Chapter 5
Zoe
What does friendship mean to you?
I don’t know . . . being there for each other? Telling each other all your secrets without fear of being betrayed? Being honest without worrying about being rejected? I think it’s friendship when you have someone with you who helps you to be less afraid.
—P
Yawning, I stir my coffee and watch as the dark liquid mixes with the frothy milk. My avocado sandwich is lying on the plate in front of me, untouched. I’ve been staring at it for ten minutes. I know I have to eat something, but I can’t bring myself to take a bite.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Mae asks. She’s sitting next to me, eating her yogurt.
We’re sitting in the dining hall on the ground floor. It doesn’t feel that much like a dorm because the Victorian style of the building is also reflected in its interior design. It’s much fancier than the average student residence.
The first rays of sunlight are shining through the high arched windows, bathing everything in soft, warm light and casting shadows on the wooden floor.
Sixteen round tables are scattered around the large room, with five chairs around each one.
The dark green, velvet-covered seats look more like easy chairs and are far too comfortable when one is completely exhausted.
“I’m wiped out,” I say.
“Had a bad night?” She frowns sympathetically.
“I couldn’t fall asleep.”
It’s not a lie. I was totally restless because I couldn’t stop thinking about Jase.
The expression in his eyes and the bitter frown that I’d never seen before.
Not to mention the fact that he was sleeping in his bed just a few yards away from me with nothing but a wall between us, even though it felt like the whole universe was separating us.
Which is good.
Because what I had with Jase is part of my past, and I need to look ahead. I’ve got to focus on my dream. My future. And he’s not a part of it anymore.
“I’m so sorry. I slept like a log. Honestly, if it weren’t so loud this morning in the hall, I would have totally overslept.
I didn’t even hear my alarm clock. But it was definitely worth it.
” Mae laughs. She laughs a lot. I noticed that last night, and a part of me envies the ease with which she’s made her fresh start, while I . . . well, haven’t.
“It was worth it,” I confirm. We danced with the others on the terrace until almost midnight. No choreography, no pressure. Just having fun.
I tried not to dwell on the moment when Jase left right before I started my improvisation.
“I would definitely have woken you up if you hadn’t shown up on your own,” I add a little belatedly.
“You would have had to notice that I was missing first.”
“I would have noticed that. There are only nineteen of us, so if one of us is missing, it’s obvious.”
“Probably. Speaking of which, which classes are you taking?” She rummages in her backpack and pulls out a very rumpled timetable, spreading it out on the table in front of her.
The sight of the tattered paper irks me a little.
I follow her lead and take my Bullet Journal out of my bag and open it.
It’s pink. It may be a total cliché, but I don’t care; I love pink.
I’ve written my schedule tidily on one of the first pages. This new beginning was also an occasion for a new Bullet Journal.
Mae sighs, and I look up at her. There’s a wistful expression on her face.
“What?”
She sighs again. “You’re one of those.”
“One of what?” My eyebrows go up.
“I have a theory about dancers: We’re either absolute perfectionists or totally chaotic.”
“Doesn’t that apply to everyone?” I ask with a smile.
“Basically, yes, but in ballet, one tends to be a perfectionist anyway. You either transfer that to the rest of your life, or you go completely in the opposite direction. I bet you always got good grades in school.”
I sense the blood rushing to my cheeks and feel like I’ve been caught red-handed. “Okay, that’s true. I do tend to be a perfectionist. In everything.”
Mae points her spoon at me triumphantly. “That’s what I thought. Come on, show it to me.” She reaches out her free hand for my Bullet Journal. I hand it to her. She glances quickly at my timetable and breaks into a wide smile. “Looks like we have all our classes together.”
“Really?” I reach for her schedule and have to smile too.
She’s right. Every morning, we begin with classical ballet, followed by pointe.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we have pas de deux up next, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, contemporary dance and lyrical jazz.
After lunch, we have the theory classes: music theory, art of performing, choreography, and two other subjects.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” Mae says with a grin.
“Or you’re stuck with me,” I say. All at once, I’m grateful that Mae’s suitcase gave up the ghost yesterday.
“I think it’s going to be pretty cool. Katie told me yesterday that all the technique classes are mixed with students from other years, aside from classical ballet and pointe. Maybe we’ll even have some classes with her, Susannah, and Lia.”
