The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

Only a few minutes later, a blood-curdling scream tore through the quiet of the empty studio and she jerked her head off my shoulder.  “What—” she started to ask, but the office door slammed open, banging against the wall, and Vanessa stormed out.  We didn’t need to ask what had happened.  Another scream came from the hallway as she ran out of the stadium and Kacie and I gaped after her.

“Gaby?” a voice called from inside the room, and I shakily got to my feet.

“Want me to wait for you?” Kacie asked quietly.

“No, thanks.  It’s really sweet of you, though.  Go home and enjoy some ice cream.”  She waved and tried out a trembling smile and I went into the office.

“We need to talk about your dancing,” Rylah announced immediately, at the same time that Coach Sam told me, “Your tumbling sucks.”

I sat perched on the hard chair, the edge of the plastic biting into my thigh, and nodded.  I looked at the picture Sam had on his desk of himself with a lovely woman and a little girl, all of them smiling so happily.  He couldn’t be a bad guy, if he loved his family so much.  He wasn’t going to end this for me here, now, right?  “I’m sorry.  I’ll do better,” I promised, but they just glanced at each other.

“You have a great look,” Rylah said, sounding doubtful.  “But…”

“You also have a great attitude and we appreciate it,” Sam continued.  “But I’m not sure that you can improve enough to keep up with the returning dancers.  And some of those new girls, ooh-wee!  They’re something else.”

I thought of Addison and her undulating hips and Bexley’s ability to immediately retain the choreography, not to mention how the veterans seemed to dance as a perfect, gorgeous block.  “I can definitely improve,” I told them fervently.  “I know I can.  I haven’t been dancing for a while, that’s the problem.  But I’m warmed back up to it now.”

“And the tumbling?” Rylah asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to take lessons,” I said, deciding it as I spoke.  I could find the money somewhere.

They seemed unconvinced, but Sam closed the file on his desk.  “Well, ok, then, we’ll see you at the next practice.”

I remained glued to my seat.  “I’m not cut?”

“Not tonight,” Rylah said pointedly, and I stood.

“Thank you.  You won’t regret it, I swear,” I promised them, and did my best not to collapse in relief on my way out the door.

The studio was dark and so was the hallway outside it.  I was trying to move as quickly as I could, thinking every moment that I would hear them call me back in to say that they had changed their minds, and I was out.  I turned left, which I knew was correct, but when I got to the end of that passage, I wasn’t sure which way to go.  I had been coming to this stadium for my whole life, but it was only my first week in the actual practice studio.  I turned left again, thinking that I’d run into someone soon to get directions, but maybe since it was the off-season, everything seemed quiet.  I definitely wasn’t going back to Rylah and Sam to ask them for help.  They thought I was bad enough already.

I started talking out loud as I walked, mostly to reassure myself.  “You made it, Gaby, you’re ok.  You made it.  They didn’t cut you.  You’ll get out of here and come back another day, and you’ll dance better, and—”  I rounded a corner and recognized where I was: the hall of fame with the team’s trophy and award cases.  I thought from here I could navigate my way to the parking lot outside of the auditorium, since I had done it before on the stadium tour with the security guard.

I stared around at the various doorways.  “Just pick one,” I told myself, and took off down another hallway.  But when I finally came to a door with sunlight leaking around its edges, I found that it didn’t lead me to the lot where the guard at the gate had told the trainees to park.  This was where the players and coaches left their cars, obviously.  Because there was Ben Matthews standing next to his truck, talking to the head coach and the starting quarterback, Davis Blake.  I turned quickly before they could see me in a forbidden area and took off again.

“Gaby?”

“Hi,” I called back to Ben over my shoulder, and I kept going.  My car was parked directly on the other side of the giant building, and I had a long way to walk to get there.

Ben walked faster, covering the pavement quickly with his long legs and catching up before I had gotten too far.  “Gaby.  What are you doing out here?”

“I’m looking for my car but I got turned around in the stadium. I think I went left instead of right.”

Ben looked at me.  “Are you crying?”

“A little,” I admitted.  “It’s stress and relief.  And exhaustion.  You know how all that can ball up inside you?  It comes out with me as tears.”  Telling him about it, they came harder and I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“What happened to your leg?” he asked me, staring down at it, and when I looked too, I saw that the body makeup had mostly rubbed off the bruise on my hip and thigh.  The blue, purple, yellow and red seemed to glow in the spring sunshine.  Yuck.

“That’s old.  It’s ok.”

But Ben took my gym bag off my shoulder.  “Come sit down inside and we’ll get an ice pack.”  He waited and I nodded a little, and followed him back into the building.  It would be shorter to walk through, rather than around, to get to my car.  And we were actually only about an inch away from the coaches’ offices where I’d first seen him on the stadium tour.  He led me into his.

“Wait here,” he told me, and I