Roses and Rot Read Online Free Page A

heel of my hand against my chest, soothing the ache of the memory.
    “I loved those stories. Did you ever think about writing them down? I mean, not to sell or anything. I know that’s not the kind of thing you write now, but, like, just to have?” She snipped the thread, and picked up the other shoe.
    “They were more just things for you, not for writing down,” I said. I had, though. My first semester away at Blackstone. When I still thought she wanted me to come home for Christmas. I had been planning on giving them to her then. Instead, nothing but silence from her, and the beginning of our years of separation.
    They were packed away, with everything else I had put in storage—I didn’t want them, but couldn’t bring myself to destroy my own work. “They weren’t ever meant to be for publication. And no, I didn’t apply here with Star Princess stories.”
    She laughed. “I didn’t think you had. Still, I sort of miss them.”
    “Fine. Next time you can’t sleep, you can knock on my door, and I’ll tell you a story.”
    She looked up, and smiled, and I almost, almost told her the truth about the stories. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say it. I could. But there are times that you don’t speak, because silence hurts less. There was no need to reopen old wounds when we both wanted them healed. Instead: “Do you want to have dinner tonight?”
    “I would, but I’m meeting Gavin.”
    Gavin Delacourt was a principal dancer with the National Ballet Theater. Onstage, he moved as if gravity were an option for him, as if the air itself were his partner. Even outside of the dance world, he was a star, regularly appearing in tabloid lists of eligible bachelors and beautiful people and gossiped about as the possible inspiration for one character or another in Hollywood dance fantasy films.
    She tucked the finished shoes in her bag. “We’re figuring out the plan for the year.”
    “Will you go down and take class with NBT?”
    “That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about. How to balance the time here with the need to be in training with a company. Plus, I want an audition with them by the time this year is over. I don’t want to push too hard, but I don’t want to just let it go, either.” She stuffed the finished shoes into the side of her messenger bag, then twisted her long hair into a tidy bun at the nape of her neck.
    “Marin? Did you mean it when you said you were terrified to be here?”
    She sat back down. It was how I had known the conversation was going to be serious when we were growing up, when my kinetic sister would voluntarily stop moving. “It’s a big risk. Time is never a dancer’s friend, and a year off is a lot. But I needed to get out of where I was, and to do it with enough drama to be talked about, so people don’t forget about me when I’m not onstage. The world’s full of next big things, so it’s not enough to just be good, I have to be good and be the dancer they’re looking for.
    “But working with Gavin is a great opportunity, and he chose me, specifically, to work with, which has to mean he thinks I’m worth the time.”
    “And that you have the talent,” I said.
    “I hope so. He’s such a technically gifted dancer—every movement, every angle is utterly precise. That’s what I’m missing in my work, and if I can get that”—her face set—“if I can get that, I won’t just be good, I’ll be great.
    “If I’m lucky, the benefits balance the risks. I’m not thinking about what happens if I’m not lucky. It’s too terrifying. Anyway, I need to go check into my studio.”
    I checked my phone. “I’m not sure if I’ll be here when you get back—I have my first appointment with Beth later. But, Marin, if you need anything—”
    She cut me off. “I know. That’s why we’re here, too, right?”

    Ariel and I were trying to wrestle her trunk up the stairs to her room. It was an actual steamer trunk, leather-strapped and brass-hinged, an