“Yes, maybe. That would be—” I stop abruptly as another thought occurs to me. If the technique classes are for all levels together, then . . . there’s a chance that I might end up in a class with Jase. My palms start to sweat.
“What?” Mae asks, looking at me curiously.
I shake my head and actively repress every thought of Jase. I’ve already spent far too much time thinking about him over the last twenty-four hours. “Nothing. I think we should get going, shouldn’t we? We still have to warm up before the first lesson.”
“Exactly. But at least take a bite of your sandwich first.” She firmly pushes the plate in my direction. “You can’t dance on an empty stomach.”
I sigh and do it for her. She’s right; I have to eat something. I manage to get down two or three bites before I give up, and we clear the table.
We’ve brought our bags with us so we can go directly from breakfast to the practice building.
We fall into a crowd of dozens of students on their way to the studios, just like us.
The high school students are headed to the classrooms instead.
Apparently, they’ve got theory lessons first. A tall boy with thick, dark hair smiles and holds the door open for us as we reach our destination.
There are ballet studios on all three floors of the building, separated from the corridor by glass walls.
A few have curtains drawn across, but this morning, most of them are open.
We go up to the second floor to the last studio on the right, where most of the other first-semester students are already standing at the barres or sitting on the floor, warming up.
In comparison to the others, our class is relatively small.
Nine girls and ten boys, none of us older than nineteen.
Five of them—Raffael, Lucien, Georgia, Kelly, and Julie—have been here for four years already and got their high school diplomas before the summer.
The others are just as new as us. Kaya just recently moved here from Japan, and Anthony and Jessica are from Boston, like me.
The other ten have come from all over the country to be here.
We take off our sneakers in the corridor because we’re not allowed to walk on the studio floors with street shoes.
Then we throw our bags in a corner and start to prepare for the first lesson.
My hips crack in protest as I start my warm-up, and Mae sits on the floor, getting her ballet slippers ready.
Just before nine, Mr. Conrad enters the room with a slender middle-aged woman.
According to the timetable, her name is Deborah, and she’s going to accompany our lessons on the piano.
After nodding briefly in our direction, she sits down at the grand piano near the door, while Mr. Conrad stands in front of the large mirror.
He’s tall, handsome, and surprisingly young, perhaps in his late twenties.
“Good morning.” He smiles warmly. “My name is Mr. Conrad, and I’ll be your teacher this year. We’re going to start with the basics today so I can get an idea of what you specifically need to work on in your first year. Let’s start from the beginning. Pliés in five positions.”
I step up to one of the barres in front of the window overlooking campus.
All at once, I get goose bumps. I really made it!
I’m here, in a studio at the New England School of Ballet.
I get to dance and learn and improve. I’m here so I can reach for the stars.
Even though not long ago I was convinced that I’d never make it.
But I’m here now. Nothing else counts.
“First position. Focus. This is about precision. I don’t want to see any sloppiness.” Mr. Conrad’s voice fills the room as we follow his instructions in synchronized motion.
As soon as my hand relaxes on the barre, my heels touch, and my feet point outward in a straight line, everything else fades into the background.
I take a deep breath, bend my legs slowly and precisely to the rhythm of the music, and stretch them out again.
Bending and stretching with a straight back, knees turned outward. Every muscle in my body is working.
The third time, my heels lift in a grand plié. I lower my arm smoothly, move it forward and back to the side.
“Keep your arms steady. Shoulders back,” Mr. Conrad says as he paces up and down the room. He’s walking along the barres, checking our posture. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him occasionally correcting the others. Meanwhile, we switch from pliés to the battements tendus.
Right leg forward, diagonal, point the foot, half point, point, draw the right foot across the floor in a fluid motion. Pause. Keep your hips straight, stretch backward, half point, heels touching. Knees locked the whole time.
I breathe a sigh of relief when he gives me an approving nod, and Mae gets one too. He walks past us without comment. Mae gives me a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder, and I have to smile.
True to his word, Mr. Conrad only focuses on the basics in this first lesson, even when we move from the barre to the center of the floor.
With every moment that passes, I feel more like myself.
I’ve been doing these exercises almost every day for most of my life.
They’ve become second nature to me. They are part of me, and last year they were my salvation.
They’re my anchor, something that always stays the same no matter how much else changes.