Chapter 265: Penny
There’s this strange stillness that happens before a performance.
Not quiet, not really. There’s music, and people talking in low voices, and the hum of light bulbs and costume racks and hairdryers.
But inside me–stillness.
I sit in front of the mirror, surrounded by the chaos of my own things. Makeup scattered across the vanity. Bobby pins in a cracked ceramic dish. My phone buzzing every few seconds with texts I’m too nervous to read.
I can hear Luc rehearsing in one of the side studios down the hall. Pointe shoes against wood, the occasional muffled curse in French. Someone’s giggling in the hallway. Someone else is crying softly.
I don’t even know who.
The dressers finished zipping me into my costume twenty minutes ago. Now, I’m just sitting here.
Waiting.
My fingers shake as I reach up to adjust the sleeve the left one. My thumb finds the embroidered words near my wrist.
For when you fly.
It steadies me a little. Not completely. But enough to breathe again.
Madame Loretto bursts into the dressing room like a windstorm in silk and perfume.
“Chérie, why are you not warming up? Why are you sitting like it is a funeral?”
I blink. “I was-”
“No.” She waves a hand, flutters to my side, and begins fixing the placement of my hair like it personally offends her. “You are ready. You are brilliant. So why are you acting like you will be executed and not applauded?”
I let out something between a laugh and a wheeze. “I’m just scared it’s not going to feel like
enough.”
She stops.
Looks at me in the mirror.
“You know what is worse than failure?” she says quietly. “Never risking the moment. Never standing
in the light.”
1/3
Chapter 265: Penny
Her fingers tap the embroidery on my sleeve she knows it’s there. Of course she does. “And if he believes in you… then you are foolish not to believe in yourself.”
“I’m not scared of the dancing,” I admit. “I’m scared that this is all I ever wanted. And what if it’s not what I thought it would be?”
She studies me for a beat. Then: “Then we find the next dream. But not before this one.”
Luc shows up at the door exactly ten minutes later, hair slicked back, posture perfect. He leans in the doorway like he owns the building.
“Are you breathing or do I need to slap you?”
“I’m breathing.”
He tosses me a water bottle. “Drink.”
“I already-”
“I’m not your boyfriend, Penny. I don’t have to be nice to you.”
I smirk. “Remind me why we’re partners again?”
“Because I’m the only one who can lift your stubborn ass without tearing something.”
He offers me his hand. I take it.
Together, we walk through the corridor that leads backstage. The floors smell like wax and floor cleaner. The lighting grows dimmer, shadows, stretching like long fingers around the corners.
My chest tightens again.
Luc notices. “Don’t think. Just do.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking since I woke up.”
“That’s the problem.”
Backstage is colder than I remember.
There are twenty people moving at once
stagehands adjusting props, lighting techs whispering
into headsets, dancers stretching in shadows. The buzz of it all makes my ears ring.
And then I see it
–
the edge of the stage.
Just past the wings. Just past the velvet curtains.
Chapter 265: Penny
My heart skips.
This is it.
Asher’s voice lives in my head now, calm and deep and so certain.
You’ve already won, baby. You don’t have to prove anything tonight. Just dance.
He fed me this morning, like I was fragile and precious. Made me toast and eggs and fruit like I was about to take the bar exam, not step into the biggest performance of my life.
He kissed my wrist.
He held me when I couldn’t stop shaking.
He helped me zip up my warmup jacket and told me, without even blinking, that he’d be front row.
And when I was too scared to read any more texts, he took my phone and told me to breathe.
I stand now, just before my cue to head to my mark.
I can hear the audience taking their seats.
I can hear him, somewhere out there.
And I whisper to myself, lips barely moving:
“Just dance.”
