The barre is cool under my palm, the wood worn smooth by a thousand hands before mine. Morning light cuts through the tall windows of the studio, dust motes suspended in the golden shafts like tiny dancers caught mid-relevé. I'm in first position, heels together, toes turned out, and the stretch of nylon against my skin is a constant murmur of pleasure. Sheer tights today—pale taupe, almost invisible—and a snap-crotch leotard in dusty rose that hugs my ribs and leaves my back bare. No bra. No panties. The way it should be.
Mademoiselle Claire counts in French, her voice a rhythmic whip that cracks through the room. *"Cinq, six, sept, huit—"* I move through the combination, my body finding the shapes without thinking. Plié. Tendu. Dégagé. The mirror swallows my reflection and gives back a girl who looks like she belongs here, like she wasn't touching herself in the kitchen last night thinking about calloused hands and gray eyes.
Laura.
Her name blooms in my chest like a bruise I keep pressing. I saw her this morning, walking to her motorcycle in that leather jacket, and my thighs clenched so hard I nearly dropped my coffee. She looked at me through the fence. That look. Hungry and patient, like she was memorizing the way the tights caught the light between my legs.
I almost missed the door opening.
The bell above it chimes—a tinny, cheerful sound that doesn't belong—and every head in the studio turns. Lucy stands in the doorway like a storm that's been looking for a place to happen.
Her leotard is black, severe, cutting high on her hips. Tights the same shade, opaque at the ankle but sheer enough at the thigh that I can see the shadow of her cunt when she shifts her weight. Her face is all sharp angles and tighter lines, dark hair pulled back so hard it stretches the skin at her temples. She's beautiful, I guess, in the way a cracked mirror is beautiful—interesting to look at, but you know it'll cut you if you get close.
"Lucy," Mademoiselle Claire says, and there's a warning in her voice like she's already tired of whatever's about to happen. "You're late."
"I know I'm late." Lucy's voice is gravel and broken glass. She doesn't apologize. She never does. "My car wouldn't start. Then it started, but then the tire went flat. Then some asshole honked at me for going too slow, and I flipped him off, and he followed me for three blocks." She drops her bag by the wall with more force than necessary. "Bad luck. Always fucking bad luck."
A few girls exchange glances. I focus on the barre, on the burn in my hamstrings, on not letting her see me react. Lucy and I have been dancing in the same studio since we were fourteen, and every single class, she finds a way to make it about me. About beating me. About failing to beat me.
She takes the space at the barre beside me. Of course she does. There are a dozen empty spots, but she chooses the one that puts her in my orbit.
"Lisa." My name sounds like a curse in her mouth.
"Lucy." I keep my voice neutral, my eyes forward.
She adjusts her grip on the barre, and I catch it—the faint sour smell that clings to her. Not sweat, exactly. Something sharper. Mustier. It rises off her when she moves, and I've learned over the years that it's just *her*. Some chemical thing, a body chemistry that doesn't play nice. I've heard girls whisper about it in the changing room, cruel and petty, and I've never joined in because that's not who I am. But I've noticed.
She notices me noticing. Her jaw tightens.
"What are you staring at?"
"Nothing." I turn back to the mirror, adjusting my arabesque. "I wasn't staring at anything."
"Bullshit." She leans into the barre, her movements aggressive, too sharp for a plié. "I saw you. You were smelling the air. You think I don't know what they say about me?"
"I don't say anything about you, Lucy."
"No. You're too perfect for that." Her smile is a blade. "Too graceful. Too *good*. You probably don't even sweat when you dance, do you? You probably just—glow."
I don't answer. I move into the next combination, letting my body answer for me. Tendu front. Tendu side. Tendu back. My hips find the rhythm, and the nylon whispers against my skin, and I think about Laura's mouth on me through the tights, how she licked me until I couldn't see straight.
*"Et—"* Mademoiselle Claire claps. *"Grand battement."*
I lift my leg. High. Controlled. My foot slices the air beside my ear, and I hold it there for a breath before bringing it down. Lucy mirrors the movement, but there's anger in her kick, a violence that makes it sloppy. Her leg wobbles. She overcorrects. Her ankle gives.
