Her eyes meet mine suddenly as the music is switches off, and she lowers herself to the floor.
“Keaton.”
“No way, missy. Get back in position. You still owe me five more minutes.” My gaze turns to meet an older woman that looks to be in her thirties or forties standing next to the sound system.
“Anita….” Morgan trails off, looking at me.
“Nope. No. Just because your boyfriend shows up doesn’t get you out of it. He can sit his ass in the corner and watch, but you still owe me five minutes, and that’s what I’m getting out of you.”
Morgan shoots me an apologetic smile. “You can wait upstairs.”
I scoff at her. “I’ll just sit over here.”
I make myself comfortable on the far wall facing her. As the music starts, Morgan keeps cutting her eyes my way.
“Focus, Morgan,” Anita chastises, tearing Morgan’s eyes from mine.
The next moment, she’s back up in the air. My heart pounds just as much as the first time. My heart isn’t the only part of my body taking notice either. I can’t help the reaction from my lower half as I watch her body move to the music.
She’s as graceful as she ever was, but there's an unfamiliar edge to her that wasn't there before. She’s more careful with her movements.
For five minutes, my eyes don’t leave her. I don’t miss the movements that cause her to wince or the ones that bring a smile to her face. At the end of the five minutes, sweat causes her body to shine in the light while her rapid breaths bring my eyes to her breasts.
Fuck if my pants don’t become even tighter.
“Excellent job. How do you feel?” Anita is rubbing Morgan’s legs and ankles while Morgan’s drinking water.
“Tight, but it’s a good tightness—like I worked a muscle, not like it’s hurt.”
“Everything feels okay here. I think you cut back to one soak a day. I’ll see you next week. Keep up the excellent work.”
“Thanks, Anita.”
The room is silent as Anita leaves. After a moment, Morgan turns and looks at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Well hello to you too, friend.” I emphasize my point.
“So, you wanted to drop by unexpectedly. I prefer my friends to call.”
“I tried calling and texting, but you didn’t answer.”
She walks over to a bag by the sound system, pulling out her phone. Then she turns and strides towards me.
“Sorry. I was busy. You came all the way over here because I didn’t respond right away? You know that sounds crazy, right?”
“I was just worried.” That you ran again.
“I’m alive and well, as you can see.”
“I wasn’t sure for a minute there. When did you start doing this?”
Morgan rolls her eyes “It’s called aerial silks.”
“Okay, when did you start aerial silks?”
“Beginning of the summer. Now that you can see I’m fine, you want to leave?”
“Nope. What did she mean by soak?”
Morgan chews her lip as she contemplates how much to tell me.
“Come on, Morgan. You can trust me. We’re friends.”
Sighing, she takes a seat next to me against the wall. “I have to soak my ankle every day to help keep the swelling down. It’s much better now, but in the beginning, the daily therapy caused me a lot of pain. Yes, it’s therapy.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story.” Her voice is shaky.
I reach out and grab her hand, squeezing gently. “Message received. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
For several moments, we sit in silence while holding hands.
“I injured myself while dancing. It was stupid, really. I went to make a sissonne, and when I landed, my ankle twisted and broke. Normally, it would have been fine after a couple weeks, but after going to the hospital, the doctors found that my bones had deteriorated. Because of that, I had to have physical therapy. After the initial exercises, my mom found this program that uses alternative methods to help heal after injuries.”
“How long do you have to do it?”
“Until the doctor clears me. Honestly, I love it though. I’m not sure I’m ready for it to end.”
“You looked happy up there. Scared the fuck out of me, but you looked like it’s where you belonged.”
She shrugs. “Ballet was always my thing. It brought me so much joy when I danced. I should have left it at that instead of yearning for more. You know they say only three out of ten students at HDA make it into professional companies when they graduate. Three out of ten. There were thirty-five students in my graduating class. That means out of them, a little over nine of them would see their dreams come true.”
“You could have done it. You’re the best dancer I have ever seen. You always looked so natural up there.”
“That’s because you’ve only really seen me dance. You should have seen the others. I was far from the best dancer in my school. It wasn’t just the dancing, though. The stress. The pressure. It got to me. It was too much. Have you ever loved something so much just to wake up one day and find that you don’t feel the same way anymore? It doesn’t bring you the same joy as it once did. You dread doing it?”
I think about her words before shaking my head.
“It’s a terrible feeling. That school, those teachers? They took the passion out of dance for me. I was miserable. I was missing meals because I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t hungry because I was too stressed or practicing. You learn to work through the hunger and push on because mediocre is not acceptable.” She lets out a heavy sigh.
“Why didn’t you come back then? Why did you stay?”
She cuts her eyes at me before settling them across the room once more. “I considered it more times than once. I didn’t want to be a quitter though. Plus, my parents were so proud. Add on the fact that it was something I used to want as badly as breathing,
