I missed dancing.

Moments like this reminded me of the reasons that I danced.

I needed to dance again.

Pushing that thought away, I sat back and blinked a few times. Nate was watching me, almost curiously. He was finishing up buttering the bread. “You do that so naturally as though you don’t even know you do it.”

I considered his statement. “I probably do. I’ve been dancing since I was three. It’s just what I do.”

“You danced through school, too? Is that why you weren’t ‘popular’ as you put it?”

He was teasing. I recognized the tone, but that just took me back to those years.

“There were times I had some people over to the house, but it was weird. They were all ‘approved’ by my dad to hang out for that day or that event, like a birthday. And after, I couldn’t keep them. I wasn’t allowed to have friends except for Ricci.” That wasn’t totally true. “I had another friend. We danced together until she was hospitalized in seventh grade. They moved away after that.”

“What was she hospitalized for?”

There was a big boulder sitting smack in the center of my chest. I spoke around it. “An eating disorder.”

He was quiet, but he had paused. All his focus was on me, and man, it was a lot of focus. Intense focus. Unwavering focus. A girl could fall in love simply from the focus he was giving me.

I needed to tell him.

“We both had it. We were eating disorder partners, which, if you know anything about the disorder, is not a good combination.” I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. I pulled my gaze to Nova, who had chunky legs, chunky arms, and a chunky face, and she was so perfect, I wanted to cry. “One of my therapists told me it made sense that I developed an eating disorder. Not because of my dancing, which you’d think, right? But because of my dad. She said it had to do with not feeling loved by him. That got transferred to looks, my dancing, and that’s what I could control. I couldn’t control him loving me, but I could control what I thought might make him love me. I kinda over-controlled it, if you know what I mean.” Gah. I made it sound so trivial, and it wasn’t. “Surrah and I danced together. We worked out together. We stressed together. And we were competitive. When Surrah left, I kinda stopped trying with friends. There was no point.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What?” I lifted my head, looking at him.

He was frowning, but not at me. “You had a friend. You both had eating disorders. She got better and moved away?”

I stared at him a moment. “She didn’t get better.”

His head jerked around, his eyes lifting to mine.

I recognized the stricken look in him. I used to feel that way, back then.

“She never got better. She was hospitalized, and for some reason, they thought her being around me wasn’t good for her. They moved away because of me.”

He was staring so hard at me now.

Shame crept up in my throat. It was threatening to coat over my neck and up my face. I felt it starting to squeeze around my lungs, putting them in a chokehold.

“What happened to her then?” he rasped out.

“She died.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry.”

I had to say the rest. He needed to know. “You asked me before what my father might use against me. That’s what he’ll use against me. Surrah’s parents sued us after she died. They blame me for her eating disorder.”

He took a beat. Just one.

“You know that’s bullshit.”

I frowned, and my voice came out raspy this time. “What?”

“No one can blame another person for their psych disorder. If blame was going to be assigned, it’d go to the parents, and there’s a whole environmental/biological argument happening there, too. Nature and nurture shit. There’s a ton of literature debate just on that subject, so Surrah’s parents suing yours was a payout. That’s it. They wanted money, and if they really blamed you, they just wanted a scapegoat.”

I was stunned.

No. I was speechless.

I was trying not to gape, but I was. “I said that to you and nothing. You took one second before responding with that.” I stood from where I’d been sitting. Nova was sitting on the floor in the far corner. She was sucking her thumb, staring at both of us.

She was going to start getting hungry soon. It was nearing her eating time.

I needed to check her diaper, too.

Going over, I scooped her up but swung back to Nate.

I didn’t know why this was affecting me how it was, but it was. Everything he did affected me.

“Look…” He was trying to be gentle.

Fuck that.

Anger exploded inside me, but I held it back. I was being burned on the inside.