Chapter Nine #2
When the class is over, everyone exits the room, leaving only myself, Bailey, and one of the dance students.
“Dani, I thought that was you,” Bailey exclaims.
“It’s me.”
She waves elatedly so I return the gesture.
“What are you doing here? You taking a class?”
“Nah, Trish told me I could use this studio to get some freestyling in when your class was over.”
“Ahh, okay! Would you mind if I hung out for a little while? I’ve always wanted to see you dance.”
Trish didn’t mention that she’s ever talked about me with Bailey, so the only person who could’ve told her about me is Micah. I’m embarrassed by how flattered I am that he told her about me. I smack my hand on the back of my neck, trying to cool myself down.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Bails, how you feeling?” the dancer next to Bailey pipes in. They’re around Bailey’s height, which is shorter than me but still tall, with a slender but toned frame, deep brown skin, and dreads pulled into a bun.
Bailey wraps her arm around their side, pulling them closer. “Dani, this is Justin. They’re my assistant dance coach.” She turns to acknowledge Justin. “Justin, this is Dani. She’s my brother’s friend,” she says, looking at me with a sly grin.
“Nice to meet you, Dani.” They give me a single wave, which I return.
“You too,” I say.
Justin turns back to Bailey with a scolding eye. “You didn’t answer me.”
“I’m a little tired, so I’m just gonna do my stretches and relax. I’m a fly on the wall, I promise.”
They rub her shoulder and lean their head on top of hers. “Okay, cool. Also, did you see our little Maddy today? She’s growing into a bad bitch right before our very eyes.” They pretend to dab a tear and Bailey dramatically lifts her hand to wipe their other eye.
“She was so fucking good!”
The two of them explain that Maddy is a teenage girl who was new to dancing, but the growth she’s shown in their class this past year makes them so proud.
Justin turns to grab their bag. “I’m gonna go ask Trish about the schedule for next week, but do you wanna go over ‘Top Off’ tonight?”
“Yes, boss,” she says, blowing Justin a kiss.
She salutes when Justin rolls their eyes and pushes their bag farther up their shoulder. They give me one final goodbye before dashing out of the studio.
“You were amazing today,” I compliment.
Bailey sits on the floor, and I join her so I can get some stretching in too.
“Thank you!” she exclaims. “I felt good about it.”
“As you should.”
“You can ask about it, you know,” she says while her head is flat against her shin.
“Ask about what?”
She lifts her head up and purses her lips. “My MS. Judging by how lost you were at Tanya’s the other day, I’m guessing you didn’t know before then. Now that we’re alone, you can ask.”
She seems shocked, a little angry, and a little hurt that I didn’t know before the other day. Why would she think Micah had told me about it? We’re not exactly in a place where he should feel comfortable telling me his sister’s medical business.
Unless … unless she thought he would’ve told me before.
My mind trails back to our second demise.
The time when Micah left me in New York.
I thought Micah and I were building something real back then.
Everything was happening so fast considering we hadn’t seen each other in five years, but it felt so right at the same time.
I thought we were working toward a future together.
In hindsight, I don’t know why I thought that.
We were so young. I was all of twenty-five and doubting what I wanted out of life.
What the hell did I know about long-lasting relationships?
What do I know about them now, for that matter?
I don’t know why I allowed myself to wish for it, but I did, and then he left.
He went home to Baltimore because Bailey was really sick and needed him.
He promised he’d be back, and I believed him.
But then the calls got shorter and less frequent.
The texts became more sporadic. We went from one hundred to zero in what felt like no time at all, and I never figured out why.
The final straw was when I got a job opportunity in London that would keep me there for six months.
I tried to glue us back together by asking him to go with me, but the pieces no longer fit. He said no.
And I never heard from him again.
I thought it was about me, but now I see it was about protecting Bailey.
I wish it brought me peace to realize that situation wasn’t what I thought, but it doesn’t. I suppose I am grateful to realize it was never going to work out, not when he clearly wouldn’t trust me enough.
A humorless laugh bubbles up in my throat, but I swallow it down. Right now, this isn’t about Micah or me. It’s about Bailey.
I spent some time researching MS after I found out, wanting to know as much about it as possible. I still have a ton of questions about her specific case, but I feel guilty asking them.
