It’s a nightmare.
I wait for it to end.
For reality to kick back in.
I’ve had a thousand nightmares about breaking my ankle, my hip, my leg.
But no matter how gory or frightening they are, I wake up.
I write notes about them to remind myself they aren’t real.
Not this time.
Now, the searing pain is a constant reminder that this is far from a nightmare.
This is reality.
I lie on the hospital bed, my leg in a cast and propped up high on a wedge.
I broke my tibia and the bone punctured the skin. I’ll never forget the sight of the bloody white rod protruding through my torn flesh. A surgery was needed to set the bone back in place, one I entered in a state of shock and exited numb.
I held on to the hope that the whole ordeal would be over with the surgery. That Dr. Kim would tell me it was just fatigue, that I should take my pills and everything would be fine.
He didn’t.
Instead, he said the words that almost always end a dancer’s or an athlete’s career, “We were able to set the bone back in place and suture the wound so that the scarring will be minimal. Fortunately, the fibula wasn’t broken, but there will be a permanent deformation near your knee. With rehabilitation, you’ll be able to walk normally again and run sometimes, but not for long. A full recovery is, unfortunately, virtually impossible.”
In other words, I’ll never be able to be a ballerina again.
I’m still not grasping it fully, and it’s not only because of the doctor’s words. I think I heard the end of my career with that pop and the silence and gasps that followed from everyone present.
But at that point, I was still praying for the nightmares that have scared me my whole life. I want the nightmare.
Someone give me the nightmare.
Dr. Kim asks me if he should call someone close, but I don’t have anyone. People have friends and family, I have ballet. I sacrificed my youth and my life for it. I survived my parents’ deaths and relocating from one country to another with it.
When people went clubbing, I went to rehearsals. When they slept, I timed my stretches and the care of my ankles. When others ate real food, I settled for apples or a salad.
I never considered it a sacrifice or a chore, because I was doing something I loved. Something I was damn good at. I was living my dream and getting rid of my excess energy through flying where no one could catch me.
Now, my wings are broken.
Now, the dream is over.
And I can’t bring myself to force those feelings to the surface. Not a single tear leaves my lids as I stare at the hospital room’s white ceiling.
There’s a soft knock on the door before it opens. Philippe and a teary-eyed Stephanie walk inside.
I stare at them as if they’re in a snow globe and I’m looking through blurry glass.
“Oh, Lia!” Stephanie rushes to my side, holding my limp hands in her trembling ones, the tears now running freely down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry.”
“Chérie… ” Philippe sounds pained, on the verge of breaking as well.
Their compassion and emotions bounce off my chest and disappear. They’re not able to penetrate my numb state or provoke the grief that needs to be let out.
“We can get a second opinion…” Stephanie trails off when Philippe shakes his head at her.
“Can I please be alone?” I whisper in an apathetic tone that I don’t recognize.
“Are you going to be okay?” Stephanie asks.
I give a perfunctory nod.
“Call us if you need anything,” Philippe says in a voice filled with sympathy.
I can’t bring myself to move any of my limbs, so I stare at them until they go out and close the door behind them.
My gaze flits to my cast leg supported in the air. My useless broken leg that ended everything.
I never got to show the world my Giselle. She was killed before she was even born.
And with her death, all of my dreams and my coping mechanisms perished.
I tug on the leg until it falls from the wedge onto the bed. Pain explodes from it, but it’s like I’m caught in an alternate reality.
My movements are robotic—mechanical, even—as I sit up and yank the IV tube from my wrist. Droplets of blood trickle down my arm, but I can barely feel the sting.
I swing my good leg to the floor and stand on it, letting my broken one drop with a painful thud.
Dragging it behind me, I gingerly limp to the window and open it. Cold winter air flips my hair back as I pull a chair over and use it to climb onto the ledge, bringing my cast with me. Bursts of pain pulsate harder with every move, but I ignore them.
It’ll all end soon.
The freezing air filters through my flimsy hospital gown as I stare down at the moving cars. They look like ants from this height. At least ten stories up.
It’d be easy enough to finish everything, for me not to feel numb and desensitized.
One step.
One breath.
And it’ll be all over.
I’ll be free.
“Lia.”
The sound of my name with that voice scatters my thoughts for a fraction of a second. I stare over my shoulder to find Adrian standing a short distance away from me.
At first, I think he’s an illusion. That all of this is my brain’s way of seeing him one final time before everything ends.
But the pain in my cast proves this is real. The fact that he’s here, looking larger than life, as usual, with his calm expression and his black clothes and brown coat.
“Come down, Lia.” His voice is tender, gentle, in complete contradiction with the shadow casting over his face.
I shake my head once. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve only lived for ballet. Now that it’s gone, I have nothing to live for. You said it yourself, I’m lonely and have no friends or family. I only had ballet.”
“You can find other things to live for.”
I scoff. “No, I can’t.”
“You can. Circumstances shape you, but they don’t dictate your fate.” His voice lowers with a soothing undertone. “You do.”
I shake my head again as a single hot tear slides down my cheek. “It’s over.”
“Not if you have a say in it. Whether it’s ballet or anything else, you can always rewrite your own story.” He reaches a hand out, the corners of his eyes softening for the first time since I’ve met him. “I’ll help you.”
“Why would you?” I’m crying now, and even the freezing air is unable to make the tears less hot and stinging.
“Because I want to.”
“I will not be your mistress, Adrian. Never.”
“You won’t be.”
“But you have a fiancée.”
“Not anymore.”
My lips part. “W-what?”
“I got rid of her.” He takes a step forward. “Now, come down.”
I stare at his hand, at the promise he’s offering and what he did. I said I didn’t want to be his mistress and he listened.
He got rid of her.
Adrian, of all people, has managed to pull me out of my numb state and provoke my tears.
My full-blown grief.
My hand trembles as I place it in his. As soon as our skin touches, he pulls me down, wrapping both arms around my waist and holding me up so I’m not putting any weight on my legs.
I burrow my face against his shirt through the small opening in his coat. A wracking sob mounts, catching in my throat before it bleeds out of my insides.
For a moment, we stand like that as I cry into his chest, my voice turning hoarse and my head pounding. Through it all, Adrian holds me in his strong arms, stroking soothing circles on my back and being the silent anchor I didn’t realize I needed.
“It hurts…” My voice breaks.
“I’ll call the doctor.”
“Not that pain.” I slam a closed fist against my chest. “Here. It hurts so much, I feel like I’m being cut open by a thousand knives.”
Adrian wraps a hand around the back of my head, caressing my hair. “It might feel like you can’t take it, like it would be better to die, but that’s not true. It’ll heal, maybe not right away or in the near future, and it might not heal completely, but the wound will close and you will look back on this day as the moment you changed.”
“But I’ll be scarred for life,” I sob, hitting my chest again. “Right here.”
“Scars mean you are alive and strong enough to survive.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll worship each of your scars until you’re able to face them, Lenochka.”
I lift my eyes to stare at him through my blurry vision. “Why would you?”
There’s a softness in his gaze, the closest thing I’ve seen to affection in them. “I told you. Because I want to.”
“What if you stop wanting to?”
“That won’t happen. You have my word.”
I don’t know if it’s because of my desperation or the rare tenderness on his face, but in this moment, I believe Adrian.
I believe that this man, this killer, is my only hope to repair my life.
Or what remains of it.
