Violet.
Backstage is chaotic but makes me reminisce so much. The Boston Theatre is crammed full of people from the stall seats to the box seats above. Red velvet seats, glamorous blinding lights and lavishly dressed people filing in.
Only the affluent attend the ballet so there's a sea of faux leather shawls, designer suits and dresses, gorgeous men with their gorgeous wifes on their arm for the evening. I can feel the swell of anticipation beneath my rips, like a slowly inflating balloon.
Especially because press are packed into the space below the stage. The girls have already come over to me several times, gushing about how the cameramen keep whispering my last name.
The Amory ballerina's making her return tonight. Daughter of Scarlett Amory, who'd became the highest paid performing prima ballerina in the decade she flourished. Sister of Sage, Grayson and Azure Amory. Undoubtedly, there's pressure on my shoulders tonight.
But you'd be surprised to know how much I don't feel it. I never have allowed the pressure to penetrate me when I'm on stage. There was always buzz surrounding my presence on a stage as a kid so I became attuned to it. It was only background noise to what mattered to me most. Ballet. My only solace, for years where I found safety in nothing.
I'm poised, relaxed. My ribs jut out as I take mediated breaths.
The only thing that makes my skin prick is the fact that Everest's in this city. He's going to be here tonight. I saw the determination in his eyes, feel it within myself. Tonight's the night I want to go home, for good. Start my life with him. Tonight's the end and the beginning of it all.
Sat at the vanity after finishing my makeup, I check my phone for the two texts, and two people that snag my attention.
Val: you've so totally got this, ballerina. i'm pretty sure they're livestreaming it somewhere. i'm gonna find it right now. best of luck to you, bug! be the sexiest superwoman of them all! mwah, mwah, mwah!
Ria: you deserve to drop all of their jaws to the fucking floor. do exactly that. nobody gets to break you, ballerina.
I feel my heart light with warmth. Though they're so far away from me, I can almost feel their support and love as if it's a palpable thing enveloping me right now. I need my girl's encouragement more than anyone else's so I breathe their words in and repeat it in my head.
Nobody gets to break me.
There are a few more outfit and hair checks, pinning necessary pieces of my glitzy, feathery headpiece down. The tiara sits nicely, curving down on my forehead, almost like an arrow. My makeup's soft, glowy and light - just enough to accentuate the higher points of my face and add to the angel-like appearance of the white swan, Odette.
The pointe shoes Everest had bought me are wrapped tightly around my feet. They're the thing I stare at as everyone gets into formation behind the curtains, rows and rows of ballerinas. They're my small piece of him that I'm carrying onto stage. Right besides me.
Soon, the lights dim. A general, resounding hush casts over the large audience. The curtains open.
I hear my father's voice in my head. Like every performance as a child, before I gave up on it. On him. Let it take you to the sea, my bluebird.
And I do.
I make it onto the stage and eyes pierce me, the central character. I pluck each and everyone's attention, stealing it as my own for this evening where I'm beautifully weightless and effortlessly free. I perform, and dance. I silence them all and hypnotise with every curve of my body and leap across the immense stage.
I used to love ballet because I thought, for a moment, I was anyone but me when I danced. I was someone beautiful, and that equated to being someone else entirely.
I was wrong. I'm not somebody else when I dance. I'm entirely, unconditionally myself. I dance beautifully because I am beautiful. I feel solace because I deserve to. Ballet is me, and I am ballet, and it's unfeasible for it to be any other way.
Everest.
We don't belong here. It's the very first thing I think of as the three of us file in, clad in suits that we didn't pay for. One of the Amory brothers had sent them over to our apartment with the sweet message.
So you don't look like fucking idiots.
It's funny; that could literally be either of the three brothers. Even the genius eleven year old. We're dressed in Armani suits more expensive than our entire existences, in a theatre filled with the rich and most ostentatious of society.
I glance at Luca, and he seems just as fucking uncomfortable as me.
Hudson, however, doesn't. He always oozes confidence. He just does belong, like a chameleon easily adapting to whatever situation he finds himself in. Jerk.
