Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The cottage is dark when Mal drops me off, but I don’t bother turning on the lights.
Sleep won’t come tonight. I can feel it in the restless energy humming beneath my skin, the thoughts spinning too fast for stillness. The conversation with my mother keeps replaying—her words, her face, the crack in her armor that I never expected to see.
I’ve been so afraid of losing you the way I lost him.
I kick off my heels and let them land wherever they fall. The champagne dress follows, pooling on the floor in a way that would have horrified me three months ago. Now I just step over it, pulling on leggings and an old tank top that’s more holes than fabric.
The studio key is cold in my palm.
I shouldn’t go. It’s nearly one in the morning. I have a children’s class at nine and a mountain of paperwork that won’t complete itself. Going to the studio now is impractical, irresponsible, exactly the kind of undisciplined behavior my mother would—
Stop.
I grab my jacket and head out into the night.
The Solis School of Dance looks different in darkness.
Without the lights, without the music, without the constant stream of students and parents and responsibilities, it transforms into something quieter and more intimate.
The hardwood floors gleam faintly in the moonlight filtering through the windows, and the mirrors become silver portals to some shadowed alternate world.
I don’t turn on the overhead lights. Instead, I move to the old stereo in the corner—the one I keep for emergencies when the Bluetooth speaker decides to stage a rebellion—and flip through the stack of CDs I’ve been meaning to donate for years.
My fingers pause on a worn case. The Very Best of Soul Classics.
Dad’s favorite.
I don’t remember him, not really. Just fragments—warm hands lifting me, deep laughter that rumbled like thunder, a voice humming melodies that my three-year-old self couldn’t name but recognized as safe.
My mother never played this music after he died. She switched to classical, to structured rhythms and precise compositions that left no room for improvisation or emotion.
I slide the disc into the player and hit shuffle. The first notes of “At Last” fill the studio, and something inside me unclenches.
I don’t warm up. Don’t stretch or mark through positions or think about technique. I just... move. No choreography. No counts. No voice in my head cataloging every flaw, every imperfection, every deviation from the precise form I’ve spent decades perfecting.
Just movement.
The music swells, and I let it carry me across the floor.
My bare feet whisper against the hardwood.
My arms float up, out, around in shapes that have no names, no technical classifications.
I spin not because the choreography demands it but because spinning feels good in a way I’d forgotten existed.
Etta James croons about finally finding love, and I dance like no one is watching.
This is what I lost.
Somewhere between my first competition and my thousandth critique, between my mother’s expectations and my own relentless drive for perfection, I lost the simple joy of movement. Dancing became achievement. A means to an end that kept shifting further away no matter how hard I reached.
But here, now, alone in the dark with my father’s music and my mother’s words still echoing in my ears, I remember.
I remember being three years old and spinning in circles until I collapsed, dizzy and laughing.
I remember being seven and making up dances to the radio, not caring if my feet were in the right position.
I remember the moment when dancing stopped being play and became work—when the first judge’s score replaced the simple pleasure of moving my body through space.
Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t stop. The music shifts into something slow and aching that I don’t recognize, and my movements change with it. Slower now. My hands trace patterns in the air that feel like like a confession, like finally exhaling after holding my breath for twenty-five years.
I am not perfect.
I will never be perfect.
And that’s okay.
The realization breaks something open inside me. All the armor I’ve been wearing, all the walls I’ve been building, all the impossible standards I’ve been using to measure my worth—they crack and crumble, leaving me raw and exposed and terrifyingly free.
I dance through the ruins.
I don’t hear the door open. Don’t hear the footsteps cross the threshold or pause at the edge of the dance floor. I’m too lost in the music, too absorbed in the cathartic release of movement without purpose.
But I feel him.
That particular awareness that’s developed over weeks of partnered practice, of bodies learning each other’s rhythms and spaces and silent communications.
I feel Mal watching me before I see him, and for a single terrifying moment, I want to stop.
I want to straighten up and pretend this was all carefully planned, all part of some sophisticated artistic expression.
Instead, I keep dancing.
