255: Penny
The studio smells like rosin dust and old floor polish, the way it always does when the stakes are high. Music drifts from the sound system in fragments not the whole score yet, just pieces, snippets, enough to keep the nerves humming. I press my palm to the barre and close my eyes for a second, just long enough to settle the tremble in my stomach.
I’m already in costume. The soft blue rehearsal set Asher got me for Christmas. It fits like it was sewn over my skin, silver threads gleaming faintly under the overhead lights. Every time I look at it, I still can’t believe it’s mine that he gave it to me.
–
I glance down at the inside of my left sleeve, where the embroidery lives. I know the words by heart now, but I touch them anyway. A ritual. A reminder.
For when you forget you’re made of steel.
My throat tightens, but not in a bad way. In the kind of way that makes everything feel heavier. Realer.
“Penny.” Madame Loretto’s voice cuts through the air like a whip. “Posture. Chin.”
I snap upright instinctively, neck long, shoulders pulled into place. It’s automatic now. I don’t even get defensive when she says it – because she’s right. She’s always right.
Luc leans over to whisper, “I swear she’s got a sixth sense for slouching.”
I stifle a laugh, even as my ribs expand on the next breath.
He grins at me, boyish and unbothered in his pale rehearsal tights and rolled–down warmups. “You look ready to destroy someone’s dreams.”
“I feel like I might throw up.”
“Perfect,” he says brightly. “That’s peak performance energy.”
We step onto center. No mirrors today – Madame doesn’t allow them during dressed rehearsals. She says we need to feel it now, not fix it.
And I do. I feel it in every inch of my body. The ache in my ankles, the burn in my calves, the way the bodice hugs my ribs. The sweat already slicking my spine.
This is it.
The closest I’ve ever come to my dream.
The female lead in the spring gala.
Me.
Not the girl in the wings or the one doing corps work in the shadows. Me. Standing in the light. In the costume Asher gave me. With Luc at my side. With three weeks left until opening night.
The music cues and we rise into position.
My heartbeat syncs to the first soft notes.
And then I dance.
Not as Penny, not as the girl who balances rehearsals and essays and complicated feelings for a boy who says he wants forever with me. I’m not that girl right now.
I’m her. The girl in the ballet. The dream. The heartbeat of the story.
Luc lifts me like I weigh nothing. We’ve rehearsed this duet for weeks, but today it flows smoother, cleaner – like we’re sharing the same breath. I barely notice the ache in my arches or the sweat slicking my back. I only feel the music, the rhythm, the emotion winding its way through my limbs.
We hit every mark.
I land the final arabesque with my toes burning and my heart racing, and when I drop into the closing pose, the silence that follows is deafening.
Madame Loretto claps once.
“That,” she says, “was almost professional.”
Luc flops dramatically to the floor beside me. “That’s the nicest thing she’s said to me in four months.”
–
–
I laugh breathless and wild with adrenaline and lie flat on my back, staring up at the cracked ceiling tiles.
I’ve never felt more alive.
I’ve never felt more terrified.
Three more weeks.
That’s all I have left to become the version of myself I saw in my head as a kid. The girl who owned the stage. The one who told a story with her body. The one who didn’t crumble under the pressure.
And yet…
I think I’m her already.
I think I’m becoming her.
Every time I wear this costume. Every time I feel the words inside my sleeve. Every time I catch Luc’s eye
during rehearsal and he gives me that tiny nod that says we’ve got this.
The fear’s still there.
But the fear doesn’t win anymore.
