Second Chance

Part 4

Dimash.
She looked up at him all perplexed as she leaned on his support. When she felt his arm on her waist, once again she was infused with the fragrance exuded from him. The clean and fresh scent that reminded her of someone who had just got out of the shower. The same scent she had used to. Was she dreaming?
"Where is your car?" the question took her back to reality. It was cold.
"In the parking lot, of course.” She responded. “You can just let me go. I'll walk there myself."
"No. I'll drive you home. Give me the key."
She stopped and stared at him.
"No. You are not going to drive me home." she tried to escape from his arm, removed it from wrapping her body. But once he let her free, her feet just trembled and she struggled to get a grip. He quickly caught her again and let her lean on him.
"Just listen, ok. You can be stubborn next time."
“Let me sit down first.”
He lowered his body and let her sit on the floor. With her free hand she dug into her bag to find the key and gave it to him after taking out literally everything from the bag. Dimash helped her put back all the stuffs to her bag. He unintentionally cracked up watching her.
"You don't change at all, Laura."
She observed him for a moment, made sure that she didn’t hear it wrong. Dimash had just mentioned her name. She snuffled over his words. He realized that he had slipped his tongue but it was too late. Laura knew that he remembered her.
“I am still the same Laura from years ago. It is someone else who changed into a completely different person.” She muttered. She couldn't even recognize him. He was warm, kind, and lovely. But all she saw recently was so different. He didn't smile, only said harsh words to her, and treated her like she was just nobody. The months they spent together in China had gone for good. As if it wasn't existed. It hurt how two years had changed people a lot like that. Where did all the flame between them gone?
“Yeah, I remember you.” He confessed as he realized that he had no other choice. “So?”
It was so cold, the way he said it. She restrained herself for saying things to respond him. It would only hurt herself.
They walked down the stairs carefully. Dimash patiently waited for her to take every step until they reached the floor, which took like... forever. She felt the pain in each step, not because of her injury but for being so close to Dimash without the mutual feeling they ever had. It hurt her she almost crying. She let out a little tears when she was waiting at the lobby while Dimash getting her car out of the parking lot in the basement.
He helped her getting in the car and even buckled her seatbelt.
“My hands are okay, Mr. Kudaibergen. It is my feet that hurt.” She wanted to add and my heart but that phrase sunk in her throat.
"Don't get hurt without my permission." he said after making sure that he had buckled her seat belt properly. The tender gaze fell on her eyes as she stole a glance at him. His lips were only inches away from hers. She could even point every mole he had on his face and neck correctly. His sheer visible facial hair, though she couldn’t see properly it due to the bad lighting but she could almost feel it. That’s how close they were.
In the past she would just touch him and tease him by saying he was on the way to being a real Kazakh man with that slowly growing beard.