She stumbles, slams into the barre, and knocks the wind out of herself.
"Shit!"
A few girls snicker. I don't. I reach out without thinking, my hand finding her elbow. "You okay?"
She yanks her arm away like I've burned her. "Don't touch me."
"I was just—"
"I don't need your help." Her eyes are wet, but the wetness is rage, not tears. "I don't need your pity. I don't need you being *nice* to me so everyone can see what a saint you are."
The room goes quiet. Mademoiselle Claire clears her throat. "Lucy. Take a moment. Get some water."
"I don't need water." But she's already stepping back from the barre, her hands trembling. She grabs her bag and stalks to the corner, where she sits on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest, her back to the mirror.
The class resumes, but the energy is different now. Fractured. The other dancers avoid looking at her, but they're all aware of her, a pressure in the room like coming storm. I try to focus on my tendus, my développés, my ronds de jambe, but I can feel her watching me. Watching my legs. Watching the way the leotard pulls across my ass. Watching with that hungry, hateful gaze that wants to see me fall.
I don't fall.
I never fall.
That's what she can't forgive.
We move to center floor for grand allegro, and the space opens up. Mademoiselle Claire demonstrates the combination—a series of grand jetés across the diagonal, ending in a balance that requires every muscle in your core to be screaming in unison. I watch her feet, memorize the rhythm, let it sink into my bones.
Lucy takes the corner opposite me. Of course she does.
We go one at a time. First a girl named Elise, delicate and precise. Then a boy named Marcus, all power and no grace, but he lands clean. Then another girl. Then me.
I breathe. I run. I leap.
The grand jeté is the closest thing I know to flying. My legs split in the air, tights catching the light, the wind of my own movement rushing past my ears. For a second, I'm not on the floor. I'm not in the studio. I'm not even in my body—I'm pure momentum, pure grace, pure want.
I land. I balance. One breath. Two. My arms find fifth position, and I hold it until Mademoiselle Claire nods.
"Good. Very good, Lisa."
I lower my arms and walk back to the edge of the floor. Lucy is staring at me with an expression I can't name—envy and fury and something else. Something close to hunger.
"Show-off," she mutters as she passes me.
I don't respond. But I watch her.
She launches into the combination with too much force, her grand jeté more of a lunge than a leap, her legs barely clearing the ground. She lands wrong—I hear the impact jar through her knees—and stumbles forward, catching herself on the wall. Her breath comes in ragged gasps.
"Again," she says, before Mademoiselle Claire can say anything. "Let me do it again."
"Lucy—"
"I can do it. Let me do it again."
Mademoiselle Claire sighs. "Fine. Once more."
Lucy returns to the corner. She takes a breath. She runs.
This time, she gets more height. Her split is deeper, cleaner. For a moment, she actually looks like she knows what she's doing. But she's thinking too hard, forcing it, and when she lands, her ankle rolls. She crashes to the floor, hard, her palms slapping the wood.
The silence that follows is worse than laughter.
She stays down for a long moment. I see her shoulders shake. Then she pushes herself up, her face red, her eyes wet again, but this time the tears are real. She wipes them away with the back of her hand and doesn't look at anyone.
"I have to go," she says. Her voice cracks. "I have to go."
She grabs her bag and leaves before Mademoiselle Claire can stop her. The door slams. The bell chimes. The room breathes again, a collective exhale that makes me realize we've all been holding our breath.
I should let her go. I know I should. But something pulls at me—not pity, exactly. Recognition. I know what it feels like to want something so badly that your body betrays you. I've been that desperate. I've been that hungry.
I look at the clock. Ten minutes left in class. I turn to Mademoiselle Claire. "Can I—"
She already knows. She waves her hand. "Go. But don't let her pull you into her storm."
I'm already moving.
The hallway is empty, the fluorescent lights humming overhead. I find Lucy at the end of the corridor, slumped against the wall, her forehead pressed to the cinderblock. Her shoulders are still shaking.
"Lucy."
"Go away."
I don't go away. I walk closer, stopping a few feet from her, close enough to smell that sharp, musky scent again. It's stronger up close, and there's something almost animal about it—honest, raw, unwashed. Not pretty. But real.
