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He raises both hands in the air. “I said nothing. Don’t get me in trouble.”
I smile a little before getting in my car, and when I head out, Yan follows close behind me in his Mercedes. After the talk we just had, I don’t feel as stifled. He’s just doing what he was ordered to do.
At rehearsal, I go through the final motions and preparations. Costume designers and makeup artists are all gathered to make sure there are no loose ends.
Philippe tells me to do one last demonstration with Ryan because he wants to see his grasp of the emotions.
We do a few routines in which Philippe criticizes his laziness. Ryan says he had a cramp and will take care of it with the company’s physician.
The staff buzz around the empty theater and the other dancers stand behind the curtains, watching us. Stephanie, Philippe, and a few of their assistants are on stage as we’re about to perform the routine one final time.
I wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand. I overworked my ankles today and I will pay a visit to Dr. Kim later.
The scene is a solo between me and Albrecht, played by Ryan. It’s when I choose to save his life even after he doomed me to death. He didn’t do it on purpose, but my life ended as soon as I knew he had a fucking fiancée. A princess.
It’s where love proves what it truly is, a masochistic feeling where you want the best for the one you love despite what they’ve done to you.
Bullshit.
I twirl on pointe for a few seconds, then jump into Ryan’s arms a fraction of a second early. He extends his hands, but he misses by a breath.
It’s a single breath.
Just one.
Time freezes for a moment and everything turns into white noise.
Both of our eyes widen as I land in an unnatural position. Shock ripples through my leg and then a haunting, ugly sound echoes in the air.
Pop.
22
Lia
It’s a nightmare.
I wait for it to end.
For reality to kick back in.
I’ve had a thousand nightmares about breaking my ankle, my hip, my leg.
But no matter how gory or frightening they are, I wake up.
I write notes about them to remind myself they aren’t real.
Not this time.
Now, the searing pain is a constant reminder that this is far from a nightmare.
This is reality.
I lie on the hospital bed, my leg in a cast and propped up high on a wedge.
I broke my tibia and the bone punctured the skin. I’ll never forget the sight of the bloody white rod protruding through my torn flesh. A surgery was needed to set the bone back in place, one I entered in a state of shock and exited numb.
I held on to the hope that the whole ordeal would be over with the surgery. That Dr. Kim would tell me it was just fatigue, that I should take my pills and everything would be fine.