I dig my fingers into my collar like I can somehow loosen the tie. It's either really tight around my neck or the anxiety's constricting me. When I can feel how sweaty my palms are, I realise it's most definitely the second option.
When we take our seats, I can barely sit still.
"So this is what these rich fucks do?" Luca grumbles, slouching in his seat, "The rest of could starve and they'd sit to watch some girls prance around."
"That's my girl you're talking about." I snap.
"And she's filthy rich, is she not?" Luca deadpans in a bored tone, "Prancing around a stage? Who said to go after a girl a million times richer than you ever could be?"
"Probably sexily prancing." I snip, "Shut up about Violet. She could probably buy you."
"She could buy us all." Hudson easily says. With his dark black hair, tattoos peeking out from his hands, the all black suit - it pisses me off how good he looks. Me and Miguel agreed that in a parallel universe, Hud would be a model.
He slowly slides his gaze to me, "You're staring."
"You're hot right now. Sue me." I shrug.
Luca grimaces at me, dramatically.
I grin and pout my lips, about to smack a kiss on his cheek but he shoves me, "Jealous? Luca, baby, fuck. You look hot as shit too."
"Don't make me vomit, Ev. Calling the devil over there hot makes me feel like a sinner." He smirks, "God forbid."
I roll my eyes, "Like you haven't had the hots for him since forever. I know you both wanna fuck each other."
That grabs the attention of a few couples around us. The elderly couple in front us turns around to send a disapproving glance our way, and the two middle aged women besides us are gaping at us like we're wild animals. I could have yelled that, and made some obscene gestures. I hadn't and they're still looking at me like I'm a deviant. Damn, what more can a boy do?
I offer a smile at the elderly but Luca interjects, "Got a problem with guys fucking?"
Oh shit. Luca's already irritated. He's away from Ria, and he hates how uncomfortable the suit is. That only means he's gonna bite back to everyone around him right now.
"Of course not." The woman scoffs.
"Then turn the hell around, unless you wanna see me give hottie over there a handjob." Luca snaps.
Jesus fucking christ, he's incurable. Hudson just snorts and I stare at the back of the poor couple's heads. I mean, they seemed entitled and bitchy but they're old. No old people deserve menacing Luca.
Hudson's lips lift at the corners as the lights dim, "I prefer blowjobs."
Luca quietly snaps back, since everyone's quietening down, "I suggest you prefer my hand which lacks the ability to bite. And tear. And rip."
"Shut up. Both of you. Fuck each other later." I hiss.
They smirk at the same time and turn their attention to the stage in front of us.
A silence settles over everyone. Anticipation's heavy in the air and it's there for Violet Amory. Most of the old fuckers in this place were witnesses to Scarlett Amory's prime, the biggest ballerina for years. Until her daughter.
Young and old are here to watch her. Even fucking cameramen are crouched in the space below the stage. Jesus. My girlfriend's a big deal. I'm nobody and the girl is still madly in love with me. I guess that's why we fit. She definitely has a screw loose. We both do.
The music starts, the lights dim further and the curtains sweep open. In unison and perfect formation, rows and rows of ballerina's enter the stage. It's almost as if they're gliding instead of dancing, fluid and unified.
I spot her the same time that everyone else does. The same excited murmurs run over the crowd and the camera's beneath flash.
Violet Fawn Amory stands centre stage after years. All anybody can focus on. Dressed entirely in white and stood tall, in her pointe shoes, she stops with an arm raised high as if she's granting everyone the honour to take her in.
I couldn't exhale right now if I damn well forced the oxygen out from my lungs. I've known that girl in every light, and I've found her beautiful under every single one. I've seen her in the early hours of the morning when she's nobody else's but mine to kiss awake. I've held her to my body in the depths of the night, shared kisses that taste of cherry slurpees and imprinted her scent onto my body.
That girl is being admired by every single person packed into this theatre right now. But nobody could admire her as much as I do. Nobody gets to. She's mine, my personal daydream.
