Limerence: A MM Rivals to Lovers Ballet Romance (Famous Young Things)

After I finish the variation—he’d only left me enough time for one go around—I grab my stuff and head for the door. Felix is still watching me, still as unmoving water. He’s sort of blocking the door, so I have to stop since he looks like he has no intention of getting out of my way. There’s sweat glistening on his throat, across his collarbone, soaked into the tight T-shirt he’s wearing. His breathing still fast, his cheeks are bright cherry pink, and his full lips twist with fury.

He looks like something out of a biblical tale about original sin. Carnal and debauched. From here, I can smell him, too, and I imagine it must be what he smells like after sex. It makes a deep primal urge rise up in me, violent and intense. Take him. Fuck him. Rough and raw. Make him yours.

“Not bad,” he says tightly. “A bit loose on the tournants.”

I smirk at the outright lie. “Told you. You should have chosen Paquito.”

I squeeze past him and leave him staring after me, his rage like tiny pinpricks all over my back.



He keeps his distance the rest of the day. Doesn’t even look at me. Not during rehearsal or lunch, and not in the conditioning gym either. I wish I could say the same for Ava. Since our impromptu dinner on Saturday, after which I’d said goodnight and headed home, we’d texted, and she’d sort of invited herself along to my Sunday afternoon run. She needed to get back to running anyway, she’d said, so we’d run together and gotten some coffee and cake after. There was nothing at all romantic about it. I wasn’t even sure she was attracted to me because she was the same level of friendly/flirty with me as she was with everyone else. So far, for me, it was just an opportunity to learn about Felix. I’d never find anything out from him. And though I couldn’t outright ask about him, I was sometimes able to guide the conversation there organically. She’d overshared a little about his relationship with his father, which didn’t sound all that dissimilar to my relationship with mine. I’d been trying extremely hard to convince her I was, at best, ambivalent about Felix. I told her I admired him as a dancer but found him irritating and impossible. Which she said she understood completely. It’s clear she cares about him, and I don’t think she’d share anything with someone he considered his enemy if she thought they might use it to hurt him.

I get a text from her on the way to Hana’s that night.

Ava Sheridan:

Hey, you fancy putting up with me for another run this week?

I’ll shout for the coffee this time

I’m going to be running anyway. I don’t see what harm it could do. It’s not like I’m going to sleep with her. I’m done lying to women I don’t want because I can’t have the man I do want.

Me:

Sure. Wednesday night. Get you at the gates slow poke.



“Nico, good to see you, come in,” Hana says, as she meets me in the waiting room outside her office. I had, in the end, decided to see her again. And we were now on our third session. “How are you? Good?” It always feels strange making small talk with her before the door closes and we start peeling me open and pulling out all the dirty, broken, embarrassing shit inside.

“Yeah, good. Settling in.”

After she’s poured our tea, peppermint for me and lavender for her, she gets comfortable and gives me a gentle smile. Finally, she asks, “Did you have a nice weekend?”

“I did a photo shoot for Vogue, or was it Vanity Fair. I can’t remember.” I shake my head, faintly embarrassed. Felix would remember. But the only thing I remember about the shoot was how he looked in his green three-piece suit. “With Felix. Then I went to his birthday party; which he invited me to himself—where I watched him make out with a guy. Two, actually.”

Hana’s eyes widen with surprise and then narrow again with sympathy. “And how did that make you feel?”

“Not great, Hana,” I say dryly.

She nods in understanding.

“You’ve talked before about how free you believe Felix to be, and I wonder if some of how you feel is related to that. Because, for whatever reason, you feel you can’t be that kind of free? Do you think that’s it?”

“I mean, yeah, I suppose part of it is. The other part is that I’m just jealous. Petty, childish, teenage jealous of whatever guy he has his arm around. It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing, actually. Like, can you just help me get over him, because I think, deep down, a huge part of my issues stem from him. Why am I so obsessed with him? I hate it. And I think coming here was a huge mistake…” I’m just saying words now. I don’t even believe that. Being closer to him is good. Today, watching him dance just him and me, was special. I’d dreamt of that for years. Of being the only one watching him. Of him knowing I was the only one in the room who mattered. I’d played that over in my head so many times over the years and it played out exactly how it did today.

Except for the part at the end where he stops dancing and rushes at me and kisses me and then we’re on the floor tearing each other’s clothes off. That didn’t happen. At the end he still hated me and I’m not sure that’s ever going to change. By virtue of circumstance, we’d be rivals, enemies, for life. I’d never be able to change his mind, convince him we could be anything else.

“I think we discussed last time, about how your feelings about Felix are tied up in how you feel about yourself,” Hana reminds me. “He represents something to you that was taken. Freedom. Your childhood. That version of yourself who you feel you let down.”

“Yeah, but…” I trail off. I shake my head. There’s an unwanted knot of tears rising up in my chest, my throat, a knot that makes it hard to swallow. “It’s not fair to put that on him. He’s not some kind of… saviour. He’s not.”

Hana slides forward in her seat, reaching out to settle a hand on my knee. It’s familiar, motherly, and I find I don’t mind it. It’s been so long. I miss her. I miss my mother. I miss Porzia.

“You’re doing incredibly well, Nico. I’m so proud of you. Your attempts to get to know this person who has been a fixture in your mind for so long, to push past this limerence you have when it relates to him and get to know him, honestly. It’s progress.”

