Chapter 24
Ava
For the past month, I’ve dismantled myself and rebuilt the pieces into a machine. Wake up, train until each muscle screams in protest, rehearse until the toenails bruise and surrender. Sleep. Repeat.
Today is not a standard audition. There are no paper numbers pinned to chests, no cattle-call lines stretching into the industrial corridor. This is a ‘creative workshop’. Ballet code for we want your soul flayed open on the floor.
Fine. They can have whatever is left of mine.
Artistic Director Luc Tonnaire and choreographer Nicole Rousselle occupy the front of the Peter Darrell Studio like statues in judgment, though right now, only Nicole matters.
Small, sharp, and lovely, Nicole takes no notes.
She doesn’t need to when her eyes track every micro-adjustment.
For the coming ballet, they want a Mary Queen of Scots who can carry a full production without breaking the audience’s trust.
That’s the prime job right there.
Claire left a mug of tea outside my door this morning with a Post-it stuck to the handle: Knees soft. Chin up. Don’t dance like you’re apologising. I peeled the note off and tucked it into my leotard strap. She didn’t knock. She never does. She simply knows.
I adjust the strap of my pink leotard. It bites into the trapezius, a grounding pinch that tethers me to the room instead of letting me drift back to the dead-air silence of my attic studio or the black screen of my phone.
The Machine is survival strategy. It isn’t built to feel things. It doesn’t think about a certain rugby player who can bend a tyre iron over his knee but holds your face like blown glass. All this contained power, this huge, squishy heart…
Nope. The machine never falls asleep crying. Ever.
Focus.
‘Allez!’ Nicole’s French accent cuts the humidity of the studio.
‘I demand more than steps. I know you can do them. Even the corps can do that.’ She flicks a manicured hand at the pianist, and he drops a loud chord.
‘Show me the woman who has lost everything. The young widow, the lover, the politician. I want the betrayal. Show me the woman who is not asking permission. Show me the queen who walks to the block with her chin up!’
Nervous energy spikes the air. The Principals – three of them, standing in a tight cluster – shift. Elena, the current reigning queen, probably considers this a formality. She’s incredible. The way she danced Giselle last season… But she assumes Mary belongs to her by right of succession.
And we shall see about that.
Principals first, then soloists, then the hopefuls who are supposed to be grateful to breathe the same oxygen. I’ve earned the right to stand here. This is my moment.
‘The floor is yours,’ Nicole says. ‘Who claims it?’
The silence stretches as the pianist hovers his hands over the keys. My reflex screams at me to stay put. Wait your turn. Don’t be pushy. Be the good girl who blends in.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes that the concealer gave up on ages ago. They burn with hunger. This. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted.
Nevin spent nine months telling me I was too much and not enough. You’re lucky I put up with you, Ava. High maintenance. Fragile. I let him say it. I nodded and apologised and made myself smaller and smaller until I almost disappeared.
Not anymore.
I step forward. The movement is loud in the quiet studio, a declaration. Heads turn. Elena raises an eyebrow. I ignore her and walk straight to the centre of the floor. I don’t ask for permission, and I don’t even track Nicole or Luc for approval.
In full focus, I find my spot, dig my heels into the rosin-dusted floor and hold my own reflection. ‘I’ll run it.’
Nicole doesn’t waver. ‘Allez, chérie.’
The music starts. It fills the room as a slow procession of dark cellos and relentless drums. I don’t count. I let the sound pull me under.
The first movement is a reach. Long, desperate, grasping at empty air. There is no pretence, no acting. I reach for the life I’ve been grieving for four weeks. I reach for the safety and happiness I walked away from.
I reach for Scottie.
My body moves before my brain can censor it. The technique is there, but I’m not driving it. Desperation is.
I don’t dance to impress Nicole or to spite Nevin.
I dance to prove I still have mass. That I take up room in this world.
If I stop moving, the silence wins. The months of caging insults, the terror of the slamming door, the humiliation of that TikTok post – it all pours out in a torrent of kinetic energy.
The room blurs into grey streaks as I spin. I land a jeté and the impact jars up my shin bone. I pivot into the adagio section. This is meant to be Mary’s resignation. Her acceptance of death.
But I don’t dance acceptance. I dance the refusal to apologise.
I arch my back, exposing my neck to the executioner, but my hands are clenched into fists. Not a victim waiting for the axe, but the one daring the blade to fall.
The track erupts, a gorgeous disaster of cellos and drums.
I see Scottie in the dark of the cinema. In the car park, in Oban, in the axe-throwing pub.
The grief hits me mid-turn, a sucker punch below the diaphragm that folds me in half from the inside.
I stumble. Half a beat. The Machine fails.
For a split second, terror scrambles my nerves – you trashed it, you’re weak – but then I surrender to gravity and momentum.
I let the slip become a fall, collapsing onto one knee, then dragging myself up, scraping skin against the floor, fighting the crushing weight of everything I’ve lost.
I finish. Chest heaving. Arms open. Staring down the invisible executioner.
The final note fades.
The room is a vacuum stillness. I hear the pianist breathing. The blood is crashing in my ears like a tide. I don’t even notice the other dancers.