“You look like my grandpa.” She laughed. “Even my dad doesn’t grow his beard.”
“Do I look ugly with beard?”
“No. You look good regardless. It’s just not everyone loves it.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Let’s see… it’s not your face that attracts me, so, I don’t really mind.”
That past conversation turned the corner of her lips up for a moment before she realized what kind of awkward situation she was in. She quickly blinked and turned her head away to avoid eye contact with him. It's been so long since the last time she received the same warm almost innocent looking stare. He wasn’t the same Dimash she knew in China. That’s the truth.
Maybe because he was a really famous singer, he needed to mingle around just with people on his level. She was just a member of corps de ballet or once in a while ranked up to the second soloist. She rarely danced as the first soloist, and just one time being the principal ballerina.
"Who do you think you are?"  She retorted. “How could you say that after ghosting me for years?
"Your team will be featured in my concert. You can't ruin it."
"Oh, sh*t." she cursed herself for thinking something other than his sole concern about the concert. He was right. He had every right to make sure she was okay before the concert was held. Why was she angry when he just stated the fact? Did she want to hear something else from him? Dream on, Laura.
She then just ignored him. The conversation would lead them nowhere. She texted her parents and asked them to wait for her in front of the house since she couldn’t walk well by herself.
“Laura, dear. What happened?”
“No worries, mama. Just sprained ankle. It will get better tomorrow.” She said as Dimash helped her getting out of the car. He smiled awkwardly as he greeted her parents. He said Laura needed good rest for 2-3 days. They shouldn’t let her come out of her room until she got better.
“I know my own body. You don’t need to tell me what to do.”
***
Dimash went back to studio in hope to distract his mind from the suffocating moment he just experienced. Yes, his meeting with Laura suffocated him it made him going crazy. His chest felt as if almost exploded from the amount of unspoken words he held inside. He wanted to tell Laura that he loved her, that he wanted to see her smiling in front of him, that he missed her. He wanted to tell her that but he couldn’t. She must really hate him for what he did to her. He played random tunes on his piano, created a whole new strange melody.
He was almost lost it the moment he was there with her on her car and saw a faint smile on her face. He even almost undid her tight bun hair and kissed her subconsciously had she not turned her face away right before he made further move.
"What happened? Where did you just go?"
"I went to the ballet company.”
“Then?”
“Then what?”
“You look upset.”
“Well.” He paused. “I took Laura home." He stopped pressing his slender fingers on the piano.
"It explains the look on your face."
"I'm okay."
"You're not." he replied. "Look at your desperate expression on your face."
Dimash covered his face with both of his palms. When his friend asked whether he met her parents or not he just nodded. His fingers then ran on his already messy hair.
"That's why I warned you not to get involve with her anymore if you couldn't handle the aftermath. You're doing more than enough when you tried to find her parents and paid for her medical and education fees. But you went to the extent as in providing her with house and even all the clothes. I said it's enough when you clear the path for her career by giving the recommendation to a ballet company. You even asked the director to pay careful attention to her. Why did you insist on featuring her ballet group in your concert? You're the one asking for trouble."
He remembered that evening when he watched her performance in Romeo and Juliette. After the show, he followed her along from the hall to the metro station. He even waited for the train to depart before he left. The other day he asked someone to follow her around and reported to him. It broke his heart seeing her doing everything by herself with the history of her injured feet. That’s what made him asked her mom to persuade Laura to go home.
"This way keeps her close so that I can protect her." He said. “I have ruined her life, her dream, her love.”
"She doesn't need your protection. She did well in Moscow by herself. You underestimate her capability."
"No. She didn't. She may act all fierce but she is a softie inside. She got hurt easily and couldn't even stand winter. Isn’t it weird? She is a Kazakh but couldn’t stand winter."
“You are the weird one, Dimash. You were not even the one who driving the car that night. Why did you take this too far? Are you sure you were doing this out of guilt?”
Dimash didn't respond him.
"How is she?"
He sighed. "Still beautiful as she has ever been. Oh, God. I miss her."  The agony caused by how closed he was to Laura but couldn't touch her kept him awake for night. He should have listened to his friend's advice. He shouldn't get involve with her by any means anymore. He didn't know that all kinds of flame he thought had died could be rekindled in seconds once they met again.
***
“How did Dimash end up driving you home last night?”
It was an unexpected question she got the next morning. She didn’t know that her mom knew Dimash. “Do you know him?”
“Oh, uhm… well… he is famous. Everybody knows him.” She stuttered. Her dad then diverted their conversation into something else. He commented on how delicious the fruit jam was.
After that one morning, there was no one discussed about Dimash again at home.
One night her team had a dinner and they talked about Dimash. Everyone said that he was really an angel for letting their group to perform in his concert. Laura remarked that it was because they were doing well.
"There are many ballet academies with far better performances than ours."
"You shouldn't underestimate ours easily. We're working hard, too. As for Dimash, what's so special about him? He's so cold and always has unpleasant look on his face."
"Really? When?"
Everyone took turn to confront her. They said Dimash was nice, he treated them with respect, showed them support whenever they met him. So, Dimash treated everyone nicely except her. This sparked her anger. She didn't even know what was wrong with her that she deserved his practically silent treatment.
“I can’t believe it.” She gritted her teeth.
Her chief warned her to behave herself in front of Dimash' team. He was excellent in treating them, and he especially told the chief to take a good care of her. Not to overwork her, not even pair her with male dancers unless there was no other dancer available.
"Why did he do that?"
“I don’t know. He never tells me the reason.”
Silent treatment wasn’t enough. He even hindered her career. What did he gain with it? She didn’t bother him although she could just publish their old pictures online and stirred rumor if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She never thought to use their past connection to gain personal benefits.
She waited for him after the rehearsal and demanded an explanation.
"You can be a bad guy and stop there by ghosting me. I don’t mind. You must not be evil by interfering to my career, too. This is too much. I couldn’t even get the role in The Nutcracker because of you.”
He stared at her coldly with the same eyes that once became her favorite gaze. They used to be beautiful but tonight they were pure evil.
One night before the performance, she heard a kind of familiar story. Dimash once involved in a severe car accident where he killed someone. The guy in the other car was a member of a local band, his girlfriend was badly injured but no one heard about her anymore. They said her family left the country and never came back.
"You were abroad back then, so you must not understand the story. But it made headlines in some mass media here."
That accident!