Gratitude wells up inside me. I nod. “Feels some days like I’m not making much progress at all.”

“We never see ourselves in a true light. It’s impossible to be objective about our own strengths and weaknesses.”

“That’s true.”

“So, how is your practice coming along for your gala? It’s soon, yes?”

I take a slurp of tea. “Next week.”

“Exciting.” Hana smiles. Genuine in it too. “I’m looking forward to it.”

I’d given her a ticket for the event. Each dancer in the company got two tickets, and since no one from home could make it, and since I have no friends here, I’d given both to Hana.



Wednesday evening, I meet Ava at the gates of St. James Park. She’s wearing a lilac running jacket and matching fleece headband, her pale blue eyes bright with challenge.

“Ready?” I ask her.

“Gonna beat you tonight, Savini.”

“It’s not a race, you know that right?”

She gives me a playful look and bolts. I give her a few seconds head start before going after her.



“I don’t hate them, I just don’t know them well enough. I mean, I know Raphael obviously, every straight woman does, and I know that one song. Oh, and I saw they won a Grammy. But really, I’m just not that into music.”

I give her a look. Not being into the Dead Poets was one thing, but not being into music was another.

“Not into music…” I say as I lift my cappuccino. “Okayyyy. Weird flex, but sure.”

“Shut up,” she laughs. “I’m into other things.”

“Like?”

“Um, I don’t know. Nature, art, travel.”

“Sounds like a terrible Grindr bio.”

“Tinder,” she says, and I feel my cheeks redden. “Grindr’s for those of the homosexual persuasion.”

“Tinder. Grindr. Whatever,” I style out as casually as I can. “Nature, art, travel would be a poor effort on either.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well, I’m not on either, so…”noveldrama

“Probably a good thing.” I grin. Ava’s mouth curls up into a practiced smile. Okay, maybe this was another level of flirting to how she was with everyone else.

“Maybe we can go back to yours and listen to that Dead Poets album. Sayonnara baby.”

I cringe. “Son. It’s Sayonara Son. Like sun, but he means son. Like the son of the father. It’s basically a fuck you to his dad who was from Rapture of Malice. He abandoned him as a baby and then died without even meeting him…” I trail off.

Ava gives me a blank stare.

“They were a ’90s grunge band. Sort of like Nirvana.”

“Nirvana?”

I stifle my groan. “Another ’90s grunge band. Anyway… forget it. We’re closer to yours from here, no?” I hear Hana’s voice in my head. This isn’t what we discussed, Nicoló. Yeah, well there’s no I in team, Hana, and I’m out on my own here.

“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” she says. “And Felix is out tonight.”

I deflate. Fuck. There is no way of getting out of this now given it had been my suggestion.

“Let’s go then,” I say, forcing a smile.

I get a proper look at the house this time since it’s not covered in white, silver, and gold balloons and packed full of strangers he may or may not have fucked. It’s architecturally interesting. Too large and open to be cosy, but definitely stylish. The main living area has two large, comfortable-looking sofas, an antique coffee table, and a large TV. In the kitchen, there is a wall of photos, which seem to be mainly Felix and Ava. Some of Charlie de Vere, too, and a lot of other attractive people. I browse these as she goes to change, though not before telling me to help myself to whatever I want from the fridge. I’m not hungry, so I stay by the photos, cataloguing each one. There are some of a young Felix in his dancing gear, mid-arabesque. I think I spot one from Gdansk, from that meet all those years ago; the very first time I set eyes on him. His hair used to be far more blonde than it is now, curls tighter, too, though I think this was during the summer, so I know then, and from some of the others, that his hair lightens quite dramatically in the sun.

Those of him and Ava together are shot in various—mostly sunny—locations and show them with arms around each other and bright happy smiles on their faces. He smiles a lot. A very wide, very boxy smile which goes all the way to his eyes. It almost pulls a grin out of me just looking at it. I wonder if he’s ever cried.

I’ve seen him mad, sure, fucked off and pissed off and frustrated—sometimes with me—but had he ever been sad? It’s almost impossible to imagine it. Him being sad about anything. Mainly because I don’t think he cares about anything that much to be able to feel that sort of emotion.

Okay, that’s unfair. He very clearly cares about Ava. And he cares about ballet, that much I’ve known for a long time. Even if it does appear to come so effortlessly to him, I know he cares about it.

But had he ever been in love? Ever had his heart broken?

What I do next is so creepy and so fucking unhinged that I know I’ll never be able to tell Hana about it for fear she might have me committed. There’s a photo of him, taken by someone else, and in it he’s wearing a white T-shirt, standing in front of a fuchsia-pink flowering plant. He’s wearing a smile I’ve never seen on him before; it’s softer, more genuine. It’s not his well-practiced Instagram smile. It looks like he’s giving it instead to the person taking the photo. He looks happy and tanned and relaxed. He looks fucking dazzling. Quickly and carefully, I pull out the white pin holding it in place and slip the photo into my pocket. I think about putting the pin back, but I feel as though that will draw more attention to a possibly missing photo, so I cross the kitchen and toss it in the garbage.

Will he notice? I doubt it. Will he think I’ve taken it? Absolutely not.

I grab a bottle of water from the surprisingly bare fridge, take a seat on one of the sofas, and wait for Ava to come back.