4. Octavia
My palms brace against the dressing room table as I stare into my own reflection.
A unique version of it, anyway.
My dark red hair is gelled back into a severe bun, not a single strand hanging free.
The headpieces, two glittering gold combs, are pinned to either side of my scalp, causing a dull ache behind my brow.
I can barely recognize the veritable stranger gazing back through the mirror.
Her eyes glow a brighter green beneath the frame of lashes.
Her lips are painted a dark, vicious red.
Some dancers consider stage makeup a nuisance, but I secretly love the battlepaint streaked across my face. I look formidable.
Movement rustles behind me as the other girls tug on their costumes and sew the ribbons of their shoes in place. The chaos is jarring after so many months of using a private dressing room to prepare for shows. Space is a privilege—one I no longer have.
I press my earbuds tighter into my ears and pump up the volume.
Classical music thunders through my head, explosive and percussive in its final verse.
It melts all the stress from this horrible day.
By the time I stepped into the studio this morning, every member of the company had heard at least ten iterations of the dressing-down I received last night.
Mr. Marlins doesn’t come to the studios often, but it’s always a memorable event when he does.
Since he owns the company, he does as he likes.
None of the staff are brave enough to stop him from caressing the dancers like a handler adjusting his whores.
I should be grateful he at least kept his hands to himself last night when he ripped my life apart. His touch is worse than most.
I reach into my bag, only to realize my bottle of painkillers is nothing but an empty husk. The meds don’t eradicate the excruciating pain that rips up my leg every time I shift my weight, but they sure as hell help manage it through the day.
Whatever.
Pain might be temporary, but rent money is forever.
I’ll collect the minuscule payout from tonight and offer what I have to my landlord, promising to deliver the remainder as soon as possible. It’ll be enough.
It has to be enough.
A soft touch against my bare arm startles me, and my focus spirals back into my surroundings.
Bambi?
I tug out my earbuds, surprised by her presence.
The girl with the wild curls lifts her hand, and with it, a single red rose. The flower is tied with a velvet bow around the stem. I feel my jaw sag open as I inspect her street clothes and stern expression. The new grads aren’t performing tonight. What is she doing here on her night off?
“For luck?” I ask, taking the delicate flower with a sense of bewilderment. No one’s ever given me a flower before. I stare down, twisting the stem between my fingers.
“No,” she finally says. “A dancer like you has no use for luck. This is just because.”
The soft words wrap around my ribs in an unfamiliar way, tightening until I’m forced to take a thick breath.
“I’m not the lead anymore. You don’t have to bring me flowers.”
Her head tilts on her delicate neck. “I know.”
The girl is already turning away to let me warm up when I catch her arm. “What’s your real name, Bambi?”
“You know, I’ve never had a nickname before.” She laughs, and dimples form on either cheek. “My name is Stella, but I’d rather you didn’t use it.”
Something happens to my lips. The top one twitches into an expression I haven’t used in a really long time. It’s curious…and dangerous. I can’t afford attachments like this.
“Anyway, I reserved a seat on the upper deck, so I’ll be able to see you just fine.”
What?
“There’s nothing to see,” I mutter in confusion. “I’m practically in the wings tonight.” Irina took the director seriously when he said he wanted me repositioned to the very back of the stage.
“I don’t care. I like the way your dancing makes me feel.”
I snort. “How’s that?”
“Powerful.” She tilts her head with the word. “Watching you makes all the bad parts feel worth it. Like it all leads to somewhere in the end.”
I keep spinning the rose in my grip as she walks away, whispering her name into my mind. Stella. It suits her. Soft. Feminine. Too naive for the nasty world she’s navigating.
My finger seeks out a thorn on the stem. I press the thin pad of my thumb into the point until a red bead of blood rolls down to my knuckle, hot and thick.
Some misguided, protective part of my heart wants to grab that girl’s shoulders and shake.
To convince her to find anything else to be good at.
To leave this career that hoards more money into the pockets of ugly, rich men and leaves its women eulogized by aged black-and-white photographs hanging in the studio lobby.
She’s ridiculous if she thinks I have an ounce of power in this world. The thought follows me through my final warm-up and all the way to the stage.
Sweat slips down my powdered brow as the world spins in a kaleidoscope of color. With every rotation, the dark pit of the audience blurs in my vision. There on one beat, gone on the next. Searing pain leaps up my thigh with each relevé to the tip of my toe.
Pain and darkness. Blinding and throbbing.
The orchestra rises into a triumphant symphony of sound, marking the last eighth of music.
I never remember this part of the show afterward.
It’s too easily lost in the crashing of cymbals and gasping breaths.
The other corps dancers are a blur in my peripheral vision, spinning on their own axes.
Under the hot stage lights, pain is disguised as adrenaline.
The crowd almost feels like camaraderie.
Twelve turns into fifteen.
More sweat pours down my face.
With one final push of my shrieking calf, I pull my arms in, whipping around faster through the air. I flip my head around, spotting the audience until the final note blasts through the air, and I finally come down, sliding back into my final pose.
For a moment, the entire theater is silent.
The applause starts small, a single clap like the first drop of rain before the downpour. I blink, and the circumstances shift. The massive theater roars in applause. Hundreds of people rise, clap, shriek, and holler.
I taste iron in every inhale.
This.
This is why I do it, I remember, gazing past all the girls in front of me to see the black pit of the audience jump up from their seats.
This is why I can’t leave. It’s a toxic relationship built on the rickety foundation of narcissism and pride.
My head dips in time with the other dancers, taking a modest bow that no one sees before the curtains sweep closed.
“Thank God that’s over. I’m starving…”
“That last turn section almost did me in—”
The spell snaps. Miserable reality flickers back in.
The voices trickle in around me, but it’s like my head is underwater. I can barely hide my limp as I use my hand to pull my left leg forward into each awful step.
An arm slaps my back. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” I whisper. I have no idea to whom.
My feet don’t stop moving. Out through the stage door. Down the halls.
It’s only when I reach the private bathroom and twist the lock behind me that I finally allow myself to break.