Grinning, he said, “Maya, the present is made of moments.” He took my hand. “Focus on those moments, on the little things every day, and live them in your heart. Dream of tomorrow and don’t hide from the past. We’re made of memories, my dear. That’s everything we are.”
I nodded and looked down at my legs, resting a hand on my thigh, tentatively bringing it closer and closer to my scar until I touched it with the tip of my finger. The skin was soft there. I hadn’t thought it would feel like that. I pressed it harder, and memories flooded me like a river inside my head.
And I did it. I faced the past with open eyes. Without guilt, without remorse. Because I didn’t have time for them anymore.
31
At twenty years old
June.
I squeezed the phone tight.
“You know perfectly well I just took a post at the Royal Ballet,” I said with a trembling voice.
“So what?” my grandmother responded scornfully on the other line.
“Are you not listening? They gave me a full scholarship for two years. They paid for my studies, my lodging, they helped me graduate, and now they’ve offered me a job. A good one! It’s one of the best ballet companies in the world! I’m lucky.”
“Lucky? You’ll be lost in the crowd up there. Here you can triumph, be somebody in your own country. Prima ballerina, probably. Do you not understand how much that means? You can’t just let all the work we’ve done go to waste.”
She always spoke as if she was the one who had accomplished everything and I was just a nobody, when I was the one who had done it all, with my hard work and dedication.
I had sacrificed so much…
And it had been so hard to escape…
I let myself slide down the wall and ended up sitting on the floor of my dorm room. I liked living in London. I’d been there for two years, and it was the happiest I’d ever been. I didn’t want to go back to Madrid.
I couldn’t live with her again.
“Please, Grandma, I want this,” I begged.
“Stop with the nonsense, Maya. I want you here this Sunday at the latest. Monday we’ll start getting ready for the audition. We’ve got less than a month.”
“But…”
“Don’t make me come look for you.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hold back a sob. I wanted to scream. To howl:No, no, no, no, no. But I didn’t. I gave in the way I always had. I shrank till I nearly disappeared. I folded. Because I was scared. Because it was what I’d always done. I swallowed my rage, suppressed my wishes, and said what she wanted me to say:
“Fine.”
A month later.
They were supposed to call on Monday, and it was already Wednesday, and the tension was killing me. The unpleasantness in the air was weighing down on me like a tombstone.
“You should have tried harder,” my grandmother said from the sofa.
At the table, I stared at my untouched salad. “I did a good job,” I murmured.
“Not good enough, clearly.”
“There were lots of talented people there.”
“And you allowed them to outperform you,” she replied contemptuously. “You failed.”
I pursed my lips, not wanting to let her see me trembling, and tried not to draw a breath. My hands were under the table, my nails were digging into the flesh of my thighs. The pain extended through my body, but I couldn’t hold back the tear that streamed down my cheek.
