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Taryn
THE OTHER THIRD YEARS don’t know what to say to me. Or to each other. Peter’s on the phone to his dad, shouting manically about how none of us have graduated because a dancer messed up. I shoot him dagger-looks at that, but it doesn’t solve anything. Usually, the twelve third years would be invited back on stage at the end, and we’d all officially graduate before finding out which two are joining the company. But none of that is happening. The company staff made it clear enough.
Right after that, Madame Cachelle and two of the classical ballet teachers shepherded us away from Mr. Aleks, Miss Tavi, Mr. Vikas, and the other man whom I didn’t know. The academy doctors were ordering for the room to be cleared, and I could hear distant sirens.
I didn’t even get one last look at Teddy. There were too many people around him.
“I don’t think the company should’ve been discussing who’d get the places right then,” Sibylle says. “Not with Teddy still unconscious. It was insensitive.”
“Well, he’s ruined all our careers,” Peter says, his red face like thunder.
Then he walks out the common room, leaving just me and the other third-year girls here. I’m not sure where the rest of the guys went anyway. It’s not like we usually talk that much anyway, but now there’s a strange atmosphere between us all as we all try to both look at each other and look anywhere else.
Me and Sibylle and Ivelisse are sort of a unit because we room together, while Alma and Freya and Ella are the other unit. We rarely talk to each other, but we also rarely talk among ourselves. We’ve never really tried to. Each of us has friends outside of dance—or at least I pretend I do, too, because they’re always talking about their non-dancing friends—and while we are mostly civil at the academy, we’re not close. No one really is, because we’re competitors.
But now, all of a sudden, they try to speak to me, try to reassure me as I text Teddy for the fifth time, and their words are like empty husks, disembodied petals. Alma hands me a cup of tea—a drink which I notice has the ends of several strands of her golden hair dipping into—but I spot the dark glint in her eyes that I’m sure she’s trying to hide because she’s keeping the rest of her face neutral, expressionless. Alma has never really liked me, been jealous ever since I ranked higher than her at the end of the first semester in the first year. And now she’s not graduating because of my dance partner, and I’m sure she’ll somehow blame it on me.
Hell, I bet they all are trying to hide their anger or annoyance or... or how they hope to benefit from it. Teddy’s accident—caught on camera as the performance is always filmed—will mean we will be in the dance media a lot. Even companies who didn’t attend today and normally never bother with us will likely watch the showreel because people do like watching people get hurt. The sheer number of ‘funny’ YouTube videos prove that. Our showreel, if Teddy’s accident is in it, will get way more views than it usually does. This would inevitably lead to some of the dancers here getting offers of roles and auditions from companies who wouldn’t normally watch our tapes, even despite us dancers having no formal graduation from Roseheart Ballet Academy. We heard about it happening before, how injuries caught on a showreel will mean more eyes on all the dancers. Something similar happened at a New York ballet school. They had a dancer get injured two years ago in a show and their video made the school famous. I heard how almost all of the undergraduates had offers flying in for various company positions.
So, pretty much all the third years could benefit from Teddy’s accident—except me, because dancing with Roseheart is all I’ve ever wanted. And Teddy won’t benefit either, obviously.
“There are other companies that would love to have you, Taryn,” Ivelisse says. She’s Puerto Rican, and she’s got great skin, perfect teeth, and a perfect tone to her voice. I’m sure she could narrate children’s books or something. Her voice is just that soothing. My voice on the other hand isn’t, and I’ve never even thought about what I could do beyond dancing at Roseheart’s company. “You can still dance as a soloist somewhere else. We all can.”
Ivelisse’s trying to give me a reassuring smile. I don’t think I’ve seen her smile, not since before she developed anorexia. That just seemed to zap the happiness from her. But she’s trying to be positive for me—even though she hasn’t graduated this evening either—and I appreciate that.
Freya nods, but she doesn’t look up from the screen of her phone. Ella’s next to her on the couch, massaging her own foot. She’s always getting in-grown toenails, and I watch as she flexes her toes. Her skin is dry and cracked, and a thin line of blood appears across the knuckle of her big toe as she forcibly exercises it.
