It means stepping out of the shadows and taking what’s already mine.
Emma.
I turn away from her building and head for my car, calm and focused, the decision settling into place with the weight of inevitability. She danced through pain tonight because it’s all she knows how to do.
Soon, she won’t have to.
Soon, I’ll give her something permanent. Something that can’t abandon her when her body finally says no.
A home, a purpose, and a child growing inside her, binding us together in a way ballet never could.
Emma
I don’t sleep. I lie in bed with the lights off, staring at the ceiling, listening to the building breathe around me. Pipes knock softly. A siren wails somewhere far enough away not to matter. My ankle throbs in time with my pulse, a dull reminder that my body doesn’t belong to me the way it used to.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel it again.
The weight of awareness.
It’s like my skin remembers something my mind doesn’t know how to name. Like some part of me is still standing under the stage lights, bare and exposed, knowing someone is watching from the dark, and wanting it more than I should.
I turn onto my side and tuck my knees in, careful with my ankle. The sheets slide against my skin, cool and familiar, and my breath stutters when a shiver runs through me. I tell myself it’s nothing. Just exhaustion. An adrenaline crash. The aftereffects of another performance danced on borrowed time.
But my body doesn’t believe me. Not anymore.
I trained it to obey, not to want, but now it’s defying me in more ways than one.
Ballet taught me early how dangerous want can be. How desire is distracting. How softness invites mistakes. I learned how to keep myself empty of everything but the work. No parties. No boys. No risks.
I was good at it. It made my parents proud. I climbed the ranks quickly, not caring what it cost. Friendships? Family time? Broken promises? As long as I was heading in the right direction, I didn’t care.
Now, lying alone in the dark, I press my thighs together and feel heat bloom where there should be nothing at all. It’s subtle at first, easy to ignore. Until the memory of that presence slides through me again, like a touch that never quite lands.
I exhale shakily and force my hands to stay still.
This is ridiculous. I don’t even know what he looks like. I’ve never heard his voice. He’s never spoken to me, never approached, never crossed the lines I’ve drawn so carefully around myself.
Maybe eighteen months of feeling watched has rewired something inside me. I’ve started to recognise the difference between being alone and being unseen.
When morning finally arrives, I limp through my routine on autopilot. Wrapping my ankle tight, pulling on sweat pants and a hoodie over my leotard and leggings, tying my dark brown hair back with more care than I feel. The mirror shows me a woman who looks composed enough to fool everyone else, even if she can’t fool herself.
The studio smells the same as always. Clean wood, sweat, the mints our director likes to crunch when he is stressed. The barre is cold beneath my fingertips, grounding me, reminding me who I am. Or who I’ve been pretending to be.
The first plié sends a sharp protest up my leg.
I bite back a sound and keep going.
Around me, the other dancers move with easy confidence, bodies still obedient, futures still intact. I feel separate fromthem now, like I’m already standing on the outside, watching the life I’m about to lose.
That’s when it happens. The prickle at the base of my spine.
I straighten instinctively, breath catching as awareness floods me, thick and undeniable. It’s different here in the daylight, sharper somehow, like a blade drawn slowly across my skin. I don’t look around. I don’t have to.
He’s here.
Not close enough to touch, and I doubt close enough to see, but close enough that my body reacts.
My movements soften, turn instinctive instead of controlled. The music starts, and I let it carry me, letting the ache in my ankle blend with the heat building low in my belly. I imagine, without meaning to, what it would feel like to be held with that same intensity I feel watching me.
