25. Katya
Katya
I am disappearing.
Not metaphorically. It's in the most literal, physical sense. It happened gradually, but it's undeniable as I watch myself in the studio mirrors. My leotard neckline is sagging slightly, and my bones are sharper than they've ever been.
My cheeks are gaunt, and even with foundation and concealer, the dark circles are shining through.
I hate myself for becoming a cliché. And it really makes me mad that I didn't even do it on purpose.
My marriage to Artem hasn't been as terrible as it could have been, but I can't sleep, can't eat. I feel like whenever I get my feet under me, when I start to understand my husband, everything topples.
Before my marriage, my life was controlled. A schedule. A routine. A body that belonged to me and served my purposes and rested when I told it to rest.
Now I sleep badly and eat worse and spend my nights lying in the dark thinking about hand-shaped bruises and names I'm not supposed to ask about.
I come to rehearsal running on four hours of sleep, and whatever Lacey presses into my hands at the door, a banana, a coffee. Once she basically made me scarf down an entire Tupperware of pasta before we started, just to make sure I ate something that day.
It's embarrassing, especially the way people are starting to look at me.
With pity.
I try to ignore it, but I can't. I know they are all thinking it's because Jonathan took my part.
In reality, it is so much more than that, and everything is starting to affect my body in ways I can't control.
My muscles shake. I miss step after step, because I am so exhausted that I can't remember the choreography.
Jonathan stops the music at half past ten.
We're in the third act, the part I know by heart. My body should be able to do this in its sleep.
Not today. Today, I fucking suck, and the more I miss, the more frustrated I get, which, in turn, makes me miss more. I can feel the frustration growing as we continue to stop and redo.
Eventually, Jonathan slams his hands down on the piano, causing our player to stop mid-key change.
"Enough!" he yells, and I fall out of relevé.
Jonathan's eyes narrow in on me, and I tense, preparing for his blowup.
"Katya."
The whole room goes still. I swear every dancer holds their breath with me, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see Lacey and Nico stepping forward.
I stiffen.
"Your fouettés." He says it simply, without inflection, which is somehow worse than if he'd shouted. "Again. From the preparation."
I take my position. I breathe. I go.
The first four are fine. The fifth wobbles. The sixth I catch. The seventh I don't.
Jonathan holds up a hand. The pianist stops.
Twenty dancers stand around trying not to look too closely at me.
"When did you last eat a full meal?"
Heat floods my face. "Jonathan?—"
"I'm asking a professional question. You are dancing like a woman whose body has nothing left to give it, and I need to know if this is temporary or if I need to make a different decision about Saturday's program.
If you are ill, we can use the understudy.
" His eyes glance over me, and I know he suspects it's not that.
"If it's a larger problem, we need to discuss your future with this company. "
My cheeks heat as I stand before everyone being questioned about my health and my ability to work.
"I'm fine."
I'm not, but I am not going to discuss my personal life in front of the entire company.
I can tell from the way the dancers' eyes are on me that they smell blood in the water.
Jonathan is talking about replacing me. He's already replaced me once this season, taken the Sugar Plum from me, and now he's talking about firing me.
"Your dancing is not fine." The veneer of concern is gone, and Jonathan's anger is palpable.
"I'm not putting a principal on stage who cannot even do basic steps.
" He steps toward me, the clomp of his shoes echoing loudly across the studio.
"I am not going to embarrass this company because you've decided to have some sort of breakdown. "
"You know what." My control snaps. "Screw you."
The words are louder than I intend, and everyone stills. I watch Jonathan's expression close, the particular tightening of his jaw that means I've just made this worse, and I know I should stop, should apologize, should give him something that keeps me in this room.
Instead I walk to the barre, pick up my bag, and leave.
I don't look at Lacey, who I can feel watching me from the second row.
I don't look at Nico, who I can imagine is looking on at me with shock.
I just walk out the studio door and down the corridor and I don't stop until I hit the stairwell, and then I keep going, down two flights to the ground floor and out through the side exit into the cold.
When I get outside, I press my back against the alley wall, tip my head back, and breathe. It smells like trash and pee, but I don't fucking care.
My life is falling to pieces. Closing my eyes, I try to keep myself together. Dance was the last thing I had, and while Artem didn't keep his hands out of it, it was still mostly mine.
And now it's all falling apart. Spectacularly.
