Page 12 of Shattered

Daniel’s name lit up the screen. I considered ignoring it, but guilt made me answer.

“Hey.”

“Delia.” He sounded exhausted. “How are you?”

Which meant he knew about yesterday’s call with Mom.

“I’m managing.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I sat up, pushed hair out of my face. “I’m fine, Daniel. Really.”

He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had that crack in it he tried to hide. “I’m worried. About you. About Mom. About everything falling apart at once and not being able to fix any of it.”

The guilt hit immediately and sharp. Daniel spent his days saving children’s lives, came home to a mother who was forgetting him, and now had to worry about his sister falling apart too.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I said quickly. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“Are you, though?”

“Yes.” The lie came easy. I’d gotten so good at convincing people I didn’t need help that I almost believed it myself. At being the uncomplicated one while Daniel carried the weight of the world. “Focus on Mom. Focus on work. I’m fine.”

We talked a few more minutes—surface conversation, nothing real—before hanging up.

That evening, I couldn’t sit still any longer.

The apartment walls felt like they were closing in, the silence too loud, my thoughts spinning in circles I couldn’t break out of. I needed to move. Needed to feel something other than this suffocating grief.

I grabbed my bag and headed to the ballet studio.

It was empty—Thursday evenings I didn’t teach. The space was dark except for emergency lights, quiet except for the hum of the building. I dumped my bag, turned on just enough lights to see, and pulled up music on my phone.

Something classical—something that demanded movement.

I didn’t warm up properly. Didn’t stretch. Just started dancing.

Fouettés, pirouettes, grand jetés—everything I had, every bit of technique I’d spent years carving into my body. I pushed harder than I should have, moved faster than was safe, let the music and the motion drown out everything else.

My body protested. Muscles burning, breath coming too fast. I didn’t stop.

The music swelled. I went for another turn, pushed off too hard, landed wrong?—

The snap was unmistakable.

Pain exploded through my ankle, white-hot and absolute. I went down hard, hitting the floor with my full weight, and the scream that came out of me echoed off the walls.

I lay there, breathing through the pain, staring at the ceiling, thinking distantly that I’d finally found a hurt that matched the one inside me.

The hospital was too bright, too loud, full of people having ordinary emergencies.

They’d x-rayed my ankle—fractured, not broken, which apparently was different and mattered.

They wrapped it and gave me crutches, and told me to stay off it for two weeks minimum. No dancing. No teaching. Just rest and elevation and ice.

I sat in the discharge area, waiting for my prescription, when Sarah appeared.

She took one look at me—hospital gown, crutches, the defeated slump of my shoulders—and sat beside me without a word.