Aurora bent over her knee, leg up on the barre. Her friend Jacob’s concerned face disappeared from the mirror as her forehead touched the cool smoothness of her tights.
“I think it’s romantic as hell,” Jacob said, his deep voice echoing in the empty studio. “You don’t know anything about the situation with the mother?”
Aurora felt the tug of her muscle where it had never fully recovered from her fall. Her stretch didn’t quite go as deep as it once did, and her endurance and accuracy had definitely suffered. She lifted her torso, her eyes meeting Jacob’s once more.
He cut quite a figure in a fiery red mesh top and black tights. He was one of her oldest friends in San Antonio, where she’d fled after the disastrous night of her accident on stage and the rehabilitation that didn’t quite get her back to professional dance level.
When her career ended at the age of twenty-five, Jacob had rescued her. He had steered her toward this dance academy, which housed four studios. Jacob taught hip hop and modern dance between auditions for stage work. He had great aspirations and the talent to make them happen. His career was still out in front, whereas Aurora’s was effectively over.
“I don’t snoop,” she said. “I just know that when he started bringing his daughter, the mother never came back.”
Jacob leaned against the barre. His skin was as dark as hers was light. They sometimes danced together for a community theater, and the reviews always spoke of their opposites. Coloring. Size. Style. Jacob’s moves were as bold as Aurora’s were delicate. The critics here were easy to please. They found no fault with her form or her range.
She had to let it be enough.
“Could just be a schedule thing, then,” Jacob said. He leaped into the air, scissoring his ankles, warming up. They worked out together each morning before classes began.
Aurora lowered her leg to the floor and lifted the other. It stretched with even smoothness, deep and hard, as if to remind her of the deficiency of the injured one. “I don’t think so,” she said, exhaling into the pose, forehead to knee. “The girl is so sad now. Nothing like she was before.”
Jacob spun in fast, dizzying circles. Aurora lifted her head and watched his powerful body defy the laws of motion. He was a wonder to behold. Their mutual admiration meant parents entering the academy assumed they were a couple. They let the misunderstanding stand, finding it easier than explaining that Aurora felt too tender after her dance partner and lover dumped her once the extent of her injury was confirmed.
For two years now she’d taught little girls, barely able to do more than the five basic positions herself when she began, post surgery and in constant pain. Even now, when she could do passable ballet, Aurora found her heart wasn’t in it anymore, as if the dance itself had been the one to jilt her.
She pirouetted around Jacob, her gentle turns a quiet contrast to his bold leaping spins. But somehow this made her think of Samuel. She had nothing to prove on the pages where he drew her. And his gift could not be as easily snatched from him as hers had been.
Jacob dropped to one knee, back arched, head down, a dramatic move. Aurora tested her leg, found it strong enough today, and turned in slow, agonizing circles en pointe.
Jacob walked to her, holding her wrist and leading her around. He held fast as she bent backwards, one leg lifting, until she was split, high and low, strong and injured, both balanced and falling.
She held the pose, picturing the image Samuel would draw if he were there.
She was dancing for him.