I take a breath of cold air and allow it to inflate my lungs fully before I breathe it out. I'm in my rehearsal clothes with no coat, and I am shivering as the air brushes against my sweaty skin.
I hear the door and sigh. I suspect it's Lacey or Nico. Neither one of them is welcome right now.
"Fuck, you are fast." The voice is unfamiliar, and my eyes snap open to see who is coming toward me.
A woman steps into the alley. She's dressed in a dark coat and slacks. Her jet black hair is striking against her pale skin, and I immediately clock her.
It's the woman from my wedding. The one I couldn't place, and honestly, the one I forgot about. Because I hadn't seen her again. Which means she's not Bratva.
I stiffen at that thought, and I curse myself for leaving the safety of the rehearsal space. I glance around, hoping the security detail I'd left at the front might have found me.
Nothing.
Shit.
"You're following me." I swallow uneasily.
"Yes." No apology in it, no performance of innocence. Just the word, clean and direct.
My muscles are tense and stiff, and I hate that I boxed myself into an alleyway.
I'm not used to having to think of exit strategies and assassination attempts.
Until recently, I lived a mostly normal life.
Now, as much as I hate to admit it, Artem was right.
Being his wife makes me more of a target than ever.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Nadia." She holds my gaze. Doesn't move closer. She's giving me space, deliberately, trying to make me feel less cornered. "I work for the FBI."
I laugh. It comes out shorter and more broken than I intend. "Of course you do." I look up at the sky, wondering what I did in a past life to end up at the center of all this.
"I've been trying to get a moment alone with you for weeks."
I push off the wall, because standing still suddenly feels like a disadvantage. "Well, I'm not interested in talking, so I'm sorry you wasted your time."
She gives me a tight smile. "I don't think I have."
"Stay away from me." I take a step toward the door, and she stays where she is, making no move to stop me.
"I know you have questions. I know you're not in a position to trust me. I'm not asking you to trust me yet, but I want you to hear me out."
"Not interested." I shake my head and reach for the door handle.
"You haven't even heard me out." She reaches into her coat pocket and produces a folded piece of paper, holds it out toward me.
I don't take it.
"You can't take a piece of paper?" she asks, challenging me.
"I don't want to." I cross my arms over my chest.
She sighs and sets the paper on the ledge of the doorframe. "That's an address. Coffee shop on the west side. I chose it because it's not anywhere near his operation, and it's not anywhere near here. Midday, whenever you're ready." She holds my eyes. "I want to help you."
The words land in me and something twists in response, something that wants to reach for them, the way you reach for something in the dark without meaning to.
I don't reach.
I have no intention of working with the feds. I might hate Artem, but I'm not stupid enough to put my neck on the line to take him down. I have no doubt that if he caught me, my grandfather wouldn't be able to help me. I'd be dead.
"You can't help me," I say flatly. "And I can't help you."
"Maybe. But you should know what I know before you decide that."
Then she turns her back and walks out, sauntering as though she doesn't have a care in the world, leaving me standing completely tense and terrified in a dirty alley.
I look at the piece of paper on the ledge. I don't pick it up.
I stand there for thirty seconds, and I feel something warring inside of me.
Reaching up, I touch the skin of my neck. It's tender where Artem choked me.
That feeling spurs something inside me, and I reach out and take the paper.
I fold it smaller and press it into the band of my leotard, against my ribs, and I stand there with the winter air in my lungs and my heart doing something complicated in my chest, and I think about a woman who said I've been watching you without apology, and about everything she might know that I don't.
The door opens again. This time it is Lacey, coat in hand, expression landing somewhere between relieved and furious.
"There you are." She crosses the distance between us and drops the coat around my shoulders without asking. "You're insane, you know that? It's December."
"I know."
"Jonathan is?—"
"I know."
She studies my face. Whatever she finds there makes her stop pushing. She pulls the coat tighter around me and stands beside me against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, and doesn't say anything else for a moment.
"You can't keep doing this," she says finally. Quiet. Not accusatory. Just true. "You're not yourself, Katya. This isn't you."
I close my eyes.
I think about Nadia's careful eyes and the piece of paper against my ribs.
You should know what I know before you decide.
"I know," I say, for the third time.
But for the first time in months, the thought that follows isn't despair.
It's something that feels dangerously, recklessly like possibility.