Violet dances but it's not only about ballet. It's about acting, performing, conveying emotion and story and she does it as if she was made for it. I don't realise that I'm swept up in time, in her until Luca has to physically shove me to get me to snap out of it.
Even then I don't look to him, lips parted, "Huh?"
It's so beautiful. All of it, is the most beautiful thing I've ever been witness to.
"Snap the fuck out of it." He slaps my cheek.
That shit hurt. She is so agonisingly beautiful-
"Ev!" He whisper hisses.
I blink a few times to gather myself and look at him. He tips his chin forwards and I gesture to where he's looking at, not realising that Azure Amory's stood by our side. He's says something to Hudson briefly before he walks away.
Hudson tips his head in a gesture for us to follow so we get up and walk up the line of seats together.
I cast a glance back at Violet, and the way she has everyone pulled under her daze. I'll never forget the sight. She's something else entirely.
Once we're past the double doors, Azure, whose also clad in a designer suit leads the way to another set of doors that lead upwards. The stairs spiral and the three of us follow into a small room. I realise we're headed to the balcony seats, which will be visible through those curtains.
The small room has a dim, mellow light and two velvet Queen Anne chairs. Asides from that, there's not much to it.
Azure Amory stands as unruffled as always. Normally, he wears a white shirt and slacks but he dons a prestigious suit today and it makes him look so mature it feels wrong. He is far too beyond his years, a few of his blonde-brown strands slicked back.
"We bought you the finest suits and somehow," He grimaces, "You still stick out. Like pigs out of their pens."
He couldn't have said something less smartass-y. Like fish out of water? Sheesh.
This is not the time to antagonise Luca. He's pissy today and clenches his fists by his side. Azure slowly looks down to his fists, and back up to Luca's eyes with an utterly unfazed expression. As if daring him.
And then Azure looks to Hudson, "Asides from you."
I thought that too. They stare down for a second but Hudson remains as calm as Azure. Expressionless and poised, both of them.
Azure looks away as if that didn't just happen and in that detached tone says, "My brothers want to speak to you."
And he disappears behind the curtains.
I can hear the music loud and clear, the murmurs of the crowd when something interesting happens in the performance. I guess we're supposed to follow the ice prince. Just as me and Luca make a move, we're pulled back and Hudson stands in front of us.
Something's changed about him suddenly. That calm, controlled persona has faded and there's something conflicted in his deep blue eyes.
"What is it?" I narrow my eyes and realise, "Does this have to do with how you know them?"
He's never disclosed. And he can't run from it anymore. They're behind those curtains and we're gonna face them sooner or later.
Hudson still doesn't speak and takes a controlled step back from us. He inhales once and then digs his hands in his pockets, as if preparing himself. It sets me on edge and when Luca's shoulders tense, I know he feels the same. It's rare for him to every have anything to say at all.
"You can't ask questions." He pulls on a collected tone, "It's complicated. And confusing. I understand that."
Luca scoffs, "This is fucking dramatic. Hurry up, Hud. What, are you an Amory brother? Gonna ride out of here in your Bentley?"
Luca actually laughs and runs a hand through his hair, not looking at Hudson yet. But I am.
I am and I immediately spot his wince and the way his entire body locks up at those words. He's scarily still, painfully tense staring at Luca with wide eyes.
Luca's laughs fade and he's looking at Hudson now too, witness to that tension in his body and expression.
Luca's jaw falls, "You...you're fucking not."
There's no way. I blink a few times. But from his absolute silence and his torn expression, he's not giving us much room to think anything else.
There's no fucking way he's trying to say what I think he is. Our Hudson?
"That," I screw my eyes shut and start to pace, "That makes no sense. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit. You're Hudson."
My head is spinning. Whilst I can't stop moving and restlessly twisting my fingers, Luca is so still it's like he's crystallised into a statue as he fathoms it all. Hudson just closely gauges our reactions.
It literally doesn't make any sense. No. I— what?