Ivelisse is right. My career isn’t over. Solo positions are easier to get. Due to the lack of male ballet dancers in most companies, there are far more solo female positions or group roles than vacancies for females who are mainly part of a male-female duo. But my career with the Roseheart Romantic Dance Company will be over. And Roseheart is the company I always wanted to dance for. There’s something that just encapsulates me about romantic dance and romantic ballet especially. And you’d maybe think it wouldn’t, given I’m aromantic and asexual—but once I step onto the stage, I can play hopeless-romantic characters, and I become caught up in the romance of the dance, the beauty of it. It just speaks to me, gets inside my soul, and curls up there, promising never to leave its home or me during the performance. But I can’t imagine feeling these feelings when it’s not a performance, when it’s just me. I’ve never been in love, never felt romantically or sexually attracted to someone.
Maybe I love the romance of dance because it’s the only romance I feel I truly understand, even if part of me is still desperate to fall in love, to have that connection with someone. And all the online groups for aro people say people like us can still have a connection with others, and beautiful relationships, but I’m just not sure that that’s me. I mean, Teddy is aroace too, and he’s the one person I could only ever imagine myself in a queer platonic relationship with—that is, a relationship that’s more intense than what people generally assume a friendship to be, but that isn’t deemed to be sexual or romantic by those participating in it—but then again, I’m happy as I am. Single. I don’t really feel that need to find someone, even though I know a lot of other aro people do want a partner. Ballet gives me that feeling of partnership anyway, and I don’t think I need it beyond dance. Perhaps because dance is such a big part of me.
I love dancing with Teddy, in particular, so much more than the other guys on the diploma. He and I actually discovered the terms ‘aromantic’ and ‘asexual’ together in our first year. Finding those labels existed was like being welcomed home, being assured that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. And learning it all alongside Teddy, at the same rate as him, just made us even closer. Besides the few people I’ve talked to online from the aroace groups—and some of those are anonymous—he’s the only person who knows I’m aroace, and I’m the only one who knows he is. We both decided that announcing it to the world could backfire for us career-wise when we both want to be part of Roseheart’s company, which even has romantic in its name.
Only now, we never will.
My bottom lip wobbles. I know I should feel bad that I’m thinking of my lost career instead of Teddy’s health when he’s being blue-lighted to hospital. I shouldn’t be thinking such selfish things when he’s my best friend. It’s just another example of how my selfishness hurts people. I close my eyes. Teddy isn’t the first person I’ve lost.
No. I’m not losing him. He will be fine.
He isn’t Helena.
But he is injured. And everyone knows that affects me. Being in Roseheart’s Company is all I’ve ever wanted.
Still, girls like me don’t deserve nice things.
I take a sip of the tea Alma gave me. It’s tepid, at best, and faintly tastes of chamomile. There’s something grainy at the bottom of the cup. Alma is a massive fan of expensive loose-leaf tea, and I have to admit I am touched by her gesture and generosity. I’ve never seen her share it with anyone.
Sibylle—the girl I share my dorm with, alongside Ivelisse—snorts and I realize they’re all talking. Then Sibylle glances at me. No doubt she can tell I’m close to tears.
A loud shrilling sound fills the air, making me jump. It’s my phone. A glance at the caller ID tells me it’s my mum.
Oh no. I’d forgotten she’d be phoning.
“Taking this outside,” I say to the others, waving my phone at them.
Out in the corridor, I take a deep breath. It’s not that my mother and I don’t get on exactly. It’s that there’s too much between us that can never be said. Too much heartache.
“Hi, Mum.”
“Taryn. It’s finished, now, yes? You said it lasted three hours?”
The ballet. Right. “Yes.”
“And did you get it?” Despite everything, how we disagree on me doing ballet still, there’s hope in her voice. So much of it, like it’s flowing out of her. We may not speak much, but I know she thinks about me a lot. Sometimes, speaking is just too difficult.
It’s easier for Mum this way, compartmentalizing her life into the before and the after. At home with her new boyfriend and my little sisters, she’s in the after. I’m a reminder of her old life. And so is ballet.
She begged me to stop, after Helena. Said it was too difficult—difficult for her and that it’d be difficult for me. Mum never outright mentioned the cost of my tuition and all my pointe shoes and the private and expensive physiotherapy I’d needed up to that point alone, but of course I was aware that that was another reason she’d prefer me to stop.
