“Recoveringballerina.”
Tess smiled. “You’re also a wonderful teacher. I wish you could see yourself the way we see you.”
Daphne swallowed hard. Still sore. Still unsure. Still crawling back into her skin. But maybe that was enough.
She clapped her hands and returned to her students. “Let’s run the Snow Queen variation one more time before the final rehearsal at the barn.”
As the girls scrambled into line, she limped to her bag and pulled out her pointe shoes.
She hadn’t worn them since the cabin.
The girls quieted, watching her as she sat and began to tie the ribbons. Her hands shook. Not from fear, but memory. Her body remembered everything. The sting of fatigue, the ache of her instep, the knot that had to be tucked just so beneath the ribbon.
Pointe shoes had been her armor… and her prison. It was a realization she was trying to understand and recover from. When she rose to stand, she relevéed en pointe for a single breath. Her balance wavered. Her core protested, but she didn’t fall.
She called the girls forward, her voice steady. “Let’s go.”
To their credit, they didn’t scream or gasp. They didn’t even comment. They just moved into position, feet and arms in first position, ready for Tess to press play.
Tchaikovsky’sWaltz of the Snowflakesstarted softly, then swelled.
The girls danced like snow caught in the wind, light, luminous, and precise. They moved through patterns she’d drilled into them with aching, persistent care.
She danced small segments alongside them, adjusting a chin here, a port de bras there, encouraging a straighter arabesque. Her ankle ached. She ignored it. She trusted herself now. She knew her limits.
She didn’t do the full variation, but she did enough to feel the floor beneath her, to remember that movement didn’t have to be punishment. It could be love.
At some point during the turns, she noticed something at the back of the studio.
Abe.
He leaned in the doorway, jeans dusted with snow, a blue flannel shirt beneath his green field jacket. Arms crossed. Quiet.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The way he looked at her, soft, steady, unshaken, was everything.
Their eyes met.
Her stomach flipped, not from nerves, but from something deeper. Something steady and warm.I see you. I’m here. I believe in you.
The music ended, and the girls clapped for each other, giddy with energy.
Charlie flung her arms around Daphne’s waist. “You’re a real Snow Queen.”
Daphne laughed, breath catching in her throat. “Maybe I am.”
Later that evening,Kingsmill’s community barn-turned-theater was lit up with string lights. The floors had been sweptclean, and rows of folding chairs filled the space that was packed with parents and neighbors.
Abe stood behind the side curtain near the makeshift set pieces, holding a thermos of Daphne’s favorite peppermint hot chocolate. The velvet ring box pressed against his back pocket like a second heartbeat.
Daphne stepped into the glow of the stage’s wings, her tutu pale blue and white like spun frost, a glittering crown nestled in her pinned-up blonde hair. She looked like something from a dream. She was regal and radiant and impossibly real.
When the grand and swirling music began, it sounded like the whole barn inhaled sharply. She moved with quiet strength, rising onto pointe, spinning like a wind-up ballerina. The younger girls fluttered around her like snowflakes caught in a breeze, but he barely noticed them.
He only saw Daphne.
The lift of her arms like branches reaching for the sun. The way she carried herself, chin high, back straight, not just dancing a role but telling a story only her body knew how to tell.
It wasn’t flawless. He caught the slight limp when she moved to the side. Saw her ankle falter, just once. But it didn’t matter. It made her more beautiful. More real. A woman who had broken and healed and risen from the wreckage stronger.