"Violet has no idea. How does that work?" I question.
"I said no questions." He looks away as if his throat feels tight even talking about this.
"Fuck off with that." Luca picks up a pillow from the Queen Anne chair and tosses it harshly at Hudson's face. He catches it before it hit him and Luca seethes, "You're not dropping that you're a rich prick and then not saying another word. You're answering our fucking questions, for once in your mysterious goddamn life."
"Makes no sense." I pace, fidgeting, "Literally makes no fucking sense."
"Stop moving, Ev. Fuck, you're giving me a headache." Hudson turns and runs a hand through his black hair, seeming just as restless as we are right now. We're all restless. Confused. What the fuck.
"You're the same age as Vy." I stop and stare with wide eyes, "Right?"
"Yes." He snips, also starting to pace, "I'm not a fucking fifty year old."
"So, how does that work? Unless you're twins." I stop, in horror. Luca stops too, the grimace on his face and I hold my breath for a painfully long moment, waiting for Hudson to disclose that they're twins and I'm in love with his twin- oh god, I feel nauseous-
"We're not twins. I need a cigarette. You have a cigarette?" Hudson keeps pacing and I track him with my eyes.
Luca snorts at me, "Bro, you're fucking his twin."
I throw a pillow at his head now. The nausea hits me like a train wreck.
"We're half-siblings." Hudson snaps and he looks so fucking antsy that it's making me and Luca just as antsy, "We're...we're half siblings. She doesn't know about me because I was kept a secret."
He said it. It's out there now. No take backsies. They're related.
They're siblings.
"A secret?" Luca sit back onto one of the chairs and reaches into a small mini fridge, snagging a mini tequile bottle. He takes a rushed swig and loosens his tie, "Half siblings means one of her parents had an affair. Which one?"
"Her dad." Hudson snags a tequila bottle for himself.
"You mean, your dad." Luca deadpans.
Hudson downs half the tequila bottle.
I throw my fucking hands up. Great support there, for someone whose abstaining from alcohol. All I can do is pace whilst they can drink their attention away.
Their dad. Jesus fucking christ. What the fuck.
"How could you keep this a secret, you absolute dick?" I gape as I realise, "You've known all this time. From the start, you warned me away from her. Because you're her..."
All of our faces twist. Neither of us can say it. Not even Hudson. It's too surreal, way too hard for me to grasp that the boy I've known since we were in an orphanage and the girl I'm in love with are related.
"So you're the result of an affair." I try to relax, "With who?"
"Doesn't matter. She's the house's caretaker. You don't know her."
"But Violet does." I assume.
"It's not just that." Hudson says and for this, he sits on the chair opposite Luca. Something hangs heavy on his shoulders and he lets his head bow between his shoulders, clasping his hands together and wringing his fingers.
"There's fucking more?" Luca blinks.
Hudson doesn't look scared or nervous this time. The restlessness changes to something heavier. He looks so lost in his head in the deep silence that I can't fathom what he has to say.
Suddenly, he calms himself as if he just forced himself into a state of tranquility and leans back in the chair. Even then, that haunted torment from his expression doesn't go away.
"Scarlett Amory found out about the affair. That her husband, Timothy, had gotten another woman pregnant. At the time, she was already pregnant with Violet." He starts, his voice slow and almost anguished. He's looking out to the curtains as if he's looking at Violet.
"Scarlett forced my biological mother out of the manor, made Timothy's life a living hell. She lost the fucking plot." He says, "And then all of that hate festered. She resented me, and she resented the baby in her stomach. Her husband was fucking another woman whilst he had also gotten her pregnant. The child in Scarlett's stomach became a curse to her. Like the baby had imprisoned her."
I can't stand anymore so sit on the arm of Luca's chair, trying to digest that through all the whirring thoughts. She resented the baby in her stomach. The baby that was conceived, whilst her husband was fucking another woman. Violet.
He had gotten another woman pregnant. He had another child. Hudson.
She resented the baby in her stomach.
Violet. Fuck.
