Soleil’s Spell
SOLEIL’S SPELL
Pain always finds me first.
But before the hospital rooms, before the IVs, before the quiet war my body insists on waging against itself—there was him.
Calil Black.
I met Calil at Ajaih, Maverick, and Knox’s wedding. I remember the exact moment. Not because it was dramatic. But because it wasn’t. He wasn’t loud. Didn’t command the room the way Caleb does or the way Knox’s presence pulls attention without effort.
Calil was deliberate. There was a stillness and peace about him that paired perfectly with his observant nature. I was standing off to the side, barefoot because my heels had long since betrayed me. Champagne in hand as I watched my sister glow in a way that made my chest ache with happiness.
And then I felt it. His eyes roaming over me. Not in an invasive or hungry manner. More like curious and interested. When I turned, he didn’t look away. He just nodded once like we were already in conversation.
Later, he found me again.
“Your form,” he said, like he’d been thinking about it for a while. “You dance even when you’re standing still.”
I laughed. “That’s a first.”
“It’s not,” he replied calmly. “You’ve just never had someone say it out loud.”
That was Calil. He didn’t flirt the way most men do. He not only observed you. He learned you. Then spoke like he already knew what mattered most about you.
Zaria met him not long after. At the time, we weren’t public. Not because I didn’t want to be, but because she wasn’t ready. So when the three of us ended up in the same space, I watched something shift in him. He noticed her.
Of course he did.
Everyone notices Zaria.
But it wasn’t just attraction. It was… recognition. He could see her guard up and so he moved like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
“You and Zaria,” he said to me once, weeks later, casual but not really. “I always get a vibe from the two of you.”
I smiled, sidestepping like I always did. “We’re friends.”
He held my gaze for a second longer than necessary.
“Yeah,” he said. “Aight.”
He didn’t push. But he didn’t believe me either.
When Amiyah, Calla, and James Jr found their way into whatever beautiful, complicated thing they built—
We started seeing each other more. Family dinners. Game nights. Moments started stretching longer than they were supposed to. Zaria stayed distant with him. She was respectful yet guarded. Always watching him and I knew why. She didn’t trust easy.
Calil didn’t chase or try to force connections. You had to be as willing as he was to get better acquainted. So naturally he gave Zaria her space but his attention never left.
The nights I showed up without her, though not often. But enough that somehow, every time—I’d end up tucked away somewhere with him. In a quiet corner. On a back patio laughing. The edge of a room where noise softened and conversation deepened. We’d talk about everything.
Music.
Books.
Family.
Grief.
He laughed differently with me. It was looser and less serious. More at ease. In those moments he forgot to be careful and I forgot to guard myself. I told him I had sickle cell on a random Tuesday at his brother’s house.
No build up, warning, or beating around the truth. Just my story and my pain.
“I get hospitalized a lot,” I said, staring at my glass. “It’s not always predictable.”
He didn’t flinch nor soften his voice. The look on his face was one that said I was something fragile.
Instead he simply asked, “How do you manage it?”
Not what’s wrong with you?
Not I’m sorry.
How do you manage it?
Like I was still capable and still whole.
I looked at him then, really looked.
“You don’t see me differently?” I asked.
His brow furrowed slightly. “Why would I?”
I swallowed. “Most people do.”
He shook his head once. “You’re still you.”
A simple response that settled me in a way nothing ever had. Sickle cell was humiliating and often stripped me of my ability to feel human instead of like a lab experiment.
That’s when my feelings shifted for him. Not dramatically and not all at once. He’d always been attractive and smart. But when you were given a chance to really know Calil Black. Everything about him said BDE. Something in the air between us changed.
Our conversations lingered longer. His touches, when they happened, were careful. The energy between us was charged. A hand at the small of my back that stayed a second too long. Fingers brushing mine when passing a glass.
Eyes holding mine just long enough to make my pulse stutter. The tension continued to build as we got closer. It felt provocative but beautiful. Dangerous but delicate. And I knew exactly what it was.
