We won.
EPILOGUE
Three months later…
The “S”comes down first.
I stand on the sidewalk with my coffee cooling in my hands, watching two men in harnesses carefully detach the painted letters from the brick facade of my studio. Solis School of Dance. The sign has hung there for thirty-one years—first installed by my mother when she opened the studio five years after I was born.
I’ve walked under those letters almost every day of my life.
The “O” follows the “S,” lowered gently into a waiting truck bed. Then the “L.” The “I.”
My throat tightens.
This is ridiculous,I tell myself.It’s just a sign. Just paint on metal. It doesn’t mean anything.
But it does.
For most of my life, I believed that changing the name would be a betrayal. An admission that I wasn’t good enough to carry my mother’s legacy. Every time I imagined updating the studio—modernizing the logo, appealing to a younger demographic, making itmine—guilt would crash over me like a wave.
This is her dream,I would think.Who am I to change it?
But I had already changed it. Winning the showcase had brought in new customers. I’d added modern dance classes. The prize money had allowed me to update the website and invest in marketing. We were showing a healthy profit again. It was time.
“You okay?”
Mal’s voice is warm against my ear. His arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me back against his chest, and I lean into him without thinking. Three months, and I still haven’t gotten used to the easy intimacy between us. The casual touches. The comfort of having someone who wants to hold me just because.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
Am I? I reach up and touch my cheek. Wet.
“It’s just allergies.”
“In December?”
“Climate change is very real, Mal.”
He laughs, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my back. “Of course. My mistake.”
The workers have moved on to “CHOOL” now. “DANCE” will be last—the largest letters, the ones my mother insisted onbecausepeople need to know what we do here, Isadora, they need to see it from the street.
I remember being five years old, standing in this exact spot, watching those letters go up. My mother held my hand so tight it hurt. Her face was fierce with pride and determination and something else I was too young to name.
This is our legacy,she told me.This is what we leave behind.
I thought she meant the studio. The business. The carefully preserved tradition of ballroom excellence. Now I think she meant something else entirely.
“It feels strange,” I say quietly. “I thought I’d be relieved. I thought I’d feel free.”
“And instead?”
“Instead I feel like I’m losing something.”
Mal’s arms tighten around me. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just holds me while the workers detach “OF” and lower it into the truck.
