Soleil’s Spell #2
I am a licensed therapist who specializes in the psychotherapeutic use of movement to further emotional, cognitive, and physical integration. Based on the principle that the body, mind, and spirit are interconnected, movement can change thoughts and feelings.
I am the on-staff therapist at the Winston Hills Dance Academy.
I work with dancers whose bodies have betrayed them through injury, illness, or trauma.
I teach clinics. I consult with other institutions.
I sit with dancers who are grieving the bodies they used to have and help them learn how to love the ones they still live in.
In helping them, I help myself.
The nurse checks my vitals, adjusts the drip, and gives me a gentle smile. The medication dulls the edges of the pain, but it never fully leaves. It never does.
This is the cost of forgetting.
No matter how far I dance, no matter how free I feel when music fills the room, my body always calls me back. And I have learned to live in that tension, between captivity and release, pain and purpose, the girl in the hospital bed and the woman who refuses to stop moving.
Ballet did not cure me.
But it saved me.
And even now, lying here with pain humming through my veins, I close my eyes and picture a stage, wide and open, waiting for me to cross it once again.
The pain meds have softened the edges by the time the door opens again. The room is dim, curtains half drawn, machines humming softly around me. I am exhausted in a way that feels cellular, like my bones have run a marathon without me.
I know she’s there before I open my eyes.
Zaria has a presence that gently fills space with her warmth.
When I finally look over and see her standing at the foot of the bed.
I notice her hair is pulled back hastily and her jacket still on like she forgot to take it off.
Her chest rises and falls too fast. She dropped everything. I can see it in her face.
“Hey,” she says softly while crossing the room in three quick steps. Her hand finds mine. The warmth of her touch reminds me that she’s my safe space.
“I’m here.”
My throat tightens. “Amiyah called you?”
She nods. “I didn’t even finish my shift.” Her thumb brushes over my knuckles with a familiar intimacy. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Before I can answer, the door opens again.
My sister, Ajaih steps in first. Her eyes already scanning the room like she’s preparing for battle.
Maverick follows close behind her. His face is tense with worry.
Knox brings up the rear. He’s quiet but alert and holding a bag I know is filled with food because that’s how he loves on us all.
They all try to look calm for my sake but fear has a way of leaking through the cracks.
Then Amiyah appears, breathless, eyes shining with concern. James is at her side, steady and protective, and Calla walks in with that same controlled intensity she always carries.
And then I see him.
Calil.
He doesn’t hesitate. The moment his eyes find me—something raw crosses his face— fear stripped bare. He moves past everyone without a word and comes straight to my bedside, crouching slightly so we’re eye level.
“Hey,” he says quietly, voice thick. “How bad is it?”
His hand hovers for half a second, like he’s asking permission, then gently rests on my arm, careful of the IV, careful of me. His touch is reverent, like I’m something fragile and precious all at once.
“I’m okay,” I murmur. “They caught it early.”
He exhales, long and shaky. “Jesus, Lena.” His eyes search my face, my shoulders, like he’s checking for cracks only he can see. “You scared the hell out of me.”
I feel it then. The weight of the room is shifting.
Everyone is watching us.
Ajaih’s brows knit together in confusion. Maverick and Knox exchange a glance. Amiyah’s lips part slightly, surprise flickering across her face. Even Calla’s composure falters just a touch as she studies the way Calil’s hand never leaves my arm, the way his body angles protectively toward mine.
They don’t know.
They don’t know how close Calil and I have become. The long conversations. The quiet laughter. The way friendship blurred weeks ago into something neither of us had planned for, something that changed the air between us forever in his brother’s bathroom.
I should feel exposed. Instead, I feel… held.
Calil adjusts my blanket without being asked, smooths it over my legs, his movements instinctive. He asks the nurse questions before I even think to. He presses a kiss to my knuckles without realizing he’s done it.
I am simpering internally, warmth blooming in my chest despite the ache in my body.
And then I feel it.
Zaria.
She hasn’t said a word, but I don’t need her to. The irritation rolls off her in quiet waves, controlled but potent. Her jaw is tight, her gaze sharp as it flicks from Calil’s hand on me to his face, then back again.
Possession settles over her like a veil, beautiful and dangerous.
I know that look.
She is trying to be generous. Trying to be patient. But this is her territory, and she does not like the way he is standing in it so confidently.
I meet her eyes, offering a silent reassurance, a grounding tether. Her expression softens just a fraction, but the tension remains, humming beneath her skin.
This room holds too many truths.
Too many emotions.
Too many hearts pulling at me in different directions.
And as I lie there, surrounded by people who love me in ways they don’t yet understand, I realize this is only the beginning of the reckoning.
The room slowly empties the way storms do, not all at once, but in careful retreats.
Ajaih kisses my forehead first, her eyes soft but sharp, the way they get when she’s cataloging details for later. Maverick squeezes my hand, steady and grounding, and Knox gives me a nod that carries more care than words ever could.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Ajaih says. “Early.”
Amiyah leans in next, embraces me in a gentle hug that smells like home. James lingers behind her, watchful, protective, and Calla gives me a look that tells me she’s clocked everything but isn’t saying a word. Not yet.
Calil is the last to move.
He steps closer, lowering himself again, his hand brushing my arm with a tenderness that makes my chest tighten. He presses a kiss to my forehead, slow and intimate, like it belongs there.
