I run my fingers down the seam of the short sleeved leotard I haven’t worn for two years. I have no idea if it’ll even fit me now.

I breathe deeply and step out of my clothes, ready to pull it on. Even if I only ever wear it at home when I dance in the garage, it’s something, and it’s more than I would have done before.

I catch my reflection in the mirror as I straighten, the leotard still in my hand. I close my eyes. My number one rule is not to get changed in front of the mirror, not to see the marks that cover my body, but this time it feels different. I feel like I can open my eyes and look at them for the first time ever.

So I do.

My eyes crawl across my slender frame, toned from dancing, and they take in every spot, blemish and scar marring my skin. I look at every one, examining them like I can remember when each one happened. The last ones are the easiest to see – they’re whiter, thicker, and more raised than the others.

Each one has a story to tell, each one a scene in a horrifying chapter of my life I can’t delete.

I scrutinize them all from my arms to my legs. And finally, I accept them for what they are.

Battle scars.

No matter how unsightly they are or how ashamed of them I am, no matter how I might try to hide them or forget about their existence, that’s the bottom line. That’s the basic truth I will never be able to escape from.

They’re my battle scars, earned over a time when I was honestly fighting for my life. They’re the things that remind me that even in the face of true pain, I was able to stay strong and keep fighting. I was able to face each day head on, albeit with fears and worries, but I still did it.

And that’s all my depression is now. Another battle scar. A silent one that will never be shown, a scar just for me, but a scar all the same. And just like the others, this too will fade.

Depression: the name given to being strong enough to face the outside world despite the crumbling inside.

I put my legs into the leotard and pull it up my body. It rolls up my stomach, and my arms go in, tugging it all the way up. And it fits. It fits just as snugly as it did two years ago, and the black lycra against my pale skin is more striking than I remember. I step backwards slowly, my eyes on my reflection, and stop. My hair flows over one shoulder, and if it wasn’t for the darkened color of it, I’d almost think I was looking at the Abbi I was before.

But I’m not, and I never will again. I’m looking at me, the new me, the me I was supposed to be all along. The broken, damaged me that is somehow still holding onto life.

Somehow.

There is no somehow, I realize as I touch my finger to my cheek. I’m not holding onto life itself – merely the smaller things that make it up.

My parents. Maddie. Dance. Juilliard. Blake.

I don’t have to hold onto all of them, only a little part. As long as I’m holding onto a small part of them, then I have a hold on life. I just need to remember what makes life worth living, and that’s the center of it. They are the things my world revolves around, even if Blake did sneak his way in smoother than a ninja could.

If I can keep a hold on them, I can keep a hold on life. And faced with the honesty of my scars, I know I can.

Because I’m strong.

I’m not a shadow of the person I was.

She is a shadow of me.

 

~

 

Blake’s hands are warm on my waist as he lifts me from my plié and onto his shoulder. My arms are in fifth position, raised and curved above my head, and my back is poker straight. There’s nothing comfortable about this position – I think sitting on hot coals would be more comfortable, to be completely honest, but it’s vital to our dance.

I take a deep breath as I feel Blake’s body shift, and he drops me into a fish dive. His fingers curve around my thigh and he holds me steady as we spin, my body stretched out. He lowers me gradually, spinning at an almost glacial pace, and I move into arabesque, one leg out behind me. I bring it down and straighten my body up, Blake’s hands moving to my stomach and my hand to promenade. I count his turns, and on five, he releases me, leaving me to fouette until I drill my way through the floor.

I still, finishing the adage section of our dance, and turn my eyes to him. It’s the first time I’ve truly watched him dance. The first time I’ve truly let myself watch him, and I’m spellbound. My eyes follow his every move, fluid and precise as he dances across the floor. Every step, arm position, turn, leap, every single thing about his dance is beautiful. It’s a struggle to stay standing as I watch him. All I want to do is sink to the floor and stare at him dancing the way a child stares at the television.

And he doesn’t even know. He’s so lost in his moves, so focused on what he’s doing, I’d bet anything he can’t feel my gaze searing into him and burning holes in his back.

He stops, his variation over, and his eyes slowly open. A smirk graces his lips when he sees me staring at him, and I drop my eyes to the floor.