"I'm not going to be nice to you," I say. "I'm not going to pretend we're friends."
She laughs, a wet, broken sound. "Then what do you want?"
"I want to know why you hate me so much."
She turns her head, her cheek against the wall, one eye visible. "You know why."
"I don't."
"Because you're perfect." The words come out like acid. "You walk into a room, and everyone stops. You dance, and everyone watches. You don't even have to try. You just *are*." She pushes off the wall, facing me now, her face blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed. "And I try. I try so fucking hard. Every day. And I never get there. Something always goes wrong. My car. My ankle. My—" She stops. Bites her lip. Looks away.
"Your what?"
"Nothing."
"Lucy."
She stares at me for a long moment, and something in her cracks open. "They don't want me in the corps," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "They said I'm not good enough. They said I'm not *clean* enough. That I have an odor they can't—" She stops again, presses her palm to her mouth.
I don't know what to say. The silence stretches between us, heavy and strange.
"I know what they say about me," she says, quieter now. "Stinky Lucy. They've been calling me that since middle school. I can't get rid of it. I shower three times a day. I use special soap. I've seen doctors. But it's just—" She gestures at her body, a helpless, angry motion. "It's just *me*. I'm cursed. My whole life is cursed. And you—" She looks at me, and the hatred is still there, but it's thinner now. More desperate. "You're the one thing I can't beat."
I should hate her. She's made my life miserable for years. She's competitive and mean and she brings a storm into every room she enters. But right now, standing in this fluorescent hallway in her black leotard and tights, she just looks tired. She looks like someone who's been fighting the same fight for so long she's forgotten why.
"I'm not perfect," I say.
"You are to me."
I don't know what to do with that. My chest aches, a strange, unfamiliar pressure. I think about Laura, about how she looked at me this morning, about how she made me feel like I was the only person in the world. I think about how good that felt. And I think about how Lucy has never felt that. Not once.
"Can I tell you something?" I ask.
She watches me, wary.
"Yesterday, I was with someone. A woman. She—" I pause, searching for the words. "She made me feel like I was enough. Just as I am. Not because I danced well, or because I looked good, but because I was *me*." I meet Lucy's eyes. "I want that for you. Not from me—I'm not offering that. But I want you to know that it exists. That you're not cursed. You're just—waiting for someone who sees past the storm."
Lucy stares at me. Her face is unreadable. Then, slowly, her expression shifts. The anger softens. The hard lines around her mouth smooth into something almost vulnerable.
"I don't know how to do that," she says. "I don't know how to stop fighting."
"You don't have to stop. You just have to aim it at something that deserves it."
She laughs. It's not a pretty laugh, but it's real. "You're still a saint, Lisa."
"I'm really not." I think about Laura's hands on my thighs, about the taste of my own arousal on her lips. "I'm just a girl who gets lucky sometimes."
Lucy shakes her head, but there's no venom in it. "I should go. Before I ruin your life too."
"You won't."
"You don't know that." She picks up her bag, slings it over her shoulder. "I'm like a black cat that walks under its own ladder while breaking a mirror. I'm a walking catastrophe."
"Then walk somewhere else. Find a different mirror."
She pauses at the door. Looks back at me. For a second, she's not the girl who's been my rival for eight years. She's just a girl. Tired. Lonely. Reeking of bad luck and something sour.
"Thank you," she says. Like the words hurt her. Like she's not sure she's allowed to say them.
Then she's gone, the door swinging shut behind her, the bell chiming once more.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, the fluorescent hum filling my ears. I think about Laura. I think about Lucy. I think about how we're all just trying to be seen, trying to be held, trying to be told we're enough.
My phone buzzes in my bag. I pull it out.
Laura: *Class over? I'm across the street. Coffee?*
A smile pulls at my lips. I type back: *Give me five minutes.*
I walk toward the changing room, my tights whispering with every step, the snap-crotch leotard pressing against me like a secret I'm not ready to share. The sun is warm through the windows. The dust motes still dance. And somewhere out there, Laura is waiting for me with calloused hands and hungry eyes.
I'm not perfect. But maybe I don't need to be.