noticed. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Now when I touch her, she’s entirely mine. I always knew I was hers.
A part of me worries as we fly home that we’ll land and she’ll step away, retreat back behind the façade she’s carefully manufactured over the years, where we’re just friends and nothing more. But she doesn’t even go back to her apartment from the airport. She comes home with me that night, and pretty much every night after that. I don’t know why I worried. We’re Aly and Zed. We’re A to Z and everything in between. We’re still each other’s, more than we’re ever going to be anyone else’s.
She takes a few days off for her shins and her knee, and then another week because she gets the flu. I must have an immune system of steel because after dancing six days a week again, I return home to her—God, that’s just so fucking brilliant to say—and never get sick.
Now, asleep next to me in bed, she looks washed out and tinier, more so than normal. She spent half the night tossing and turning and bitching at me.
“Aly,” I say, sitting up. “Come on, we have to get up.”
Our morning company class starts in an hour and we’ve been grabbing breakfast at this little place around the corner from me on our way up to the studio. Aly sighs and opens her eyes, glaring at the clock on her side of the bed. There’s a pile of clothing on that side of the room too. Her side of the room.
It’s funny how quickly something shy and unfamiliar turns into something close to normal.
“I’ll make it for pointe class,” she murmurs, closing her eyes again.
I raise my eyes doubtfully but shrug. She’s still bouncing back and the company isn’t technically mandatory. Just highly recommended. She hasn’t missed one before, but she doesn’t look like I’m going to convince her to come this morning. “Alright. Want me to grab you anything?”
She shakes her head against the pillow and by the time I get dressed and grab my bag, she’s out like a light again. I press a kiss to her forehead and head uptown.
The rehearsal space in Philly feels like home, with all the glass windows overlooking South Street, the sound of trucks, the beep-beep-beep-beep of a bus stopping and letting passengers on and off, the way the floor shakes a little bit when the subway rattles deep beneath us. It’s good to be home. There’s something reassuring about knowing exactly where you need to go to clear your mind, to recharge, to take a deep breath.
Some days, I love class. Other days, class is something you get through because you know that excellent technique isn’t born, it’s made and drilled and pressed into the veins and bones of your body until it’s second memory. This morning it’s sunny and warm after two days of a late snow, so the concrete outside glimmers and our street shoes are wet, but we’re all delirious with spring fever. We’re a little too lazy with our arms and legs behind us and our necks and mouths too loose, but we hit all the heights in our jumps and nail all our turns. Those of us who show up for class anyway. At the break, I rehydrate in the corner and text Aly.
She doesn’t text me back until just before I go off to a rehearsal for a modern ballet I’ve been cast in, where she’d normally go off to pointe class before her rehearsals, and then it’s a simple, short
be there soon :(
At the end of my rehearsal, I head over to the pointe class, leaning on the doorway, above all the younger girls watching the advanced dancers. Aly’s there, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Her blond hair is pulled back in a tight bun, her body arching backward in midair, defying gravity. Her long legs, protected by light purple leg warmers, move like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird as she and the rest of the girls cross the room.
“God, look at her feet,” whispers a girl on the floor below me. “I bet Alyona Miller was born with perfect turnout.”
“Have you ever seen her walk down the
A part of me worries as we fly home that we’ll land and she’ll step away, retreat back behind the façade she’s carefully manufactured over the years, where we’re just friends and nothing more. But she doesn’t even go back to her apartment from the airport. She comes home with me that night, and pretty much every night after that. I don’t know why I worried. We’re Aly and Zed. We’re A to Z and everything in between. We’re still each other’s, more than we’re ever going to be anyone else’s.
She takes a few days off for her shins and her knee, and then another week because she gets the flu. I must have an immune system of steel because after dancing six days a week again, I return home to her—God, that’s just so fucking brilliant to say—and never get sick.
Now, asleep next to me in bed, she looks washed out and tinier, more so than normal. She spent half the night tossing and turning and bitching at me.
“Aly,” I say, sitting up. “Come on, we have to get up.”
Our morning company class starts in an hour and we’ve been grabbing breakfast at this little place around the corner from me on our way up to the studio. Aly sighs and opens her eyes, glaring at the clock on her side of the bed. There’s a pile of clothing on that side of the room too. Her side of the room.
It’s funny how quickly something shy and unfamiliar turns into something close to normal.
“I’ll make it for pointe class,” she murmurs, closing her eyes again.
I raise my eyes doubtfully but shrug. She’s still bouncing back and the company isn’t technically mandatory. Just highly recommended. She hasn’t missed one before, but she doesn’t look like I’m going to convince her to come this morning. “Alright. Want me to grab you anything?”
She shakes her head against the pillow and by the time I get dressed and grab my bag, she’s out like a light again. I press a kiss to her forehead and head uptown.
The rehearsal space in Philly feels like home, with all the glass windows overlooking South Street, the sound of trucks, the beep-beep-beep-beep of a bus stopping and letting passengers on and off, the way the floor shakes a little bit when the subway rattles deep beneath us. It’s good to be home. There’s something reassuring about knowing exactly where you need to go to clear your mind, to recharge, to take a deep breath.
Some days, I love class. Other days, class is something you get through because you know that excellent technique isn’t born, it’s made and drilled and pressed into the veins and bones of your body until it’s second memory. This morning it’s sunny and warm after two days of a late snow, so the concrete outside glimmers and our street shoes are wet, but we’re all delirious with spring fever. We’re a little too lazy with our arms and legs behind us and our necks and mouths too loose, but we hit all the heights in our jumps and nail all our turns. Those of us who show up for class anyway. At the break, I rehydrate in the corner and text Aly.
She doesn’t text me back until just before I go off to a rehearsal for a modern ballet I’ve been cast in, where she’d normally go off to pointe class before her rehearsals, and then it’s a simple, short
be there soon :(
At the end of my rehearsal, I head over to the pointe class, leaning on the doorway, above all the younger girls watching the advanced dancers. Aly’s there, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Her blond hair is pulled back in a tight bun, her body arching backward in midair, defying gravity. Her long legs, protected by light purple leg warmers, move like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird as she and the rest of the girls cross the room.
“God, look at her feet,” whispers a girl on the floor below me. “I bet Alyona Miller was born with perfect turnout.”
“Have you ever seen her walk down the
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