Page 2 of Swallow Your Sorries

I had no idea. She’d know exactly what sort of routine would impress the staff!

Excitement blooms like a morning glory flower in my chest, but it quickly freezes as Madame slings her five-figure Hermèsbag over her shoulder before turning to me with a grave expression.

“Look, I’m not saying this to demean you. I’m saying it because it’s the truth. A truth your dance instructor at the public gym won’t tell you, because she wants to be positive. She wants to keep you active in dance so you don’t join a gang, do drugs, or become a single teen mum like half the girls in your neighbourhood.”

That little flower inside me wilts and dies at her words.

She takes a big breath as if finally releasing a load off her chest. One that she’s been carrying ever since I arrived in her class.

“You’ll never earn that scholarship, Eloisa. Not at Beaulieu Academy. You don’t have the build for ballet. Your feet are almost flat, and your breasts are already too large at sixteen. Imagine them next year. Your body type aside, you’ll need far more than two mediocre dance classes a month and your free run here ends next week.”

I flinch, my eyes stinging. But she keeps going.

“I’d recommend a minimum of fiveexcellentclasses per week with a credible instructor. Not that YouTube-based instructional they offerover there. Real ballet classes. Classes you cannot afford and quite frankly, I don’t think it’d be worth the gamble even if you managed because the chance of a good return is nil. But all isn’t lost. Maybe you can apply your ballet background to another career path. If you grow a few inches taller, you can try plus-size modelling. I heard Instagram is very inclusive.”

“B-but ballet is my dream.” My voice is so small, so puny that I don’t recognize it as my own.

“Find another one,” she says dismissively. She taps her phone screen and grins like a schoolgirl, willfully oblivious to the fact that she’s just shattered my entire world.

Ballet is my escape. My alternative reality. I can’t live full-time in my real one, not with my father.

I set my jaw, clenching my hands into fists. My mother always said I was as stubborn as a bull.

“My technique though?” I insist. “Has it improved since September?”

I could work on my technique. Iwouldwork on my technique, no matter what.

She doesn’t bother to answer me, or rather she doesn’t hear me as she presses the phone to her ear and giggles out a greeting.

Fresh tears well in my eyes and spill down my cheeks the second the door slams shut behind her and I’m alone. Her words replay in my head like a bad track.

“You don’t have the build for ballet.”

I turn to the mirror and stare at my reflection. In seconds a hoarse moan tears from my throat as my face contorts hideously in frustration and sheer fury. Without thinking, I strike the mirrorhard,again and again, but my beastly form doesn’t disappear. It only grows more monstrously as my shoulders shake and my chest heaves, triggering more of Madame’s words.

“You’re jiggling everywhere.”

I turn to grab my second-hand gym bag, tears dripping down my chin and landing on the grey Adagio floor, but then another thought stops me dead.

“Child-bearing hips.”

I turn back to the mirror and lift my tutu. I used to think hips were hips. My body type cataloguing skills didn’t stray past, thin, chubby, and fat. But Madame opened my eyes to a whole slew of things that can be wrong with your body.

I examine my hips from the side as if noticing them for the very first time. My hip ridges protrude a little, and I guess they are far apart and shallow. As I pivot, my calves and thighs flex. They’re too muscular, too heavy. But those muscles got my arabesque to where it is now. If I try to lose them solely for the sake of aesthetics, wouldn’t I lose my power and strength? I suppose I could try Mum’s diet. What did she say it was again…keto? Maybe less carbs would lean me out, but what about those pesky bones?

“There’s nothing there. No matter how much you look,” a smooth, low voice calls over my shoulder.

Elle

Spinning around, I see a boy my age, or maybe a year older.

My biting retort at his snarky remark dies on my lips the moment my eyes meet his coal-black ones. I swear I’ve never seen eyes that dark set in skin so pale, with inky locks to match. His cheeks are pink from the cold and he’s dressed in a school uniform. A private one from the looks of the fancy golden crest embroidered on his navy blazer.

I drop my tutu indignantly, though it does me no good. It’s a platter tutu, jutting out around my waist and not covering much of anything else.

“Not according to Madame Pelletier,” I say in irritation, wiping furiously at my tears. What’s worse than crying? Having someone catch you in the act. “According to her, I have hips wide enough to bear an army and breasts massive enough to feed them all.”

His impenetrable eyes rove over my flesh centimetre by centimetre and once again I find myself wanting to shrink into the floorboards.

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