutes and it was lucky that I'd been in two out of three lessons with her, otherwise I'd probably have been back on my way to Newcastle for sleeping in class.
At lunchtime, Amber sent me plenty of smug looks that I had to hold my tongue on responding to. I didn't bother explaining to Liliana what had happenedâthe embarrassment was too much to handle. Amber also hadn't told anyone what had happened; she'd probably have gotten into trouble, even if she was the golden girl.
My arms and stomach bore the dull pain of the bruises sustained last night and every now and then when I leant forward in my tired haze I'd bash them against the table. I was surprised I'd had enough perception to hold in my groans every time it happened.
Someone in my dorm had reported the broken beam today, now that my things had had time to dry, and the school would never know why exactly the beam had broken.
For once, I really wasn't in the mood to go to my ballet lesson with Mr. Langley. We didn't have a normal lesson during the daytime, so I had no idea whether my body could cope with this. I was tired and miserable and I really didn't want to end up antagonising Mr. Langley now it seemed like we'd reached some kind of truce.
I walked through the door with a scowl on my face that hopefully warned him that he should be wary.
"You okay?" He checked, pulling a face at my face. "You look rough."
I scowled harder. Commenting on the fact I was looking particularly grotesque today was never the best way to cheer me up. "I'm knackered."
"We don't have to have the lesson if you don't want." He shrugged with a small smile. Of course he wanted to get out of it at all costs.
"No, that's quite all right. I am here to learn, as always."
Mr. Langley nodded and we were down to business. I wondered if he had real conversation with anyone. "Let's start where we left off yesterday, then."
It was the combination he'd praised me on, but I knew I wasn't going to be hitting the same standard as yesterday. Still, I followed his instructions and tried not to let my addled brain get too distracted as he demonstrated the movements himself and expected me to copy.
At some point, we'd dance together.
It was the natural progression of the lessons, it had to be. He'd teach me the basic moves and then he'd teach me choreography. At some point, I was going to have to learn to dance in a partnership.
Thoughts like that were what kept me going even as my body begged me to stop. My back was in some serious pain after sleeping at an awful angle in my desk chair last night and Mr. Langley didn't hesitate to point out that I needed to stand straighter.
I bore the pain of keeping my posture and hoped my jaw wasn't grinding too much in pent up anger. Amber was going to pay for this. There had to be some way to make her pay. It was some fuel to make my way through this agonisingly long hour and a half session, anyway.
"Good," Mr. Langley praised again after I repeated the combination a few more times. "Not quite as good as yesterday, but I'll let you off since you're so knackered." He mocked my accent and I found myself holding back a smirk. It was as close to teasing as I'd ever seen him come before. Maybe I was cute when I was sleep deprived. That would be a fortunate turn of events. "Let's try something different."
I watched his new combination. This one involved a jump, of course, and would take even more of a toll on me. I was fitâI worked out daily and my diet was fineâbut I'd been pushing myself to the absolute limit for a solid week and a half now. Practising in class, practising with Mr. Langley, and then practising by myself afterwards. Last night had possibly sent me over the edge.
On a more positive note, Mr. Langley's body was glorious when he jumped. In that tight fitting dancing gear I could see every muscle in his body work to propel him from the ground and I could only hope to look even a smidgen as graceful.
He gestured for me to have a go and I was forced to snap out of my indecent thoughts.
I did the combination without hesitation, but the twist involved caught my back at just the wrong angle. My face screwed up unpleasantly, but I repeated it several times to the best of my current ability.
I was turned so Mr. Langley couldn't see my face and I was glad. I just wanted his critique and I wanted to finish this lesson. I would still be learning and I tried to believe in the no pain, no gain saying.
"Your back is wrong," he chastised when I came to a standstill. He moved forwards without hesitation to fix my posture and pressed a forceful hand to my stomach.
It was only a whimper that fell from my lips, but it was enough to let him know that I was hurt.
He retracted his hand immediately with wide eyebrows and went to grab my arm before stopping himself. "What happened?" I wasn't sure why the concern in shining in his gaze as he eyed my appearance was such a shock. It was welcome, regardless. It was nice to think that people cared, even if it was just their duty of care as a teacher.
"I just walked into something," I crossed my arms defensively, only to flinch when I caught my stomach again. "Hard, apparently."
Mr. Langley narrowed his eyes. "Extremely hard," he was unconvinced. "What really happened?"
"Nothing, I said. I'm sure you could have assumed that I'm horribly clumsy already." I was actually not that clumsy. I'd have been pretty decent at waitressingâmight still be pretty decent at waitressing depending on how life at this school turned out.
Ethan crossed his own arms and his disarming gaze was doing a lot to break down my walls. I did kind of want to tell him, just to see if he'd get angry on my behalf. The embarrassment might be worth it. "Look, Carly, just tell me what happened. If someone hurt you then I need to know."
"Someone didn't hurt me on purpose," I waved a dismissive hand and twinged at the pain in my back. It was coming at me from all angles. "The girls in my dorm room were just playing a prank and there was a little bit of a roof collapse. It was an accident."
"What kind of prank?"
"They put a bucket of icy water on the beam above my bed and when they tried to make it fall on me the beam fell off as well," I shrugged. "They assured me they do it to all the newcomers."
"I'm pretty sure they only do it to people they don't like," Mr. Langley told me sceptically.
I rolled my eyes at him. "You're such a great help. Well, I already know Amber hates me anyway, so it's not like it's a big deal."
