Somewhere Else

Chapter 2

2

Elle

The next morning, I was back in the studio for my regularly scheduled dance classes. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get myself to focus on the moves I was supposed to be doing. Part of me wanted to skip my classes; Jude actually had to force me out of bed. While I was meant to be warming up, I let that morning's conversation with him play in my head.

"You love dancing. Come on, it'll make you feel better," he said.

"I'd rather spend the morning with you." My voice came out muffled as I had shoved my head under a pillow. "Don't make me go."

That was when the pillow was yanked from my hands, exposing me to Jude's lovely smile.

"Don't smile at me like that."

"Why not, love? Making you miss me already?"

"How many cups of coffee have you had? We spent almost an hour outside in the middle of the night, and here you are bright and cheery. Weren't you brooding, like, four hours ago?" His mood change was enough to make my head spin.

"I was, but then I had you to remind me of how lucky I am to have a girl like you. So now, I'm focusing on that. As for you, you're going to get out of this bed, put on your dance clothes, and let me drive you to the studio. It's just three hours that we'll be apart. Trust me, I intend to spend every other second of this weekend with you."

I tried to bring my focus back to the studio I was sitting in, but I still couldn't get Jude off my mind. Normally, he knew me incredibly well. Sometimes I felt like he knew me better than I knew myself. But this time, he was wrong. Yes, dancing was usually a fantastic distractor for me, but I just couldn't focus on anything I was doing.

We had a visiting choreographer for the month of January, and he'd been teaching us all kinds of contemporary routines. And while I was usually able to rely on muscle memory enough that I could do the dances in my sleep, that morning I could barely remember a single combination.

Our choreographer started the music, but try as I might, I couldn't keep the count straight in my head. Not even halfway through the routine, I leapt through the air, expecting Jasper to be there to catch me, but I was two counts ahead of everyone else. Instead of landing in his grasp, I hit the floor with a painful thud.

My eyes screwed closed, but I heard the music stop and felt all eyes on me. Jasper was next to me almost immediately.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Elle."

I opened my eyes and reached around to my shoulder. It was both throbbing and tingling at the same time; there wasn't a doubt in my mind the bruise was already forming.

"Not your fault, Jasper." He held out a hand to help me up. "I was ahead." I gently massaged my shoulder and rotated it to keep the muscle from seizing up.

"Let's take five, shall we?" The choreographer looked at me, and I nodded my head with an embarrassed smile as a sign of gratitude.

I walked over to the corner of the room with Jasper and sat on the floor. Another dancer handed him a bag of ice, and he lightly placed it on my shoulder.

"You're never off count. What's going on with you?" There was genuine concern in his eyes. Jasper and I had been dancing together for over half a year, and there was no fooling him that I was distracted.

I hadn't really spoken about Jude's impending departure to anyone; Lily was the only person who knew he was leaving. In my head, I knew it was only two months and that it wouldn't be too bad, but I really only knew a life in London with Jude, and part of me feared that the magic the city held for me was going to be gone when he wasn't there. Yet I forced myself to be happy around Jude. I didn't want him to feel guilty for having to do his job.