How It Feels to Fly(45)

“Okay.” I hand him a sheet that’s like fresh-cut grass.

He folds and folds, tongue sticking out of his mouth. He starts humming.

The jump ropes make a repetitive slap-slap-slap on the carpet. The double Dutch-ers laugh when Jenna gets tangled and has to hop in a circle. Katie says, loudly, to Zoe, “No, not that button! The one with the square on it!”

And Omar whimpers. “I can’t do it,” he says, ripping off a green petal.

“You’re doing fine. The whole point of this is to try something we’ve never done before and to figure it out as we go along.”

It’s like he doesn’t hear me at all. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it!” His face twists, and I know he’s going to cry.

I lean in close. Put my hand on his hand, where he’s tapping the table. “Hey. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“I can’t do it,” he repeats, looking miserable.

I pull two sheets of yellow paper from the stack. I set the instructions flat on the table where we can both see them. “We’ll do it together, okay?”

“You’re not supposed to help me.”

“I’m not.” I sneak a glance at Dr. Lancaster. “I’m making my own flower. It just happens to be next to yours.”

Maybe this is his version of Elmer’s glue. Or maybe his moment of panic was just that—a moment. But side by side, folding slowly, checking our work again and again, we end up with matching golden daffodils.

He holds his up, giving me a watery smile.

“Gorgeous,” I tell him.

“I feel really dumb right now.”

“You’re saying that to the girl who almost cried when her house of cards fell down.” I look around the room. Dr. Lancaster is crouched with Katie and Zoe by the VCR, and the jump-rope squad is in their own world. Focused. Keeping time. “Do you want to talk to someone?” I ask Omar. “I mean, someone who isn’t me?”

“No. I’m okay now. Thanks.” He furrows his brow. “I hate when I freak out over things that don’t matter.”

“Me too.” I set my paper flower down next to his.

“But in the moment, when it’s happening, they feel like they matter. So much.”

“I know.” I think about stepping in that hole on Monday. How I wasn’t hurt—not even a little—but it felt like the end of the world. “It’ll get better.”

For him, maybe. Not for you.

I shake my head, wanting my inner voice gone. And I say it again, hoping this time I’ll believe it: “It’ll get better.”





sixteen


THAT AFTERNOON, WHILE DR. LANCASTER HAS A meeting with Andrew and Yasmin, Jenna and I set up our chair-barres in the Dogwood Room. Katie starts doing crunches and push-ups nearby. Dominic joins Katie on the floor, matching her move for move. Omar gets his graphic novel and sits with Zoe on the sofa, where she’s watching a horror movie at low volume.

We’re together. At the end of week one, that feels important.

When we’re stretching out on the floor after finishing our barre exercises, Jenna scoots closer to me. “You said on Thursday you think you and I have some stuff in common,” she says, keeping her voice low.

“Yeah.”

“Do you find yourself comparing your body to everyone else’s all the time?”

Yes. Always. And you always lose.

“Um. Sort of. Why?” I open my legs into a straddle split and lean forward, resting my stomach on the floor.

“Because that’s what I do. I look at pictures and videos of myself on the ice, and I look at other skaters doing the same move, and I can’t stop comparing us. Down to the littlest things. Like, how my fingers look. I’m never satisfied. Never.”

I turn my head to rest my left cheek on the carpet. There’s a frayed area on my right ballet slipper where my big toe is about to poke through. It makes me think about how frayed I feel. Every day the threads holding me together are fewer and farther between.

“That’s kind of it for me,” I say quietly. “But kind of not. I know where my technique is. I know what I’m good at and what I’m still working on. I believe in my dancing. So when I compare my body to other people’s bodies, it’s not like they’re doing something I wish I was doing. Something I could work on, or fix. They’re just luckier.”

“That makes sense.” Jenna nods. “It sucks, but it makes sense.”

“My body used to be perfect for ballet, and then—it wasn’t. But that’s not about anyone else. It’s about me.”

“Are you jealous?”

I think about Bianca. How I’ve been keeping her at a slight distance for the past few months—maybe even since Nutcracker. In a way, she represents everything I’ve lost.

On Monday, she starts her summer ballet intensive. She’ll be at The Washington School of Ballet in DC for the next five weeks. We both auditioned for that program, back in February. She got in; I didn’t. She offered to wait to accept her place until we found out where I’d be going, but I told her not to be silly. TWSB was her top choice. She had to go.

We did all our auditions together this year. I think back to the one I thought I’d danced best at—the one where the teacher and the intensive director stared at me in the hallway afterward. I don’t think Bianca ever feels those prickles at the back of her neck. I don’t think she has any idea what it’s like to be looked at as if you don’t deserve to even walk down those hallways.