Escape from Mr. Whitman (Emma and Theodore) novel Chapter 269

Emma reached into the gift bag and pulled out a flat, square box. For a moment, she wondered if the person who’d given her ten watches over the years had finally run out of watches to send.

She lifted the lid. Inside was an emerald necklace.

Large emeralds, each encircled by diamonds, formed the necklace, and in the center, a massive emerald pendant caught the light. It looked… extravagantly expensive.

Around her, the other girls from the touring company gathered, gasping in awe. “Wow, it’s beautiful!” they whispered, speculating in hushed tones about who the mysterious giver might be.

“Hey, Emma, is there a card?” one of the dancers asked, a little crestfallen. “He said there was a card inside—you’d know who it’s from if you read it! Maybe I dropped it. Let me go check downstairs.”

“No need,” Emma stopped her, smiling. “There’s no card. That’s just how it is.”

“But do you know who sent it?” The girl looked anxious, worried she’d somehow messed things up.

“I do. Thank you,” Emma said, tucking the necklace away.

So, he’d come to watch her dance after all. Wasn’t he the one who always looked down on ballet?

She remembered how, back when they were picking colleges, he’d asked her what she was applying for. Back then, all those shy feelings she harbored weren’t enough to make her give up her future and follow him; naturally, she’d chosen the best dance conservatory.

He’d seemed disappointed. Nodded, and said something like, “Well, I guess that’s all you art majors can do.”

Most people thought that kids who went into the arts were just doing it because their grades weren’t good enough for anything else. But she truly loved to dance.

She was only eighteen, but she’d already been dancing for more than a decade. Most of her life had been spent at the barre.

By then, she was used to being at the bottom of the academic pecking order. His words were disappointing but hardly surprising. Everyone was going their separate ways, after all. A teenage crush was just a memory for the scrapbook.

Later, after her injury, when she could never dance again, he’d said the same thing: “It’s okay, Emma. So you can’t dance anymore. You still have me—I’ll take care of you for the rest of your life.”

To him, losing dance was just that—no more dancing. He’d never seen it as a real career.

In fact, he seemed to think it was beneath him, almost a little shameful. She remembered, during those first attempts at rehab after their wedding, Theodore would have to drive her around, making him late to meet Jared and the others. She’d overheard Jared on speakerphone, his voice loud and careless in the car: “Come on, man, you already married a cripple—just let her be. Why bother with therapy? The CEO of Whitman Inc. married to a woman who limps, and she used to be a dancer, performing for people’s entertainment. Is that something to brag about?”

Theodore hadn’t said a word to defend her.

That was all she needed to know—Theodore felt the same way Jared did.

He must have thought that, since he hadn’t put Jared on speakerphone, she hadn’t heard. But the car was silent, and Jared was anything but subtle. She might not have caught every word, but she’d gotten the gist.

Eventually, she’d learned to walk again, but dancing was truly out of reach.

How could it not be spectacular?

Tonight had been extraordinary—so much so that even as she lay in bed, her heart was still racing with excitement, sleep a distant thought.

Tonight, she had danced in front of all those people.

She had stood on a real stage.

Her friends from the company had snapped photos of her birthday celebration, and now, as everyone wound down for the night, they sent her the pictures. She scrolled through them, unable to keep from smiling.

It was then that Renee messaged her, a single sentence bursting with exclamation points, overflowing with excitement: Emma! Are you back? You can dance again!!!

Then, she sent a photo—a shot of Emma mid-dance, alone on stage, Sebastian nowhere in sight.

Where did you get that photo? Emma typed back.

Renee replied with a sly emoji and sent a screenshot: it was from Theodore’s social media. He’d posted that very photo of Emma dancing, with a caption: Happy birthday to someone special.

It had only been a few minutes, and already the comments from their old high school classmates were piling up, all saying the same thing: Well, would you look at that—Mr. Whitman actually showing some affection for once.