Nicole walks over to me and stops a foot away. ‘You dropped your standing leg.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you not hide it?’
‘Because the Queen wouldn’t.’
Nicole pins me with a gaze that gives nothing away. Then she angles one side of her mouth in a smile. ‘Correct answer.’ She turns to the class. ‘Thank you, ladies. That will be all. Ava stays.’
Then she turns to Luc. ‘Ava is Mary.’
‘Agreed. It’s been about time.’ He nods, arms folded over his chest. ‘As of this morning, you’re our newest Principal. We’ll get the contract updated. Congratulations.’
The exit is swift. The other dancers pack their bags with efficient violence, the zip of tracksuits loud in the quiet. Elena keeps her gaze aimed straight ahead as she leaves, but the snap of the door is eloquent enough.
When we are alone, Nicole sits on the piano bench. ‘I’ve been watching you for years, Ava. You have beautiful feet. Perfect placement. Excellent technique. And that is why you were so unbelievably boring.’
The word is a slap. My chin whips up – reflex, defence, the old armour slotting into place to hide the hurt. ‘I-I know.’
‘You dance too carefully. Technically perfect. Like if you extend too far, you might knock something over. But today? You were someone who wanted to burn the Tramway down.’
A smile spreads across my face. The first one in weeks. ‘I might.’
She exhales. ‘Good. That is the Mary I want. Strong and vulnerable. Dangerous. You showed hunger, Ava. That is what I’ve missed in you. It took a while, but finally, you got there.’ She picks up a folder. ‘You are ready. The role is yours. First cast. Premiere is in August. Prove me right.’
I stand there. The words should be fireworks – explosions of light in the chest – but they settle. This is it. The goal. The dream I’ve had since I was four years old in a studio in Cumbernauld, wearing pink satin and believing in fairy tales. Title role. Principal dancer.
‘I will.’
At half six, after finishing my final rehearsals and signing the contract rider, I walk out of the Tramway and into the setting Glasgow sun. I got the part. I’ll be Mary, Queen of Scots.
I’m still waiting for the euphoria and the rush of dopamine. The sense of arrival. But it doesn’t come. Instead, I feel…excavated. Scraped bloodless.
I unlock my phone, but I don’t know who to call. Dad is offshore. Mum is at her pottery class. Laurel is asleep in a time zone that’s already tomorrow.
There’s a void where a celebration should be. This is the success I chased for years. The external nod that says you matter. But it feels like the adrenaline crash after an exhausting fight with Nevin. Empty.
I’ve got no one to tell.
And there’s one person whom I’m desperate to share it with.
I stare at the glass until it goes dark in my hand.
If this is winning, it feels a lot like losing.
Claire isn’t home either, so I drag myself up the stairs to the attic studio where the radiator hisses but produces little warmth. I drop my bag on the floor without turning the lights on and collapse onto the rug, my back against the bed.
My body hurts. The high has drained away. All that’s left is the familiar soreness and the raw heat in my left big toe. I reach up and drag the throw from the bed, wrapping it around my shoulders.
I got the part.
I say it out loud, as if that would make it somehow real and tangible. ‘I got the part.’ The words bounce off the sloped ceiling.
This is the validation of one of the most fabulous choreographers in Europe. And I’m sitting on the floor of a stranger’s house alone. As I dig inside my bag to find my makeup wipes, my fingers brush against something stiff and papery in the side pocket. I pull it out.
A cinema ticket. The ink is so faded, it’s barely legible. The Wallace Picture House. 12 November. Screen 3. 17:20.
The evening I met Scottie.
I turn it over in my fingers. The paper is soft at the corners.
He bought me popcorn and offered me the bag before he took any himself.
He didn’t know who I was. Or at least, he didn’t know that I was a dancer.
He only saw a girl who needed a friend. He didn’t pick me because I was a prize or because I fit his aesthetic.
He didn’t actually pick me. There was no picking of any kind.
We simply found each other.
I close my eyes. Scottie risked his career for me. He walked into a boardroom and threw his reputation on a grenade because he couldn’t stand the thought of me being afraid and questioned and humiliated.
And what did I do?
I ran and told myself I was doing it for him. But I stole his choice to protect my own fragile ego.
When I finally open my eyes, the room is dark, lit only by the streetlamp outside. Laurel was right. I was scared that if I stayed, and he saw the real me, he’d realise he made a mistake.
Stop hiding.
The thought is clear. It’s what Nicole said. Show me the woman who isn’t asking for permission.
I examine the ticket.
I’ve spent my life waiting to be picked. Waiting for a choreographer to cast me. Waiting for a man to choose me. Waiting for permission to matter. Today, I walked into the centre of the space and took it.
And the world didn’t end.
I’m done waiting.
But I can’t knock on his door and say, ‘Oops, sorry for the emotional damage and ripping your heart to shreds. But I’m back now. Where were we?’
I need to do something. Something that shows I’m not falling into his arms again because I’m sad and lonely, but because I want him. That I see him.
An idea forms. It requires the one thing I’ve spent a lifetime conditioned not to do: make a scene.
I choreograph it in my head. Eight counts of grovelling, a pas de deux of abject apology, and a finale that’ll either get him back or burn my last shred of dignity to ash – and my heart along with it.