The space between my ribs sears, pinching as an overwhelming rush of bubbles bursts against my skin.
My lungs fill with water, those eyes the last things I see before I’m swallowed by the lake’s dark grasp—
I wake with a gasp, grappling with my comforter and clutching my chest, as if I can somehow physically drag the air into my lungs. Reality crashes into me.
I’m not there. I’m here. In my room.
With that comfort comes the weight that threatens to drown my waking hours.
I’m here but Mom’s not.
She never will be.
I shiver and hug around myself. It’s freezing, as if the temperature of my bedroom has somehow blended into the nightmare. I jump out from under the covers and turn up the thermostat before I run to my desk and grab my journal. I write down everything I can remember, scribbling quickly across the pages. Flipping through the previous entries, I check if I’ve learned anything new. Some clue to understand what happened. Unfortunately, most of its contents are nonsensical. Splatters of ink across a canvas I don’t understand. A full picture I can’t see yet.
Maybe I never will.
Regardless, I comb through the words, weighing what matches against what I can piece together. I still don’t know howI survived the crash. At first, I figured I was able to smash open the window and lost consciousness as I floated to the surface. My therapist believes I’m repressing the traumatic memories of my mom’s death and the accident. When they were able to finally fish the car out of the lake last spring, all evidence said the window had been smashed from the outside. From the gashes, now thick pink scars, the investigators guessed I was pulled from the wreckage.
But by whom?
The police ultimately chalked it up to some good Samaritan who wanted to remain anonymous. But the water was freezing, and they would have had to cross the ice beneath the bridge we’d skidded off of. Who would go to those lengths only to vanish?
I stare down at the colorful sketches of eyes spread through the pages. No matter how I try to draw them, I can’t get the shades right. They’re always too silver or too blue, and they never glitter enough. Not that they could be real…
Nevertheless, they haunt me.
I’m sure Dr. Tanner will reassure me it’s a coping mechanism. That I’m looking for answers in my past instead of focusing on gratitude for my future.
I glance over at the clock. 3:55 a.m. I still have another hour of sleep I can snag before it’s time to get up and prepare for the long day ahead. Climbing back into bed, I stare up at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep but unable to think about anything other than the day ahead at Ballet Potomac.
In the corps, it’s important to build the visuals, stay in sync with the rest of the dancers, and keep our lines as consistent as possible. It’s a different mindset for me now, purposefully trying to blend in versus adding my personal touches to stand out. I’ll have to save my flair for class. It’s something I miss desperately about solo work, the magic that comes from letting a variation sink into your bones. A choreographer could set the same pieceon twenty different ballerinas and they would all do it slightly differently if allowed to get lost in the music.
We spend hours perfecting our craft, studying every placement of our body, and that all pays off when we get on the stage. Under the warmth of the spotlight, we come alive, moving through the piece as if it’s second nature. Embedded into our soul. By the time it reaches opening night, it basically is. The beats and our bodies carry us through. Despite wanting to showcase to the hundreds of people in the audience, there’s something intimate about letting go to the music. A few minutes of defying the gravity holding us back. Of freedom.
There’s nothing like it.
It’s what I miss most. That and having my mom out there, supporting me. My biggest fan.
Dread sinks in my gut thinking about how different this first season back is going to be.
Focus on the positives, Jolie.
I’ve paid my dues before. I can pay them again. Hopefully, this time around won’t take as long to reach soloist. Every year is another year closer to retirement, especially with my injury. I understand how to excel in the corps with the experience I have—there’s a reason why every dancer begins their journey there. I just need to use that to my advantage. Show them I can be a team player but also my value as an individual if they are willing to give me a shot.
My thoughts twirl and leap in and out of focus, each wanting to be at the forefront of my mind. At least I’ll be seeing Dr. Tanner soon to talk through it. We’ve moved to bi-monthly appointments, and while I’m glad not to have to go weekly, I find myself itching to see her when it’s a few days out.
By the time my mind slows its cadence, I glance at the clock. It’s twenty minutes until my alarm is set to go off. With a groan, I head into the bathroom. I’ll just get a jumpstart on theday. Taking out my scar gel, I peer at the mirror from over my shoulder, applying it to the streaks of deep pink raised on my skin.
My fingers linger over the thick ridges, reminders of the accident and all the things I still don’t understand about that night. I should hate them, and sometimes, when I catch them in the mirror, they make me self-conscious. But every time those feelings come, a stronger one falls into place—I’m alive.
It’s a force that keeps me going, a second chance I refuse to waste.
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and put on my makeup. My blue irises pop against the dark liner winging out from my lashes. Wetting my brush, I pull my hair up and secure it with an elastic tie, then I feed my ponytail through my bun maker, tucking the dark-brown strands around the mesh before covering it with a hair net. The bobby pins scrape my scalp, my signal that they are in tight enough to not fall out during rehearsal. I spray it in place, the overly floral scent mixed with aerosol clogging my nostrils, before using a few more pins to hide my wisps.
Perfect.
When I return to my room, I cross my arms, rubbing my shoulders. My gaze darts to the window, double checking that it’s fully shut so I don’t come back to a repeat of yesterday’s snow-covered desk.
