Page 1 of Swallow Your Sorries

Elle

Two years earlier

Bones. They do their own thing, don’t they?

To some extent, I can control the meatiness of my flesh, and the flexibility and strength of my muscles.

Arabesques? I can stretch, train, and torture my hamstrings, forcing them to lift my leg from a forty-five to a ninety-degree angle. And I did. Grand jeté? I can make my split flatter, my leap higher. I’d done that too. But high insteps? Beautifully, aesthetically pleasing foot arches? There’s nothing I can do to achieve it.

My height? I can’t shrink two inches to be the perfect stature en pointe for the male dancers in my year. All I can do is pray I don’t get any taller, and keep curving those vitamins mum gives me every morning.

No, bones are immovable, and if you force them, they’ll snap. But sound logic doesn’t impress my ballet instructor, Madame Pelletier. Her emerald green eyes, which are nearly identical to my own, narrow to slits as she watches me perform and her lips pucker, ready to purge more useless feedback.

“You have childbearing hips,” she says as the music ends and I land in an arabesque.

I struggle from the effort and try to stop myself from heaving like the water buffalo I’m sure Madame is silently comparing me to.

Giggles erupt around the classroom, but Madame, as always, is oblivious to them.

“Even beneath your tutu, they’re distracting. That aside, I’ve spoken to you before about wearing a better-fitting brasserie. You’re jiggling too much. Did you visit the undergarment store Istronglyrecommended?”

I had, but I couldn’t afford the three-figure price tag. I can’t ask Mum for the money, not when our water is still off. Instead, I’ve been scouring the internet for the closest dupe.

“Yes Madame, I got fitted. I just have to go back for payment.”

More giggles.

I daren’t look any of my classmates in the eye. No one ever said that I didn’t belong here to my face, but it’s obvious just by looking at us. I wear cheap leotards with permanent pit stains and lint balls, no matter how many times I soak and shave the fabric. The other girls are all decked in designer labels, most of which I can’t pronounce.

I’m only at such an elite dance school because I won a semester-long scholarship from my ballet studio on the other side of town. It’s free for minors, with a class every second Saturday of the month. Not enough time for me to make serious progress. So, when I won the scholarship, I decided to make every lesson count.

Why didn’t Madame ever give me tips on how to steady my breathing? Why didn’t she correct my feet’s positioning and turnouts, rather than lamenting about their flatness? What about my jumps? Or how I could gain more power to get higher without compromising my grace?

Madame looks at me and sighs.

I try not to hunch my shoulders under her scrutiny in a feeble attempt to minimise my chest. Because I couldn’t afford the undergarment, I’d dropped three pounds since the last class, hoping to deflate my breasts. They weren’t big by any means, but in ballet, any indication of body fat was unacceptable.

I can count Madame’s ribs through her leotard, a source of envy for many of my classmates.

A pretty chiming sound reverberates around the room. It’s Madame’s alarm signalling the end of class and the end of my weekly bodily ridicule. Still, I’m stubborn.

I wait for the students to file out before approaching Madame tentatively. I only have one class left before I head back to my old studio with its rough cement floors, and a teacher overwhelmed by fifty-plus students.

“Madame?”

She barely spares me a glance as a text message notification rolls across her phone screen.

“I was hoping to have some feedback on my form or my turns. Are they any better than when I first arrived?”

She looks at me with those pitying yet condescending eyes again. “Eloisa—”

I flinch at my full name. I hate it almost as much as Madame must hate me.

“—what’s your primary goal?” she asks, ignoring my questions. “Where do you hope ballet will take you?”

I don’t hesitate, though my cheeks grow warm. “I dream of becoming a professional ballerina, like you, Madame. However, my short-term goal is to attend a performing arts high school like Beaulieu Academy. I want to audition and apply for a scholarship next year—”

“Beaulieu Academy?” she asks incredulously. Her eyebrows, which I’ve never seen move before from too much filler, lift to her widow’s peak hairline. “I was the head of admissions in their ballet department before I opened my own studio.”

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