At least I’m still standing and not on my ass.

I step into my dance with the ease of someone that’s done these steps their whole life. In reality, I made them up last night. I walked into the garage after Blake went to work, dressed in my short leotard, and let myself go completely. And this dance, filled with bourreés, coupés, and one of my favorite steps, an échappe sauté, is a dance from the heart. It tells a story from despair to fleeting moments of true happiness, starting off slowly and building in speed until the coda section of our dance, when Blake comes back into it.

This dance is easy. True. Real. Free.

This dance is everything I feel when I dance.

Everything I want to be.

Blake’s hand clasping mine and pulling me to him signals the start of the coda, and I don’t bat an eyelid as we dance alongside each other. It’s only been mere weeks we’ve danced together but it feels so much longer. I know, after this weekend, what we have is so much more than just a pas de deux. What we have away from the studio strengthens what we have inside.

He knows my every move and adjusts to it without thinking, even when I make a split second decision and change out a step for something else. He doesn’t stop, he doesn’t say a word, and he doesn’t get annoyed. He simply changes direction, falling in with me.

And when his hands rest on my waist again, strong and determined, I push off as he lifts. The explosive motion results in a perfect grande jeté, my legs completely straight in their split as Blake lifts me through the air. I feel weightless, like I’m flying, and my drop back down is easy. My feet touch the ground and my knees bend. Blake’s hands travel from my waist down my arms to my hands and I push up en pointe, arching my back and dropping my head behind me. My arms are stretched to the sides, and the only thing stopping me falling backward is Blake’s grip on my fingers.

His lips touch mine, a barely there brush, and he flicks me back up. That wasn’t in the original dance.

I spin away from him, pause a moment, then turn back. His arms are stretched toward me, his eyes intent on mine, and I spring to him. Like that time in the garage, my hands hit his shoulders, his hands grip my waist, and he propels me into the air above him. Our faces are so close I can feel his breath across my lips, and I smile. My legs split sideways, and I hold them for a long beat, then wrap them around Blake’s waist.

He laughs quietly, splaying his fingers round my back. I smile, dropping my face down to his, and wrap my arms around his neck.

“This isn’t part of the dance,” he whispers, still laughing.

I shake my head, smiling, and touch my lips to his.

Three weeks ago, I couldn’t take the closeness of dancing with him. It scared me. It was too much to deal with. Three weeks ago, I ran out of class because everything felt wrong.

Now, with my body wrapped around his, and him holding me for all it’s worth, everything feels right.

 

~

 

“You didn’t tell me you were changing the dance.”

“You didn’t tell me you were.”

Blake turns, grinning. “For the record, I like the new ending.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course you do.”

“What?” He puts a large plastic bowl filled with popcorn on his coffee table and drops himself backward onto the sofa. “What do you expect from a guy?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” A sad tinge works its way into my voice.

He leans his head back and looks at me. “I want to ask why that sounds like an honest answer instead of a sarcastic one.”

“It sounds like it because it is.” I smile sadly and pick some lint off my jeans. “I really don’t know what to expect. He … Pearce … He gave a new meaning to the words ‘Always expect the unexpected’. He took everything I expected and made me think I was wrong.”

“I’m not gonna like this, am I?” Blake mutters, taking my hand and threading his fingers through mine.

“Probably not,” I admit. “But … I want you to know … If any of what I’m about to say makes you feel any differently, I won’t be offended if–”

He cups my chin and raises my face so we’re eye-to-eye. “Abbi, there is nothing you could say to me that would make me feel any differently. Whatever’s happened to you in the past is just that. In the past. None of that will make a blind bit of difference to how I feel about you right now.”

I nod, silence falling as I try to gather my words. With Dr. Hausen it was easier. My brain had blocked out most of the memories, locking them away and letting them out gradually. Now they’re all out. They’re ready to haunt me the second I let them.

If I let them.

