Chapter 1
Chapter One
SOPHIA
ONE YEAR LATER.
Tiny dancers swirled along the floor, the glossy wood shining underneath the soft steps of the little slippered feet. Giggles filled the room and I smiled, watching my past blend with my present, knowing there couldn’t be a future.
With a frown, I pushed those thoughts from my mind. Today was about joy. Today was about teaching.
Today wasn’t about what could have been. Those thoughts had no place here within the soft laughter and eager learning.
To pretend otherwise would be to forever lie within misery, wondering when one could find peace. And I wasn’t about to find that kind of peace.
“Ms. Cage! Ms. Cage! Do you like my dress?” Meredith asked as she twirled towards me, nearly tripping over her own ballerina shoes.
I moved forward quickly and held her shoulder, keeping her upright. She had more energy than a few children put together, and I adored her.
I knelt down to be at eye level, ignoring the twinge in my knee and sharp pain in my hip. The reminders of that evening would forever be within my body, scarred on my soul, but I wouldn’t let these children know. “I love your dress. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She preened. “You’re always beautiful. Will you dance for us later?” the eight-year-old asked, and I heard a few of the parents whisper beneath their breath, and I ignored them.
Instead, I looked over at my eager students and nodded. “If we have time, I will at the end, something small. Only because you have all done such a good job today. If we can’t today, I will make sure it’s scheduled for next time. Now, let’s work on our turns, because our recital is coming up.”
“I’m nervous,” another student said as she came forward, and a few others nodded, their eyes wide.
This would be their first ballet recital as a class, as we had started a new year, and I was nervous right along with them. However, nerves were how I succeeded in my life. Or at least, how I had once succeeded in my job.
As long as I lived, breathed, and knew my soul could withstand the truth, I would always be a dancer.
No matter how long it took for me to stretch these days, or the idea that I couldn’t put all my weight on the same leg as I once had, or the fact that I was no longer a principal dancer at the Denver Ballet, I would continue to be a dancer at heart.
Just like many of these little girls were.
My other classes had a mixture of boys and girls within the class, but this particular one just happened to be filled with only little girls. I hoped that soon, more boys would sign up and attend and had great hopes that they would.
Everybody was welcome to dance here, and between myself and the two instructors I had hired, the studio went from toddler age all the way to high school.
I had a few college-age students as well, ones that were more one-on-one to prepare them for auditions, and other things, but for the moment I didn’t have anything beyond that.
I once had. I once had been sought after even at my age.
But those dreams had been crushed along with so many other parts of my body.
I swallowed hard, rolled my shoulders back, and reminded myself that I was Sophia Cage. And I could do anything. I might not have been born a Cage precisely, but I had taken the name of my family when the worst had happened.
“Okay, girls, plie.”
I began the next section of the dance. And corrected when needed, praised when warranted—and since I wasn’t the cool teacher that I’d once had, or even the far more strict ones, there were always ways to find praise.
By the end of class, I was grateful that we had run over, but I ignored the guilt from that.
“Next time. Next time I promise I will show you a little bit of your performance on my own. I promise,” I reiterated.
The girls clapped, while some of the parents gave each other knowing looks. I ignored that.
After the incident, I had lost a few of my favorite students. They had needed an instructor who could perform right alongside them, and someone who hadn’t lost the strength that I had in my dominant leg.
It had taken me a year to get to this point in my life, where I could put on tights and do small parts around the studio, but I would never be again.
Not after I had trusted the wrong person.
“Oh, Sophia,” Margaret Sayer, one of the moms shouted as she came forward, hand out-stretched.
She’d pulled her strawberry blonde curls into a cute bun and looked far more put together than I felt.
“I wanted to talk to you a few moments before you head to your next class. Do you mind?” she asked, her eyes boring holes into me.
My leg ached, and my wrist wasn’t doing any better, and all I wanted to do was sit down and drink some water before I had to do my next class, but I wasn’t about to show any form of weakness in front of these people.
