Sparks Fly

Chapter Fifteen

Natalie

The drive home from camp was quiet. Natalie slept off and on for almost the whole way, and Josh passed out in the other half of the backseat before they even left the parking lot. She still wasn't sure how to interact with her father. He seemed content to pretend that everything was fine, if a little stilted, but she wasn't able to paste on a smile and go along with it yet. At least sleeping gave her an excuse to avoid conversation. And, since she had sworn Josh to secrecy, her father couldn't know that she had spent the last week of camp holed up in her bunk, he had every reason to believe that she was exhausted.

"Nat, wake up." Her father said from the front seat. "We're home."

For half a second, she expected to see their old house. When she opened her eyes to see the Greene's garage door in front of the car, she felt her heart sink. Of course. This was supposed to be home now.

After she and Josh dumped their bags by the door at Emily's urging ("Oh, don't worry about that. I'll do laundry later."), Natalie's dad swung an arm around her shoulders. "How would you like the grand tour of your new home?"

She picked at her nail polish. "I've been here before. Pretty sure I already saw everything."

He frowned. "It's different now that we have everything moved in and set up. I'd like you to go through everywhere again."

Why bother asking? She barely kept herself from asking it out loud. "Okay, lead the way."

Josh fell into step next to her. "I'm not saying no to a grand tour."

The tour was uneventful, to say the least. The house looked almost exactly as she remembered it, aside from a few furnishings and photos swapped out for her and her dad's. Finally, they reached the former guest room.

She felt a particularly sharp stab of homesickness as she looked at her new bedroom. She had seen it before camp, and she could tell that her father and Emily tried to make it look like it was hers, but it still felt like a guest room. Her old bedroom hadn't been redecorated since she was ten, and her love for ballet radiated off of every inch of it. She had chosen soft gray paint for the walls, and dusty rose curtains and bedding. Childish? Maybe. But it was familiar and comforting. Over the years, she had kept her old pointe shoes and hung them on a wall. Every time she could hang up a "new" pair, she could see exactly how hard she had worked, and how much she had to be proud of. Every worn out pair of slippers was a badge of honour.

Her ballet shoes were nowhere to be found in her new room. Hopefully, they were still packed up somewhere and her father hadn't thrown them out. Likewise, her curtains and bedding were missing, curtains replaced with sheer white ones, and her adored comforter had been swapped out for a white duvet, plain except for a pale lilac border. At least the pastel quilt draped over the bottom half of the bed was familiar- her grandmother had sewn it for her before she was born, and she couldn't remember it ever being anywhere but in her room.

The rest of the furniture was hers, even if it didn't seem like it at first glance. The scuff marks on her dresser had been painted over, but the ballet slipper accents she had painted on two years ago were still there. She tried to force a smile before her dad or Emily saw her expression and thought that she didn't appreciate their efforts.

"What do you think?" Her dad was beaming with excitement.

"It's great!" She lied. "Really. You guys didn't have to do all this."

"We thought it might make the move a little easier on you." Emily said. "We know that it's tough to leave your school and friends."

"Thank you." She tried to think of a way to ask about her stuff without sounding like an ungrateful brat. "Dad, you didn't toss all of my ballet stuff, right? My shoe wall and my old costumes and everything?" When he didn't reply immediately, her heart skipped a beat. "Dad! I know you don't want me dancing anymore, and I'm trying to respect that, but all those years I've spent... you can't just throw that out!"

"Calm down. I didn't throw anything out." He said. "We have another surprise for you."

He led the way to the garage door and paused before opening it. "Drumroll, anyone?"

Josh obediently drummed his hands against his thighs and stomped his feet.

Her father smiled at him before he swung open the door.

Natalie's breath caught in her throat. Where before there had been plain drywall, there were now full length mirrors lining one wall, with a barre installed over them, and the rest of the walls were painted a soft pink. The washing machine and dryer were still there, against the wall by the door, and Josh's weights were in the far corner, but otherwise there was a wide expanse of dance space. The concrete floor was gone, covered with a light wood. Her pointe shoes were all there, hanging up on the wall opposite the mirror, next to a wardrobe that she would bet held all of her dance costumes.

"Well?" Her dad prompted.

"You did all of this?" She couldn't hide her incredulous tone. There was no way that he started this before the talent show, and he definitely didn't immediately after it. "When?"

"Emily did all of the decorating."

"Don't let him fool you," Emily said. "I just hung up your shoes. The rest was all your father."

"Really?" She looked over at her dad. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Emily ushering Josh back into the house.

He shrugged. "I figured you would need somewhere to practice once you start dancing again."

"Thanks, Dad." Tears collected in her eyes. Hadn't she cried enough lately?

He pulled her into a hug. "I'm so sorry for... well, everything this summer. I should have trusted you more, and listened to you about the talent show. It's just- with everything that's happened this past year, I get scared that I'll lose you."

That did it. Her tears spilled down her face.

Luke

Luke was enjoying actual solitude for the first time in weeks when someone knocked on his door. He closed his book. "Yeah, come in."

Lucy slipped in and closed the door behind her. "Hey."

He sat up on his bed to face her. She seemed okay- she wasn't crying or raging, at least. "Hey."

She sat next to him. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm telling Mom and Dad. About Shawn and the party."

He nodded slowly and tried to guess how they would take it. "Do you want me there for moral support?"

"Of course I want you there, but this is something I need to do myself." She bumped her shoulder into his. "You've done more than enough for me already."

"Anytime. You know that."

She was silent for a minute. "I'm sorry. For not telling them when it first happened. Or when you got charged, or even when I found out you were going to military school. If I had, things probably would have gone a lot better for you."

He shrugged. "It's not about me. If you needed time to come to terms with it, that's what you needed."

"But it wasn't fair to you." She persisted.

"I guess it wasn't." He agreed. "This whole thing wasn't really fair to anyone, but that's not your fault."

"Thanks, Lukey." She attempted a cheery tone, but it fell flat.

"Seriously, Luce." He said. "Shawn's the asshole here, not you. You did- or didn't do- what you needed at the time. I would never hold that against you."

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Lucy nudged him again. "Wish me luck."

"Luck." He replied automatically. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."

"Thanks."

He tried to go back to his book, but he couldn't concentrate, so he grabbed his laptop and pulled up Netflix instead. He was halfway through a mindless movie when Lucy reentered his room, this time without knocking. She flopped down next to him and he angled the laptop so that she could watch with him. They stayed like that for the rest of the movie, and then another.