Mum said we all needed a fresh start, a clean break, with no reminders—as if she could forget that I’d be a constant reminder, my face a mirror for what we’d all lost. And ballet—it was Helena who’d been interested in it first. We were twins, so of course we ended up doing it together.
And now it’s just me.
“The girls have been so excited.” My mum rambles on, telling me how my sisters have been telling all their friends. “They said you’re just like Angelina Ballerina, and they won’t stop reading those books again. They found your old copies, you know. And they keep asking their dad to stream it onto the TV too.”
It’s clear she’s talking about the girls, my younger half-sisters, to distract herself, to calm her. She’s nervous. And now I have to tell her that I didn’t manage it. That all the money she poured into me going to this academy—which was far more expensive than all the others—is for nothing. I have to tell her I failed, and that it was through no fault of my own.
“I...” My throat feels too thick.
“Taryn!” a voice screeches.
It’s Tessa. My five-year-old sister. Then there are hushing sounds and a crackling, before Tessa’s yelling, “I knew you could do it!”
“Tessa, darling, give the phone back to Mummy. Come on now...” Mum speaks in a softer tone to Tessa than she does to me now. I notice it immediately. Then Mum’s back, talking to me. “You got in then? I didn’t hear exactly what you were saying to Tessa, but that’s wonderful!”
It’s suddenly too hot in the corridor. The air is too sticky, too humid. No, I want to say. Only I can’t. I can’t say the word.
“Yeah.” My voice is weak.
What the hell are you doing?
“That’s wonderful, Taryn! I knew you’d do it. We all had faith in you. Congratulations. And how great that you’ll be getting your own salary now. So independent.”
My head spins. “Thanks, uh, I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Meeting with the company, now, right?” Mum asks, and it tugs at my heart. I hadn’t thought she’d been listening properly when I told her at the end of last year what would happen after the final show of year two.
How it should’ve gone... Me and Teddy, taking our final bows. Mr. Vikas and Miss Tavi and Mr. Aleks conferring for twenty minutes with input from Madame Cachelle before then getting on stage and calling the names of the pair being accepted. An hour or two to celebrate before the induction and company greeting, typically held late at night, where we would’ve officially met the company dancers and signed our first contracts with Roseheart Romantic Dance Company, ready to start training with them after the weekend.
“Oh, I won’t keep you then,” Mum says. “You’ll be wanting to celebrate. And this is great, Taryn. We’re all really happy for you.”
My deception—my lie—sits heavily in the pit of my stomach, and I feel empty after Mum’s said goodbye, empty as I head back into the common room. Seeing the sympathetic faces of my peers makes me immediately glad that they didn’t hear my lie.
“We were just saying we should get some dinner,” Ivelisse says, standing up. That’s not something I ever thought I’d hear from her mouth any time soon, unfortunately.
Here, a lot of the stereotypes about ballet dancers being concerned about their weight and starving themselves are unfortunately true. Way to fight back against misconceptions, Roseheart! Ivelisse is probably the worst one for this, and I know I shouldn’t say ‘worst’ like it’s a choice or like she can be compared to others with EDs. It’s not something she’s chosen to have, it’s an illness, I know that, and eating disorders shouldn’t be compared. I’ve heard the therapists say that you can’t say one case is more severe than another, especially when low weight isn’t the only indication. But Ivelisse’s the only one who has a full schedule of appointments with the Roseheart nutritionist, a Roseheart therapist, and many other appointments with doctors at the local hospital, while the rest of us just have monthly guidance sessions on nutrition and check-ins with the academy nurse as needed.
Ivelisse gives me a small smile. Her lips stretch too thin as she does. I suppose it’s not just she who rarely smiles. Many of us don’t. Even when Teddy and I were told we’d be dancing the lead roles in Romeo and Juliet, I don’t remember smiling. Only careful nods and promises to do the academy and company proud.