Violet was neglected by her mother long before Auburn had died. She was ignored and emotionally disregarded whilst her mother saved her affections for her brothers. She doted on Sage, Grayson and Azure whilst tossing Violet to the side and making her watch.
Violet never understood. She had accepted the physical abuse for a long time because that started after Auburn's death. There was a 'reason' for it. And her mother had forced Violet to believe that it was all her fault, that everything was Violet's fault, that she deserved to be hurt.
For Auburn's death. But it wasn't just that. It had never been.
It was for the affair Violet was conceived within. It all started because of the affair. Because of Timothy Amory. And because of Hudson.
I let my face fall into my hands and my heart fucking splinters into my chest. She was overlooked and ignored from the moment she was born. An innocent child that was instantly deemed as wrong, as imperfect. It was all out of Violet's control and yet, she took years of relentless abuse for it.
She doesn't even know why. Why her mother hated her. Why she was forsaken from the very start. Imagining having to live an entire childhood like that, wondering and doubting, all for it to be none of your fault. But the sins of your parents.
I can't bear it. It's going to break her fucking heart. It'll break her.
"Violet was a constant reminder of what Timothy had done to her." Hudson's voice is tight, choked, "I'm why she was hurt. Abused."
The air feels so suffocating that it hurts.
"How long have you known?" I ask.
Hudson's entire body closes up and something dark overtakes his eyes. He's known it for a while. From the moment me and Violet had met, he had this weird look in his eyes. He knew things I didn't. He was as hellbent on protecting her at Rockley, as I was.
I only see it for a moment before he looks away, "I tried to find my birth mother when I was five. She shut the door in my face. I got answers elsewhere when I was seven."
There's something so suffocatingly dark surrounding him right now. As if there's more to the story. Memories he doesn't want to think about and they're bleeding out of him anyways, without him even speaking of them, like thick, polluting smoke.
This is so much fucking more than what I signed up for tonight. It's expanded the whole story, back to the older generation and their misdeeds. What it resulted in. Who it affected.
"You're her brother." Luca says, for the first time, aloud, "You have a sister. Real brothers."
That aren't us.
He doesn't move, doesn't even blink and keeps his face expressionless, "I ruined her life. And the Amory's ruined mine. I wouldn't call that very brotherly and sisterly of us."
There's so much animosity. Unanswered questions, and pain that runs deep but tonight, the bottom line, is that Hudson and Violet are half-siblings. Brother and sister. He has four siblings.
"She needs to know." I say.
He doesn't look up, but he does tense, "It'll hurt her."
"I know." I say, "But she's been kept in the dark for her whole fucking life. I won't do the same as everyone else has done to her. She's deserved more since the moment she was born."
Hudson's shoulders tense even heavier with weight. Since the moment she was born. Literally. Since the moment she was cast out by her mother.
"So did you." I say.
He snaps his blue eyes up to me. He can't blame himself for some twisted affair. Hudson and Violet were the products of it, not the cause. They suffered for it regardless.
A ray of light streams upon the floor and we all look to the curtains when they open. And we tense a hell of a lot more now when Sage and Grayson walk in.
They walk with unbridled confidence and privilege. As if the very ground they walk on is built for them.
All I can see when I look at them now is their link to Hudson. Especially Sage. Both of them had adopted their father's features with the dark hair, and dark eyes. The rest of the Amory's got their mother's light hair and green eye genes.
Heavy awareness settles upon us all.
There's slight shock to their features as if they hadn't expected Hudson would come here. Hudson stands and faces the two of them. They're of the same blood but you can still visibly see how one was raised to a different world. Darkness and depravity naturally surrounds Hudson.
Sage Amory is impenetrable. Like a shield of fucking steel surrounds the giant of a guy at all times. Slicked back hair. Absolute composure. Shaved, sharp stubble. But right now, when he meets eyes with Hudson, something cracks in his eyes. Only slightly. Something...uncertain.
Like for once, he's out of his element and doesn't know how to tackle it.
"Did you do it?" Hudson asks.
