CHAPTER 1
Danica
I stared at a ghost in the highly polished glass. It was me, but it wasn’t. My attention darted to the sign written in a delightfully curvy font on the broad glass window. The Hanover School of Dance. In my mind, the words were changing, and the window was becoming a lot less polished and mirror-like, the sheen dulling. The words now read H. O’Quinn's Dance Studio, and I was no longer looking into the studio from the street, I was instead looking out of the studio from within. I was no longer twenty-five years old… my thoughts had traveled back in time to when I was seventeen.
My instructor, Mrs. O’Quinn, watched me perform my routine, as did the other students in my age group. The music rippled through my veins, filled me like liquid electricity surging through me, and I moved with grace and fluidity as I spun, leaped, and twirled. As the beat picked up, I began to dance with more intensity. Sweat soaked through my blond hair. The music grew faster and faster, and I flowed with it. I’d committed every movement to memory, I’d rehearsed the routine so many times it had become muscle memory. I no longer had to think about what came next; it just happened.
Finally, the music reached its climax and then faded out. I finished my piece and stayed frozen in position until the last few notes rang out, and I maintained my position as silence took over. For a few moments, that was all there was; just me, and silence.
Then the students burst into a bout of applause, as did my instructor, Mrs. O’Quinn.
“Astounding, Danica,” she said with a broad, proud smile. “That was simply brilliant! You captured the energy and grace of the piece perfectly. I can see that you've been practicing hard.”
I smiled at her, feeling sweat beading in the small of my back and running down my neck.
“I've been practicing every day for at least two hours, Mrs. O’Quinn,” I said. “And I think I'm almost ready.”
“Oh, you're more than ready, my dear,” she replied. “More than ready. I think one more class, just to work on a few aspects of your flexibility, and we'll have you ready to take first place in the competition next week. So, I'll see you here tomorrow, same time, right? Last class before the competition. You're going to take that prize, I know it!”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Don't hope so, dear,” she replied with a gentle smile. “Know so.”
I grinned and started packing up, now that the lesson was over. But the smile soon faded from my face, and the positive energy flowing through my veins dissipated, for now, I had to go back to real life.
My memory now jumped to the day after this one, the day I was supposed to go to my final dance lesson before the competition.
I was in the small, shabby apartment I shared with my father. He was, as he almost always was, drunk and high, and in a foul mood. He was dressed as he usually was as well; torn jeans and his stained white wife beater. His dark hair hung limp and greasy over his tanned, scarred face, which was stormy with wrath.
He sat at the kitchen table, packing parcels of marijuana into one brown paper bag and stuffing wads of cash into another, a cigarette smoking in an ashtray on one side of him and a glass of cheap whiskey on the other.
“Why did you take so damn long to get home?” he demanded angrily, looking up from the table.
“I came straight home from school, Dad,” I protested. “I always get home at this time.”
“Well, you take too damn long! You're wasting my damn time!”
“I'm sorry, Dad. I'll try to get home faster. But I have to go out again; I have to get to the dance studio.”
He glared at me, his bloodshot eyes glowing hot with anger. “Didn't I tell you I ain't payin' for no more of those stupid lessons? What the hell are you doing going back there?”
“I've been paying for it myself, Dad, and I've been doing that for the last three years. Don't you remember?”
He shook his head. “Whatever. Well, I don't want you going back there; it's a waste of damn time, you hear?”
Now my own temper started to flare up. Who was he to tell me what I could and couldn't do with my own money, money that I earned with my own hard work!
“It's my money, Dad, and if I want to pay for dance classes with it, that's what I'm going to do!”
His hands clenched into fists, and I braced myself because I knew what was coming. First, he grabbed the ashtray and flung it as hard as he could at me. I only just managed to duck out of the way; the air above my head rippled as his fist flew past and smashed with a loud crack against the wall behind me. He grabbed my throat in his meaty hand and slammed me back against the wall, pressing his face close to mine. The hot stench of his breath blasted my senses and fear flooded my veins.
“Don't ever talk back to me, you little bitch,” he snarled. “Don't you fucking talk back to me, ever. I'll break this jaw of yours, and then you'll be eating through a damn straw for the next two months, you hear me?”