“I’ll check on you between classes,” he murmurs. “Text me if you need anything. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
His thumb lingers just a second too long, and I feel the room notice even as they pretend not to.
As he turns to leave, Amiyah pauses beside me and leans in close, her voice barely a whisper. “We’re talking. Because you have some explaining to do.”
Then they’re gone.
The door clicks shut, and suddenly it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Zaria sits in the chair beside my bed, posture stiff, hands folded tightly in her lap. The tension between us is thick, pressing in on my chest harder than the pain ever could.
“Spill it,” I say softly. “Because this silence is smothering us.”
She exhales, long and shaky, eyes fixed on the floor. “What’s going on between you and Calil?”
I turn my head to face her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she says, finally looking up at me, hurt flashing across her beautiful face, “it looks like you’re falling in love. And it looks like I’m going to be on the losing end of that.”
The words hit me harder than any flare ever has. “Zaria,” I breathe. “Why would you think you’re expendable in my world?”
She swallows. “Because that’s how it always goes. I’m good enough to be someone’s beautiful secret. Someone’s private desire. Never the love they choose out loud.”
My heart aches at the truth buried in her voice. I reach for her hand, lacing our fingers together, rubbing my thumb gently over her knuckles. Her skin is warm, familiar, grounding.
“Zaria,” I say softly, “you’re the reason we haven’t gone public. Not because I don’t want to. Because you weren’t ready.”
She freezes.
I lift her hand, press a kiss to her palm, then to her wrist. “I chose you. Repeatedly. I still am.”
Her eyes shine, emotion crowding her expression, leaving her speechless.
“But I still don’t trust him,” she finally admits. “I don’t know why. I just don’t.”
“I don’t have all the answers,” I say honestly. “I just know what I feel. And I need you to hear this.”
She looks at me then, really looks at me.
“What if,” I say quietly, “I have enough space in my heart to love you and Calil?”
The question hangs between us, heavy and unresolved.
Zaria doesn’t answer. She just leans closer, her hand sliding up my arm, fingers gentle, probing for a comfort that only I can provide. She presses her forehead to mine, our breaths mingling, her thumb tracing slow circles against my skin.
She’s devastatingly beautiful like this, eyes dark, lips soft, vulnerability written across every line of her face. I kiss her temple, then her cheek, then rest my lips at the corner of her mouth, not crossing the line, just reminding her I’m here.
We sit there in the quiet, tangled in questions neither of us is ready to answer.
And I know, deep in my bones, that nothing will ever be simple again.
The quiet stretches after my question, thick and fragile.
Machines hum softly, reminding us that my body is still the enemy tonight, even if the pain has dulled.
Zaria shifts closer to the bed, resting her forearms on the mattress, fingers grazing my wrist like she needs to anchor herself to something real.
“I don’t want to be the woman you outgrow,” she says finally, her voice low and careful. “I don’t want to be the chapter that gets edited out once life starts looking respectable.”
My chest flutters. I lift her hand and press it flat over my heart. “Feel that. That’s not temporary. That’s not convenience.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand what it does to you, Lena.
To always be chosen quietly. To be adored behind closed doors and invisible everywhere else.
Men loved me in the dark and denied me in the daylight.
They wanted my body, my softness, my femininity, but not the work that came with standing beside me. ”
Her voice cracks, just slightly. “When I see him touching you like that, looking at you like you’re already his, all I can think is here we go again.”
I pull her hand closer, kiss the inside of her wrist, slow and deliberate. “I am not them. And I will never love you like a secret.”
She looks at me then, really looks at me, like she’s searching for cracks. “Then why haven’t we told anyone?”
“Because you asked me not to,” I say gently. “Because you were still protecting yourself. And I respected that.”
Her breath catches. “I didn’t realize how much you were carrying with that.”
“I carry it because you’re worth it,” I say without hesitation. “You are not an afterthought in my life, Zaria. You are woven into it. Into me.”
She leans in, resting her cheek against my shoulder, careful of the IV. Her hand slides up my arm, thumb tracing slow circles like she’s memorizing me. I kiss her hairline while inhaling her scent. I feel the tension in her body slowly ease.
“I’m scared,” she admits softly. “Not of you. Of losing you.”
“I’m scared too,” I whisper. “But not because of Calil. I’m scared of living a life where I don’t tell the truth about who I love.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me. “And what is the truth?”
“That I love you,” I say quietly. “That whatever is happening with Calil doesn’t erase that. It doesn’t replace it. It complicates it, yes. But it doesn’t diminish what we have.”
Her fingers slide to my jaw, holding my face with reverence. “You say that like love isn’t finite.”
“I say it like I’ve spent my whole life rationing joy,” I reply. “And I’m done doing that.”
She exhales, shaky, then presses her forehead to mine. Our breaths mingle, soft and uneven. She kisses me then, slow and tender, like she’s reminding herself I’m real. I return it just as gently, my hand sliding into her hair, holding her there.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur against her lips. “Not just the way the world sees you. The way you are.”
Her eyes shine as her vulnerability is laid bare. “You make me want to believe you.”
“Then stay,” I say. “Not because you’re afraid. Because you want to.”
She nods slowly, still uncertain, but no longer closed off. She curls into the chair beside my bed, her hand never leaving mine, her thumb brushing over my skin in a silent promise.
The questions are still there.
Calil is still there.
The future is still undefined.
But for now, she’s here.
And so am I.
This chapter in our relationship ends not with answers, but with truth sitting quietly between us waiting to see what’s next.