"Dean's gone by the end of tonight." Sage says, "He's sat in the third row now."
Grayson Amory's lit a blunt and leans a haphazard shoulder against the wall, taking a hit, "He'll be walking out in fucking cuffs."
He has rebellious, cruel green eyes. There'll never come a day where I don't hate him. He was a part of Violet's ruin, her fear.
"Aster Gomez was found beaten to a pulp on New Year's outside a frat house." Sage drawls every word out, with strength and dominance and slides his gaze to me and Luca, "You wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?"
"I heard he dislocated his shoulder. Broke his nose." Luca easily counters, "You wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?"
I hear a scoff and I don't even realise Azure was here, lingering besides the curtain like a ghost. Casually, he speaks, "I'm surrounded by rage-driven imbeciles. It feels suffocating."
"Shut it, smartass." Grayson snaps.
"I'd tell you to shut it, but you have a tendency to dislocate shoulders. And I'm rather fond of mine." Azure responds easily.
Both brothers glare at each other.
"Why didn't you tell her?" I look right at Sage, and there's something so torn and rigid in my voice that it makes them all silence. I don't care for their fucking stupid quarrels. They're twisted. They hurt her. They hid it all from her. Seeing them all together makes me feel like I might fucking explode.
You were supposed to protect her.
Sage narrows one eye at me.
"You were witness to her mother's neglect," I look at Grayson now, "You played a part in it." I look back at Sage, "But she told me you were her protector. She speaks so fucking highly of you, and you couldn't indulge her with the details of her own life."
"You don't know us." Sage grits out, "You don't know her."
"I held her when she could barely breathe in that fucking manor." I walk forwards until I'm nose to nose and I seethe every word, from somewhere deep inside me, "Bits of her shattered, every day for years. She got scars from alcohol bottles she took the brunt of, because she'd rather take the pain than have you three selfish fucks bear it. You let her break. Do not tell me I don't fucking know that girl, because I know her more than myself."
Sage's eyes flare and he chokes on the word, "Scars?"
"She was beaten by your mother so often that she has cuts on each of her arms, three on her back." I let the hatred for them rise, fill up my body and my blood, "She did it to protect you. She never told you to protect you. And you. You couldn't even tell her the fucking truth, once."
The Amory brothers are known to succeed at everything. But I hope they live the rest of their fucking lives knowing they failed their sister. Even if Violet refuses to show them the pain they caused, I won't hesitate.
She loves them unconditionally. She will for the rest of her life. But if I can't protect her from them, I'll make sure damn well that they hurt. That they know.
"You don't have a claim on her." I meet his dark eyes, "She's not your sister, she's my future fucking wife. Mine for the rest of our lives. She deserves someone who's yet to fail her."
I don't care for these two. But I meet Azure's eyes briefly and they shine with something different than his brothers. Respect. Hurt. A mixture of the two.
Of them all, I'll be able to stand him. He only ever loved and protected his older sister.
They helped get her back. But they hurt her. And I promised her at the very start. Anyone who fucks with her, I'll be there to fuck around right back.
I'm about to leave, Luca already by my side and cast a glance at Hudson. I wait.
It's such an impossible sight. I never thought I'd see him in front of his biological brothers. For a moment, he looks at them and something weird overtakes my throat. Apprehension, I realise. Doubt. That's his real family. A stupid thought floats in, what if he leaves this family behind?
But I'm mistaken. They're brothers, but not family because Hudson chose his brothers long before he stared the Amory boys right in the face.
Hudson walks over to our side. He furrows his brows at me, as if seeing the thoughts clear on my face. I didn't think I'd ever be afraid of losing him once hearing he has brothers. I cringe. It makes me feel fucking juvenile.
Hudson bumps his shoulder with mine, "Move it, sunshine. I'm by your fucking side."
It's passive aggressive and I don't know if he means just for now. Or if he saw my apprehension and means it on a bigger scale. I don't think about it and we leave the room together.
We get her out. But we also break her heart tonight.