Alma says she, Freya, and Ella will get food later—as if staying in our dorm units is important now even for this—but Sibylle, Ivelisse, and I head outside, to the main academy block where the canteen is. I’m not keen on getting dinner in front of Ivelisse and Sibylle because I worry about what they’re thinking when I carefully select my food—that I’m unhealthy and maybe they even think I’m fat because I’m curvier than them. I’m always super aware of their eyes on me and my plate.
I have fructose malabsorption. My body can’t process fructose, the sugar found in fruits and a lot of vegetables, and in regular table sugar too. It means that a lot of desserts—including ice cream—are out for me, but it also means I can’t have a great deal of fruit, and I have to be almost as careful about vegetables. Only one to two servings a day of berries and cantaloupe, or half a small banana, and the only veggies I can tolerate without getting severe pain and stomach problems are Brussel sprouts, capsicum peppers, and cucumber. So, most of my food intake is made up of dairy, potatoes, brown rice, lean chicken, and fish. Compare my carb, protein, and dairy-heavy plate with Ivelisse’s carefully selected piece of chicken, tender stem broccoli and one cherry tomato, and it’s obvious who’s having the feast.
The dining hall is abuzz with talk about me and Teddy. Of course it is. There may only be thirty-six undergrad students across the three years of the diploma, but Roseheart offers some of the biggest and best ballet training programs for children aged four to eighteen, and the lower school has nearly three hundred students in total. Dancers ranging from petit rats to seniors are everywhere.
“I heard he’s dead,” one younger student says, her eyes wide. Her voice is a ridiculously loud stage whisper. She speaks theatrically with her hand in front of her mouth. “He had a brain aneurysm in the ambulance and—”
My glare stops her short. She pales and doesn’t move, frozen to the spot.
But Teddy can’t be dead!
“Shut up,” Ivelisse hisses at her, while the other young dancers make inhaling and shushing noises. “You don’t know a thing.” Ivelisse turns to look at me. “They’re just making it up. You’d be the first the teachers would tell if...if something has happened.”
Would I though? Would the school tell me as soon as they know? Would the hospital even tell the school immediately? My heart rate rises, and my chest tightens. I want to run, but I can’t. I know that. I glare at the younger girls. I can see the excitement on their faces. Cheeks flushed and bright eyes. Like they want something bad to have happened. They want gossip. And this is all that this is to them—gossip.
Sibylle glances back at me. “He’s not dead.” Her German accent is thicker than ever. It’s always like that when she’s worried. We may not be close friends, but we all know how to read each other.
I nod and clasp my hands together, dry wringing them.
Teddy is fine. Teddy is fine. Teddy is fine.
We sit at the table nearest the door. The three of us. Feels weird. Sure, we’ve sat together before, kind of have to when there aren’t that many tables and we tend to sit in year groups, but now Ivelisse and Sibylle keep looking at me and then sharing glances with each other. Like they’re worried.
I check my phone again. There’s a message from Grandad: So proud of you. Well done! I smile, but it makes me sad that I’m deceiving him, too.
Still nothing from Teddy though. I have his dad’s number, and I wonder about texting him. Because while his dad wasn’t in the audience, he’ll have been notified about this, right? He’d have more info than I do at the moment, surely?
We get our food, and the canteen fills up. At a table across from us, Xavier, Peter, and Robert sit. Advik and Charlie join them a moment or so later. The remaining male undergrads are subdued. I hear Teddy’s name in their conversation over and over again—very different to their normally rowdy conversations. A couple of them still sound annoyed about how none of us have graduated now.
“Maybe we’ll perform the show again tomorrow,” Advik says.
My heart sinks. Without Teddy, I won’t be performing. I couldn’t even take on the more secondary role that Sibylle was performing with Xavier earlier today, without a partner, and I can’t see that they’re going to boot out one of the other girls.
Xavier, Sibylle’s partner and Teddy’s understudy, tells Sibylle they must do an extra practice together tonight, but she just frowns at him.
“Not appropriate,” she says, glancing at me.
After Ivelisse’s finished eating, she excuses herself to go and meet with the academy therapist. She has these sessions every weekday after the evening meal.
“You coming to the lounge?” Sibylle asks me, despite the look of annoyance on Xavier’s face.
I nod. Nothing better to do.
“I am sorry, you know,” she says, linking arms with me. The gesture feels odd. “You did deserve the place. You and Teddy both did.”