“All right, Daddy, all right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” I whimpered, utterly terrified.
Thankfully, that was all that he did. He slackened his grip, releasing my throat from his grip, and slunk back over to the table.
“You aren't going to that damn dance studio today,” he said flatly. “You aren't going back there again ever.”
I felt such anger and frustration raging inside me – he was taking away the one thing that gave my life meaning, the one thing that made me truly feel alive, the one thing that was worth living for – but I knew what he would do to me if I dared to talk back. So, I simply nodded in silence.
He sealed up the bag of money and the bag of weed and shoved both brown paper bags into a backpack. He got up, had a brief coughing fit, and then walked over to me and shoved the backpack into my hands.
“This goes to Eddie's place. If you don't get it to him in half an hour, I'm gonna be in trouble. And you know what I'll do to you if I get in trouble, don't you?”
His words were cold, the threat real and palpable. I knew exactly what would happen if I disobeyed him. There was no way I could take this to Eddie's place and make it to my dance class. So, this was it – everything I had worked so hard on, everything I had poured all my passion into for so long, out the window, gone just like that... all because of him.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” he snapped. “I told you where to take this, now go!” He grabbed my arm and shoved me roughly toward the door. “Go!”
“All right, Daddy, all right,” I murmured. “I'm going.”
I walked out, my whole being consumed with a terrible storm of anger, hate, sadness, and frustration, and walked to the bus stop.
Suddenly, an idea hit me – a dangerous, reckless idea, but one that seemed increasingly like a reasonable option, given everything that I was going through. The bus that would take me down the street to Eddie's place pulled up, but I didn't get on it. I was going to do this. I was going to do it. I had been pushed too hard and too far this time. It was time for a change – a big change.
I waited to see what other buses would come along, vowing that I would get onto the first one that would take me out of this neighborhood.
The next one was a bus for Manhattan. I got onto it.
When I got off in Manhattan, I wasn't just stepping off a bus, I was stepping out of my old life and into a new one—one filled with uncertainty, fear, and the unknown. But no matter what it held, it was a life in which I would forever be free of the tyranny and abuse of my father because I was never going back home.
As the bus pulled away, I looked around. Directly across the street was a dance studio, and I took that to be a good omen. I hurried across, reading the sign: The Hanover School of Dance, and then I stopped and watched some of the dancers through the window. They moved with such finesse and grace and fluid beauty. It was mesmerizing.
“One day,” I whispered to myself. “One day, I'll be on the inside of that studio looking out, not the other way around.”
I walked down the street and caught sight of my reflection in a mirror in a store display window, and from this angle, I looked exactly like my mother.
“Where did you go, Mom?” I whispered. “Why did you leave all those years ago? Will I ever see you again?”
Sadness overtook me, and I couldn't look at my reflection anymore. I walked away, leaving my reflection behind in the glass.
A few blocks down the street, I found a church that had a sign offering a homeless shelter. I walked in, and a kindly old priest smiled at me.
“Can I help you, dear?” he asked.
“I need a place to stay,” I murmured. “I... I'm homeless. I don't have any family.”
And that was that... my new life had begun.
The memory faded out, and I returned to the present—eight years later to the day. Somehow, I found myself back in front of The Hanover School of Dance, although I now looked like a very different person from the naive young girl who had looked through this window with a longing gaze so long ago. I inhaled sharply and walked in.
“Hi,” said the woman behind the counter. “You're a bit early for the next class, but you can wait on that sofa over there.”
“Oh, no,” I said, wishing that I was actually there for that reason. “I'm not here for a class. I saw the sign outside regarding the job opening. I’d like to apply.”
The second I had noticed the sign in the window saying that there was a job opening, I knew I absolutely had to get this job. Since I’d arrived eight years ago, this place had beckoned me. It was a symbol of my lost hopes, my lost dreams and desires. I knew if I could just get a foot in the door, maybe a small part of me would be able to once more grasp just a few wisps of those dreams and then maybe they wouldn't be gone forever.
“Oh, I see,” said the woman behind the counter. “Well, wait over there. The manager will be here shortly.”
I sat down on the sofa and prayed with all my might that I would get this job. I needed something to go right in my life for a change... Something had to. It really had to.