The music fades into the next track—”A Change Is Gonna Come”—and I let Sam Cooke’s voice wrap around me like a blanket. My movements stay loose, organic, nothing like the precise technique I’ve drilled into my body over decades.
When I finally turn, Mal is standing just inside the doorway.
He’s still in his suit from the party, though the jacket is gone and his sleeves are rolled to his elbows. His hair is disheveled in a way that suggests he’s been running his hands through it, and his expression...
I can’t read his expression which is unusual. Mal’s emotions are typically broadcast across his face like a neon sign—amusement, frustration, desire, all of it visible and deliberate. But right now, he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.” His voice is rough. “I saw the lights were on when I drove past. I wanted to make sure everything was alright.”
“The lights aren’t on.”
“I know.” A pause. “But I can see in the dark.”
Right. Demon. I keep forgetting.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I say, though he didn’t ask. “After everything tonight, I just needed to move.”
“You should do this more often.”
“Do what?”
“Dance like that.” He takes a slow step forward. Then another. Moving like he’s approaching a wild animal that might bolt if he comes too close. “Like you’re not worried about what anyone thinks. Like you’re doing it purely for yourself.”
“I don’t—” The words catch in my throat. “I don’t let people see this.”
“I noticed.” He stops a few feet away, close enough that I can see the red flicker deep in his eyes. “Why did you let me?”
It’s a good question. The answer should be simple—he surprised me, I didn’t know he was there, force of circumstance. But that’s not the truth, and we both know it.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe I’m tired of hiding.”
“From me?”
“From everyone.” I turn away, wrapping my arms around myself.
The music has shifted to something quieter, almost inaudible.
“My whole life, I’ve been performing. In competitions, in classes, at family gatherings.
There’s always a version of myself that I’m supposed to present.
The perfect student. The accomplished dancer.
The responsible business owner.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Even my breakdowns are choreographed.”
“Not that one.”
“No.” I face him again. “Not that one.”
He’s closer now. When did he move? His hand reaches out, hesitates, then settles gently on my shoulder.
“Tell me,” he says quietly. “Tell me what you’re hiding from.”
We end up on the floor. Not dancing. Just sitting against the mirrored wall, legs stretched out in front of us, shoulders barely touching. The music has stopped. I don’t remember turning it off, but the silence feels appropriate.
“I was three when I started dancing,” I begin. “Not lessons—just moving to music at home. My mother says I used to dance before I could walk properly. Toddling around the living room, falling over constantly, getting back up and doing it all again.”
“Sounds adorable.”
“It was. According to the photos.” I pick at a loose thread on my leggings. “Then my father died.”
Mal goes very still beside me.
“I don’t remember it. I was too young. But I remember after. The way the house changed. The way my mother changed. Suddenly everything had to be perfect. Controlled. She enrolled me in formal dance classes before I turned four. Competition training by five.”
“That’s young.”
“My mother believed in getting an early start.” The words taste bitter.
“She said discipline was the key to success. That talent meant nothing without hard work, and hard work meant nothing without constant refinement. There was always something to improve, some flaw to correct, some mistake to eliminate.”
“She sounds...”
“She sounds like exactly what she is. A woman who lost her husband and poured all her grief into molding her daughter into something unbreakable.” I lean my head back against the mirror.
“She wasn’t cruel. Not deliberately. She never hit me or screamed at me or did anything that would qualify as abuse.
She just... expected perfection. And anything less was a disappointment. ”
“That is a form of cruelty, Isadora.”
“Is it?” I turn to look at him. “She thought she was protecting me. Building me into someone strong enough to survive whatever the world threw at me. Teaching me discipline so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes my father made.”
“What mistakes did he make?”
“Living passionately, apparently.” Another bitter laugh.
“He was a musician. Self-taught, impulsive, and completely incapable of following anyone’s expectations.
My mother loved that about him and resented it in equal measure.
When he died—speeding on a wet highway, probably thinking about a melody instead of the road—she decided passion was the enemy. ”
“And you’ve been trying to excise it ever since.”