His eyes widened. "You're really doing it? The Roseline Method?"
"I'm really doing it. Not right away, I need to finish my business degree first. But yes. This is what I want." I took his hand. "We're both starting new chapters. Scary ones. But we're doing it together."
"Together," he agreed, pulling me close. "I like the sound of that."
We didn't go back to the movie. Instead, we talked about thefuture, probably for the first time. About his graduate school plans and my studio dreams. About whether we'd stay in California or move somewhere new. About all the possibilities that suddenly felt achievable instead of terrifying.
"You know what's funny?" Derek said eventually, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my arm. "A year ago, I thought my life was over. I couldn't imagine a future without being a soccer player."
"And now?"
"Now I'm excited about that future. About helping other people. About building something meaningful." He kissed my forehead. "About building a life with you."
My heart swelled. "We're not there yet. I mean, we've only been officially together for a few months..."
"I know. I'm not proposing or anything." He laughed, and my heart skipped a beat. "I'm just saying... when I think about my future now, you're in it. And that doesn't scare me the way I thought it would."
"It doesn't scare me either," I admitted. "It actually makes everything else less scary."
We fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other, the laptop playing the forgotten movie in the background. And for the first time since my surgery, I didn't dream about dancing on stage.
I dreamed about something new entirely.
The next few weeks fell into a new rhythm. Derek attended therapy three times a week, working intensively on his PTSD and anxiety. I went once a week, slowly unpacking years of grief and anger about my lost career.
We both threw ourselves into recovery, not the physical kindwe'd been doing, but the emotional and mental healing we'd been avoiding.
Derek started exposure therapy, gradually working up to playing in practice situations that mimicked the conditions of his injury. Some days were good. Some days, he'd have panic attacks that left him shaking and exhausted.
But he kept showing up.
I started teaching more Pilates classes at the studio, developing the fusion program I'd envisioned. Some classes were disasters where my instructions were unclear, and my sequencing was off. But I kept refining it. Taking every feedback and improving.
We kept showing up for each other, too. On Derek's hard days, I'd hold him and remind him he was safe. On my hard days, when the phantom pain in my hip flared, or I saw a ballet performance that made me ache with longing, he'd let me cry and then help me remember why I was building something new.
Aaron slowly came around. It wasn't instant; there were still awkward moments, stilted conversations, times when the betrayal felt too fresh. But gradually, he started inviting us both to things again. Started making jokes about us. Started acting like my brother instead of my disapproving parent.
“Forgot how much I used to love watching you dance.” Aaron’s voice startled me as I stopped in the middle of the studio, the notes of La Bayadere slowly dying over the speakers. “Mom and Dad always made me go to every single one of your competitions and shows. And somewhere along the way, I found myself looking for stupid livestreams to keep up with you, even when I couldn’t go in person…”
Rolling my ankle around in my pointe shoes, I smiled. “Yeah, it’s been a while. You always used to text me right after to tell me how amazing I was, even when I sucked. Today I just wanted to see if I still got it,” I shrugged, feeling out of my element. Sure, I danced, but dancing a variation on pointetook a different kind of effort. That’s why I loved ballet; there was always room for improvement. When I improvised, I could mess up and call it art. When it was a classical ballet variation, you either did it or you didn’t. There was no in between.
“Think you still do,” he smiled, leaning against the door. “It’s good to see you… happy. Despite the topic of conversation.”
I felt my throat close up from sudden emotions, and I had to blink the unexpected tears away. “Yeah… it doesn’t hurt anymore. Knowing the mirror is going to be the only audience I’ll ever have when I want to dance.”
Aaron crossed the space between us, and for the first time in a very long time, he wrapped his arms around me. I felt like a little child being pulled into a bone-shattering hug that had the potential to put back all my broken pieces. “I’ll always want to come watch you dance.”
Tears streamed down my face, and I had to breathe through my nose to get through the emotions. “I missed you.”
“I’m so sorry for how I reacted,” Aaron said, sincerity lacing his voice.
“And I’m so sorry for lying to you and hiding things,” I sniffled into his shoulder. “I just wanted to be able to figure things out on my own for the first time in my life.”
“I know,” he nodded, kissing the top of my head. “But watching you lose your dream was hard on me. I couldn’t protect you from it. There was nothing I could do to make it easier for you, so I wanted you to have a good college experience here. I needed you to just fit in and have fun to ease this stupid, powerless feeling I had. But I know, I was wrong. I should have let you handle things in your own way. You have been a grown-up since the age of ten. I don’t know why I thought I needed to protect you from the world when I know you grew up in such a demanding environment.”
I smiled through my tears because ballet school was not forthe faint of heart. But I also understood he wanted to protect me.
If only we communicated better earlier.