"You should report it," he told me, leaning back against the barre looking down at me from his tall stature. "She shouldn't get away with it. Why does she hate you anyway?"
"How would I know? Probably the same reason you hate me."
Ethan grimaced. "I don't hate you. I am sorry, for being rude on the first day. I was a bit unreasonable."
"Damn right you were," I muttered, revelling in the way he couldn't meet my gaze.
"I'm sorry! I hoped you weren't one to hold a grudge."
I chuckled. "It's cool, I'm just about over it. Just stay away from the mean comments and the dirty looks and I'll be fine."
Mr. Langley raised an eyebrow. "Dirty looks?"
My face shone. "As in you're poor and disgusting, not whatever gross thing you were thinking."
I hoped he was grinning so hard because he'd made me smile, or maybe even because he'd made me blush. "So where did you sleep? I can't imagine an icy bed can have been comfortable."
"On the floor."
"Ouch," he winced. "You should have just gone and reported it at the time and found somewhere proper to sleep."
"It's really not worth it," I dismissed. "I don't want to give her some excuse to do something worse than a prank-gone-wrong. Well, what I actually want to do is go and give her a kick in the face, but I doubt that would go down very well with Mrs. Mellier." I rolled my eyes. Stupid strict school. "So I'm just going to plot my revenge until I think of something that won't get me expelled."
"Please don't get expelled." There was absolute exasperation covering his face, but his eyes shone. He couldn't hide his amusement from me.
"Well, you sure changed your tune."
"It's like you said. You're here, don't waste it. Especially not over Amber Mullender." He pulled a face and I grinned.
"Hey, I should come in with injuries more often if it's enough to get you to have an actual conversation with me."
"I'm your teacher, you don't need to converse with me."
"It makes it more fun, though. Besides, doesn't teaching with all the old women get you down?" That might have been pushing the line just a little bit. He was still a teacher himself. Still, being around fifty-year-olds all day and all night must have been depressing. "I mean, I'm guessing you live here like everyone else, right? Or, hm." Did people do that? "Or do most teachers commute?"
"I live here." His posture was becoming more and more relaxed by the second and I lamented on the lack of chairs in the studio. "Most of the other teachers live here and, yes, the company isn't exactly to my taste."
"See, this is definitely more exciting. Slagging off the teachers and bitching about students, far better than your posture sucks Carly."
Mr. Langley pushed away from the barre with a smile. "I'm really supposed to be a professional, you know. Just because I'm young doesn't mean you can get away with saying things like that."
"I think it kind of does. At least, I'm not going to believe it doesn't until you give me some kind of serious chastisement rather than that amused little smirk." This was the kind of thing that came naturally to me. Teasing guys made my heart sore, especially when they were like Mr. Langley. He wasn't awkward, but he wasn't giving me snark back either. It was just fun.
I missed my friends at home.
This was how my friendship group worked. We sat around and gossiped and teased and laughed for hours on end. I didn't have that here and I missed it so much. I was going to have to convince them to set up a Skype call at some point just so I could hear their voices.
"Just don't push your luck," was what Mr. Langley settled on, coming to stand opposite me again. He was slightly closer than we'd ever been before, I was quite sure of it. I got a whiff of no-doubt-expensive cologne and committed the smell to memory. "Anyway, I'm not going to make you practice whilst you're injured. Your back is probably hurting after sleeping on the floor."
"You have no idea," I stretched and grimaced. "These things don't take long to heal, right? I've always been a bit of a wimp."
"You're back might be okay by tomorrow, I wouldn't count on it with the bruises."
I nodded. "Guess one out of two isn't so bad. I can at least avoid making the bruises hurt."
"You're okay going back to sleep in that room tonight?" He checked, that concerned frown knitting his eyebrows together once more.
The only way I wasn't sleeping in there was if he offered to share his own room. "I'll be fine. I think the other girls really felt sorry for me anyway, so they probably wouldn't agree to do it again."
He hesitated for a second before agreeing. "Okay. Oh, I meant to ask how you're liking the academic side of stuff. A bit less cliquey than the ballet section? I've never really had much to do with it."
"It's okay," I was neither here nor there about it. "I've always enjoyed learning things. I have a couple of friends in class, so that's cool."
"Good. Glad to hear it."
And I was glad that he was glad to hear it. "So what do you do in your spare time? There must be so much time to kill in the evenings and weekends for you."
He gave me an almost exasperated look and I shrugged. I was genuinely curious to know as much as I could about him, even if it was disguised as being a chatterbox. Ethan was hot and from what I could tell, he was relatively good company. Now I was deathly curious to know if we had anything in common.
He indulged my question, much to my delight. "Not a lot of anything, to be honest. I watch some TV, read some books. I go home some weekends and see my family."
"So you're a loner with no friends, too?"
"You just told me you had friends and I don't doubt you have friends back in Newcastle."
"Well, true, but you get my point."
"I'm not interested in discussing whether or not I have friends with you," he deadpanned. "I'm perfectly happy with things the way they are. Minus the invasive questions from my student part." I wondered if I'd made it too obvious that I liked him. He didn't seem uncomfortable around me or anything. That had to mean he didn't know.
"I'll really try and bear that in mind," I fake-promised. "But okay, I'll stop being nosy. I'll let you know if Amber does anything else that makes me almost forfeit my scholarship again."
I liked to think he watched me leave with an affectionate smile on his face.
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It's a long chapter, and it's an Ethan chapter! Hope this was enjoyable, thank you for all the support so far <3