“Can I have everyone in the Giselle excerpt to the stage?” He barks, yelling more when the dancers don’t get to their starting positions quick enough.
I move to push through the small crowd of dancers waiting backstage, halting when Mia catches my arm as I pass. “Hey, don’t worry about it. You look really good. He’s just being an ass today.”
If I open my mouth, I know I’m going to start crying, so I press my lips together and give her a stilted nod, hating the pity I see in her eyes.
She lets me go and I walk quickly through the busy backstage, striding down the hall until I find an empty dressing room to dive into before letting out a choked sob.
I feel the panic attack coming on and curl into a ball. My arms wrap tightly around my knees, and I press my head into them, eyes shut tight. My heart is pounding so hard I hear it in my ears.
You don’t have time for this.
The lights in the dressing room I’ve taken refuge in are off, and that helps. My chest feels tight, like there’s a pressing weight on it and I can’t get enough air.
“You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine,”I whisper now to myself, slightly rocking back and forth as I count—“One, two, three”—attempting to breathe in deep through my nose, but it comes out shaky, more like a sob.
Three weeks ago, I was drugged, thrown in the back of a van, and almost trafficked. The scars on my back from the whip are still healing, but the mental ones… I haven’t even begun to unpack that. I miss my daughter; I miss her laugh, I miss her tantrums over brushing her teeth, and how she turns up her nose at the mere sight of anything green. I miss my best friend, and I miss when dance used to be fun and not my only means of survival. And I hate Koen. I hate him. I hate him so fucking much.
He’s so cold, arrogant, manipulative. The way he bosses me around… He’s cruel and he’s controlling, yet his touch is lightand gentle. The way he kissed me the other night… the way heclaimedme in front of everyone, right before I was drugged… and what did my tattooed nightmare do?
He kept me safe, brought me home tohis bed.
And last night he slept inmybed.
When I woke up this morning, warm, snuggled into his side with his arm wrapped around me…I didn’t hate it.
“Fuck!”I don’t realize I’ve actually screamed it, until I feel my throat burning.
I dig my nails into my thigh, and the world slowly starts to come back into focus. It reminds me of Koen’s hand around my throat.
Stop thinking about him.
Stop.
I can’t sit here anymore. I have to move. My brain needs something else to do other than obsess over the one man I can’t have.
Throwing open the dressing room door, I don’t stop until I find an empty studio room and once I’m there…
I don’t stop.
I’ve been at it for hours by the time I clock Koen in the ballet studio’s mirrors, watching me intently from the shadows in the hall.
It’s late. The sky outside is dark. Everyone else has long since gone home. I wonder how long he waited out there before coming to find me.
I don’t react to his presence, though I feel his proximity throughout every inch of my body.
He knows I’ve seen him. I don’t miss the disapproving stare on his face when I finish another run-through and drag myself back up to go again.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
I don’t bother turning around. “Mind. Your. Own. Business,” I seethe between my teeth.
The following scoff is answer enough.
I go again. I landed wrong on my ankle a few run-throughs ago. The pain keeps increasing the further I get into the routine.
I feel Koen’s eyes on my back but I refuse to look in his direction.
“Briar.” His voice holds a warning as I get closer to the last leap.