“I guess I should start at the beginning and tell you Pearce is Maddie’s brother. Yep.” I hold my hand up to stop him talking. “The Maddie you met. Their mom was killed in a drive-by shooting a few years ago. She wasn’t the target – she was just an innocent bystander caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maddie was there when it happened, and her death all but tore her family apart. Her dad isn’t the guy he was, and Pearce did what most grieving people did; he looked for an outlet for his emotions, a way to ease his pain. In high school it was easy enough, so he started staying out at weekends and partying. Alcohol soon turned to drugs, and casual usage became a full-blown addiction. By mine and Maddie’s senior year, he was hooked on heroin, but it wasn’t so bad there was no Pearce left in him. Or so we thought, and for some goddamn stupid reason, he and I ended up in a relationship.

“I thought I could help him. I loved their mom almost as much as they did – her death killed me, too – but I was wrong. I didn’t know it then. I wouldn’t know it for a while. Our relationship started as any other did, until he started talking me into going to parties with him. Maddie came too, and it wasn’t until then we realized Pearce needed heroin to survive. He was one hundred percent addicted, needing an almost constant high, and if he didn’t get that high, he would turn.

“On his comedown or his craving stages, he was volatile. He was almost evil, possessed with nothing but the need for more of the drug. God forbid you got in his way during those times. If you did, it didn’t end well for you. He had a barrage of verbal abuse he’d throw at you, and he knew how to throw a good punch.” I close my eyes and whisper, “And he didn’t care who you were. His friend, a stranger … His girlfriend.”

Blake’s hand tightens around mine.

“As his girlfriend, I got the worst end of the deal. He was paranoid from using the drugs and he was obsessed with the idea his friends were trying to take me from him. I don’t know why it bothered him – he didn’t really want me himself. I was more an accessory for him, something to look pretty on his arm. Something to hide the reality of what he was.

“Anyway, the paranoia meant I was barely allowed to leave his side at a party. The few times I was, Maddie had to be there, and then she was lecturing me about leaving him, so I ended up just staying with him. Which meant I was there for every stage of his addiction. His craving, his high, and his comedown. I took the brunt of it all. Verbal and physical. He didn’t care who I was in that state. All he wanted was the drug, and it’s like he thought I was the one keeping him from it. I was, at first, then I learnt it was pointless because he was going to get it anyway. But I still thought I could save him. I always thought I could save him from himself.”

I breathe in deeply, and open my eyes to stop the images playing in quick succession behind them. I need to stop the box of memories opening and flooding into me, taking me under, drowning me in pain. I need to pause it, let the words come as I want them to, not as the past does.

“He’s the reason you cut, isn’t he?” Blake asks me softly, yet angrily.

I nod. “The pain from cutting took away the pain from him. When I cut, I couldn’t feel the bruises from the punches or the kicks. I couldn’t feel the pain inside from the person I trusted, the person I was sure I loved, breaking me into two. I lived in fear constantly. I had to double check what I was wearing, the way I’d done my hair, how I was acting, who I was talking to, the plans I was making. All of it had to be Pearce-approved. I wasn’t allowed to look attractive for other guys or spend my weekends with the girls like I used to.

“Maddie kept trying to get through to me. She’d accepted Pearce for what he was – hopelessly addicted to heroin without an escape in sight. I didn’t want to accept that, so I didn’t. Or maybe I was too scared to accept it. I think that’s probably right, considering how much I feared him. Eventually, she gave up because she couldn’t get through to me. I was blinded by the Pearce I remembered and a faint childish hope that Pearce would one day come back. He never did and he never would.”

I open my eyes, and Blake holds my hand even tighter. His jaw is clenched shut and his eyes are hard.

“I put up with it for so long. All the abuse … The kicks, the punches, the shoves … I hid it every time, relishing the winter when I could wear thick sweaters to cover the bruises on my arms – from slipping on the ice. No one knew, no one except Maddie, but even then she couldn’t prove it. I’d never admit it. I was stuck in a loop; go out, get hit, come home, cut. It repeated itself several times a week until I finally broke. Until he finally broke me.

“His friends were all assholes, but I’ll always silently thank Jake for walking in when he did. If he didn’t walk in with the heroin that would calm Pearce, I have no doubt he would have taken it further than he ever did. His temperament, that day, had changed from physically violent to … something worse. You know, I can’t even say the words. It’s been a year, and he never actually did it, but I still can’t say them.