Bailey shouldn’t have to sit here and play doctor to explain her disease to me like she’s some sort of lab rat.
“I’m mostly curious about your exact experience, really. I read things about people going blind or needing wheelchairs, but I wanna know what you went through.”
“Yeah, honestly, I got lucky. At first, my legs would randomly give out. Literally, I’d be walking and all of a sudden, I’d be on the ground because my legs buckled beneath me.
I didn’t think too much of it at first, thought I was just tired, but you can imagine my concern when it would happen mid-performance.
My entire body would feel sore and bone-tired after the smallest activity.
And I was having trouble with my vision.
It was fucking terrifying. Like, all this work I’ve put in to be a dancer and it’s about to be over? How is that fair?”
“But then the symptoms went away?”
“No. After I finally learned it was MS, I got treatment and it slowed down the progression. Right now, I’m in remission. Haven’t had a relapse in a couple years.”
Every answer she gives only sparks more questions in me, but I won’t bombard her right now. I’ll happily learn as we go along in this friendship.
“And, are you and Micah okay?” I ask. They seemed fine when I saw them at Tanya’s house the last time, but there was clearly some tension between them the first time they were there together.
She huffs, stretching her arms above her head. “We’re good. Until he inevitably pisses me off again.”
“This is why I like being an only child,” I joke. “Do you guys get into it a lot about your MS?”
“Too often,” she sighs. “I get it, he’s worried about me, but I know my body. I’m the one who said something was wrong. And he was by my side the whole time fighting to make the doctors listen to me, but it’s like sometimes he forgets I’m the one who has to live with this, not him.”
The boy’s got a bit of a savior complex. I think most men do. There’s a difference between intent and impact, and if Micah doesn’t loosen the reins a bit, he runs the risk of permanently damaging his relationship with his sister. I don’t want that for either of them.
“Keep setting your boundaries with him. Micah’s smart—for a man. He’ll get it eventually.”
“He better,” she snorts.
We laugh more about everything before I turn on my music and start dancing. She cheers me on and shouts out a few tips about footwork and ideas when I can’t figure out how I want to move to a song.
Her input inspires me to dig deeper until I’m confident in the piece I put together.
Justin comes back after a while and joins in on the fun, allowing me to teach them the steps Bailey and I came up with.
As I leave the Lab to get in my car, I take out my phone to call Micah.
He answers on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Micah. Are you busy?”
There’s a slight pause on the line before he says, “Am I in trouble?”
I suck my teeth. This fool. “No, I am, I guess. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” There. I said it. He doesn’t respond. Instead, he lets the silence stretch for so long I have to check the screen in my car to make sure the call didn’t disconnect. “Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you. I was just absorbing the moment, really savoring it.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
“To be clear, this is you admitting you were bothered, right?”
“And now I gots to go.”
His rich laugh floats across the line like butter. “Nah, wait. Forreal, I accept your apology.”
“Thank you.” The debate in my head about whether I should tell him what I know about New York is short-lived.
He tried to tell me himself at his gallery years ago, but I didn’t want to hear it.
I still don’t. The time to tell me was when it could’ve prevented our foundation from crumbling beneath our feet.
There is a freedom in knowing the truth, though. It rescues me from the resentment I didn’t even realize I was holding on to. It paves the way for a new path, a safer one.
“And I’m sorry for keeping you at arm’s length. I want us to be … friends. Going forward,” I add.
He hums contemplatively before speaking. “Friends, huh? No more friend’s husband’s friend?”
“Keep it up.”
“Hey, hey, I was just clarifying. I’m okay with that. I like the sound of friends.”
“Good.” It’s your only option.
“Good,” he echoes. “So, friend. On a scale of one to ten, how close was I to getting knocked upside the head when I said you looked stiff?”
My response is immediate. “Twenty-five.”
“I could tell. You know we gotta go back to recording those videos at some point though, right?”
Or, I could come up with a new project. No. Don’t be silly. I know the documentary and portrait are the perfect auction item, so why does it feel so wrong when I contribute to it? “I know that. I’m just frustrated with myself.”
The halls of my building are eerily quiet when I get home, still on the line with Micah. The only sound is my sneakers against the ornate flooring as I make my way up to my unit.
