Dancing for the Lord The Academy - By Emily Goodman Page 0,72

“I’ll have my phone on me. Call if you need me.”

“I will.” He did his best to smile for her, knew that it fell flat. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

“Come hide out in my room,” she encouraged. “Allie won’t be able to corner you that way.”

Nick agreed, albeit reluctantly. What he really wanted to do was spend the bulk of the day sulking.

But that’s not what you want, is it, Lord? He prayed tiredly. You want me to set this aside and forgive him.

Again.

Nick felt as though he had done it a hundred times already, setting aside all of the hurtful things his father had said to him and refusing to let them impact him anymore. It wasn’t getting better with time.

Tonight, all of those wounds felt as though they were fresh and screaming. Alone in his room, Nick found himself pacing, unable to even sit down long enough to ice his shoulder.

Lord, why? Why did he even come tonight if he was just going to make me feel like crap about it? That was his reaction at first. It isn’t like he cares about seeing me dance. Did he come just to yell at me?

There was no answer—not that Nick had expected one. How many times over the years had he asked these painful questions? How many times had he pushed himself to come up with answers where there were none, to figure out how to handle a situation that had no delicate solution? He loved to dance—had felt called to it since he was just a child. His father felt that his decision to dance instead of joining some more traditionally masculine sport made him less of a man.

There was no compromise. Oh, Nick had tried for one. He’d played basketball for awhile in middle school, and even played football for a little while—but there was no thrill in it. He didn’t do competition well—not the kind of team competition that traditional sports turned into. Besides, they couldn’t even compare to the true exhilaration of pushing his body, of knowing that he was getting stronger and better, and that he was creating something beautiful for his God.

No compromise. No way out. In so many ways, coming to the Academy had been a blessing; and one of the most important of those was the fact that he wouldn’t have to look at his father’s disapproval over the breakfast table every morning.

Lord, Lord…. Nick cried out in his heart; and if not for the fact that his tears had already turned to stone, he would have been weeping outright. When is he going to accept me for who I am?

There was no peace to be had—no comfort. Sometime in the long hours of the night, Nick finally fell asleep, but it was not a peaceful, healing sleep. Instead, he dreamed a hundred dreams, relived a dozen different fights with a man who would never be able to accept him for who he was.

It felt as though his heart was bleeding.



To Nick’s relief, Danni said nothing about the confrontation with his father when he slipped into her room the next morning. She was sitting in the floor, her legs extended in a near-perfect straddle split as she read from one of her textbooks; and while she looked up as he came in, her eyes were still oddly unfocused, her attention clearly elsewhere. “Hey,” she said absently.

“Hey.” He crouched down beside her, where he could see the textbook she had open on the floor. “You haven’t been working ahead without me, have you?”

She didn’t reply for several seconds; when she did look up, it took her several seconds to focus on his face. “Not really,” she admitted tiredly. “I’m not sure I’ve actually absorbed anything I’ve read this morning, honestly.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing, then?” he asked curiously.

“Praying.” Danni sighed, giving up and shutting the book once and for all. “Unfortunately, if I look like I’m sitting here doing nothing, people tend to interrupt.”

“Thus the prop.” Nick made a face. Since he had encountered similar problems, he understood that the Bible was not considered occupation enough—thus the reason that Danni had a schoolbook open in front of her instead.

“Thus the prop,” she agreed grimly.

“Praying about anything in particular?” he wanted to know.

She glanced up at him, and he could feel her waffling back and forth on whether or not she was going to tell him. Finally, she admitted, “You.”

“Me?” He couldn’t have been more stunned. “But—I mean—“

“You were having a hard time last night,” she said perceptively.

Nick nodded.

“Especially after I left.”

He stared at her. How did she know—and then it hit him. “God’s been convicting you in that direction, huh?” he asked tiredly.

She nodded. “Nick…I have the feeling this thing with your dad goes deeper than you want to admit.”

It did. It went so deep that it had left scars on his heart—scars that had begun in childhood and had not lost any potency over the years. He sighed. “I’m handling it, Danni,” he promised her.

“Just remember that your heavenly father appreciates everything that you are. He made you that way.” Her eyes sparkled. “And he made you to be my partner for this particular, very difficult dance for a good reason.”

“I agree.” Nick joined her in the floor then, stretching out his legs until she could prop her feet at his ankles. “I have to admit, we’ve made a pretty good team, Danni.” He hesitated. “I—we’ve joked about it before, but I know…that is, it’s…pretty obvious…that you’ve been waiting for Michael.”

She blinked.

He sighed. “I—the two of you had a pretty good thing going for a long time,” he said slowly. “And I don’t want to get in the middle of it—so if I am, tell me.”

“Nick—“ she began.

He held up a hand, stopping her. “It’s okay if you don’t want me, you know. I mean, I’ll understand. You and Michael have been together for years. He’s your best friend. And I’ll—I’ll stick around through the spring recital, if that’s what you want. Just—it would be nice to know where I stand.”

“Nick.” There was nothing but gentleness in Danni’s eyes as she leaned forward and took his hand—an impressive move for a normal person, but perfectly natural for a ballerina. “I would be delighted to be your dance partner for just as long as you’ll have me.”

“You mean it?” Warmth overflowed. He hadn’t even dreamed, before this moment, that it was possible for her to respond that way. He had hoped—but he hadn’t really believed it.

“I mean it.” She sighed. “Michael is a good friend, and he’s been a good partner for a long time—but when you and I dance together, I can tell that we’re meant to be something special.”

“I feel it, too,” Nick confessed. “I just wasn’t sure—I mean, sometimes—“

“Sometimes one person feels something intense, but the other person doesn’t even hear a whisper.” Danni smiled. “I hear it, Nick,” she said quietly. “And I know that we’re supposed to dance together for a long time. I can’t promise forever; but I can promise for now.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.”

They spent that morning together, as they had spent so many others together in the past couple of weeks; and that night, when they danced their pas de deux—correctly this time, with none of Danni’s changes—it was even more spectacular than ever before. God had brought them together for this time, for this purpose.

He had brought them together to dance for Him.