I see it's been a month and a half since I updated this. *sheepish* Oops.

But, as I have continually reassured Sophie, I haven't abandoned it. I just work a lot and have writer's block a lot and get distracted by jigsaw puzzles… a lot. Anyway. Here's part two (of three)! Carry on!

She only agreed to see Javi because her mother 'suggested' it in a manner that left no room for argument, but Azalea ended up being glad that she did. In her depressed state, she had forgotten how being around him made her feel lighter, how he could make her stomach flutter just by touching her. He understood her; he understood that by sitting next to her and holding her hand and regaling her with amusing stories about what she had missed at school, he was helping.

And, honestly, his determination to be there for her was flattering.

When Javi paused for breath, Azalea settled their laced fingers on her stomach and said her two least favorite words in the world, words she was usually too proud to utter. "I'm sorry."

He raised his eyebrows. "For what?"

"Avoiding you. Making my parents send you away every time you came over. I didn't mean to be a bitch."

"Hey," he said firmly, "you're not a bitch. You're hurt." He squeezed her hand. "Tell me what I can do, Zale."

The tears welled up for the thousandth time since her own body betrayed her. By now, the sensation of burning behind her eyes had grown familiar. "Nothing. There's nothing I can do, or you, or my parents. It's over."

Javi sighed and brushed her hair out of her face with his free hand. Briefly, she worried about how greasy it must be, since she hadn't been able to take a shower and had declined all of her mother's offers to wash her hair in the kitchen sink. But then she forgot about it; he wouldn't notice. Not when he was staring at her like that, concerned and tender and affectionate. "Dance is," he said gently, "but you aren't."

She made a frustrated noise. "That's the problem, Javi. I don't remember a time when I wasn't dancing. Who am I without it?"

"You tell me."

Azalea delved within herself, desperately searching for something to cling to, anything. Something she could build a life upon.

"I don't know," she admitted finally. "I don't know."

0000000000

They found a marathon of sitcom reruns on TV, and Javi stayed to watch with her until the pull of sleep became too strong and she succumbed to it. She was vaguely aware of a light touch on her cheek and a whispered "Love ya", but she was too tired to form words of her own.

When Azalea awakened next, it was to a shining sun and the sound of a morning talk show coming from the kitchen. She rubbed her eyes with one hand and braced the other on the back of the couch in order to sit up. "Mom?" Her voice cracked; she cleared her throat. "Mom?" she called again, more loudly this time.

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry."

There was no reply; a moment later, her mother entered the living room, a spatula in hand. "Blueberry pancakes will be ready in two minutes."

Azalea smiled. "Yum."

"How is your foot?"

She shifted her leg experimentally. "Same."

"Do you need any pain medication?"

"Not yet."

"How did it go with Javi last night?"

This question, Azalea did not quickly rattle off a response to. She recalled the previous night's hours of comfortable silence and the guilt she felt over how unwaveringly devoted he had been to her, despite the way she acted toward him. "Fine."

Both of her mother's eyebrows rose. "Fine?"

"Yes, Mom," Azalea sighed. "Fine. It was fine." She did not know how to describe it beyond that one noncommittal syllable; she was so confused about everything. Even more so than before.

The buzzing of the kitchen timer saved her from further questioning. Her mom went to turn it off, and Azalea started to get up and follow before remembering that she couldn't go anywhere without help.

Her shoulders slumped. And she remained where she was.

0000000000

Javi returned that night, this time bearing chocolate chip ice cream (her favorite) and a rented copy of The Great Gatsby (which was the most touching thing of all, considering all he did was complain when she made him watch it the first time). Her mom steered clear of the living room and her dad mostly did, though he apparently could not resist coming in a couple of times to remark on how unjust it was that Leonardo DiCaprio had never won an Oscar.

After the movie, they found another marathon of another mindless TV show. Both of Azalea's parents went up to bed. As she heard the door to their room close, she glanced down at Javi. He sat on the floor in front of the couch, knees bent upward, their entwined fingers resting on one. His gaze remained leveled at the TV; he did not feel her looking at him.

"Javi?"

Her utterance caused him to turn around. "Huh?"

She looked at him and wondered, not for the first time, how she had ended up with this gem of a boy. He was so different from Jayden, who broke her heart a few years prior. So different from the disgusting guys who roamed the halls of her high school, who bragged about their sexual conquests as if the girls they slept with were nothing but objects put on earth for their pleasure. Javi was not like that. Javi had never treated her with anything but respect.