“That’s when I decided. I knew I’d never been that scared in my life before. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream, I could barely even talk. My parents were out of town on a work trip, so I gathered all the razors I could find and snapped them under my foot to take the blades out. I was scared they’d get blunt and I wouldn’t be able to move to get another, that I’d be stuck in some sort of crazy limbo between life and death until I was found. Then I ran a bath, stripped to my underwear, and climbed in.”

 

 

The water had been hot, red hot, but I’d barely felt it as I sank my body into the tub. All I felt was the ice-cold metal already slicing into my palm where I was gripping it so tightly, and the sweet release of my blood breaking through my skin. I opened my hand, looked at the blades, and set them, all except one, on the side of the bath.

 

 

“It was freeing, knowing what I was doing. In my mind there was no way it wouldn’t work. There was no way anyone could know or that anyone would find me. I was spurred on by the thought I wouldn’t be in pain anymore.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“There’s no reason to be scared of death if you’re already living in hell.”

 

 

The blade slid across my skin easily, and a part of me reveled in the splitting of my skin and the spilling of my blood. I took the metal from my skin and touched it to a different place, leisurely moving it across my stomach. I watched in awe as my blood mixed with the bath water, swirling and swilling around me.

A part of me knew this was wrong, knew what I was feeling wasn’t right, but I couldn’t stop. I had to make the pain stop, because that was all I could feel. I was numb physically, exhausted mentally, and drained emotionally.

I just wanted to breathe again.

 

 

Blake’s arms go around me, and his chest heaves. He buries his face in my hair, and I squeeze my eyes shut as I remember. I remember the sting, the only thing I felt at all, and I remember counting the minutes and cuts, keeping them in time with the other. One cut per minute. One fresh bleed every sixty seconds.

 

 

Tears wracked my body, great heaving sobs, and I jabbed the tiny blade into my skin over and over. I wasn’t even cutting anymore, I was shredding. I was shredding and mauling my skin like it would make me bleed faster. I sliced my way up my leg to my thigh, where I paused, trying to determine where my artery was. Where I could cut to end it in minutes.

 

 

“Then I got desperate. I wasn’t bleeding fast enough. I needed to bleed more, faster, harder, deeper. I needed it over, and I needed it over right that second.”

 

 

I had only a rough idea. I took a punt. I pushed the razor blade into my skin harder than I ever had and tore it up my leg. Blood spilled out of the gash, flooding the water with a brilliant, vivid red, and I sobbed harder and harder. I sobbed for everything I was leaving behind and the pain that would be caused.

But my pain was greater than any that would be caused by my death. No one could possibly hurt more than I was.

 

 

“That’s the last thing I remember,” I whisper, turning my face so my ear is over Blake’s heart. The steady thumping calms me. “I passed out from blood loss. I don’t know how long I was there before Maddie found me, but she did. I hate myself for that, you know? I hate that out of all the people in the world that could find me that way, it was my best friend. She’d already watched her mom die in front of her, and I’d left the very real possibility she was going to watch her best friend die, too.”

“But you didn’t,” Blake says hoarsely.

I shake my head. “No. I didn’t. She called an ambulance, and they saved me. They told me later about the cut on my thigh, but apparently I’d done enough of a job I would have been dead within the hour if Maddie didn’t come.”

“What if she didn’t?”

“Then I would have haunted her late ass for the rest of her life.” I laugh a little. “I used to wish she didn’t come, but now I’m glad she did. She really did save my life.”

Blake breathes in heavily. “And goddamn it, Abbi, I’m glad she did.”

“Me too.”

“But her brother or not, I think I might just fucking kill him if I ever see him.”

A smile twitches at my lips. “You’ll be waiting a while. He’s in jail.”

“For what he did to you?”

“No. For drugs. Fifteen years. I never went to the police – there was no point. I was too ill to stand in court and I didn’t even know he’d been arrested until I came home. He’s getting what he deserves. His life is on hold and mine is going on. It’s a long, hard slog sometimes, but I’m living. He’s just alive.”

Blake strokes my hair gently, his fingers threading through the strands, and I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head.

“Bloody right you’re living,” he says. “And, I promise you, I’ll show you exactly what you should expect from a guy.”

“Which is what?”

“Everything you could ever want and need. But that rule only applies to you, because we all have to get what we deserve, and you deserve the world and more.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his neck. “I already have it.”