Not all dance moms were overbearing and pushy—my mother certainly hadn’t been. But my mother came with all of her own issues. Hence why I was trying to change the narrative when it came to my daughters, and how I taught.
“Of course, Margaret. How can I help you?”
“We’re just curious about a few things.” She smiled as she said it, and I tried my best not to stiffen, knowing it was probably something I wouldn’t like.
Three other moms had joined her in not saying a thing. Margaret was the ringleader after all.
“Of course.”
“I know when you named the studio a few years ago with the name Cage attached, it had to do with the family dynamics and the fact that Cages do sell. After all, the family is a billion-dollar business.”
They smiled so hard, my resulting look made the back of my teeth felt like they were grinding together.
“I figured having too many names on the door front would cost too much for all of the detailing. So I went with the shortest name.” I looked off to the side as I said it, knowing that it was a lie.
I went with Cage for many reasons, but they didn’t need to know about all of them.
A few years ago, my world had altered completely.
I held back an internal sigh at that. My world had been irrevocably changed multiple times over the past few years, but I didn’t owe those reasons to anyone else but myself.
“So you’re keeping the name Cage?” one of the other moms asked, and for the life of me, I could not think of her name.
Her daughter Molly was adorable but didn’t want to be in class.
She would rather be on the ice rink, full pads, and trying to be a left wing in hockey like her brother.
But Molly’s mother wanted nothing to do with that.
I knew of someone who still played for the NHL, as well as another person that played for the PWHL, so I already had a plan concocted to bring them in to talk with a few of my classes and the parents.
It might be a little sneaky, but I didn’t want to squash anybody’s dreams.
I had been lucky enough to live mine for as long as I had.
“You mean Cage on the business? Of course. You do know the Cages. We tend to put our name on everything.”
“So you’re sticking with the name Cage as your last name. That’s what I meant,” the woman answered. Eliza. Elizabeth? What the hell was her name?
“Excuse me?” I asked, blinking, a little confused.
“You changed your name. And I hear you also changed your little girls’ names. That was pretty quick for the courts, don’t you think?”
I stiffened visibly at that, and I saw the gleam in their eyes.
They had wanted my reaction, and they weren’t going to get all of it.
Because part of me wanted to lash out, to show them exactly what had been left behind in the ashes of my marriage and my dreams, but then I would end up in jail where Cale wasn’t, and my little girls would be without me.
“I am a Cage. And I always have been. And if that’s all, I need to get ready for my next class.”
As they hadn’t gotten what they wanted, they made a few excuses and walked away, as if they hadn’t just tried to break me.
I would never understand women like that. We lived in a world where it wasn’t easy to breathe as a woman. I had my privileges beyond most, so many of them, but I still had to deal with not being in a seemingly woman led field, and never being enough for anyone.
I didn’t know any of those women’s backstories. For all I knew, they were going through their own hells and lashing out because it was easier than breathing and facing it, but I wasn’t going to be one of them. I didn’t need to push them down just because I was hurting.
I rubbed my leg, grateful I had another half hour before my class.
I made my way to my office and sat down, resting my leg up on the chair next to me.
The sound of relief that escaped me probably should have been embarrassing, but thankfully I was alone for the time being, as my other instructors were off for the day.
It hadn’t always been like this. The dance studio had been a pinnacle of my dreams, something I put my heart and soul into.
I had painted most of the walls, with my family helping finish what I couldn’t.
Soft colors in some rooms, and bold in others.
I didn’t want to wash out the imagination and emotions that came with dance.
I wanted to bleed into it in body and soul, and I had put everything into this place.
And Cale had tried to take it away.
I sighed and rubbed my temples.
The divorce hadn’t been easy.
As I had never filed a police report, never thinking I’d need one, the single attack in which Cale had broken my leg, ensuring I would never dance again, and beat me to the point that I still didn’t remember most of the next week, had been his only flaw according to his lawyer.
I had enraged him, cheated on him, and he’d snapped.
It was a moment of weakness, he had said.
And the male judge, and the male lawyers, and everyone else around them that perpetuated that lie, had given Cale a slap on the wrist.