A large group clustered together in front of the common room down the hall, socializing loudly before bingo that was about to start in…
I squinted at the hallway clock.
Forty minutes.
I quickened my pace to the locker room, grabbed my clothes, and hurried back into the studio, closing the door quietly behind me.
My relative anonymity here was one perk of Dad not venturing over to the Locc enough to be known. They’d yet to catch pity for me, and that’s how I needed it to stay.
I traded my grass-stained jean shorts for my skin-tight dance shorts, then sat on the floor, tying on my pointe shoes.
I should’ve put on toe protection or even cushioned them with a piece of napkin, especially since I hadn’t worn them since December.
But… I needed it to hurt.
Once the ribbons were tied off and tucked the way I liked them, I tested them out, bouncing on the balls of my feet one at a time. The silence in the room pressed on me, so I walked to the ancient stereo and jammed the necessary buttons to fix it.
The speakers crackled to life, and the first song from the burned CD of my most dramatic, soul-crushing classical music playlist began.
The first was a piano arrangement of the Russian folk song “Dark Eyes.”
My reflection lacked any detail as I strode across the floor, making me nothing more than an anonymous dancer. One hand resting on the barre, I began a warm-upsequence, starting with ankle rotations, and only allowed a small hiss to leave my lips when the scrapes on my knees pulled during the following pliés.
My mind eventually wandered to earlier in the day, the routine giving my brain space to process.
What art did for Dad, dance did for me. Which was maybe another reason I’d avoided it.
Dozens of care-team meetings replayed as if on a reel, and I weighed them against the countless hours of research I’d done. There were a lot of potential improvements for Dad on the horizon. But change could also invite disaster, and we’d really just started to settle in here.
The music swelled and shifted, and I transitioned out of warm-ups and into short sequences, testing my joints and balance as a flash of flannel danced across my memory.
I’d flirted with consequences of disregarding risk by taking that curve so fast today, nearly hurting that guy in the process.
I had to be more careful.
I extended into an arabesque as the exact pattern of the flannel and the silver gleam of the crutch formed in my mind and then blurred as I spun.
Him, standing in the middle of the road, unsure where to go.
With my right foot in front in fourth position en l’air, I used my hazy form in the mirror as my spot and moved into fouette.
On the seventh turn, I wobbled, my ankle turning when I tried to correct it.
What color were his eyes?
I hadn’t looked closely enough.
Panting, I lifted my gaze to the spot in the mirror I’d abandoned at the first sign of distress.
Iwasthat guy. I’d been him for months.
Out of place, not sure where I should be.
Unsteady.
The music reached its first major crescendo, and I leaned into the pain of my abused muscles, launching into an especially difficult combination that cut diagonally across the floor.
And then… I let myself feel.