Dance was no longer a part of her future. But she sincerely hoped that Javi would be.

"What's wrong?" he asked, shifting his whole body toward her and reaching up to move her hair off her shoulder. She was suddenly glad that she had finally allowed her mom to wash it that afternoon.

At a loss for words, she sat up, reached out, and wrapped her arms around him. He held her close. The greatest comfort she'd had in days was the warmth of his body, the strength of his embrace. Azalea turned her face into his neck as tears began to slide down her cheeks.

"Zale," he prompted softly. "What is it?"

The TV was still on, but it was just background noise now. She sighed and told him the truth. It was nothing he hadn't heard before, but tonight, his understanding was a thousand times more important.

"I love you," Azalea said.

Javi drew back to look at her. "That all?"

A little embarrassed to be making tearful confessions of love- how sappy- she nodded curtly and returned her arms to her lap.

He kissed the corner of her mouth. "Then I love you, too."

That night, just like the previous one, she fell asleep with him at her side and the weight of his palm in hers.

0000000000

"I haven't seen you watch your dance solo for a few days."

Azalea glanced up from the textbook she was reading (or attempting to- her eyelids kept drifting shut). Her father stood next to the couch. She hadn't heard him come in. It took her mind a couple seconds to recall what he had said; once she registered it, she averted her gaze and shrugged in response.

"Did your mom take it?" he asked suspiciously.

At this, she looked up. "No."

And that was true. The DVD sat where it always had, on a shelf with the other videos of her performances. By no means was she done mourning her dance career; she could pop that thing in, play it all evening, and end up just as defeated and hopeless as she was when she first woke up in the hospital. But she would not do it. Not today, anyway. She had made the conscious decision to focus on other things.

Like "The General History of Virginia", a snoozer of a narrative.

It wasn't her first choice, but, for the moment, it was all she had.

Smoothing a hand over her head, her dad said, "You do seem better."

"I am. Kinda."

"Feel up for going out to dinner tonight? Mom's working late, and we all know you aren't getting anything edible out of me. You've gotta be getting antsy, sitting around the house all day. I'm sure we can wrangle that cast of yours into the car."

Azalea considered his offer. It was true that she hadn't been out in weeks, but she was still largely immobile, and the mere thought of going anywhere exhausted her. "Can we order pizza instead?"

"That's fine. Pepperoni, right?"

"Always."

By the time it arrived, she had finished her homework for the night and had redirected her attention to the ceiling above her. She fingered her necklace absentmindedly as she listened to her dad moving around in the kitchen, pulling down plates and opening up the pizza box. He entered the living room with a flourish a minute later, two plates in hand. One of them went in her lap. "For the lady."

"Thanks."

He sat down in the armchair perpendicular to the couch and sank his teeth into a slice. Azalea started to pick hers up but stopped as a crushing realization came from nowhere, hurtling at her full-force, nearly knocking her over with the weight of its truth. "Daddy?"

"Yeah."

"I don't… I don't even know what I like to do."

He regarded her thoughtfully while he chewed his pizza. For the first time in several days, Azalea felt her eyes well up. She grabbed a nearby throw pillow and clutched it to her chest as if it were her lifeline.

She had known how wrapped up in dance she was, of course. But at what point had it become the sole focus of her life?

Her father swallowed and cleared his throat. "Well," he said, "we haven't been able to do this in a few years, not since you started having rehearsal pretty much every day… but, if memory serves me right, you and I used to make pretty good movie-watching buddies."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and Azalea felt her face relax into a relieved smile.

Yes, yes, thank God there was something else. Something else that had been a constant for her entire life; something else she could immerse herself in, if only temporarily.

And maybe there were more things like this buried beneath the surface- things forgotten or yet to be discovered. Maybe there was more to know about herself than she had imagined.

"Do you have time to watch one now?" she asked her father.

"Hey," he said, mock-offended. "I've always got time for my girl."

Azalea took her first bite of pizza as he went to the DVD shelf. They ended up choosing Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She lay on the couch in the company of her dad with her cell phone balanced on her stomach so she could reply to Javi's texts, and she found herself having fun.

It wasn't much.

But it was a start.