The dance was slow, avant-garde, my movements staccato.

So when I’d do my double fouettés, arabesque turns, and the final grand jeté that was reminiscent of Kitri, it came as a shock to the system for the viewer.

And by that time, I fancied, they didn’t care I was dancing in a red turtleneck bodysuit that had the thighs cut up nearly to my underarms.

Even for the patrons of a strip club, it was about the dance.

Days before that, when Dorian had cornered me, saying he wanted to see all the girls’ routines so he could set the lineup, I’d performed it for him, just him and me.

And when I was done, he sat side stage at his uncle’s strip joint that he was reforming into something else, and he did this immobile.

“You didn’t like it,” I’d said, thinking the avant-garde part would be too weird for the gentleman’s club crowd and I should go back to my first thought, pulling something together for “Dancing Queen.”

“You’re first,” Ian had declared. “You’re also last. If they see you first, they’ll stay and drink until the lights go down on you.”

My heart had thumped hard at these words.

“So you liked it?” I asked hesitantly.

Ian stood to his impressive height and stated, “Hattie, you took something beautiful and made it cool. Sexy … and cool.” He nodded decisively. “You’re first, baby, and you’re last. Every night.”

I loved that Dorian clearly enjoyed what I did.

But I worried that this would make Lottie, the current headliner (and my friend … well, she used to be), mad at me, but since I was avoiding all the girls, and had been doing it for so long (weeks!) I had it down to the art, I didn’t know if she was.

Which was another reason why I was torturing myself with that song, that dance—a song I picked to a dance I put together to say things to Axl Pantera I wished I could in real life say because I knew he was going to be there.

And I was thinking all this, listening to that song, because if I thought about what I should be doing right then in order to get where I should be going that night, I’d break down, blubber like a child and probably get into an accident.

So yeah.

There it all was laid out, messy and unfun.

My life.

I had an abusive father that I, as a twenty-six-year-old woman, kept going back to and enduring his abuse.

I had Axl, a handsome man who’d asked me out, I’d turned him down, he started seeing someone else, but in the interim he saw me have a mini-breakdown, so then he tried to befriend me, which was worse than him just moving on to some other chick.

And I had a pack of friends I was avoiding because they all wanted me to go for that handsome man, even though now he had another woman, and he just wanted to be my friend. A pack of friends it had long since stopped being semi-kinda-rude (but understandable, considering how embarrassing the event was that started it) to constantly blow off and avoid them and now it was just ugly.

And that night was Lottie’s pre-bachelorette-boards-at-Elvira’s party, and Lottie, Ryn, Evie, Pepper and Elvira had all texted me to tell me they wanted me to come. And I didn’t even know Elvira. I just knew she worked with the guys (that being Axl’s guys, or more to the point, Hawk’s guys (since Hawk was their boss): Mag, Boone, Auggie and Mo).

I’d heard Elvira’s charcuterie boards were everything.

But no.

Nope.

Not me.

I wasn’t there, enjoying life and being with my friends. Instead, I did what I had to do to make certain my father lived another night. I tortured myself with a cool song that was a stark plea to take a chance with your heart. And I was going to go home, and I didn’t know, binge I Am a Killer or something on Netflix, while all my friends were beginning celebrations to herald in one of the happiest times in life.

What was the matter with me?

I should go to the studio.

I should get some work done.

But that wasn’t helping like it used to.

Because if I didn’t have the guts to tell my father to take care of his own damned self …

And if I didn’t have the courage to say yes to a handsome guy when he asked me out, further not having the backbone to accept him as a friend when he gave up on me …

Last, if I didn’t even have it in me to lay it on my friends, or if not, just tell them to back off, I was dealing with my own issues, and instead, it felt like I was losing them, and it was me who was making that happen …

Then I wouldn’t (and didn’t) have the ability to boss up and do something with what I was creating in the studio.

So that was me all around.

Hattie Yates.

Failed dancer.

Failed daughter.

Failed friend.

Failed artist.

But really freaking good loner.

I parked at the back of the house where my and three other apartments were and let myself in the back door, thinking at least I had this.

My pad.

A weird, funky space, part of a big, old home broken in chunks. But the landlords wanted to make it cool, so they did, with up and down steps, insets in the walls to put knickknacks, interesting lighting, creamy white walls and beautifully refinished floors.

Mine was on the first level.

Living room and kitchen up front, a step up to the kitchen from the living room. A wall that was open, seeing as it was made up of open-backed shelves. Shelves in which there was a doorway with three steps down to delineate my bedroom area. That back area had a walk-in closet and biggish bath, which, no other word for it, was divine. And the only other room, what I was in now, a side area at the back that had a washer, dryer and some storage.

As décor, I’d gone with white and cream in furniture with dove-gray curtains. Some navy-and-cream throw rugs. Black-and-white art or photos in white frames.

I added to this only shocks of color here and there. In some pictures, one with a frame that was geranium pink.

Turquoise. Sky blue. Lime green. More pink.

And my prize possession, a loud beanbag in primary colors that was covered in a print of flowers that I used as a beanbag as well as an ottoman.

My funky little me space. Small. Light. Bright. Interesting.

All things that were not me.

With ease born of practice in that small, dark room lit only slightly by the waning sunlight of a Denver summer night, light that was coming through the single narrow window, I went up the three steps that should lead me to my living room/ kitchen.