I shrug, not sure what to say to that. I'm guessing she doesn't want my honest opinion.
Though in all honesty, I don't even know what I'm thinking.
"I thought you understood, but it seems like you don't."
What is she talking about? "Understood? Understood what?"
She sighs, still looking at the hands that are knotted together between her legs. "That ballet is my life. Was my life," she quickly corrects. "I told you it was everything to me, and that I didn't have the time for anything else." Finally, she looks at me. "That included you too. Ballet was everything, and there was nothing left for you."
"Why didn't you say that?"
"I did. I tried. You didn't want to hear it."
"Why did you get involved with me, to begin with, if you knew it wouldn't last? Couldn't last?"
Didn't she know it was cruel to make me fall in love with her and then to take that love away? Especially when everything else in my life was taken away.
She stands up. "I wish you knew what my life was like. I thought you understood, but you didn't. Those eight weeks at STP were about the most normal time I ever had."
"Seriously? A setting like that is anything but normal. We were together twenty-four seven. The relationships are hyperintense, and it all happens in a bubble. It's so not normal."
"Was strengthening and conditioning and ballet class after ballet class? Cramming my homework in so I could get it all done before the four to five hours of class each night? I was already behind the eight ball by not being home tutored so I could take class all day. Hell, the only thing I did for fun—other than eating and going to my dad's rugby games—was to take Polynesian dance classes to appease my grandparents. So yeah, not the typical teen experience. I didn't go to football games. I practiced. I didn't go to the mall. I practiced. I didn't go to the prom. I went to auditions. I obsessed about being the best."
"But you blocked me." Now I sound like a spoiled teenager. "Who does that? We didn't even fight. The last thing you said to me was 'I love you.' And then you blocked me, probably before you even got home."
I couldn't even tell her. She still doesn't know.
"I had to. You were a distraction. And as long as that temptation was there, I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on what was important."
Those words hurt probably more than she intended.
I stand up and begin to pace. "It's nice to know I wasn't important."
Leslie collapses back on the bed. "You still don't get it. You were important. That was the problem. I couldn't afford for you to be important. It was energy I didn't have to spare."
What I hear is that I wasn't worth the energy. I don't say anything. She has no idea what she did to me.
"Okay, so you know my grandparents are from Fiji, right? Well, in Fiji, the value system is God, family, and rugby. Sometimes rugby comes before family, especially on game day. Like literally, the banks shut down when there's a game and everything stops. For me, substitute ballet for rugby. I don't know any other way. My family doesn't know any other way."
"You don't think I feel the same way about music? You don't think it's with me every moment of every day?" That I have to carry on my parents' legacy, and that my success is their success? That I'm doing this for them as much as for me?
She covers her face with her hands, still lying on her back across my bed. "It's not the same. You … you can be a musician at any age. With any color. With any body type. I have—had—such a small window to shove that square peg into a round hole. So few people get to the level I got to. Even fewer succeed. Do you know what the statistics are? It's something like three-hundred thousand people try for a professional ballet job each year. Only two percent get hired. That's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things. I thought if I just hammered away hard enough, eventually, it'd fit. But no matter what, I'm still me. I still have wide feet and round boobs and not enough skill. I'm still a square peg."
I want to be mad at her, but suddenly, I feel sorry for her. I can't imagine going through your whole life trying to fit in. I walk over to the bed, sitting down next to her. I make sure to leave some distance between us. I'm not going to be tempted into touching her.
I'm not a dick, and she's obviously hurting.
I'm still hurting.
"Maybe you need to find a different hole."
"I don't want a different hole. I want to be successful in the hole I picked."
I shake my head at the turn this conversation has taken. We need to stop talking in terms of holes. It's bringing my mind to a crude place. "And how do you define success?"
"In order to be successful, you have to be the best. And for me, that means being a professional ballerina."
"Okay, so where do you stand with that?" She auditioned for The Edison in the first place and was available at a moment's notice to come up here. I think I know what she's going to tell me, but maybe working through this will help her.