“Okay, well, let’s talk it out. What is it about this project that’s different from your social media videos?” Micah’s voice seems to bounce off the walls even when I don’t have him on speakerphone.
The answer to his question claws at my throat, begging to be freed. “It’s personal,” I lament.
“What do you mean?” There’s no judgment in his tone, just a need to understand.
I sigh. “Okay so, when I do videos for social media, there’s a level of separation from it for me.”
“Because?”
I hate admitting this. It makes me feel like a fraud.
“Because I’m not really being myself. I mean, I am, but an exaggerated version of myself.
At the end of the day, the people watching my videos don’t know me and I don’t know them.
I want to connect with them, of course, but I’m not laying myself bare in front of them. That’s just not something I do.”
I consider myself an actor of sorts. I signed up for the world to know me in one particular fashion. I signed up to be a face people recognize and for their lenses to be pointed at my every public move. I did not sign up for them to point their lenses inside my home.
“And with this video for Tanya, you have to do just that,” he agrees.
“There’s no other way to do it,” I concede. “I keep imagining her looking down at us and seeing the video. She’d roast me within an inch of my life if I didn’t dive deep.” I throw my keys in the bowl on my entryway table and make my way to my bedroom.
“Okay. Trigger warning, because you might be at a fifty out of ten after I say what I’m about to say.”
I suck my teeth. “A fifty out of ten? At that point, I should just kill you, but I gotta get past this shit, so go ahead.”
Ignoring the concern for his safety, he lets me have it.
“Back in the day, you used to lay yourself bare all the time. You wanted to be vulnerable with those watching you because you wanted to show them the highs and the lows of the industry. You wanted to be a guiding light for kids who aspired to be like you, and that meant you had to be willing to share the darkest parts of yourself. I think I need to understand why you stopped doing that in the first place to help you figure out how to get back there.”
Was I na?ve to think I could do that? That I could make a difference for the ones after me? “I’ve changed,” I whisper.
“And that’s fine,” he says without missing a beat. “But some things you’ve changed because you evolved. Others you changed because something or someone made you.”
Many somethings. Many someones. “I … I …” The words are right on the tip of my tongue, but when I try to push them out, they get stuck.
“It’s okay,” he rushes to say. “You don’t have to tell me. But you do have to acknowledge what it is.”
Something about his reassurance pries the words from my lips. “I don’t know how to be soft. Every time I’ve tried, I’ve just ended up with another jagged edge.”
The silence on the other end of the line doesn’t bother me this time. I appreciate him taking the time to consider my words and not rushing to comfort me. I don’t need comfort, I need reality. I need to know if I’m broken.
“The thing about jagged edges is, they’re not a sign of weakness. They’re a show of strength, a battle scar to prove you survived. I think true beauty lies in those jagged edges, but if you want to smooth them out, all you need is a little sandpaper.”
“A little sandpaper.” I flip the words over in my mind. “Where do you get this stuff?”
His voice is a hairsbreadth above a whisper when he responds, but his tone is so sure it leaves no room for argument. “I just say what I feel.”
“What’s that like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Speaking freely all the time.” I’m very good about speaking what’s on my mind, but speaking what’s on my heart is a luxury I’ve long forgotten.
“I wouldn’t say all the time. There’s a lot of things on my heart right now that I’m not saying.”
Though I can’t see him, I feel him looking right through me. I meant what I said about wanting us to be friends, but the kind of friends who keep things lighthearted and easy, not the kind who push past pretty lies to uncover ugly truths. Not the “sandpaper” level of friends.
Sandpaper. I know I have that in my life. My parents, Janelle, Evie, and even Amerie—all of them would take me into their arms and grind my rough edges into dust. The logical part of my brain knows this, but there’s this other part that’s screaming, What if it’s too much?
What if smoothing out the rough edges I’ve gained takes more than what my sandpaper can give?
What if loving me becomes a burden?
Is that how Tanya felt? Like she couldn’t unburden herself of her truths until after she died for fear of becoming the weight of the world on someone else’s shoulder?
Before I can even process my own thoughts, I release the words into the abyss. “Micah? I think it’s time to open the envelope.”