Variation

“There’s no one else. Never was. Not for either of us. They were all just placeholders.”

“I’m done trying to prove myself to you, pushing myself until I break, tearing my body to shreds, done trying to win your approval like it’s some kind of game where you keep moving the goalposts. I’m done. I have loved you, worshipped you, idolized you my entire life, but I no longer want your approval. Whatever I do from here on out is for me.”

“But the Rousseau sisters always had the look-but-don’t-touch vibe, and a touch-them-and-I’ll-ruin-you mother, and while I let that torch burn bright and hot before letting it go, Hudson here still carries his, and now that she’s been back in town a couple of weeks? Hudson is the Death Star, and that woman is Luke, about to blow his ass up.”

“I’m not breaking up with Allie. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever, if I get a say. Letting her go was the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life, and I’ll be damned if your inability to pull your head out of your ass is going to cost me the only chance I have with her.”

“You look like a fucking dream, Allie. Truly breathtaking.”

“Seriously, though. That’s what does it for you? Bated breath and glimmers? Let me guess—he doesn’t tell you he’s about to come, he declares that he’s arriving.”

“Mom says Uncle Gavin is prone to stupidity, but you’re supposed to be the one who does the right thing.”

“Denying you the little orgasm you almost took so I can ruin you with the one I’m going to give you.”

“So what? Until now, I’ve only dated women I knew wouldn’t ask for a ring. Things change, and I don’t give a shit who she’s dated before, because she’s with me now.”

“Messy is good, love. Messy is where the best parts of life happen. You don’t have to be in control at all times. It’s okay if you fall apart. I promise I will be right here to put you back together if you just let me.”

“You have to stop dating those dancers. If you can’t tell someone’s working their ass off for you, then they don’t deserve you.”

“My mom wanted to adopt me. Alina wanted to give me up. They both got what they wanted. Why doesn’t it matter what I want? Why do I only matter when I turn eighteen?”

“I’ve already told you that you’re remarkable. You’ve only been doing this for five months. Give yourself grace, but check your ego. I just told you why you aren’t ready for pointe, not that you suck. You don’t. Ballet is a lifetime of development, of never settling for the skills you have now, knowing that you might be phenomenal, but still striving for that unattainable feeling of perfection.”

“You broke my heart. Maybe we were just friends, but you broke my heart.”

“Agreement amended. My rule is you can touch me whenever you want, Alessandra. Public. Private. Doesn’t matter to me. Any part of me. With any part of you. Anytime you want. Now might be good, since we’re putting on a show and all.”

“I told him we’d be best off ignoring each other while I’m here. It’s been years. I’m over it.”

“I want an explanation as to why my best friend couldn’t be bothered to show up when I needed him most. You had days before you had to report to basic.”

“So much for not looking at her. And seriously, they’re not allowed to date, and I don’t want to watch you get all angsty over there.”

“Would have been a way better morning if I’d woken you up with an orgasm. I do enjoy breakfast in bed.”

“If that means I have to watch from a distance as she lives her life without me, then it fucking sucks, but so be it. I love her enough to let her go.”

“You, Allie. You scared the shit out of me. Do you have any idea what you mean to me? You’re my air. And I know you don’t even want to think about going there when it comes to us, that you need things all neat and tidy, but I’m already there. Messy. Tangled. So wrapped up in you that I couldn’t breathe in that ER because I needed to be here with you.”

“Truth always differs depending on who’s telling the story, and in complicated situations, there are countless variations. But when it comes to that summer, in every single variant, I’m the asshole who wasn’t strong enough to hold on to her.”

“What are you going to do, Hudson? Fuck me so well that I never want to leave your bed? That I’ll be willing to forget everything in our past because you’re that damn good at dishing out orgasms?”

“Hudson, do me a favor and at least say goodbye to her this time before you go, would you? It would be a shame for me to go to jail for acting on a decade’s worth of intrusive thoughts when it comes to your demise.”

“I’m the one who needs you. I need you, I always have.”

“Oh, and as for Hudson, he’s built like a Greek god and fucks like one, too, so I’m all taken care of.”

“I meant what I said. Every word of it. And if you want to use someone for an escape, then it’s me you’ll be using. Sure, I’d like you to fuck me because you need me, but I’ll take you however I can get you, Allie.”

“So while sure, it makes me jealous that there are a couple of guys here who have seen you naked, I actually feel sorry for them because they’ll never have you again. But I will. First means nothing. Last means everything.”

“Please. Once you master faking an orgasm, any role is easy. This is cake.”

“You’ll come at least twice before I fuck you, Allie. I’m far from silent, and I know how to use my mouth to ensure you aren’t either.”

“The only ballet dancers I know aren’t people I’d really want to spend time with.”

“Hudson might be the baddest motherfucker alive to the US Coast Guard, but you put Allie Rousseau in a room with him and he’ll trip over his own feet.”

“I cared about you. That was a mistake I never made again. Sex is fun—necessary, even—and keeping the same partner allows for a certain level of comfort I prefer. But I don’t get jealous because I don’t get attached.”

“To be flawlessly convincing, you should unblock my number so you can get ahold of me, assuming that’s why you never picked up any of the times I tried to call you.”

“We’re on the same team, Anne. I want what’s best for Juniper and Allie. The only place our interests diverge is Caroline, who I will choose over you every time, just like you’d choose your own sister. Same team. Stop trying to draw my blood. Leaving Allie the first time bled me dry already.”

“I want all of you. No masks. No walls. No more pretending what’s between us is fake when we both know it’s excruciating, and terrifying, and amazingly real. I want more than five minutes.”

“It took me until that second summer to realize what the feeling was, but I fell for her the first day I met her. She was clinging to the side of the world’s oldest rowboat, and she lifted her chin and demanded I get Eva to safety first, even though she was bleeding. She asked if I had siblings and said there was nothing more important to her than her sisters. I was a goner and didn’t even know it.”

“You know, Allie’s walls were about six feet high as a teenager, just short enough for me to peek over. I was never foolish enough to think she let me all the way in, not with the way you Rousseau girls keep secrets for each other. But now, those walls are thick as hell and easily twenty feet tall, if not more, which is fine—I know how to climb—but we both know those bricks aren’t all because of me.”