I just refused to cross it because of her. I loved Zaria and no matter what I felt blooming between me and Calil—betraying Zaria was not negotiable. She was not something I would risk especially for curiosity and desire that was potentially fleeting.
Not even for something that felt like it could become more.
So I held the line. Even when it got hot and hard.
Even when his voice dropped low and soft in conversation.
Even when his hand lingered and I wanted it to explore.
Even when my body responded in ways I couldn’t ignore.
I choose her every time. Honoring the love she gives to me freely is always easy.
But that night at Caleb’s house. Zaria and I ended up in the bathroom with Calil finding pleasure in ways I’d only imagined. The tension the three of us had been dancing around finally had nowhere to go.
No room to hide.
And for the first time—I hesitated. Not because I didn’t want him. But because I knew if we crossed that line, nothing would ever be simple again and it wasn’t.
Confined to this bed as the pain creeps in quietly.
A tightening deep in my bones and a dull ache that feels almost familiar enough to ignore.
I know better than to trust it. By the time the nurse pushes medication through my IV, I’m already curled inward.
My breathing is shallow with my jaw clenched as I stare at the same ceiling tiles I have stared at for most of my life.
I have been a prisoner in my body for as long as I can remember.
Whenever I’m allowed to forget that fact and whenever I let myself believe I’m free, sickle cell makes sure to remind me it’s never far away.
A vaso-occlusive crisis does not negotiate.
It never waits for convenience or care about preparation.
It arrives with a violence that feels deeply personal, as if my blood itself has decided to rebel.
The pain spreads through my limbs, settles into my joints, radiates through my hips and spine.
It feels like my body is folding in on itself, every nerve lit, every movement punished.
I breathe through it the way I was taught, slow and measured, but there is nothing graceful about surviving this. There is only endurance.
Hospitals are as familiar to me as my childhood bedroom once was. The antiseptic smell. The steady beeping of monitors. The practiced concern in doctors’ voices. This place has shaped me as much as any home ever could.
As a child, I learned early that normal was not meant for me.
I missed birthday parties because I could not get out of bed.
I watched friendships fade because pain does not allow for consistency.
You cannot promise to show up when your body refuses to cooperate.
Other kids did not know what to do with my unpredictability, and I did not know how to explain it without feeling broken.
There were years where I spent more time in hospital rooms than playgrounds.
My social life existed in fragments, cards taped to walls, brief visits, nurses who remembered my name.
While other girls learned how to be carefree, I learned how to measure pain, how to advocate for myself, how to swallow disappointment without crying.
People’s faces always changed when they learned about my disease. Their eyes softened, their voices lowered, their sympathy became heavy and suffocating. It felt like being reduced to a cautionary tale.
Oh poor Lena.
Her body fights itself.
How sad.
I hated that look. I hated being treated like a charity case, like fragility was the most interesting thing about me.
Ballet was the first thing that ever gave me my body back.
The first time I stepped onto a stage, the world narrowed to movement and breath. When I pulled on pointe shoes, something inside me unlocked. My pain did not disappear, but it transformed. It became something I could channel, something I could command.
On stage, my body stopped being a cage and became a vessel.
I could travel from one end of the floor to the other, leap, spin, extend myself fully into space. For those moments, my blood behaved, my joints listened, my body followed my will instead of fighting it. Dance gave me a freedom I had never known, and I chased it relentlessly.
I trained harder than anyone. I had to. Because every moment I could move felt borrowed, and I refused to waste it.
I was good. Better than good. I could have gone further if the world had been more forgiving. But not many elite institutions were willing to take a chance on a dancer with grave health issues. Performance was life in those spaces, and if you could not guarantee performance, you were expendable.
So I adjusted.
I went to college. Dance became a minor instead of a destiny.
It felt like grief at first, like another door closing.
But illness has a way of reshaping you, whether you want it to or not.
Through my own struggle, I learned how deeply intertwined the body and mind truly are.
How trauma lives in muscle memory. How movement can heal what words cannot reach.
That is how I found dance movement therapy.
People often laugh when I tell them what I do. They think I am joking. I am not.