I thank her.
The lounge is on the other side of campus, near the studios. Not many people are in here tonight. It’s only for the diploma undergraduates, those aged sixteen and above. Thirty-six of us in total, equally divided between the three years of the program. The first and second years must mostly be in their dorm rooms tonight, or still in the canteen.
Unlike our dorm common room, the lounge has a gaming system, a pool table, and a large TV screen. Xavier and the other boys immediately monopolize the three forms of entertainment, leaving Sibylle and I to sit on one of the sofas. I sit first, and she sits right next to me—another reminder of how unusual this situation is. Usually, I’d be sitting here chatting to Teddy or reading one of the biographies I love or scrolling through Facebook to see what my mum is up to.
But Sibylle starts telling me about the latest episode of Eastenders, and how she thinks she looks a little like Shona McGarty, with her pale skin and dark hair, and it’s sweet that she’s trying to distract me. I nod and agree with her as I send another text to Teddy: Really hope you’re okay.
His lack of any kind of response is making me increasingly more nervous now. Is he still unconscious, like he was when the rest of us were ushered out of the academy’s theatre? Have doctors worked out what’s wrong? Is he in surgery?
That last thought doesn’t make me feel any better, but before I can dwell on it, the lounge door opens and a flock of girls enter—Freya, Ella, Alma, and two second years. Then Ivelisse joins us a few moments later, her face kind of pinched in like she’s struggling not to cry. I wonder how the therapy went.
“Any news on Teddy?” Alma asks me.
Freya and Ella are silent, but I can tell they’re both listening as they perch on the arms of a sofa a few feet from the one Sibylle and I are on.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
A teacher from the lower school steps into the lounge, which is a surprise both because the lower schoolteachers rarely come over here and because teachers in general leave us be when we’re in the lounge. This teacher is tall and thin with lots of lines on her face. I don’t know her name, but I think she teaches English—the lower school students have regular academic subjects alongside ballet—and she pauses in the doorway.
That’s when I see what’s in her hand—the hand she’s holding up in front of her. A pregnancy test.
“I need to know whose this is,” the teacher says. “It was in the toilets by the library.”
The boys have stopped playing their games, but the teacher’s looking at me and Sibylle.
“Well, it’s not mine,” I say.
“Or mine.” Sibylle laughs. “I wouldn’t be so silly as to leave one lying about if it was.”
Finally, the teacher looks away from us and focuses on the next pair of girls. Freya and Ella both shake their heads.
“Not mine,” Alma says.
The second-year students shake their heads.
“Why would it be one of ours?” Ivelisse asks. “You just said you found it in the lower school.”
“I am asking all our girls,” the teacher says. “And the library serves the whole academy and company, not just the lower school.”
But like any of us ever go down there. We avoid it at all costs. Not just because the librarian is crabby, but it’s weird going back there. Like we’re younger than sixteen and still in school. Whenever I’ve wanted to read books—mostly memoirs and biographies written by ballet dancers—I’ve ordered them through the local bookshop rather than request them from Roseheart library.
“Is it yours?” The teacher is looking at Ivelisse, and I realize she’s the only one who hasn’t answered the question.
“No. But I’m sure if I was ovulating then my whole medical team would be thrilled.” Her voice is dry.
The teacher doesn’t say anything more, just gives a small nod and leaves.
Peter rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t like to be in the pregnant girl’s shoes right now.” He mimes a gun by his own head. “And, seriously, if it’s a guy here who’s got a girl up the duff, he should’ve been more careful. Plenty of girls out in town you can hook up with.”
The academy has a zero tolerance for pregnancy, and, amazingly, the exclusion rule applies to both the girls who get pregnant and the boys who impregnate them. Two years ago, there was a pregnancy in the school, and the girl in question—a rich dancer named Fran—wouldn’t confirm who the father was, leaving the staff certain he was a danseur here. She was excluded immediately, and when his identity became known, he was also asked to leave.
The chatter of the room turns away from Teddy and toward this new gossip, but I can’t concentrate on it. All I can do is focus on my phone and pray Teddy will reply, so he can prove me wrong. Prove the bad feeling in my gut wrong.
Because something serious can’t have happened to him, can it?